Bog Standard Isekai-Chapter 51Book 4.

Returning to their inn for the night was more complicated than it should've been with the assassin still on the loose. Brin suggested that they go back and camp out in a vacant building again, but Cid couldn't bear the way that would look. How could they inspire a town to defend against an army of goblins when they weren't even brave enough to walk around out in the open?

They went back to the inn where they'd first left their horses, and now it was packed with people. Most were talking about the day's news, though some might be here to get out of the cold. The nights were still frigid for those with a Vitality low enough to notice such things and the common room had fires roaring in three separate fireplaces. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

A long line of people led to the receptionist area for those who needed last minute accommodations now that the evacuation was off. Luckily, the Lance had gotten in before everyone knew the evacuation was cancelled, because Brin wasn't sure if they'd have been able to get a room otherwise. As it was, they'd already reserved three rooms all next to each other.

They ignored the crowd's shouted questions and demands for answers and went straight to the middle room to figure out a watch rotation.

Rhun was their best bet for protection, he'd know if someone tried to snipe someone through the windows, and while the assassin could send an exploding arrow into their wall, they were fairly sure their armor would protect them from the shrapnel. But that meant they all had to stay in their armor.

Cid set up a rotation where Rhun would guard them one at a time while they bathed and used the toilet, and Brin set about protecting them in his own way.

He created forty Invisible Eyes, and a few threads to coordinate them, and sent them whirling around the streets that had a line of sight to their inn. While he couldn't count on a single Invisible Eye to spot an invisible lurker, this many Invisible Eyes constantly moving would almost definitely see him. With this many, it was completely possible they'd run right in him.

That made Brin's time run about three times normal speed. He could split his mind instead of letting his [Multithreading] mess with his sense of time, but he'd learned that if he ever really wanted to stretch the number of threads he could work on at the same time, he'd need to do both. Besides, the time dilation was fine with him. He'd be skipping sleep tonight, so it would help to ward away boredom.

With the time he did have, he decided to scout. He created one last Invisible Eye, and directed it personally, sending it to the south of Canibri, looking for the goblin army. He didn't feel anything from [Know What's Real] in a cursory search, so he tried to predict where they would be. If there really was a huge army out there, that would be a great campsite, right? Or maybe they'd partially hide themselves with that small stand of trees? Nothing worked.

In the middle of winter the land was desolate and gloomy. The grass was brown and the fields of the [Farmers] lay empty. There wasn't much to see except endless, lifeless emptiness. There wasn't anywhere they could be hiding, not when he was being this thorough, invisible or not.

On a hunch, he changed tacks and started looking to the north of town. The purpose of the goblin army wasn't actually to destroy the town, was it? Its true purpose was to harry the people on the way to Gonwy, making their evacuation as dreadful as possible and creating mass hysteria that would spread throughout the kingdom. Inside the walls, they might defend, but on the march there would be a terrible cost in lives.

If it were Brin, he'd put some goblins in that little gully; that way when they came out of invisibility it would look like they'd just been hiding and the [Scouts] had missed it.

Almost immediately, [Know What's Real] alerted him. There was something there, where it looked like nothing. He carefully traced the area and found about a ten square foot area that set off his Skill. A small band of ten to twenty goblins, then. He'd be willing to bet there were dozens, or even hundreds of little groups like this.

He kept looking, finding another, and then a third. There was a lull after that, as he spent two hours without finding another group. It wasn't until the [Know What's Real] went off as the Invisible Eye flew over the road that he made another breakthrough. The Skill didn't go off again when he retraced his path, which meant that the invisible something on the road was moving.

Once he knew that, it didn't take him long to find them again. Another group of ten, but this time it was moving towards Canibri on the road. It didn't take long to find more. There were lots of goblins moving towards the town.

Looks like High Lord Prima's Plan B was starting to come into effect. Brin thought about sending beams of light into the invisible goblins to reveal them, but he didn't want to give away that capability quite yet. Yes, it would be nice to get an accurate count of their numbers, but knowing that wouldn't change anything. He didn't want to give away any more of his [Illusionist] abilities until the assassin was taken care of.

Marksi woke up about halfway through the night. Brin was so relieved that he had to shut out all the screens and logs. None of the cuts had really healed much more after they'd stopped bleeding, and Marksi was extremely proud of his new beauty marks.

He chirped and strutted happily, drinking up all of Brin's praise. Brin tried to keep his voice hushed, but Marksi made such a racket that it woke up most of the Lance. Cid came in and offered Marksi the core of the Hound they'd helped kill. Marksi pounced on it, and the core made him sleepy again. He drifted off soon after on Brin's armor-clad lap.

The rest of the night passed without issue. The goblins continued to move from their ambush locations on the road to Gonwy, grouping up a half mile north of Canibri's walls. They had to be careful to stick to a stretch of prairie that wasn't part of anyone's farm, which meant they were really bunched up together. In addition, there were smaller groups crawling around in a circuit around the city. Scouts, most likely, but if they really were scouts, did that mean they didn't trust the [Illusionist] hiding them to give them accurate intel? He didn't think that goblins were sophisticated enough for that kind of thinking.

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The [Illusionist] hiding them must've been straining to cover so many, because Brin started to see distortions in the air. He bet that soon, even regular guards on the walls would notice something.

He could reveal them and blow this whole thing open. There was no way anyone would want to retreat north after seeing that. He waited, and when morning came, Brin put the question to Cid.

"There's a large group of goblins massing to the north. I'd estimate at least five hundred, but I can't get a perfect count," said Brin.

