Fifteen hundred mercenaries, mostly in rank B, about one hundred in A-rank, and six S-rank, not counting Theodore, who despite being an S-rank, has really high combat experience almost equivalent to Cassidy's before train with Lucien.
That is the strength of Theodore's mercenary group, which, although not as incredible as Scarlett's mercenary group, is a considerable force, and that could conquer the cat-clan after Mirya, the cat-matriarch, take part of her elite warriors with Eve.
But of course, Eve would not leave the clan more fragile and made mainly of women, unprotected. So, she left a considerable troop of elves near Oxard at Nina's orders.
However, these troops won't be necessary…
"Don't you really want to go with us? There's nothing like adrenaline in a raid." Theodore asks Bowen after his twenty sh.i.p.s are ready to sail.
The fat middle-aged man shakes his head while drinking wine served by a slave girl. "Fighting is not my thing, you know. Just send someone to tell me as soon as you take the city."
"Okay, my friend; see you soon." Theodore nods before heading towards his main ship.
But then Bowen thinks about something and shouts to Theodore. "Don't let your soldiers **** all the pretty cat-girls!"
Theodore doesn't turn around and just signal with his hand as he continues walking. "I know; you like those very young and v.i.r.g.i.ns, right? I'll save some pretty good ones for you."
Bowen laughs while thinking to himself. [It is a pity that Mia was never close to me… there was no girl more beautiful than my little princess… just if I could…]
Theodore does not go directly on his ship but stops at the pier to talk to his spy. "Did you prepare everything as I said?"
The spy nods. "Yes, boss. Our main mages and wizards are on five sh.i.p.s with few warriors while our main troop is on the other fifteen sh.i.p.s."
While the spy reports to Theodore, his troops wait on the sh.i.p.s, but a young lady in her twenties watches them from an empty building about a hundred meters away.
Most people from the Mortal Realm would have a hard time hearing a conversation in a low voice from that distance, but this woman has a unique ability that she awakened in the Zero Realm just like Maggie.
She can boost her senses using her special mana, improving her vision and hearing significantly, which still because she is just an A-rank is not something so incredible but it allows her to hear and see things from a distance, making her an excellent spy.
She hears when the male spy finishes his report to Theodore. Then Theodore asks. "What do you think of my plan?"
The spy responds quickly. "It's an excellent plan. No one has better naval combat skills than our mages, so they can hold up to ten times their troops' numbers long enough for us to attack from behind them."
Theodore smiles. "They just need to be defensive at sea for a while. As soon as we start massacring those stupid cat-girls, their people will panic and go back to the city."
The young lady listening to the conversation makes an upset expression. She has been spying on Theodore for a while and knows about his plan to distract the cat-clan warriors with a fake naval attack while he flanks the city overland with his main troops.
The plan would not work in normal situations, but due to the cat-matriarch having left the clan to fight alongside Eve, they are with fewer troops and will focus on defending themselves from a naval attack, thus being vulnerable to an attack by land. Of course, Theodore doesn't know about the elves hidden in the forest or about Lucien.
And so, the young lady doesn't know either, which leaves her in a complicated situation: to follow Theodore in combat or to abandon her mission and thus lose the reward?
While the young lady focuses her senses on Theodore and gets lost in thought, she does not notice a guard entering the room.
"What are you doing here??!" The big man asks.
"Hey!" The lady jumps to the side and picks up her dagger. But then she quickly makes a fake scared expression. "You scared me to death!"
The guard takes a good look at the lady. She is 1.68 meters tall, with light brown hair, tanned skin, or rather, very dirty for him to perceive the right tone. She is sweating clothes of low-ranking mercenaries, that is, B-rank, she has a bandana on her head, and a bandit mask that just covers her mouth.
Her green eyes seem to make her look pretty, but the guard can see a long scar that goes from behind her mask to below her right eye, which certainly makes her not a beauty at all.
"What the hell are you doing here, mercenary?" The guard gives the lady a stern look. If she were beautiful, he could even think of his next actions, but a woman hidden under so many dirty clothes and with that scar is nothing attractive to him.
The lady's first thought is to say that she is part of Bowen's guards, but she cannot do that because the man in front of her is already part of the small group of guards and would know it is a lie, so she says something that is partially true.
"I'm afraid to fight…" The lady gives the guard an imploring look. "Pity me and pretend you didn't see me, please."
The guard sighs and walks towards the lady, clearly with bad intentions. She prepares to attack him, and even though he is A-rank like her, she is sure that she can catch him off guard with her second dagger.
But then the lady hears the voice of another guard calling his friend as he enters the room. "What's going on here?"
The first guard explains to the other. "There's a deserter here wanting to escape the battle. Let Theodore know before he leaves."
