I went to talk with Mr. D'Aurora again to have a clear picture of the situation, where we were going to be assigned, and how will the movement be.
I will be moving with my group near the front of the caravan. The doctors, nurses, and paramedics have been divided between the sick patients forming smaller groups. Most groups don't have a dedicated fighter, but that's because they will be covering the streets in advance to prevent the beast from arriving at the main group.
Aurora clinic divided their hunting groups into teams of 5 the same as ours, together with the three teams that we brought as reinforcements there was a total of 10 teams, there was one group that was going to scout ahead and try to establish contact with the other two teams from Green Shelter.
For the meantime that left us with nine teams. Six teams at the front of the formation and three to protect the rear.
The teams that protected the rear will stay there all the time. The most complex work was for the people on the front, before crossing an intersection the group will be divided into three groups, one that will stay in the front of the formation as we advance and the other that will keep watch until the entire group crosses. At that time they will move forward. If the scouts come back with the other two teams, they will be added to the front, and instead of two teams in each group, there will be three teams.
Moving like this was going to be tiring for them so they will rotate positions from time to time, there were only two groups that were static and stay in their place. One of the rearguards was mostly composed of people with long-range weapons, the other was on the front and was composed of Milo and some goons with high defensive capabilities.
Milo came here in charge of the reinforcements, I think I also saw Gabriel with his RailFle on the group of the rearguard.
If I add myself, G, Ian and Emma's golems, we have 50 combatants. We have to add around 30 people with different levels of injuries or medical issues, approximately 30 medical staff, and probably at least another 50 people that were no-combatants. In the end, the entire caravan was composed of about 180 people if I add the three teams that weren't with us.
'Do they count for the mission?'
[Are they part of the caravan?]
'Not right now?'
[If they join the caravan they will count]
At least I'm not losing 15 people if they got killed in another place.
I was asked if there were any priorities, I decided that Javier and Nadja will stay near us so that my team could keep them safe in the case that something happens. The reason was simple, they were Espers with an unknown power. Beside them, some other people that I noticed had some power also stood near us.
It was sad, but this was the way for us to value lives now.
When we were ready to move, I looked at the others on my team. Seeing the number of people they got nervous. Actually, everyone was worried about the situation.
I was also nervous, but for different reasons. I think that my team and I had higher chances of arriving safely to Green Shelter, but if we have around 35 casualties, it would mean that I failed the mission and seeing the number of people that will be fighting it will be difficult.
'Rose, can you do something for me?'
'Sure, what you need?'
'I need you to go to Green Shelter to talk with Dr. Harting and tell him that we are on our way, so everything is ready for our arrival.'
She nodded, but instead of using Astral Portal right away she moved towards Nadja stretcher and stood there for a second.
'Sorry I was telling Nadja that I had to go for a while.'
'Oh, ok… where is she?'
'She sat on the stretcher with herself. I'll come back right away.'
She disappeared after entering my body.
All that was left was to wait for the signal for us to go. We were at the right of Nadja Stretcher, One of the goons was helping carry it together with some paramedics. The other goon was in front of us along with G, I was at the side of the formation.
Ian didn't have a combat-related power, so he was together with the rest and acted as the last defense in the case that a beast manages to pass all of us. I double checked my weapons once again to be sure that nothing fails in the middle of a fight.
"All of you have to be alert if you notice something weird say it. Robbert, establish a mental connection with Nadja and try to explain the overall situation to her, she probably already heard some things but there are probably a lot of confusing thing for her."
They all nodded and turned serious.
We were waiting a couple of minutes for the signal when suddenly a large explosion announced the start of the mission, the buildings started to collapse in the place blocking the path to follow us. Some beasts were able to pass anyway, but they were slain easily.
Well… that's clearly the signal.
The beginning was chaotic, some people tried to run and left their positions, but fortunately, it didn't last long. Each area had someone in charge to avoid this exact situation.
After a couple of minutes in which there were no attacks, everyone ended going back to their places. We were following the pace of the slowest moving people, unlike what you would expect it wasn't the stretchers but the wheelchairs. They had a hard time because of the damaged terrain in some parts.
We noticed that because while we were moving there was a moment that the front part of the caravan was separated from the rest. In the end, Mr. D'Aurora had to move the wheelchairs to the front so they could set the moving pace. This left us in the middle of the formation.
I was in full alert, and each time we passed an intersection I looked to see if there was any problem. Even if I wanted to use all my senses to the fullest, my expertise in controlling my smell sense was not good enough, so when I enhanced it even a little, I couldn't filter out the blood, and other odors coming from all the people around that confused me and made it worthless.
My hearing had a similar problem, I could enhance it, but I couldn't max it out, like with my sight. Taste and touch weren't that useful to scout, but at least Sight functioned perfectly as always, despite the high amount of auras I could see.
In the intersections I could see the teams fighting from time to time, I intervened to experiment a little with my ability, but there wasn't a full wave attacking us yet. At this pace, it would still take us a while to arrive at Green Shelter so the beasts will catch up sooner or later.
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After about an hour of walking, I noticed people were starting to relax a little too much, leisure talking, and laughing. I, on the other hand, was starting to get restless. The beast should have attacked already, it couldn't take them that long to arrive at where we were.
Something was off.
'Dante?'
'mmm~?'
'Are you deflecting beast from our route?'
'I'm cleaning a little the surroundings of Green Shelter~, but I don't reach to where you are~. Why?'
'The beasts attacks are too scarce… is Rose done with Dr. Harting?'
'Yeah, she is coming home right now~.'
'Can you ask her to come back?'
'She will do it anyway~. They might be called back by an Alpha~, like the Swamp Lord.'
'Swamp Lord?'
'… An alpha lizard~, the one planning an attack on the city and all that~, they could have been called back when you started to escape~. It's possible that they have enough intelligence to avoid something dangerous and not attack randomly~, they could have escaped from you so they would make a bigger attack on Green Shelter like what the reptiles want or even planning something else~… Most animals are stupid though~ so don't expect something too complex~…'
'Ok, thanks Dante. Bye.'
'You are welcome. Rose is arriving at the apartment by the way she should be back soon~. Bye~'
If they are simple-minded as Dante said even if the one giving orders is as smart as Dante, they shouldn't be able to follow an elaborate plan.
…
It became obvious.
"They are preparing an ambush."