Chapter 492 492 Aftermath
492 492 Aftermath
The General rose to her feet and took the device from Wolfe, then bowed politely to him and the assembled Witches.
"As is protocol, consider yourselves warned that you are in violation of the War Memorial Act, and enforcement measures may be taken against your continued presence in the restricted area. We will take our leave now, and I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours."
The soldiers all stood at attention and saluted to Wolfe and the others, then followed their General through the portal, where Wolfe could still smell ozone and burnt flesh. It was obviously the same room that the rescue team had been in, which gave him the impression that the device was not mobile.
That alone was good news for them. If it was a relic and not a mobile object, then they could find it and destroy it. In fact, if he had been thinking ahead, he could have done it today.
It would have left the General and her people trapped here unless there was another device, but it would likely have saved them all plenty of headaches in the near future.
"Why did you just let them go?" Priya asked once the portal was closed and the soldiers were gone.
"Did you really feel like killing them all? We're not running a prison here. We don't even have cells. I think that a bit of goodwill might encourage whoever is in charge to temper their actions a bit and not do anything too stupid.
They have laws, but they're still people who would rather not get obliterated by a massive lightning storm."
Priya sighed. "You're right, of course. It just feels wrong letting an enemy walk away like that after feeding them breakfast as a form of interrogation."
"A very effective form of interrogation," Cassie added.
"You have a point. They told us just about everything that we thought to ask. We know the region they are from, the name of their home city, where the retaliation force is coming from to enforce their silly law, and that there are less than a hundred Witches on her level left in the world.
Their numbers might be impressive, but their skills don't seem to be. They don't know anything about Elemental Magic, and they rely on nonmagical human technology for war. If it comes right down to it, we've got the upper hand in terms of an invasion.
Their Witch Magic will be difficult to counter, but Witch Magic has a somewhat limited range. Snipers against witches is a hard matchup if you don't have a good armour spell." Ella agreed.
"So what are we going to do other than wait for them to act?" Priya asked.
"We are going to send the planes out and airdrop enchanted ammunition at every village we can find, even the ones we've never dealt with before. Then, we will make sure that the border alliance has enough munitions to wipe the Grand Dutchies off the map if they get stupid, and I am going to get to work memorizing all these abilities from the Inheritance and the Memory Crystal.
There are too many things I should know that I don't know, and it's becoming an issue now that we're likely to be invaded by Witches and soldiers at the same time." Wolfe informed them, making the plan up as he spoke.
"As they say, knowledge is power. I will get everyone focused on making ammunition as soon as I can, and then we will make a wide area broadcast letting the Frozen Wastes know that if they are staying, we will help. We already made all the planes that we need for the job, as long as we don't mess up the air magic to do the parcel drops." Ella agreed.
That would work out very well for them. They could arrange for all the munitions drops to begin tomorrow, and that would leave them four days before the stated beginning of the invasion. Whether they could trust the United World Government to keep to their stated schedule was another matter, but the hope was there that they would be able to at least get things started.
The real fun would begin when the Witches tried to invade the mountains. They considered them part of the War Memorial, but those regions were controlled by magical beasts and Dragons. Wolfe didn't know much about how a Dragon stacked up against a Witch in a fight, but they certainly looked intimidating and had power to spare.
Then there were the Fae. Khalifa was here already, and she had a very eager look on her face when the topic of invasion was mentioned. The Fae treated these woods as part of their own territory. If anyone were going to invade them with the goal of wiping them out or destroying the trees, they would have to deal with the residents' wrath.
The last topic would be the Witches in the Morgana Swamp. They would be expecting a delivery about the time that the invasion was to start, and Wolfe was tempted to make sure that it happened, just in case he needed to send people running south. Even a few allies that would not shoot them on sight was a good start.
All that was keeping him from forming a proper defence strategy was a lack of knowledge. He didn't know the spells, the tactics, or the likely battlefields. In short, Wolfe was woefully unprepared to do anything but live his daily life.
"Alright, let's get to it. Once you have the cases of ammunition ready, call for me, and I will get them all enchanted and ready to ship out. We can start delivering today if we have the ability. The more time we can buy ourselves, the better."
"What will you even enchant them with? We don't know what we will be facing or how strong their defences will be." Priya reminded him.
"Then I will keep it simple. Mostly [Fireball] with Gravity enhancement on the regular ammunition, strong enough to kill a Rank Two beast in a single shot. That should deal with the rank and file, while a few shots will deal with the Rank Three Witches.
Then, I will upgrade the ammunition for the heavy machine guns to include [Wind Blades] for tougher monster hide equipment and heavy armour. Five or six shots should make it through nearly anything that we've seen.
If they send something tougher than Rank Three or Four monsters against us, we might be in trouble either way. There just isn't much that we can do about that without the enchantment being so strong they will sense it from a dozen kilometres away."
"What if they do? They have a lot of Rank Five Witches, and we have one of you." Cassie reminded him.nove-Lb.In
"That's why I'm going to start with making everyone the five layered armour amulets I promised, and then I will prepare defences for the village, and I will study what sort of traps and spells we will need to turn them away.
There is bound to be an answer, and Ella would remember that the helpful magical butler at the Lumix house told us that if the Magi had fought back, they wouldn't have had a problem crushing the Witches. That wasn't on purely high-ranking members, but on the effectiveness of their magic in combat."