"Theo!!" The second guard calls Theodore, who was about to enter the ship, and at that moment, the lady knows that fighting now is the worst alternative or rather, nor is it an alternative because it would only lead to her death or worse.
Then she raises her hands to the first guard. "Alright, I'm going."
But the guard still ignores the lady's words and grabs her by the arm. He seems to like to demonstrate his strength and drags her out of the building while she says she will not try to escape.
He pushes the lady to the ground in front of Theodore and quickly explains. "This mercenary was trying to escape the battle."
Theodore recognizes the clothes of his B-rank mercenaries but does not recognize the woman's face. Well, he has no way of remembering everyone's face and her face is half covered.
He kneels and takes her chin. "At other times, I would kill you on the spot, but we need all the soldiers for this battle, so I will give you another chance. Also, if you survive, maybe you can force a cat-man to f.u.c.k you even with that horrible scar on your face."
The lady smiles falsely while being upset with everyone for judging her by her scar. "Thank you, boss."
Theodore gets up and walks towards his ship. "Let's go; we can't waste any more time."
Bowen's guards return to their posts while the lady quickly gets up from the ground and walks after Theodore and his spy.
"Where do you think you're going?" But the spy stops her.
The lady knows that on Theodore's ship, only A-rank mercenaries go while the S-rank leads other sh.i.p.s with the B-rank ones. Still, she begs Theodore. "Please, boss. Let me go with you."
Theodore ignores the lady's begs and enters his ship while the spy slaps her face hard. "Damn you!! Boss gave you another chance, but do you still want to make demands?"
The lady spits a lot of blood while mentally cursing her bad luck and getting up from the floor. "Alright, alright!!"
The spy watches the lady heading towards a second ship; then, he smirks as he talks to her. "This ship is full."
He points to one of the sh.i.p.s with mages and few warriors. "Go on that ship; they need your help more."
Although Theodore and the spy are sure that their mages can withstand a long time in naval combat, it is evident that they are very much in danger of dying so that the main troops take the city from behind, so the lady knows that the spy wants to reduce her chances of surviving.
The lady thinks of begging again, but she knows that anything she does now will only make her situation worse. Maybe it was a series of bad luck, a lot of mistakes made, or both, but in any case, she has to move on and hope for the best, even though any positive thinking seems stupid now.
She enters the mages' ship, and they all set sail to the open sea, heading south, that is, for Oxard, the capital of the cat-clan.
—————————————
A few minutes later, Lucien's sh.i.p.s arrive at Oxard's docks. He and his girls find the Love Beach beautiful and the main port of the cat-clan quite charming, though a simple city, perhaps similar to Rat Island and smaller than Bluewind.
Lucien leaves his sh.i.p.s in the care of the cat-girls, and his troops go to the great hall of the cat-clan warriors to have a good meal while he and his wives follow Nina to the main clan's longhouse.
Nina keeps saying good things about the city of Oxard, but Lucien can't stop paying attention to the cute ears of the many cat-girls around them, and of course, his wives, especially the demi-humans, get jealous, making him give attention to them too.
The cat-girls get curious about the visitors who come on the big sh.i.p.s, and when they see Lucien, they become even more curious about him.
Rumors run fast among the cat-people, and soon everyone finds out that the Handsome Devil of Portgreen is Eve's brother and unbelievably the new King of the Alliance, which for the first time in hundreds of years has two rulers.
The news is too shocking, and the small port of Oxard is completely bustling. Although everyone wants to know more about Lucien, the common people know that they shouldn't bother him, but his over two thousand troops are not so lucky, and they all become kind of celebrities in the city with all the cat-girls asking many questions about Lucien and his group.
The main question of the people is how Lucien is in relation to Eve's feminist policies. They understand that she cannot hate her brother, but everyone wonders what will happen in the future of the Alliance with two rulers.
Although Lucien wants to travel to Viset immediately, Nina persuades him to dinner and sleep in Oxard, and as it is already getting dark, he accepts the proposal.
They stay in the longhouse while drinking and talking. Lua asks Lucien to tell her stories about his adventures, and he can't deny the cute cat-girl's request.
Lucien's wives also drink wine, but in fewer quantities than usual as they agree to keep an eye on him to prevent him from bringing all those cat-girls to their family.
Everything was going smoothly until a water mage cat-girl enters the longhouse in the same way that Lua's partner came to warn about Lucien's arrival.
She runs over to Nina and reports. "More sh.i.p.s… from the north…"
Nina makes a surprised expression. "Allies too?"
The cat-girl shakes her head. "We woke up the golems… but they advanced and attacked…"
"Pirates??" Nina gets up.
"I think so." The cat-girl responds.
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