What did you do with the dice?

After a few seconds, the black fog opened again and she walked out again.

Then she took a few more loaves of bread in front of the two of them and returned to the shadow plane again.

Rusalka and Sanita looked at each other.

Chapter 71: The Battle of Consonant (5)

Several days passed, and there was no movement from the east and west sides. As time went by, even the infantry regiment that came to support from Ropa Town and the crossbow carts captured from Whitemay Territory were slowly delivered here.

Rusalka asked Sanitta every day when the enemy would come. At first, Sanitta promised that there would be a night attack in the next two days, but when the reinforcements arrived, looking at Rusalka with an expression of "you are fooling me again", Sanitta said that he was innocent: if he were in command, he would definitely do so.

In fact, what he didn't know was that not everyone had the qualities and experience in modern warfare, such as the current commander of the city's guard.

He cannot be said to be a good-for-nothing, but he has suffered from the common problem of those who have been in high positions and have lived in peace for too long, which causes them to forget to be vigilant. When the North Gate was lost, the first thing he thought of was not to immediately dispatch troops for support or to ask the Consnet family for instructions, but to think about how to embellish the battle report to cover up his own negligence in deployment.

Then he sent spies to spy on Rusalka's military intelligence. This action itself was not difficult. After all, Rusalka had just been stationed there, and this world did not have electronic files and facial recognition, so personnel management would inevitably have some loopholes. The spy quickly brought the information back and told the legion commander that Rusalka had a magic cannon.

The legion commander was relieved now - he had found a scapegoat.

The next day, the intelligence was delivered to the City Lord's Mansion. It took almost another day to wait for the general's reply. Looking at the raid instructions given in the letter, the legion commander wrote without hesitation, further emphasizing the powerful military strength of Rusalka. Since the eldest young master led the army to support the front line on the Marquis' side, the city guards on his side were short of manpower. In addition, Rusalka had a magic cannon. In order to prevent a counterattack and the loss of the city walls, he certainly did not dare to take the initiative to attack rashly.

Another day passed, and the city lord's instructions became clearer: if there are not enough people, mobilize the city guards from the south, and at the same time launch a surprise attack while Rusalka is still struggling to gain a foothold, and prioritize eliminating that damn magic cannon.

Are you kidding? A magic cannon? That was something the Earl borrowed from Viscount Consentet to help defend the nearby Viscount's city, using it as an excuse to stop Viscount Consentet from sending soldiers to help.

As a result, before he could fire a few shots, it was inexplicably seized by Rusalka. He knew the power of this thing. If there were no anti-magic measures on the stone wall, one shot could blast a small hole - after all, it had just been proven in actual combat.

As for targeting people, as long as the cannon is fired accurately, whoever is hit will be killed. He doesn't want to use the lives and bodies of his subordinates to test the power of this thing.

So the problem fell into an endless loop. If I translate it into a meme, it would be something like this:

I can't defeat Rusalka's army.

Just use the magic cannon!

But I don't have a magic cannon.

Then go and grab Rusalka’s cannon!

But I can't defeat Rusalka's army!!

You use the magic cannon! ! ! !

But I don't have a magic cannon!!

Then go grab Rusalka's cannon!

Thus, amidst this illogical correspondence of mutual blaming and bickering, the tenth day of the capture of the northern city wall arrived.

So, Rusalka's complete reinforcement force rushed to the city of Consonant.

"We now have three options," Sanita asked Rusalka. "The first, and the most prudent option I recommend, is to proceed step by step. First, we will take down the east and west walls, then push down the north wall. We'll occupy the entire military zone of Consenat City and trap them in a trap."

Rusalka: "How long will that take?"

Sanita: "At least a month. Although we are launching the attack from inside the city, it won't be that easy. We have to split our forces into two groups. One group will march along the city wall, while the other will escort the siege equipment through the city. People can move very fast, but the equipment can't. There's no point in rushing."

Rusalka felt that this was inappropriate. Fighting was fine, but fighting for a month was equivalent to living outside for a month. Not to mention the quality of the living environment, it would not be easy to live in fear every day, wondering if the fighting would start soon. "Next plan."

Sanitieta: "The second decision is that we will not bring the army with us, but will directly sneak into the city lord's mansion to carry out the decapitation plan."

Rusalka: "That sounds good."

Sanita: "The downside is that we don't know the strength of the City Lord's Palace's defenses. Given that Phoenix's assassination attempt failed once, I'm inclined to believe the defenses are quite strong. Furthermore, since it's the enemy's home turf, we might not gain any advantage going there. Finally, even if we succeed, the City Guards won't necessarily surrender. They might think we're going to execute them, too, and if they're forced into a desperate battle, it might backfire."

Rusalka: "Okay, what about the third decision?"

