Although the food was barely sufficient and there was no variety, the people remained positive. Thirty thousand new volunteers arrived, so Mason began training, or rather, torturing, them right away.
Those trained in the art of lying had already been sent to the surrounding cities. The energies were positive, but as the seconds passed, uncertainty grew, and many citizens went to the volcano to speed up production in the war furnaces.
We produced the bullets and weapons used as quickly as we could. They're easily recoverable with magic, but it's hard work and not everyone can do it. With luck, the tanks will be ready in a month. There would only be eight tanks, but the enemy has never seen anything like them, and that has to be our advantage. Honestly, there's no real structure for creating them; fortunately, the answer to that dilemma was magic.
I left the papers I was working on on the table and walked out of the store, Grayson greeted me and approached me.
"Have you seen Ashley?" he asked as he approached.
"He's gone to lead operations in the city, he has to run a volunteer police system and prepare the prison," I replied.
"The problems of liberating the first city," he added, scratching the back of his neck.
—That's why I have to give a speech this afternoon. I have to maintain a sense of patriotism and brotherhood, even though right now the only thing there is to steal is bread. Don't underestimate someone who feels they deserve more.
"I doubt it's really necessary, but there's no point in arguing about it. I have to go too. I have to make the stew for the army. That's too many mouths to feed now." He scratched his chin.
"Before you go, do you know where Jane is?" I asked.
"Who?" He raised an eyebrow.
Of course, the boys don't know his name yet.
—The red-haired woman who saved my life. Does that sound familiar?
—Ah, her. She's certainly a glorious woman. Wherever she goes, she carries an aura of glamour, and not to mention...
I interrupted his monologue.
—Now, since you're drooling, animal, do you know where it is?
He, for his part, burst out laughing after I mocked him.
—She is at the top of the gate of the northern wall, she asked to be alone, promising in turn that she would guard that side of the wall.
"Who gave permission to remove the guards?" I raised an eyebrow and gave my best expressionless face.
"Mason did it," Grayson replied.
"I understand, thank you." We said our goodbyes and went our separate ways.
He disappeared into the depths of the camp itself, which had multiplied in size. Before going to see Jane, I decide to stop by Azumi.
I walked into the tent where they'd left it, and I thought it was cute because it was literally a tent surrounding a tree. I later learned that the idea came from Mason; in the end, that's what sets him apart: he cares about others. It's his attitude that makes him stand out.
She had fallen asleep while reading a copy of "The First War of the Gods." She was covered in bandages from her bullet wounds, perched on a tree branch as usual. Normally, she would have gotten up by now, using her reflexes and senses, but she was too tired and injured to do so.
He tried to leave without waking her up, but he still managed to wake her up.
"Do you need anything?" Azumi asked in a muffled voice.
"I came to see you. How are you?" I replied with a small smile.
—Hey, some bullets pierced my lungs, I have to avoid exertion... Laughing, even coughing hurts, but I'll be fine.
— Did they tell you how long you were going to be like this?
"Thirty days and I'm ready to tear it up again." She gave me a smile, but I could tell how sore she was.
—That happens to Ashley or even me and we'd probably be dead, you guys are amazing.
—Remember that I'm not human, I'm a feral, specifically a nekoneko type.
—You have a point right there, but I meant there's almost no way someone like us could sustain such injuries.
—I guess I should be grateful for my genetics… —He gave me another painful smile.
"You did very well. Every shot you took was a shot no soldier ever took. You saved many lives. We're lucky to have you with us," I thanked him.
"I know it's asking too much of you. I know I can't take you to that level myself, but... Please... If I ever die, avenge me. I've already accepted it. I still have a long way to go. I couldn't even take on the son alone. The fire god easily defeated me. I have to train more, but being of use is enough for me." She had a sad look on her face.
—Where did the warrior proud of her skills go?
Her morale was shattered; she'd been easily defeated. After all, I must also take into account that I held on a little longer, and that must have hurt her. It's true, it's not fair to compare us, when she's had a lifetime of training in this art.
—That warrior realized the true power gap.
—They only told you how far you must go to be as strong as a god; you decide whether you achieve it or regret it for the rest of your life.
While I'm not even sure that's possible, I have to believe it, mainly because I've heard those words before: "The Axis is too powerful to defeat." "They have far more soldiers than we do." However, I did it. I won.
I waved goodbye as I left the store.
She didn't really see a power gap, she had imagined that gap from the beginning, but what she saw was terror, she is tired and defeated, too much has happened to her, including the loss of her sister and her entire clan, but at least in my judgment, she is a good warrior.
