We are now inside what appears to be a meeting room inside the house of Jana's village leader, she is a Lamia by the name of Sapphire, after some friction when we arrived, we are finally starting to discuss the current situation in the village.
"How about if first of all you told me about the current situation in the village and about events that happened recently." (I)
"Wouldn't you and your group prefer to rest? The journey here must have taken more than a month at least." (Sapphire)
"We are fine, instead of wasting time resting, I prefer to know the situation to start preparations." (I)
"You talk like you already have a plan." (Sapphire)
"I have some ideas, they're not plans yet, I need the information to see if these ideas are viable and turn them into plans that we can use." (I)
"It looks like your appearance is really deceiving, you look like a child, but I can see you have a good mind in that head." (Sapphire)
"If we are talking about the situation in the village, then things are getting difficult, the food we had stocked up is close to running out since we erected the barriers no one was allowed to leave, only Fairies and Spirits could go outside in order to gather information." (Sapphire)
"Why only Fairies and Spirits?" (I)
"They're more likely to be able to hide, and they're more likely to run away because they're fast." (Sapphire)
"We found that almost all the villages have already been attacked, some seem to have tried to flee, others have gone into hiding, we managed to convince others to join us and others decided to do it their own way." (Sapphire)
"Farus seems to be attacking the weakest villages and groups first, if he continues like this he will leave us for last." (Sapphire)
"If it was a defensive battle, what would our chances be?" (I)
"Neither, we would just be delaying the inevitable, sooner or later our troops would be tired and Farus would break through the gates or the walls, so that would be our end." (Sapphire)
"Jana said you guys have an illusion around the village, but I didn't see any of that, why?" (I)
"We keep the illusion just above the village now to save our mana expenditure, our Mages are running out of steam, plus I have received news that shows that Farus must already know about the location of this village." (Sapphire)
"How did he find out?" (I)
"My daughter… she… she…" (Sapphire)
Sapphire closes her eyes unable to finish her sentence, she clenches her hands so tightly that blood starts to come out.
"I discovered that someone I trusted joined Farus willingly, I have information that he even led an attack on another village." (Sapphire)
"I understand." (I)
"Other than that, is there anything else you want to know?" (Sapphire)
"I have a few questions if you don't mind answering them, they're questions I already asked Jana when I agreed to come here." (I)
"Do you mind if I ask?" (I)
"If you're able to protect this place and defeat Farus, then you can ask whatever you want, I'll do my best to answer." (Sapphire)
"Can you tell me how many people there are in this village at the moment?" (I)
"If you count all races, then it must be a little over 13000." (Sapphire)
"Of these numbers, how many are in combat condition?" (I)
"If we take out those who are too injured, cursed, dismembered or too young to fight, then a little over 10,000 are ready to fight." (Sapphire)
"If the wounded and the cursed are healed how many can still fight?" (I)
With that question Sapphire looks at me strangely, surprise and hope becoming apparent on her face.
"If you're able to do that I'd appreciate it, so a little over 1300 can get back into combat." (Sapphire)
"That would total over 11300…" (me)
"What are the total numbers of enemies?" (I)
"There are more than 25000." (Sapphire)
"How are they divided?" (I)
"The undead are around 15000, most of them in your army." (Sapphire)
"The other 10000 are Ogres, Ghouls and Orcs divided into three battalions." (Sapphire)
"But there are also some sentences that belong to different races of the mountain range, they are beings who chose to surrender to Farus for survival or in some cases in exchange for power…" (Sapphire)
I can see the coldness and fury in her eyes, from what she said before I can assume that this Lamia who joined Farus is her daughter, she must be with a lot of anger and sadness accumulated, this will be good, this will give more motivation at the time of battle for her.
