Slowly through the day some of the original group from the academy that went out to fight, returned to the mansion. Even one of the senior students managed to return, although less than intact.
Gene was happy to see them make it back, healing them as soon as they stepped foot back into the mansions gate.
She waited there for most of the day, but only a total of thirty people came back during that time. Gene saw that dusk had come, holding back the tears she asked the guards at the gate to shut it. Exhausted from healing all day, she trudged weakly back to her room.
Thousands had gone out to face the beast tide, and thirty four returned. The students that stayed in the mansion couldn't help feeling ashamed, but secretly they were relieved that they chose not to go.
Arqin was very hectic over the following days, cleaning up the corpses, harvesting the huge amount of monsters. The losses to the personnel of the city were far greater than they expected, but also the value of the tide itself was exponentially higher.
The city lord was killed in the battle to give Regis a chance to attack, but even if he wasn't, with the decision he made to sacrifice the warriors, he wouldn't have been able to keep his position.
The survivors didn't know how they should feel about the city lords actions. It's true that they had resentment, but he was out there with them, facing the monsters head on. The consensus agreed upon by the survivors was that his actions although ruthless, were justifiable and he was laid to rest with the honours of a heroic lord of the city.
Naturally the missing magic core belonging to the ogre was noticed, but in that time the twins had met with Eris and Regis and traded it to them for some very favourable benefits. So Regis came out and said it was in his possession, which quickly silenced those trying to cause turmoil.
The news that most of the guards, as well as many students from the noble military families had fallen in the monster tide of Arqin, headed by an opal ranked ogre; sent shock waves through the capital. The academy learned that only thirty four people made it back from the battle, and Regis as the strongest was heavily injured during the battle, so Eris could only wait for reinforcements to arrive.
The top management of the academy deliberated on the seriousness of the situation for many days. They were busy trying to calm the fervour of the families who had lost children. The loss of thousands of gold ranked guards was also a heavy blow to the academy's power.
The academy still had convoys that hadn't returned from the other three directions yet, so their manpower at the moment, was sorely lacking.
The deliberation ended with the academy deciding to send out their last reserve force. A thousand more guards, lead by a Platinum rank teacher. No matter what happened after that, the academy wouldn't be able to send anyone else to reinforce the group. If it weren't for the status of the senior students accompanying the Eastern convoy, perhaps the academy wouldn't even bother to send out those reinforcements.
The head of the academy herself had to accept the brunt of the dissatisfaction since it was her idea to send the groups out to each city to recruit talented commoners. It cost a lot for the academy to soothe the emotions of the people involved. And they hadn't even received a single group back yet.
The academy's management could only hope that the value of those recruits proved enough, to offset what they had paid for them.
The communication was returned to Arqin, letting Eris know of the academy's decision.
"It seems they sent the reserve force" Regis said unsurprised.
"That's all they had left, without jeopardising their own safety" Eris responded to him, while she finished reading the letter.
When they had received the communication it had been two weeks since the battle ended. The field outside the city had been cleaned to the best of the city's ability, but the barren land and bloody smell still proved what had gone on not long before. The civilians from the towns and villages had also returned to their homes to try and clean up the mess left by the tide. The entire area around Arqin began to rebuild.
The newly appointed city lord was sent by the Emperor from the capital. He wasn't a warrior like the previous city lord, which made the remaining members of the city's government feel a little dissatisfied. Since the city lord is also seen as the city's protector, having a regular person take over the city, especially one of the inner cities close to the capital, felt like a humiliation. But the most important thing for them was to get Arqin back on track, so they could only bury their thoughts temporarily and focus their efforts towards stabilising the people.
Eris and Regis were waiting for the arrival of the reserve force, when they heard a bit of information that surprised them.
"Why have they moved after all this time?" Regis asked with confusion.
"I'm not sure, but I do know that they were in a rush to get to Etrida as quickly as possible" Eris replied.
The Drenswick family had been sending communications through the family's network trying to figure out which of the branches had gone to Etrida. It wasn't until they had checked multiple times that they realised that none had gone that far East in decades. The revelation was a blow to the great elders in the family, who had been expecting a new addition to the family's combat strength.
It wasn't until the elders in charge of the Drenswick ancestry records sifted through the various main and branch families that they finally found something amiss.
"A girl from the branch family in Arqin was lost near Rusvil twenty years ago. She might have given birth to a child that accidentally accepted the ancestors blessing" the elder in charge of ancestry relayed to the rest of the elders sitting in the meeting room.
"There's no other way?" one of the elders asked.
"No. We've checked everyone else. They haven't been anywhere near Etrida. Nor have they been unaccounted for. The only possibility is for it to be a descendant that was never included in the genealogy to begin with" the elder in charge of ancestry records reiterated.