The Fourth Secret: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Divine Apostasy Book 4) by A. Kay (best short books to read .TXT) 📕

“That’s eighty Observers,” Ruwen said.

“We’ll want at least one Observer in every Fighter patrol, and a few teams of just scouts,” Vachyl said. “Plus we’ll want some Marksman and Mages on the walls.”

“How many additional people is that?” Ruwen asked.

Vachyl spoke as he thought. “Three rings, five man teams, staggered formation, twelve hour shifts, moderate density,” the Warlord’s words became a mumble for ten seconds and then he focused on Ruwen. “Ninety-six Observers, ninety-six Mages, and two hundred eighty-eight Fighters.”

Ruwen frowned. “With the original eighty that puts us over five hundred—”

Vachyl interrupted. “That’s just the patrols. For the inner walls, assuming we get the Craftsman and Worker support to repair them, we need another,” Vachyl’s voice trailed off as he closed his eyes and thought through the distribution. “Watchful spacing, twelve-hour shifts, six-mile circumference, war configuration,” the Fighter said and then opened his eyes and faced Ruwen. “Six hundred sixty Mages and the same number of Healers. One thousand three hundred twenty Marksman, and three thousand nine hundred sixty Fighters.”

Ruwen stared at the Warlord. “Are you serious?”

“That is a minimum,” Vachyl said. “Watchful spacing is okay now, but within a week I want to be at vigilant spacing, and shortly after that, war spacing. We will need to double our numbers and then double them again.”

In two weeks, the Warlord wanted over twenty-five thousand troops just for the walls. Lir had told Ruwen the temple could comfortably house six thousand people. They would be far beyond that in just a week.

Vachyl wasn’t done. “That should be sufficient to protect the city from enemies that avoid our main force, which we will use to strike the enemy before they’re prepared. Assuming Naktos is hiding seventy-five percent of his forces, and we want a three to one advantage, every warrior over one hundred twenty thousand will make the battle easier.”

Ruwen didn’t know how to respond. In the last minute, Vachyl had casually requested over one hundred fifty thousand people.

Chapter 46

Ruwen shook his head. “How many people does it take to support a force like that?”

Yana rubbed her Void Band while she spoke. “Without seeing the city in daylight and the condition of the walls, it’s hard to calculate resources. But during the war, it took two non-combat personnel for every fighter. I would say in our current conditions you could safely double that.”

Ruwen put his head in his hands. “That’s another six hundred thousand people for a total of over seven hundred fifty thousand. Basically, everyone in queue for revival. Except half of them are children. So, we are already at half of what you all want.” Ruwen turned to Gabryel. “How many revival baths are here?”

“Across all floors, three hundred,” Gabryel said.

Ruwen looked at Niall. “And the fastest we could revive people?”

“Assuming you had the terium, a sixty-minute cycle is probably sustainable. Thirty-minute revivals followed by a thirty-minute transition into life as we flush the revival baths and prepare the tubs for the next bodies. Transition might take longer if the previous death was traumatic, which can complicate the shift back to life.”

Ruwen did the math in his head. “If we revived three hundred people every hour, that’s seven thousand two hundred a day. So not even a full day into this and we would run out of normal rooms in the temple. Even after two weeks, we’d only have revived a hundred thousand people, well short of our needs. And we can’t begin until our terium arrives.”

Hamma spoke for the first time. “I’ve encountered a Naktos Assassin twice and a Mage once. While my experience is limited, they seem clever and cautious. We don’t have the time or infrastructure to fight them in a traditional manner, and I don’t believe they will fight us like that, regardless.”

Ruwen thought about Hamma’s words. “They will probably scout the city to find out our numbers. We need to either stop them or deceive them. While they might not normally fight traditionally, if they see how low our numbers are, they may just swamp us.”

“That complicates things,” Drivyd said. “We can’t kill any enemy scouts that get close enough to gain good intelligence. Or even allow them to kill themselves. Because as soon as they’re revived, they’ll report their findings.”

“We don’t have the facilities or people to hold them,” Vachyl said. “Which means we must keep them unconscious.”

“That requires more Healers, to keep them in a coma,” Gabryel said.

“Which will have a significant Mana cost,” Zahara said. “And brings us back to the Alchemist and Worker issues of creating potions.”

Ruwen didn’t see any good solutions.

Rami, what do you think?

Terium is good for more than reviving.

It took a moment, but Ruwen understood. Right.

Using Chat, Ruwen spoke to Hamma. If you use the rest of my terium coins, how many people could we revive at the thirty-minute pace?

Maybe twenty thousand.

Okay, add my coins to the temple, please. If my parents don’t make it back soon, I have another idea.

Are you sure?

Yeah, but don’t use your coins or Sift’s. I don’t know what our future brings, but I doubt it will be cheap.

Okay.

Ruwen made sure his Tutor buff remained active and then looked around at the Elders. This had been far more complicated than he’d thought, and it bothered him he might not make the correct decisions. “We have many needs, and so we must balance our response. We have room for six thousand in the temple, so that will be our first revival goal.”

No one spoke, so Ruwen continued. “But we don’t have the people to support reviving that many yet, so we’ll start smaller by reviving one hundred from the Order Class. We need to organize the revival process and prepare the temple. Then we revive two hundred Observers so the information gathering can begin.”

Ruwen cleared his throat and continued. “The remaining numbers to revive are three hundred Fighters, one hundred Merchants, two hundred Workers, and one hundred Mages.”

Gabryel nodded. “It is a start.”

“Before we break,”