Sani Tieta: "We will go straight in from here, through the residential and commercial areas, and directly take over the City Lord's Mansion."

Rusalka learned to ask: "What are the shortcomings?"

Sani Tieta: "The disadvantage is that we don't know the defense strength of the City Lord's Mansion. If the enemy resists stubbornly and takes too long, and we fail to capture it within three days, we will be easily surrounded by the city defense forces in the east, west and south."

Rusalka: "That's it. Reveal him within three days."

Sanita: "My three days also refers to street fighting. Of course, the other side shouldn't be able to communicate that quickly, so let's count it as three and a half days. The main reason is that I don't know much about street fighting. The Soviet Union, with such a large territory, was flattened within half a year, but it relied on the street fighting in Stalingrad to hold out for several months. You can imagine how brutal the street fighting was.

I still recommend the first option.”

Rusalka: "No, just the third one."

Sanita: "Well, you entering a street fight is like a tank entering an alley. You can't lose."

Sanitta left the second half of the sentence "It's just that our army's casualties may be a little greater" in his throat. If he had said it, Rusalka would probably choose 2. It would be better for him to sacrifice the support of Esdi next door than to choose 2 and put himself in danger.

Rusalka: "Do you have a speaker or something? Give me one."

Sanitieta was a little puzzled and handed him the magic tool he had picked up from the eldest daughter of Luopa who had jumped off the building: "Here, you can use it for what you want. What do you want to do?"

Rusalka: "During street fighting, it helps identify friend and foe, eliminate outsiders, and increase the speed of the advance."

Sanita felt that he was bragging, but he thought that a loudspeaker would not be enough for Rusalka to do anything special, it would just be a few trash talks, so he just let him do it.

After the meeting in the morning, they immediately set out at noon, taking a few days' worth of dry food with them and leaving the rest of the things in the North City Military District. All the soldiers followed them to the City Lord's Mansion, not even leaving the garrison behind. Their main intention was to destroy the enemy and move forward without hesitation.

Sanita pointed to the intersection ahead and said to Rusalka, "After this intersection, you'll reach the lower-class residential area of ​​the northern city. There are many refugees and dark alleys, and the lighting is not very good. There are poor people and shanty houses everywhere. It's also the best place to set up street fighting lines."

Rusalka nodded, took out the loudspeaker, put it to her lips, and after letting Sanita charge some magic power, she shouted while riding, "Try the microphone, try the microphone~ Recycling, color TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners, computers, washing machines, old mobile phones, and electric bicycles."

Sanitieta resisted the urge to ride over and snatch the thing from Rusalka's mouth, or to raise his hand and destroy it with a magic trick. Instead, he held his forehead and said, "What the hell are you yelling about?"

Rusalka nodded with satisfaction. "It's just a microphone test. Don't make such a fuss. Do the people around you understand?"

Sanita looked around and saw that everyone was indeed looking at Rusalka with puzzled eyes, but it was just puzzlement rather than questioning. Come to think of it, the long list of things that came out of Rusalka's mouth were not things from this world at all. It would be absurd if anyone could understand them.

Rusalka: (Then I will officially begin my speech now.)

Sanitieta: (It's up to you. I've found that it doesn't matter whether you want to speak human language or ghost language, because human language can be spoken, but the natives can't understand ghost language at all. I'm just afraid that you will suddenly want to speak some ghost language that you think is human language. That would be a truly inhuman and ghost language of the ancient gods.)

Rusalka cleared her throat. "Dear residents, the Double Eleven sale is here! I, Lord Pearl Tear, pledge my honor to deliver this benefit to everyone. We've left a large amount of supplies at the North City Military District, including daily necessities, food, weapons, equipment, and other exquisite gifts."

I even paid out of my own pocket to leave Easter eggs there! That's right! Something every household needs, and everyone in the world loves it—gold coins! There are only three grand prizes, and they're available on a first-come, first-served basis. For details on the gifts, please leave your cabins immediately and head to the North City Military District.

I know you won't believe it, but the authenticity of this event is guaranteed by my knightly honor, Rusalka, and the Pearl Tears family's masterpiece. Anyone who chooses to remain nearby after hearing the news will be considered questioning my integrity. I care deeply about my reputation and am a considerate person. Anyone who questions me will be kindly escorted to the gods to file a complaint.

The countdown begins. I'll count to 10. Anyone who doesn't leave here and head to the Northern Military District in 10 seconds will be considered an enemy.

Perhaps everyone had a vague understanding of the first large paragraph, but even the homeless man on the street who could not read understood the meaning of the last sentence, and he crawled around the soldiers and fled to the north city wall.

But his credit points don't seem to be very useful here, because everyone is poor and doesn't buy into the nobles' tricks.