Cid yawned. "No 'good morning', no 'Cowl, what's for breakfast?'. You just jump straight into 'there's an army of goblins.' Is there anything else?"

"A bunch of [Messengers] left in the night, including the [Herald]. And Cowl isn't making breakfast. We're at an inn," said Brin.

"I could throw something together if–" Cowl began.

"No need! They'll be bringing something up from the kitchen any minute now," said Brin.

Marksi made a series of low squeaks from Brin's lap, still half asleep.

"What's that mean?" asked Cowl.

"He wants to know if you have any jerky," said Brin. "But he doesn't need it! He can wait for the inn's breakfast with the rest of us."

"Let me see what I have on hand," said Cowl, already digging in his backpack.

Brin sighed. "Anyways, I was wondering if you think I should reveal them now. I could throw some illusions at them and break through their invisibility, but I'm not sure if I want the [Illusionist] we're after to know he's facing another [Illusionist]."

"Let's hold off for now, at least until after the leadership meeting today. Perhaps we could time it for a big reveal if things don't look to be going our way," said Cid.

Brin slapped his shoulder. "Nice! Really thinking like an [Illusionist]."

"Ouch," said Cid. "I must confess, I feel uneasy about this. I was under the impression that the [Herald] would remain until today's meeting, but you say he already left."

"Looking at it now, I'm not sure if anyone had the authority to hold him here. The only people with equal rank left in this town are us," said Brin.

The Lance ate a small breakfast from Cowl and then a second breakfast when the inn sent food up. There were approximately ten last-minute bathroom breaks, and then they were ready to go.

When he needed his brain back, Brin had dismissed most of his Invisible Eyes, just keeping one in the army and another few randomly moving around town, but even his limited surveillance showed him that something was up.

A new wave of alarm and unrest moved through the town with the dawn, but this time it wasn't centralized at the main square. He saw a boy running down the street and stopped him.

"What's going on?"

"Master Fykl has been killed in his bed!" the boy shouted, and kept running.

"Does that mean anything to you?" Brin asked Cid.

"He's the head of the [Mason's] guild. I spoke with him yesterday," Cid answered.

Brin thought he knew what was going on, but he checked anyways. They walked further into town while Brin used his Invisible Eyes, and both his eyes and the chatter in the town confirmed the same thing: eight highly placed people had been slain, six men and two women. All of them were people who Cid had approached to coordinate the town's defense.

Brin checked the Earwood building and saw a huge hole had been blown into the wall on the third floor, leading to what looked like a bedroom. Luckily, old Ifan Earwood was still alive and organizing repairs. A failed attempt, then.

"This is my fault. Call it a foible of inexperience. I was so focused on how to protect ourselves, that it never occurred to me to think of the others that required protection," said Cid.

Brin shrugged. "If I held myself responsible for every evil thing my enemies do I'd go crazy."

Cid gave him a look.

"Crazier," Brin finished.

Cid smiled, then shook his head. "I don't blame myself for the assassin's actions. Only my own. A [Knight's] duty is not to merely survive. We should have saved those people. We should have rounded them up in a defensible location."

"We're trying to protect a whole town here. We don't know that the assassin would've given up if we'd saved the leaders. It's more likely he would've tried to make the same point by killing a whole lot of people rather than these targeted strikes," said Brin.

"We can't know, but I should have done my duty better," said Cid. "Well, enough of that. Let us see what can be saved."

Today, Cid insisted on keeping the entire Lance together, and Brin couldn't disagree. He'd already said everything to the [Merchants] that he could say, and there didn't seem to be any point in splitting up–not when everyone refused to talk to them.

Word had gotten out that the recently murdered town leaders were all people who'd spoken with Cid in the past day, and now anyone with any kind of leadership in the town were hiding out. It quickly became clear that the planned leadership meeting wouldn't happen.

The soldiers under High Lord Prima's command were a stone wall. Brin found is suspicious that none of their leaders had been killed, and when Cid tried to talk to their commander he was refused entry told that the defense of Canibri was well in hand.

Brin doubted that. If anything, Prima's men were doing the opposite. More of the soldiers were pulled back from the city center and the walls to hang around in their crowded barracks.

By noon, Cid and Brin gave up trying to find any leaders and started randomly stopping people in town to try to organize a militia themselves.

Every man and even most of the women they stopped promised that if goblins were sighted, they'd grab a spear and head to the walls. Of course they would, because they were true men! Or women, as the case may be. But few agreed to join a militia now, and when the day ended with only fifty men, Cid sent them home with instructions on where to report if the goblins were sighted.

Brin tried to salvage something of the day and created glass copies of Cid to have him "accidentally" wander away from the rest of the group and even take his helmet off, all while the real Cid was hidden in invisibility. If the assassin was watching, however, he never took the bait.

Several times, Cid and Brin went back and forth about whether or not to reveal the goblins. It might help their recruiting efforts if people saw that the threat was real and immediate, but it also might have the opposite effect. Somehow, word had gotten out that there was a secret tunnel underneath Mordelet's fortress, and now a large crowd was surrounding the tower again, all of them pushing and shoving and trying to get through it at once. The guards were letting them through; they at least had listened to Cid and put most of their people on the walls, but that meant that there was no one left for crowd control. Now that the green and black colored soldiers of Lord Prima had finished looting the fortress, they'd abandoned it completely.

An hour after sunset, when the glow on the horizon had nearly completely faded, a call went up from the scant defenders on the walls. The goblins had removed their invisibility and were approaching the town. The battle for Canibri had begun.