Personally, I know that feeling: when you're defeated and you still want to fight, you stay standing even though you can't even feel your legs. But the big difference is that you're tired, your eyes are heavy, your movements become more difficult, and suddenly everything around you drags you forward. That's when you start to falter. The reality is that our surroundings will always drag us down. The thing is, when you're tired, it's not the same; it's simply hard to keep up. That was also one of the reasons why I didn't stay to argue with him or cheer him on. Right now, he needs to rest and lick his wounds.
I headed toward Jane. The long stairs I had to climb to reach the top of the wall felt much heavier without the adrenaline rush and the need to get there quickly; I also hadn't emphasized that the wall had no internal passageways. Now that I think about it, I don't even know what material this wall is made of.
The wall was extremely high; it must have been very expensive to build these around the city. At the very least, I suspect it was built by someone with magic; it's very difficult to build such a structure, and I'd already been warned that it's very difficult to damage with explosives. I wonder how well it would hold up to a good nuclear bomb.
In principle, these walls should be useless; they were even designed with that in mind in the past. A bomb is very powerful and will do the trick to bring down these large walls, but they should be able to hold their own without any problems. That's what intrigues me, but why the height? It would be more effective if they were a little lower. This wall is so high that whoever takes it will automatically win the city. Strategically, it has its flaws, and what should have ruled it out is the cost.
"That's because the walls weren't created for war," Jane said from the top of the wall.
I hadn't realized I was thinking out loud; she heard me from afar, the echo being the only thing that allowed us to hear each other; I was still far from the summit.
"So what were they for?" I raised my voice to make sure he could hear me.
"Get in, I'm not going to scream," he replied.
Although he heard me arguing perfectly well, he shouldn't have much of a problem. Once I got upstairs, I asked him again.
"Why so many walls?" I asked.
She was sitting down, and she stood up to avoid giving me the sword. The wind was blowing up to the top of the wall, and the sun was hidden by clouds; it was quite pleasant.
"A long time ago, enormous creatures from the depths of the sea walked these lands; these creatures were called abyssals. To them, we were like grains of rice, very tasty, apparently," Jane explained, her red hair blowing in the wind.
—So that's why they built the walls? To fight the Abyssals?
—Not exactly, the walls hide the presence of the cities. The abyssals were blind, they were guided by magic and that's where you would never guess how they built the walls, these walls are not repaired with hammers, nor are they built, the walls are alive, they feed on corpses, they steal magic although at such a slow rate that it is difficult to notice, the larger it is, the more it is capable of stealing, even the rays of the sun or the rain favor the growth of the walls. The walls were created from the corpses of the abyssals, the dragons were the creators of these walls, they took pity on humans, but they were not the only ones who did it, the ferals also killed many, believe it or not, those of Azumi's race were brutally strong, at least that's what they told me, it should be noted that when the gods came they hunted them down. —Jane looked quite proud of her knowledge and she was visibly happy.
—But it must have taken a long time to grow like this.
—As I said before, the wall feeds on magic, so it was fed, but it's also a scavenger, and because of the number of deaths from disease, aside from the deaths caused by the Abyssals themselves, the walls grew fairly quickly, at least enough to be what they are now. The bigger they are, the harder it is to grow, which is why capital walls tend to be ten times bigger than these.
—Everything in this place tends to get more complicated than I like, honestly. Even though I've read quite a bit about the history of this place and am somewhat familiar with the empires and their cultures, it seems strange to overlook something as important as this.
—Because everything that happened before Adam's reign was erased, even his own reign is manipulated.
—So how do you know?
"Old age," he replied.
I showed my most incredulous face. Jane looked my age, and we were talking about events at least two hundred years old. Although these empires aren't particularly interested in the change of year, they began to correctly count from the death of Adam. We're going for two hundred years, according to what I read in the dates in the records.
"How old are you?" I asked.
"Two hundred and eight years," he replied.
I was left with my mouth open.
—Don't dragons age?
—Yes, we do, but we do it very slowly. I come from a very powerful family, skilled in thousands of techniques. Skills like rejuvenation are nothing compared to what we were like.
"A technique I have to admit I want to learn," I smiled at her; her gaze was somber again.
Jane blushed a little.
"I'm sorry to say, but I don't have that ability." She remained silent for a moment. "I'm simply a dragon; I don't age like humans." However, she shook off the doubts she had in her mind and continued. "So, you've come here so I can teach you how to fight at the level of a god, haven't you?" Her face had lost some of the glow it had gained when she spoke proudly of her family.
"Of course," I replied.
"First, show me what you can do," she demanded.
I snapped my fingers, spears appeared around me levitating, I created my own katana and enhanced my body.
—Is that all you can do?
She didn't even say it in a mocking tone; she was disappointed. I ended up defending myself.
—I've known about the existence of magic for three months; where I come from, it doesn't exist.
"Well, if what you say is true, you learn considerably quickly," she said, somewhat disappointed again.