Rusalka wasn't shy. Seeing that many people were still hiding in the alleys nearby after the countdown ended, he took the lead and waved his hand, privately messaging Sanitieta: "Go, kill them! I suspect they're enemy troops hiding among the residents."

Sunita was confused: (Why don't you do it yourself?)

Rusalka: (I'm afraid of killing the wrong person.)

Just as Rusalka hesitated, Phoenix's figure slowly emerged from the depths of the alley. She raised her knife and killed the two people who were hiding there stealthily. As everyone screamed and ran away, Phoenix quickly swung out several daggers, piercing the throats of the two who were running slowly.

After everyone ran away, Phoenix did not continue to chase them. Instead, he searched the bodies skillfully and found two poisoned crossbows, several throwing knives, a half-used bottle of poison, a few pieces of dry bread, a dozen copper coins, some flints and low-quality shredded tobacco leaves, and handed them all to Rusalka.

The evidence is irrefutable and there are indeed bad guys involved.

Rusalka took the things, looked at another group of residents fleeing, and gave the cat a thumbs-up: (See, I told you so.)

Sunita: (You want Phoenix to do all the dirty work, right, Shrimp-headed man?)

Rusalka: (You understand Hammer, this is called professional matching.)

Facts have proved that the opponent's commander is even worse than Sanita had imagined, or maybe Sanita had mistakenly regarded the opponent as a commander of the same level as himself. In such a large and well-prepared lower city area, there was actually no complete gradient defense line for street fighting. Rushaka really relied on nonsense to disperse a group of residents, and the remaining group was "persuaded to leave" by Phoenix after he killed a few people. Even if there were real enemy troops, they would be forced to expose at this time.

Nonsense, all the residents had fled, and those who remained there, regardless of whether they were soldiers or not, were buried together with the enemy, just as they were clothed.

Along the way, Phoenix only killed about 30 people and didn't even encounter any resistance. It was obvious that the enemy had not deployed troops here in the past 10 days as Sanita had expected.

Sarolt, who had been on the battlefield, turned a blind eye to Phoenix's behavior of killing everyone who was left behind. Seeing that their boss had no objection, the other soldiers certainly did not dare to have any objection.

In response to Nicia's questioning, Sarolt replied, "The fact that the Great Paladin, Lord Pearltear, didn't say anything proves that the killing was justified. Those were just well-disguised enemy troops."

Nicea believed it.

Silly girl, there aren't even any street battles going on, how can there be so many enemy troops? Sarolt thought.

So Rusalka's army reached the upper city smoothly. Since the enemy did not want this strategic point, Sanita would not waste it. He left half of the team in the lower city to deploy defenses using local materials, and Sarolt was in charge of the command.

It has to be said that the advantage of having two commanders in the team is reflected here. Even if the team is divided, there is no need to worry about the problem of Ma Su being separated.

After crossing the bridge and the small river that divided the two districts, Rusalka felt as if she had come to another world, from a dark corner to a bright road.

There were even many pedestrians walking on the street not far away, and vendors were selling their wares at their street stalls neatly arranged.

Rusalka's army of several hundred people, with heavy armored infantry in the front and crossbows and catapults in the back, was rumbling towards them, crushing all kinds of fallen leaves, stones, wood chips and the like along the way. It was still very eye-catching. Many people stopped what they were doing and looked at this side in a daze.

This scene was unprecedented for Rusalka and Sanita, and even Ono, who was following them, had never seen it before: "No, buddy? We've already reached the upper city, why are you still in your daily routine?"

Is the version not updated?

Chapter 72: The Battle of Consonant (6)

Faced with this difficult scene, the residents on the other side were thinking: Who am I, where am I, and what is going on on the other side?

And everyone on Rusalka's side was also thinking: Who am I, where am I, and what is going on on the other side?

Human joys and sorrows may not be shared, but at this moment, everyone's brains are connected to the same channel.

Rusalka calls it: Moffitt Global Sharing Network.

Sani Tieta: (Strange, why is the Upper City so harmonious? Could it be that the City Lord's Mansion hasn't issued a war martial law order?)

Rusalka: (I don’t know!)

At this point, there really hasn't been a martial law order issued. The intelligence from the City Lord's Mansion was just updated last night to the stage that "the Pearl Tears Army has received support from siege equipment and is expected to attack the city wall tomorrow."

It was only just now that the intelligence was updated that they had suddenly turned around and headed for the City Lord's Mansion. There was no time to issue a martial law order for the upper city. The untouchables in the lower city were easy to feed and could live as long as they had food and drink. The people in the upper city were all well-off residents and upper-class people, as well as most of the businessmen. If they stopped their business for ten days or half a month because of an unfounded martial law order, there would be big trouble. So before they were sure that the attack would definitely come here, the leaderless Consenat family did not dare to directly declare a full martial law.

