Book 4-8.3
“Glow, I apologize for the injuries to Pareia’s precious warriors and the damage to Pareia’s precious ships.”
Thriger bowed his head while lying down and Yulian shook his head.
“Mm, it will not be a problem. I am just thankful. I am disappointed at losing a ship, but it is amazing that we were able to take such an ambush and lose just one ship. There is no need to feel too bad about it, Greatest Warrior Thriger.”
“I will definitely destroy all of them. If I had known they were the enemy… I will definitely destroy those amaterus who barely know how to maneuver a ship.”
Thriger grinded his teeth once more as he started to speak. He was confident.
He was sure that those bastards did not know much about ships. They had the recklessness to rush forward against a giant ship. The stupidity to retreat because they were afraid of the Mult-Arrow when they had achieved certain victory.
All of that showed they did not know much about ships. If he was in their shoes, he would have stuck right next to the stopped large ship to be in the blind spot of the Mult-Arrow before lighting the ships on fire on all four sides to sink all twelve ships.
Yulian clenched his fist and pushed it forward in front of Thriger.
“Of course you will. Warriors must always get their revenge. Quickly recover so that you can return the favor.”
Even if it was an ambush, a part of the responsibility for this loss was on him. But Yulian did not fault him at all and just tried to encourage him. This made Thriger extremely upset.
If he had served such a king in the past...a king needs to act like a king, but his former king was not like a king.
Thriger’s expression changed once more as he thought about the past.
Runa and Pere arrived at the port the next day with 20,000 warriors.
The two of them were finally able to relax after listening to Yulian’s explanation of what happened. They had been worried the whole time on their way over.
Runa thought that they needed to put a number of warriors here at the port if the enemy also had a way to access the quicksand river, but Thriger shook his head.
“We just need to be prepared like the past with around 500 warriors. Assistant Warrior, I do have something to ask of you though. I need Mult-Arrow archers and construction workers. There will be a slight change to the exterior while we fix up the destroyed components.”
Thriger was thinking that the sides of the deck were too low to defend against the enemy archers. It needed to come up at least to the chest level from the current hip level. This was not a problem since all they needed to do was put up moveable boards only on the sides with the enemy archers.
Unfortunately, the concern about the enemy’s fire arrows still remained.
“As for the most important request, it has to do with defending against the enemy’s fire arrows. The wood we used are very thick that it will not be easy to catch on fire, but once it does, it will almost instantly spread throughout the ship. We need to store water to put out any fires. We wil also need to increase the warriors on the ships to a minimum of 20,000.”
Runa turned pale at Thriger’s requests. Warriors were one thing, but it was extremely difficult to transport water all the way ehre.
‘To put water on all elven ships...and an extremely large amount at that.’
Runa was thinking really hard to try to find a solution.
Water was needed on a daily basis. If you did not drink enough water in this hot desert, you will definitely become injured. That was why everyone made sure to drink plenty of water unless they were in the middle of an intense training session. There was already carts after carts bringing water to the port for the six to seven thousand warriors whow ere on the Desert Runner.
But they needed a lot more water, not even to drink but to put out fires? This was what turned Runa extremely pale. This was not something that would be solved with your typical water pouches.
Thriger, who seemed to have figured out Runa’s concern, started to speak.
“Assistant Warrior, it will not take long. I have already come up with a plan to destroy all of them. No matter who the enemy may be, I will not lose to anybody when it comes to a ship to ship or brigade to brigade battle.”
Runa had no choice but to nod his head after seeing Thriger speak so confidently. He must have a solid plan to be speaking like this.
It did not seem like he needed to give any suggestions, and most importantly, Captain Thriger probably knew better than he did about this river. All Runa could do was trust Thriger and follow his request.
Yulian asked with concern.
“Greatest Warrior Thriger, will you be okay? Revenge is great, but I hope you do not push yourself too hard.”
“I will be fine. In fact, I would probably die faster from anger if I do not get my revenge as soon as possible.
Yulian was relieved that Thriger was quickly recovering and asked with a satisfied expression.
“Is there anything else you need?”
“Nothing. However, there are a few things for me to experiment with for the real battle. It may take a lot of money.”
“If we lose the river, we cannot transport materials anymore. Do whatever you need to do. Greatest Warriors have the right to follow their plans.”
“Thank you, Glow.”
“Things have become quite annoying. Will this affect our plans?”
“Not at all.”
Yulian started to ask Runa about the impact this had on their plans as soon as they returned from Pareia. Surprisingly, Runa shook his head.
“Are you saying we should proceed as planned?”
“Yes. We have completed all of our preparations and have nothing else to prepare. The enemy will prepare more every extra day we give them. It will actually hurt us more to give them extra time.”
Yulian asked with a worried expression at Runa’s unexpected answer.
“But what about the quicksand river?”
“We need to cleanly destroy them. Captain Thriger will do a good job. We can only trust him as our main force will need to go up the quicksand river.”
“What about traveling through land?”
As Yulian asked once more, Runa shook his head and sternly answered.
“We cannot do that. In order to maximize the impact of our 40,000 warriors, we need to make sure to avoid being detected by the enemy patrol warriors.”
“I know about that too, but wouldn’t it be the same whether we go up the quicksand river or the Red Storm and I get rid of the enemy patrol warriors?”
“It will take too long to move the trops. The reason I am being stubborn about the quicksand river has to do with the speed of the Desert Runners. Even if the enemy patrol warriors manage to spot the Desert Runners, we can still change up our moving speed to trick them.”
“I guess we can only trust Captain Thriger.”
Runa started to smile at Yulian’s words.
“It will only be a matter of time as he is already grinding his teeth in anger. We may have lost a ship, but it is beneficial to us as now we can say that they have made the first move. In addition, if we cause some more dust on land, the united tribe will put more than half of their troops to defend against us on land.”
“That is the best thing I’ve heard in awhile.”
“Either way, we need to proceed as originally planned.”
Yulian motioned to say he understood as he tilted his head back to think.
‘I hope Greatest Warrior Thriger does a good job. Everything now rests in his hands.’