As evening rolled around, all the leaders in Redwood Town, save for those working with Drake on crafting more harnesses for the Tartans, had gathered in the Manor's main office to discuss the current situation as well as their plans going forward.
Frowns were seen all around Charles' study as Celestina recounted the most recent clash between the human defenders and the Wild Beasts, "This morning, we faced a large pack of Saberclaw Raptors, a two-legged reptilian Wild Beast species native to far southern tropical jungles."
"Another species that shouldn't have appeared anywhere near here," Sasha muttered.
"What do you mean?" Anna asked, her wounds having been patched up to the point where she was once again commanding the Town Guard's combat operations, freeing up Carl to focus on logistics, and Charles to focus on the general situation in town.
"Several types of Wild Beasts from strange environments have been appearing since the explosion occurred, like those only found in scorching desserts or frozen tundra," Charles explained succinctly, though his explanation didn't help Anna understand why this was happening.
Before Anna could ask for clarification, Lucas spoke up, "We have no idea why such species are appearing, only that they are."
Knitting her brow, Anna muttered in a troubled tone, "That's a problem. If it was just forest-dwelling beasts, we could make some arrangements in advance for them, but if any kind of species from any kind of environment can just show up, there's very little we can do to prepare."
"That's not the worst of it," Celestina commented, "While the vast majority of the lower Order beasts are still natives of the local forest, the species which seemed to have been dumped onto us from the sky are almost uniformly very powerful. Fourth Order Wild Beasts are becoming a common sight, with Fifth Order ones showing up far too frequently."
Pausing here for a moment, Celestina's frown deepened, "As for Sixth Orders, if we count the Great Oriyan from the first day of the crisis, there have been 3 so far."
"There don't seem to be any attacks ongoing right now, though," Lucas tried to lighten the mood.
However, while the locals such as Anna, Charles, and Sasha felt some relief about this, Celestina and Vanessa wore worried looks upon Lucas pointing this out.
Not missing this shift in mood, Lucas had a sinking feeling in his gut as he asked, "Is there some special reason the beasts aren't attacking us right now, Master?"
Rather than Celestina answering this time, Vanessa was the one to speak up, "After Sir Green and I joined the battle against the Raptors, the momentum shifted in our favour in a noticeable way, so the beasts chose to withdraw rather than keep fighting. We managed to kill 1 of their Fifth Order pack-members before they fled, but the Sixth Order Alpha…"
Pausing here, Vanessa turned to her former mentor, hesitating to continue.
Celestina, on the other hand, had no issue admitting what happened, "That beast was stronger than me, so it had no issues withdrawing safely."
Silence fell upon the room, as everyone felt concerned about there being an enemy nearby that was stronger than even the famous General Balfour. It was no doubt a terrible development, one that put not just Redwood Town, but the broader region at risk.
What's more, if one such beast could appear, what was to say that another, even stronger one, couldn't?
Earlier that day, just after the fight between Lucas and Christina, Celestina had made a stop at Drake's smithy where all the craftsmen in town were working on the harness project for towing the Sunchaser.
Sasha had been there organizing the delivery of some supplies they needed, which allowed the Balfour Marquess to inform both of them that the evacuation was now the highest priority.
Celestina also ordered the second harness to be completed as soon as possible so it could be sent to Harold City via Tartan. That way, they could hire artisans there to create more of them at a quicker pace.
At that time, neither Drake nor Sasha understood why Celestina had suddenly become so anxious over this matter, seemingly doing everything in her power to speed up the evacuation, but now they did.
"Um, Master?" Lucas hesitantly spoke up, breaking the silence in order to ask the question which was on the locals' minds, "If the Saberclaw Alpha was stronger than you…"
"How did I force it to retreat?" Celestina naturally understood what her Disciple was trying to ask, but she had no reason to hide the truth from the people in this room, so she simply stated, "It was injured. In fact, all of those Raptors seemed like they had suffered multiple burns and cuts. On top of that, I think those beasts were having difficulty moving about in this cold weather as they are native to places where the temperatures are much warmer."
