Uzon immediately bellowed out orders for the guards in the outer circle. Those assigned in the southern areas would look at the fires nearby, and those in the western areas would do the same. But on second thought—
"NO. Those in the walls will remain there! Only the guards assigned on rounds will go!"
What if it was only a distraction?
So, in the end, the few hundred guards immediately mobilized.
Uzon ran to where the larger fire was, and he looked back to when they saw smoke in the interior walls as well, closely followed by a small explosion.
"Damn it!"
…
Fargo looked at the black smokes floating from several areas in his territory. Most of them could be seen from his window. They were all in different areas. It was fine if it was in the outer area, but it was happening even in the interior circle of the territory.
He liked chaos, but not in his own backyard.
However, he was the type not to fret no matter what. He stood coolly and looking at the guards passing by his street, his mind went to analyze.
Altera, according to that Sandra, was said to be the base of strong Terrans. Judging by the descriptions, he was fairly sure she was referring to Garan. They were strong, all elementalists, and overall a threat even if Altera was weaker than they were.
When he found out about this, he had indeed been planning on attacking after weakening them a bit. He already planned some action with Belize, a level 30, to especially target the soldiers.
It was just that they moved too quickly—attacking within a few days after he got Bright.
However, regardless, he still did not fret. At the very least, he knew there were only a handful of soldiers, while he had dozens of level 20s and above. In terms of forces, he believed he was still far superior to them.
So, Fargo wondered, attacking them—were the Alterans brave or just stupid?
However, it was a fact that they had taken down a lot of his forces outside the territory. He also assumed that they were also the ones responsible for taking over the mines, so they at least had some plan in facing him.
But… losing those people didn't mean that he lost. Winning a war on the defense side was many times easier than being the attacker.
He just had to defend the territory well—in particular, only the inner walls—keeping more than half of the attackers outside until the war was over. Garan and the others were useless in the in-territory battle, and he was planning to maximize that.
Speaking of, why haven't there been traces of the enemies trying to get inside? Did the Alteran forces get lost after being teleported? Did they just plan to depend on the few people attempting to cause them trouble with a few fires?
No, that's not possible.
Whatever happened, he was ready. Even if the outer walls had less dense guards due to its massiveness—it was the inner circle that mattered the most.
There were hundreds of guards settled around the inner walls alone, this wasn't including those who were making rounds.
Most of them were equipped with guns to handle any trespassers, and so far there had been no reports.
As for the people causing chaos inside, there shouldn't be too many. Though it'd take time, the guards he assigned should be able to handle them soon.
It wasn't that he hadn't thought of making an announcement to everyone to hunt these people down. But he had thousands of people in the inner walls alone. Aside from Belize's warning, there were plenty of other reasons why forcing them out would be useless.
Not only did people not know everyone—which could cause them to attack each other—the tresspassers could also blend in. With the threat of Alterans coming in, he simply could not use so many of his guards to fix the trouble that will happen after.
As for the outer walls, it was too large to be able to do carpet searches. Instead, he decided to make use of the remaining slaves.
[To All Slaves: Clear the outer walls of all enemies! Attack outsiders on sight, even if it will cost you your lives.]
After making various orders, he sat down on his chair again, drinking the delicious tea he obtained (note: forcefully taken) from Juni. He should also make trouble to Vismont soon—this tea was very good.
He relaxed a bit, his mind calmed. However, not even a few moments later, rushed footsteps came to him.
"Milord!" the man yelled as if everyone he was talking to was deaf. "Our weapons have been compromised!"
His eyes widened, rubbing his head at the headache that attacked his mind.
"What?"
…
Fargo's eyes turned red as he saw the weapons stockroom in the Rongo Mercenary Team area. Because only lords had access to warehouses, it was impractical to store most weapons there in case of emergencies.
Worse? There was no sign of the perpetrators!
What were the guards doing at this time? Sleeping, apparently.
His eyes turned red as he looked at the long line of guards—even mercenaries—who were sleeping soundly. He kicked one repeatedly but he didn't wake up, then he shifted to an aborigine, who groaned, rubbing his head of lethargy.
He opened his eyes and flinched. "M-M-Milord!"
Sen immediately grabbed his collar and lifted him up. The man's eyes twitched as he looked around, then at the other guys on the ground, soon having an idea of what occurred.
"What happened?"
"I… we were running after the people who destroyed the weapons. Some were familiar, some were not," he said, "And… the next thing we knew, it was black and we lost consciousness."
"They seem to have tranquilizer guns," Sen mumbled as he heard of their descriptions. Next to him, Eli nodded. He had studied the ruins closer and confirmed what caused the damage.
"And bombs, milord!"
They knew that place had bombs from what they got from Micheal, but because they only had one due to their spies' failures to return, they couldn't put them to use.
However, when the war declaration happened, they had rush prepare some concave shields in an attempt to 'reflect' such bombs.
It was the reason why there were fewer slaves outside when they got attacked (they were busy rushing the production of a few shields), which was also a sort of luck.
Further, if they were really bombs, they also knew making them should be a challenge and that Altera shouldn't have too many.
However, they now knew they still underestimated that place.
But... could they be blamed? How long had it been? Three months?
How could a territory create so much in a short amount of time?