Chapter 161 Defense Of the Tail.

"Lord Lily, please rest. Let us handle the night watch," a soldier saluted.

"Why does she get to rest? She's the strongest among us, right? She should be leading us!" a tailfolk soldier asked. The elves winced at their lack of understanding and proceeded to explain.

"Because she is the strongest among us, she must preserve her strength. We will wake her if the enemy launches a night raid."

"Why?"

"Lord Lily is also a mortal. What will we do if she exhausts all her strength now and the enemy attacks us tomorrow?" the elven soldier explained. Their words seemed like gibberish to Lily, but the elves believed in prioritizing the strongest soldiers.

"Well, I suppose you're right."

"Of course, he's right. He's our senior. This isn't like a human village where the nobles enjoy all the luxuries and we do all the work," another tailfolk replied.

"I will sleep on the wall..." Lily muttered. Their words stung her heart. Being compared to humans made Lily sulk, especially knowing that she was only the strongest because of the blessings bestowed upon her.

"Lord Lily, everyone sleeps in the barracks or the Lord's house. The night is quite chilly. What if you catch a cold before the attack? No one sleeps outside, even us ordinary soldiers. Please don't mind the newcomers."

"I understand."

"I apologize, Lord Lily."

Lily then walked along the wall for a while before going to bed as scheduled. The fort was devoid of life. Several beacons were strategically placed to lure the undead away while Lily summoned her dragon.

"Shiro, do you think we will survive one week here? It's my first time being entrusted with a group of soldiers on a perilous mission like this," Lily asked me from her bed. Even though the night was silent and comfortable, she was nervous about the potential undead attack.

When morning came, Lily went to the deserted cafeteria. Nobody was cooking now, but Alistar had left plenty of dried meat and vegetables for them. Lily ate with the other forty soldiers. The remaining ten were keeping watch on the battlefield.

The day passed uneventfully. Lily went to the headquarters and found it empty as well. The elves and the tailfolk soldiers preferred to keep their sentries stationed on the wall just before the switch. The fort was enormous, so they needed at least ten people to cover the entire watch duty. Previously, over a hundred people were assigned to watch duty, with each post consisting of three to four individuals. But now, there was only one person per post.

The elves questioned this method. It went against military regulations to have a lone sentry. If the sentry was taken down, no one would report to the central command. However, after Lily allowed such a sloppy sentry to pass, no one challenged it. Assigning two soldiers to each post would mean utilizing over twenty people for each rotation. The rotation schedule would be tough but doable. However, if an actual attack occurred, our soldiers would be too exhausted to even flee.

"Nobody's coming," Lily said two days later as she took a walk, circling the top of the wall. The soldiers on sentry duty had reported no signs of any anomalous activity.

"It's a good thing nobody is coming, right?" I muttered.

"Yeah, I was worried for nothing," she said as the soldiers started to relax.

"Lily, scold the soldiers when you stroll on the wall. I think they are getting too lax. Remember, there is only one soldier at each post. Nobody would see the enemy coming if that soldier is sleeping on the job," I warned her, and she nodded. She was an airhead and easy-going girl, but she knew what to do when it mattered.

The next day in the evening, the undead started assaulting the fort again. The usual army of two thousand skeletons and five Vargmuth appeared. They charged at the gate without hesitation, seeing it wide open.

It was a short battle. Just as planned, I summoned my dragon, and as the Vargmuth entered the gate, we roasted it well-done. Then, the brainless skeletons that followed suffered the same fate. The battle lasted less than twenty minutes, but there were still five wounded. As the straggler skeletons approached a tailfolk soldier after entering the gate, they narrowly dodged the inferno at the entrance. Instead of retreating, the tailfolk soldier confronted them head-on, blocking our dragon from burning them. They defeated the skeletons but left a gash on the soldier's shoulder.

"Why didn't you retreat?" the elves sighed.

"Sorry, there were only three of them. I thought we would have no problem with over twenty soldiers on this side. We didn't want to leave everything to Lord Lily."

"The wound will fester with the undead corruption. Did you bring any purification water?"

"Yes, Lord Alistar left some in the infirmary. I will go fetch it. Meanwhile, we need to continue our guard duty. Lord Lily, please recover your strength for the upcoming battle."

"Okay!" she replied. I then dismissed my dragon and tried to recover as much mana as possible from it.

"With my current mana, I can only summon this dragon once a day. If the undead attack more than once a day, we will be in trouble," I voiced my concern.

"Yes, but they have never attacked consecutively, right? If you have at least six hours to recuperate after using the dragon lightly, just like now, you could summon a second dragon," Lily dismissed my worries with a shrug. It wasn't that she was being negligent; it was simply that there was no better solution to the problem. There were at least three thousand undead. Without the dragon, we would lose with only fifty people. If I didn't use the dragon and relied solely on normal spells, we might lose more soldiers and even more mana.

The undead started regularly attacking every day until we reached the one-week mark. Then, their attacks began to change.