163 Chapter 163: Moving Ou

We ended up riding in infantry fighting vehicle instead of moving out on foot. It was only natural. The town hall was fairly far away from the shelter we currently resided in, and moving on foot would take far too long. By the time we reached there, the battle would be over and there wouldn't be anybody left to save.

The five soldiers accepted our help grudgingly, especially when they learned from Yang Bai that we had held our own against trained assassins who were Rei's disciples and defeated a rank B Silver Skeletal Wolf. They seemed pretty impressed after that and were more than willing to allow us to squeeze into the armored personnel carrier parked outside the shelter. The driver then slammed his foot down and accelerated forward, but we had managed to strap ourselves in before we were sent flying out of our seats.

We couldn't see anything beyond the armored hull of the APC, but I could hear the occasional whine of the multi-barreled lasers and heavy machine gun over the roar of the tracks, most likely chewing up a few low ranked monsters and even some mid-ranked monsters. They would have little effect on a high-ranked monster like the Silver Skeletal Wolf or even rank C Thunder Wolves, which were capable of generating electric barriers if necessary, but the APC plowed onward, avoiding battles. The goal now wasn't to exterminate monsters but to save lives.

And if we dallied too long, Alicia's father and the other high-ranking members of the city council would be killed.

Alicia was gripping her harness extremely tightly, until her knuckles whitened. I reached out and placed a hand over hers, to assure her. She nodded gratefully and closed her eyes, praying wistfully for her father to be safe.

The APC ground over something as something squealed under us, and I wondered briefly if we had run over a Cyclops Rat. No big loss there.

Eventually, the APC lurched to a halt, and the compartment opened up for the driver to turn back and shout at us.

"We're here!"

"Okay! Everyone, move!"

The sergeant in charge of the half-squad gave the order. The soldiers were the first to move. I had heard that they used to be ten men strong, but their squad had been decimated by casualties during rescue operations. Three dead, two heavily injured and currently recovering after Teacher Cure cast healing magic on them. No doubt Bu Fan would make some snide remark about the casualties being a waste of mages when they were sacrificed to save regular civilians, but this was the same guy who ran off with a squad to rescue his sister. Of course it's a waste, of course regular civilians should die because they were weak as long as they weren't the protagonist's family, loved ones or waifus.

Hypocritical bastard.

The students followed shortly, eight of us jumping after the soldiers, who were fanning out to cover our disembarkation. We were familiar with cover and movement, and also hurried to cover to support the soldiers' advance. The sergeant seemed surprised at our discipline and movements, but he was too professional to remark upon it. Instead, he used hand signals to gesture his own men forward before resorting to simple motions to wave us forward.

As disciplined as we were, we hadn't learned the military hand signals, after all. Of course we wouldn't know some random gesture from the sergeant.

"Help!"

At the town hall, we caught sight of Cyclops Rats chewing on a few bodies. There was a survivor who managed to escape thus far, and when he caught sight of us, he raced toward us with a scream. The soldiers cursed under their breath when he gave our position away. Now we couldn't take the Cyclops Rats by surprise.

Not that we had to. Craig, Sheila, Dong Fan Yue Chu, Lily and Harrison rose to the task, charging forward to slay the Cyclops Rats with spells and weapons. Theodore managed to impose himself between the fleeing man and another Cyclops Rat, braining it with his mighty hammer. Alicia and I remained at the back, preparing to launch long-ranged spells along with the soldiers and their guns and spells. Unlike Alicia, the soldiers were equipped with carbine-type rifles that fired magical bullets. They were obviously more powerful than her twin pistols and provided a sustained rate of devastating fire. But they also cost a lot more mana to use.

Fortunately, they were adult soldiers who had received military training, and thus they had the mana capacity to wield such weapons. Between the thirteen of us, we managed to wipe out the horde of Cyclops Rats in three minutes.

Having professional soldiers fight alongside us was making a huge difference. If the five soldiers weren't here, we would be taking five times as long to clean up the monsters.

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"You…you are here. The military…"

The man was spluttering in immense relief, almost pawing at the sergeant's uniform. The sergeant gently pushed him away.

"Stay with the APC. Don't stray away. We'll be back."

"The monsters…the monsters! They are…!"

"We know. We got rid of them."

"There are more downstairs! I don't know…I couldn't see what was happening, but I saw a few robed people going downstairs! They were controlling the monsters! I don't know if those monsters were summoned beasts or not, but those people, they were directing the monsters!"

The man continued to blabber almost senselessly, but his words seemed to ring clearly in our heads. Craig scowled grimly.

"Those must be the assassins."

"Shouldn't we hurry?" Sheila asked nervously.

"We had better make it in time!" Dong Fang Yue Chu growled.

The sergeant nodded in agreement, and pointed the man toward the APC again. The man numbly wandered toward the APC, guided by the driver, and the rest of us proceeded into the shattered lobby of the town hall.

The glass was all broken, and furniture upturned. Evidently there had been a battle here…or the Cyclops Rats from before had rampaged through it. Thankfully, there were no more monsters in the interior. Either they had all emerged to hunt for prey, like the Cyclops Rats we had eradicated earlier, or the assassins had brought the monsters down with them toward the shelter.