The general and the commander of the city guards both misjudged Rushaka's actions. The spies they sent out knew the support movements on Rushaka's side and thought that Rushaka was waiting for the arrival of siege equipment in order to break through the east and west walls and prepare for a step-by-step erosion war on the camp.

After all, if they simply wanted to attack the City Lord's Mansion, common sense would dictate that a single magic cannon would be more than enough to breach the wall. Why would they need to send in catapults and crossbows? After attacking the northern wall, they could rest for a day or two and then simply bring the magic cannon with them.

Therefore, within the first three days of Rusalka's stationing, the general of the City Lord's Mansion did urgently dispatch a part of the South Wall City Guards to the lower city residential area for defense.

In the last few days, especially when reinforcements were about to arrive, but Rusalka was still eating, drinking, and sleeping, with the magic cannon erected on the city wall without any marching movement, the commander of the city guard felt that his side was becoming increasingly unsafe. He not only transferred other mobile troops from the south wall, but also gathered the defenders of the south wall who had been deployed in the lower city area and dispatched them to the east and west walls to strengthen the defense.

What they didn't expect was that the reason why Sani Tieta didn't give the order to march immediately into the City Lord's Mansion was simply because he was worried that the enemy was very experienced and could quickly arrange a defensive line for street fighting. So without studying the city map and defense map, Sani Tieta didn't dare to advance rashly and let the magic cannon enter the city.

What Sani Tieta was actually thinking was: If I were the enemy commander, I would definitely place experts in the residential area and try every possible way to blow up this magic cannon, so that it would be difficult for my group to quickly capture the city lord's mansion. At this time, the defenders of the east and west city walls would suddenly attack and block my side in the alley, leaving me in a dilemma and completely doomed.

Of course, the general didn't think so much. His purpose of sending people to defend the residential area was very simple - to let the city guards buy time for him. He had already sent a letter for help to the young master on the front line, and of course he hoped that this battle would drag on as long as possible.

In fact, if Sanita had been more decisive and directly ordered the march into the residential area, the magic cannon would not have been destroyed.

Those soldiers did not carry anything that could destroy the magic cannon. According to common sense, the magic cannon, which must be rooted before use, could not be fired in a residential area with complex terrain. After all, there was no shooting position with a wide field of view for it to land in the residential area, and frequent disassembly was very troublesome, so at most they just transported it over and did not need to deal with it specially.

It can only be said that the game between the two sides was indeed lost. Sani Tower's over-concern gave them enough opportunities and time to deploy defenses, but not only did they fail to seize this opportunity, they also misjudged the final decision of Rusalka's army.

Of course, a big part of the reason is that Sanitta gave the decision to Rusalka. If Sanitta had really made the decision, he would indeed have attacked the city wall.

Rusalka immediately asked Sanita to charge his battery, and then shouted to the panicked crowd, "The Pearl Tears are entering the city! Everyone, run away!"

The patrolling guards on the street were completely dumbfounded. Why are you interrupting us? If you shout this, what should we shout?

They didn't need to worry. No matter who was shouting, Rusalka's shout made the whole street become chaotic. Everyone fled frantically in the direction they came from. Except for some merchants who were reluctant to leave their stalls, almost all the pedestrians on the street ran away within ten minutes, leaving behind a mess of some valuable things.

As for the two patrolling guards on horseback? They were the first to turn around and run. Just kidding, the army might not attack ordinary people, but they were walking on the street in light armor. They were lucky not to be killed.

Rusalka nodded with satisfaction at the empty street, rode her horse towards a stall, patted the table, and asked the owner, who was curled up under the table, "Boss, how do I get to the City Lord's Mansion?"

The boss replied shakily, "Go straight north. You'll see a big wall with a small clock tower in the middle."

Rusalka: "Thanks. How much is the fruit per pound?"

The boss quickly replied, "No money, no money, just take it."

Rusalka: "That won't do. We are civilized people. How can we buy things without paying?"

The boss was also quite sensible and quoted the cost price: "Three for one copper coin, you can pick whatever you want."

Rusalka searched for a long time but couldn't find the copper coin. She turned and said to the air, "Phoenix, I will use the silver coin to buy the copper coin in your hand."

Black fog emerged, and Phoenix walked out of the fog. She touched her pocket and took out a small bag. Many of the copper coins she had just found from the corpse were still stained with blood. She collected them in a small bag. Adding up all the coins, she weighed them with her hand and estimated that there were only about 50 coins.

Rusalka took the small bag, looked at Phoenix's open hand, and handed her a silver coin, thus completing the loss-making transaction.

Then everyone saw Rusalka coming back with two wooden boxes of fruit and ordered the army behind her: "Come, divide it among you, and then continue marching north."