"Could those burns have come from the forest fires?" Lucas followed up with another question.
"Possibly," Celestina nodded, finding this a reasonable explanation, "However, that begs the question. Why would those beasts run straight into the heart of a raging fire?"
It was a mystery, but one that didn't seem too important right now. The priority had to be evacuating the town and regrouping at Harold City, where they could hopefully mount a stronger defence.
In line with that thinking, Vanessa proposed, "Should we begin transporting some people aboard the Sunchaser right away while the harnesses are being crafted?"
After returning from the capital this time, Vanessa had not just brought the headache of a Royal Princess with her, but also 10 fully charged 100-Weight Low-Grade Spirit Crystals.
Knowing that the Sunchaser had been constantly in use, Vanessa had requisitioned these 100-Weight crystals from the Golden Wings Legions' supplies.
Unfortunately, Vanessa could only take out 10 such crystals on an emergency basis.
Even so, with 10 more 100-Weight Spirit Crystals, the Sunchaser could operate for an additional 10 hours at optimum speed. Combined with the Skyship's current reserves, making 20 round trips between Redwood Town and Harold City would now be possible, even without using the harness system Lucas had thought up.
"That's not a bad idea," Celestina nodded, "Everything that can be offloaded has been, so the ship can begin ferrying people out of the city as soon as we get them loaded up."
"What about World Qi consumption?" Lucas asked.
Thinking about it for a moment, Celestina responded, "If the Sunchaser completes a round-trip in about an hour and a half, it should only cost us 160 to 170 Spirit Crystals worth of World Qi."
Doing the math in his head, Lucas muttered, "As long as we don't make more than 10 or so conventional trips, we should still have enough to get all the young and wounded out, along with a detachment from the town's defenders."
"That's all well and good," Anna nodded, before frowning slightly, "But what about everyone else? I know we talked about setting up a land convoy for the able-bodied adults who can't evacuate on the Sunchaser, but if the situation really is getting that much more dangerous, I don't think spending even a handful of days in the wilderness is a good idea."
Everyone in the office fell silent when this point was raised.
In truth, all of them had been thinking about this all day long, as it was an increasingly troublesome problem; unfortunately, there really didn't seem to be any other option.
Just being able to get the young, old, and injured out of the Redwood Town on the Sunchaser was already a huge help to the current situation, but that still left some three or four thousand people that needed to escape on foot.
"Ahem," Suddenly, the sound of someone clearing their throat from the side was heard, drawing the attention of those in the room.
"Perhaps I can be of some assistance," Steward Warren said, wincing slightly from his wounds as he got up from his chair.
Although Warren wasn't a local from Redwood Town, or a member of the kingdom's army, he was still a Sea Establishment Practitioner and a Low-Rank Steward from the most powerful commercial entities on the Blue Sky Continent, so he was more than welcome at this meeting.
In fact, the only reason Warren hadn't participated in any of the high-level decision making so far was because he had been seriously injured and was receiving treatment in the infirmary.
Ironically, because Warren was among the strongest members of Anna and Drake's convoy, he had suffered some of the worst wounds as he had been forced to take on numerous dangerous beasts that had attacked them along the road.
With a sprained right ankle, multiple deep gashes across his chest and back, and a previously dislocated left arm in a sling, it was still quite difficult for Warren to move around, but when he heard that all the top-level people in Redwood Town were gathering to discuss the coming evacuation, he had grabbed a crutch and hobbled his way over, insisting on joining them.
Limping over to the table where the others had gathered around, Warren used his good left hand to point to the Bolton River on a nearby map and proposed, "Lady Balfour's Skyship isn't the only vessel available to us. If it's just about quickly moving a large number of people from Redwood Town to Harold City, there's really no better method than by river."