But I had never heard of assassins controlling monsters. Well, there were some who were summoners, such as Selina Wright, but summoning magic in general just wasn't suited for assassination. Assassination was usually stealthy, quiet and dark. Summoning was too overly visible, loud and conspicuous. Unless your form of assassination was kill everything with brute force (like Selina's Hades), it was unlikely for summoners to be an assassin.

If that was the case…

"Everyone, be careful. We might not be dealing with assassins here. We might be dealing with agents from the Dark Church itself."

Everyone turned to stare at me.

"What gives?" Craig asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"The monsters," Harrison answered in my place, having come to the same conclusion as me. Everyone swiveled to stare at him, and he indulged them with an explanation. "Assassins don't control monsters, and if what we've heard about the Dark Church is true, then it fits their modus operandi. Wasn't the Dark Church the one behind the previous attack on our city, the one with three thousand monsters? Then they must have learned how to control monsters."

"That makes sense," Lily admitted, disturbed by the scenario that her society president had brought up. "But then…what do we do?"

"The same thing as ever," Craig replied gruffly. "We kill them. We kill them all."

"Simple enough," Theodore agreed with a chuckle. "I like that plan."

The elevator was obviously broken, but even so no one in their right mind would take it down to the basement. Not during a catastrophe like this. The enemy could have rigged it, it would have called too much attention, and it was a potential death trap. If the enemy was just outside the elevator, they could easily shoot spells into it when the doors open, and we would have no cover to hide behind.

So we took the stairs. What? The underground shelter was only a couple of levels down, below the three basement levels. Mages weren't physically weak, especially since we were all trained for physical combat.

I wondered if we should have asked Teacher Fielding to come. His presence alone would make a significant difference for our chances. Then I suddenly remembered that he was nowhere to be seen in the shelter. Later, I learned that he had joined the military in helping civilians evacuate toward our shelter. Even though he retired from the military, he was still determined to do his duty to protect everyone.

We descended the stairs carefully, watching out for any traps or sentries. However, it turned out that our caution was unnecessary. There was nobody keeping watch in the stairs. Even so, we continued to move as stealthily as possible, but even with magic we were unable to mask the noise of our footsteps echoing in the hollow chamber.

Perhaps we should have asked Zhang Hou Zi to come along. His wind magic would be useful in blocking out any acoustics or sound we generated. I realized that we were all attack or offensive type mages. If Pearl wasn't exhausted, we would have asked her to come along, for her healing magic would be vital in keeping us alive. Unfortunately, she had overworked herself in healing both injured civilians and soldiers, so we couldn't possibly drag her along for a mission as dangerous as this.

Fortunately, I could also function as a defensive type mage. I guess I had no choice but to fulfill that role, since none of the others could. My Black Tortoise and Scutum Sobiescianum were going to see a lot of play here. With that in mind, I began casting the summoning spell for my Black Tortoise the moment we reached the fourth level, and when I was sure I wouldn't wander beyond the hundred meter range limit of my summoning spell.

The sergeant stopped by the door, and then wit hand signals, got two of his men to cover him. He gestured for us students to stay back. Even if we had proven ourselves in combat, we were still kids. The adults naturally felt obligated to take the risks, and were reluctant to put us in danger. Appreciating it, we stood back.

Then the sergeant kicked the door open and charged in, aiming his carbine. His men followed, filing out, and once they were in position, we followed suit.

Nothing happened. However, once we were out of the stairs chamber, we could hear the noise of battle from a distance. There was still a skirmish occurring inside the shelter, from the sounds of it. We weren't too late.

At least if our objective was to save the city council from being wiped out. We couldn't tell if some of the councilmen had already fallen.

"Father…!"

Alicia started, but I managed to stop her in time. The sergeant scowled and shook his head, before nodding at me thankfully.

"We've to be careful," I reminded Alicia. "We can't let the enemy know we're here. Let's take advantage of the fact and ambush them. We'll have a higher chance of saving your father that way."

"Ah…right. Sorry." Alicia clenched her fingers around her guns tightly and swallowed. I could tell that she was worried, and I didn't blame her for wanting to charge in. even Bu Fan's attitude changed when he learned that his sister was in danger. There was nobody in this world who could remain calm and undetached when their family was attacked. Okay, maybe there were, but those were in the distant minority. You know what I mean.

The soldiers advanced carefully, with the students staying close behind. We could see the combatants fighting now. A group of older men in suits were cowering behind a ring of men in suits and sunglasses. Obviously those men in suits were bodyguards, and while they were bloodied and their clothing were tattered, they were barely holding their own against the assailants. A frightening number of them were lying on the ground, many of them in pieces. It was obvious that the majority of the casualties wouldn't be getting up ever again.

And their numbers were steadily dwindling.

Directing the assault were a group of figures in black robes, their features concealed by hoods. But they were standing from a safe distance.

Instead, it was a horde of over a hundred black beasts who were attacking the city council!