68: This is going to be a tough battle.

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Azur flies up in his dragon form to try to see what it is all about. From the sky, he sees in the distance a large fleet of ships approaching over the sea.

"I think the orcs are coming to attack the capital" I tell them, as Azur relays the image of the ships to me "go back to the capital. Azur and I will go and see what we can do to stop them."

As soon as they hear my words, Julia and Raila immediately start gathering all the things to prepare for the return to the capital.

Mia looks at them with confusion, as if she doesn't understand why we have to leave the beach when we were having so much fun.

Azur gets down on the ground and grows in size while I settle the chair on his back.

When I'm done, I quickly mount up and get ready to leave, but Deirdre interrupts me.

"I want to ride with you, master. I can help!" she says, and makes a pretense to ride behind me, but I stop her.

"I know. But I need you to go back to the city and take care of them" I murmur to her, reaching over and stroking her head.

This is half true.

I don't think Raila and Julia need protection, but I will indeed be more at ease if I know she is safe in the capital.

I've never fought in a large-scale battle, and I don't know how capable I'll be of protecting her during the fray.

"Hmt, ok" she says reluctantly, and starts to help Julia and Raila.

It's fortunate that, since the incident with the corrosive slime, Deirdre has become incredibly obedient to me, because we don't have much time to get into an argument.

I take to the skies with Azur and we travel to the coast closest to the fleet.

We find a large group of people preparing to meet the invaders when we arrive.

When we begin to descend with Azur, the nearest group of soldiers is surprised to see us and pretends to attack us, but we see that a blonde girl starts shouting orders and prevents them from doing so.

As we approach the ground, I see that it is Lilian.

She has Sebastián by her side, the boy who accompanied her when I met her for the first time.

We approach the two youngsters at one end of the group of soldiers, and they move in our direction.

"Hi, I was just coming to see you. But I didn't think we would meet under these circumstances..." I say as I reach towards her and Sebastian, who as I found out through our conversation before going into the forest, is the girl's bodyguard.

"I'm sorry, but we'll have to leave the matter of your mission for another time" Lilian says in a strained voice, interrupting me.

"I know" I say, imbuing as much seriousness as I can into my voice "How can I help?"

Lilian sighs.

"Nothing, for the moment..." says Lilian, and her voice denotes exhaustion "The church had insisted on trying to generate a peaceful relationship, but this is clearly an invasion attempt. It is a pity that, for that reason, the demon empire, the elven kingdom, and the dwarven country have only sent diplomatic agents instead of a detachment of soldiers. But, if we let them land safely, we would only be making it easier for them. The problem is that we simply don't have enough fighters to stop them!"

Lilian hurriedly speaks in a tense voice, and I can tell that the girl is under a lot of pressure. As we talk, she keeps nervously shifting the direction of her gaze from side to side.

During all this time, Sébastian has said nothing and just stands stoically silent next to his protégée.

It seems that the fact that he was mute was not a lie. Or that's the impression he gives at least, but not that I really care.

In the distance, I see Sofía and other mages conversing with a tall and muscular red-haired woman who has a large great sword on her back.

I don't see Siri, the spirit bound to the headmistress, anywhere....

Like Lilian, she must have un-summoned her. So, they don't have to worry about the risk of their spirits getting attacked, which would affect their concentration.

I don't see Sabrina with them either.

Though that's not unusual, considering how much the girl hated fighting before we got separated.

She had never been able to handle the tension of combat well.

Surely Joseph's death exacerbated her situation…

"That's the queen, Her Majesty Hilda Liones...and the one next to her is my mother." says Lilian as she notices where I'm looking.

Next to the redhead is an extremely thin, pale woman with the same hair and eyes color as Lilian.

But unlike Lilian, who has an aura of energy that inspires confidence, her mother seems somber and unreliable.

"My mother is a great sorceress with an affinity for water magic. She is deciding with the directors of the magical academies how they can attack the ships before they reach the coast. The problem is that they will probably have to use all their mana reserves to use magic at such a distance, and on such a large scale. So, we won't have any magic fighters once the rest of the orcs land," the girl adds.

The queen doesn't seem to know much about magic. At least by her appearance... But I've already seen several times that appearances can be deceiving.

"Ahh" I say absentmindedly in response to Lilian's explanation, as I think about how the orcs could be attacked before they disembark.

We could try to approach and attack them from the sky....

But they would mow us down on sight.

I'm sure many of the crews on those ships must have the means to attack from a distance.

"And that's Tomas Protego, the head of House Protego" she says, pointing to a muscular man who, for some reason, is not wearing any visible armor. I also see that, next to him, is Octavo, constantly whispering in his ear "he is coordinating with that church member the formations of our troops. Most of the ones that are here are trained soldiers, either in magic or non-magical combat, but some civilians have decided to come to defend the kingdom, and that can be a problem for the organization of the troops."

As she says this, I see Ozy with Volgar at his side in the distance.

The two are chatting happily, seemingly oblivious to the tense air ahead of the impending battle.

Azur urges me to approach them, but I prefer to stay where I am and analyze the situation, which seems quite critical.

As much as I think about it, it is hard for me to think of a scenario in which we will not be massacred by the invaders.

When we were flying, I could more or less calculate the number of people we have on our side from the sky.

We must have more or less 10,000 fighters in total, which is not bad at all, given the improvised nature of the situation.

The problem is that there are hundreds of ships at sea.

And they look big enough to carry at least 100 people each.

In other words, the opposing army must have at least seven times our number of troops.

Which leaves us in terrible numerical inferiority.

Holy crap!

It is a good thing that I told Deirdre to go back to the capital.

This is going to be a tough battle.

I hope Sofía and her group find a way to reduce the number of enemies…