It had been 3 hours since the battle started, and the group of healers had gotten into the rhythm of things. When any trouble occurred, healers went to Sol to ask for his opinion, and while not a medical expert, he could give his opinion, and if he truly had no idea, he would ask others for their opinion. Together they all filled each other’s gaps in knowledge and know-how, making them all learn and improve rapidly.
"Hey Sol, can you come check this out?"
Sol nodded, "Yeah, I’ll be right there."
Sol had just finished guiding another wounded to a bed and was about to head over to see the issue when he noticed something weird. Being able to see mana thanks to his [Mana Perception], he saw quite a few mana signatures moving underneath him. At first, he thought he was just seeing things and moved close to investigate. He exited the medical ward into the courtyard outside and moved directly on top of where he saw the mana figures. Seeing the shape of the mana figures, he noticed they were humanoid in shape, but that brought up even more questions.
’Who are all these people down here?’
Suddenly he heard a voice behind him.
"What are you looking at?"
"Ah!"
Sol jumped as he turned to see who spooked him. It was Nataly; she followed him outside as she saw him leave and was curious if something happened.
"Haha, sorry didn’t mean to scare you."
Sol shook his head.
"It’s fine. I noticed something strange below us."
"Huh? Below?"
She looked at the ground but seeing nothing odd, she looked back at him with a confused expression. Not wanting to make Nataly think he was crazy, Sol elaborated.
"I can see mana, people, plants, anything really. While the range is relatively short, I noticed multiple mana figures underground. Do you know by any chance if the fort has a basement?"
Nataly shook her head.
"No, when we explored around yesterday, I don’t recall anything like that, though."
"How odd…"
Sol then looked back at the ground and saw that the mana signatures were slowly moving upwards.
"I’m going to check it out. I’ll be right back."
"Huh?"
Before Nataly could ask what he meant by that, Sol used [Burrow] to sink into the ground.
After moving 5 meters downward, his head popped out into an underground passage. It was dark and hard to see with only torches faintly illuminating the immediate surroundings. In the darkness, Sol looked at the figures he saw above ground and almost yelled in shock.
There he saw orcs digging a passage upwards leading into the fort. Loud sounds of pickaxes smashing the dirt and rocks as other orcs shoveled them into a cart and took it away. There were also orcs who were handling small sacks and placing them a few meters apart from each other.
Not wanting to risk detection, Sol immediately ascended back up before any orc walked near him. Sol then rose out of the ground, eliciting a yelp from Nataly who was as surprised to see him appear as she saw him disappear a few seconds ago.
"Woah Sol! Didn’t know you could do that. Was that a spell?"
Sol faced Nataly with a grave expression.
"I’ll explain later; there are orcs digging under the fort!"
"What?! We need to let the Commander know!"
Agreeing with Nataly, Sol called for the nearest soldier to bring a messenger immediately. Seeing the urgency in both of the healers’ faces, the soldier obliged and ran looking for one.
When the messenger arrived, Sol explained what he saw and urged him to let the Commander know as quickly as possible. Sol even debated whether or not to cast [Tailwind] on the man to go faster but held back as he already has shown a lot of his abilities.
Having done what he could to inform the commander, Sol then faced Nataly as there was one more thing they had to do.
"Let’s go; we need to move all the wounded."
Sol started to walk but Nataly stopped him as she didn’t understand.
"Slow down Sol; you need to explain a bit more than that."
"Sorry, you’re right. I saw the direction they were digging and it was ramping up towards the medical ward. I think that’s where they are going to appear from."
Both of them then headed back into the medical ward and started to mobilize all available people to help transport the wounded to the canteen. It was the most ideal location that was furthest from the medical ward but had enough space for the 80 currently wounded men and women.
As they were relocating the wounded from the medical ward, Hilbert angrily stopped Sol.
"What do you think you are doing?!"
"Orcs are digging underneath us. We need to move all the wounded away from here."
"That’s ridiculous! Even if it’s true you don’t have the authority to move everyone."
"What authority! People will die if we don’t do anything!"
"Fine! Move them if you so insist, but my patients are staying right here!"
If Hilbert wanted to stay Sol didn’t care that’s his choice, but to also risk the lives of other people is taking it too far.
As they were arguing Hilbert saw one of the healers move his patient and barked at him to stop. The healer who was the one that Sol helped with removing the arrow shook his head.
"No, I will take them to the canteen. I trust Sol, and if he says orcs are digging underneath us, I believe him."
Other nearby healers also nodded in agreement. Hilbert wanted to argue back, but with all the healers siding with Sol, he had no choice but to go along with them. There was also no point in Hilbert staying as his patients were taken so he decided to evacuate with them.
"Fine, but I will let Diana know this was all you."
"Have it your way."
Not wanting to deal with Hilbert anymore, Sol continued to help facilitate the transfer. Because everyone acted quickly and orderly the whole process was done in under 10 minutes.
The transfer was done just in time as when the last patient was placed in the canteen Sol heard a loud explosion.
KA-BOOM
"ATTACK!"