"How many monsters or Demis with Grade S strength and above are with Farus?" (I)
"If you don't count Farus himself, then our latest information points to 13 in total." (Sapphire)
"Do you know what their races and ways of fighting are?" (I)
"Of the numbers I mentioned, 3 are Undead summoned by Farus, they haven't fought so far, they stay by his side to protect him at all times, but we can measure their strength through their Auras." (Sapphire)
"Of the rest, 5 are melee fighters being from the three main races, 2 are Ghoul Mages, 1 is an Ogre assassin, 1 is an Orc Archer, and the last one is the Lamia I mentioned before being a short to medium range fighter. " (Sapphire)
"How many do we have on our side that have a strength equal to or greater than Grade S?" (me)
"We have 5 in total with me being SS Grade, but the enemy also has 2 at least, with a similar strength to mine." (Sapphire)
"Of these 5 on our side what are their races and way of fighting?" (I)
"I'm a warrior who uses a big sword, I'm good at melee and medium-range attacks using magic, I'm a magic warrior." (Sapphire)
"Of the others, 2 are close-range fighters being an Ogre and an Orc, the other two are Mages being a Nymph and a Ghoul." (Sapphire)
"I think I understand our and Farus's level of strength now." (I)
"Can you tell if he fights using tactics? Or is he just using his superior numbers and strength?" (I)
"We thought it was just his numbers so we tried to fight him head-on but we lost 5000 troops that way, towards the end of the battle he always uses the same tactic of raising the battle dead, that way he always wins." (Sapphire)
"So he always uses the same tactic?" (I)
"Yea." (Sapphire)
"So he's a fool, he must have been blinded by his pride and winning streak by now." (I)
"Do you know where your stronghold is? Do you know if there are other places where your troops gather?" (I)
"We know where his fortress is, outside the fortress, he has nowhere else, he gathers everything he collects and all his army in one place, in the fortress." (Sapphire)
"The fortress not only has the army protecting it at all times, but it also has a barrier against magical attacks." (Sapphire)
"(This information is enough for now, I'm impressed that she was able to answer everything quickly, she's an excellent leader apparently.)" (I)
"That's enough information, for now, I'll take a few hours going over and analyzing this, I'll come to talk to you after I get this all sorted and have more practical plans." (I)
"Alright, I don't mind answering a few questions if I got any more plans, I honestly haven't been able to think of anything we can try." (Sapphire)
"I just hope the Keeper is right about you and your group, we don't have much time before things start to go terribly wrong." (Sapphire)
"Tomorrow I should have something I can talk to you about, then we can start discussing how to start our attack on Farus." (I)
"Hope so." (Sapphire)
After all this conversation with Sapphire I realized how competent she is as a leader, she is also strong and has charisma.
I can understand why all these races are obeying her but she is still shaken by her daughter's situation, during our conversation she didn't lose her cool or show any reaction to most of the questions but when her daughter was involved she would fill with anger and sadness, it must be hard knowing that you're going to have to fight and maybe even kill your own daughter.
But this is excellent for me, I will wait until I gain Sapphira's trust before talking to her about my plan, her daughter being such a criminal means I don't need to feel remorseful about using her in an experiment, I also need time to running some simulations in my head, I have to think of a plan to quickly finish off Farus, this before he knows it, I have to enjoy it while he seems to be being careless with his plans.
I took advantage of being with Safira to introduce the rest of my group, I also asked where we could stay during our stay in the village.
She said that we could stay at her house, I told her about the Dungeon and said that I would leave an entrance open in the room, after that we went to this room and I open a gate to the Dungeon, I make a group with Sapphire and I take her to the living room safe from the third floor for her to register with the crystal so she can teleport to speak to me in an emergency now.
After that I spent the night going over all the information I got from Sapphire, I also talked a bit about all this information with the others, I also told them about my plans, I wanted their opinions on this, maybe I could think of a better plan that way.
But I still haven't forgotten the day's synthesis, three more days and I'll have finished synthesizing all the rabbit strains that Elsaris has managed, so I'll be able to help her and her sister while getting more capable people on my side.