A month passed since Blanc and Helena started making preparations for the war.
After a meeting about strategies and the allocation of men, Blanc decided to station most of his men in Fort Shadowsong.
He allocated 17,000 men to defend Fort Shadowsong while he stationed the remaining 2,250 men in Blasridge City (Formerly Dumont City) because he felt there was a small chance that the city might be attacked.
Blanc also wanted to assign Alexander to defend Blasridge City but unfortunately, the three Swordmasters from Kairuku Kingdom prevented him from doing that.
In addition to this, the Samara Kingdom themselves might have two or three Swordmasters so he cannot afford to assign Alexander to defend a city with no confirmed attackers.
Currently, Blanc is on his way to Fort Shadowsong because Helena and Alexander alone would not be able to defend the fort from the enemy's Swordmasters.
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Inside Fort Shadowsong's great hall, Alexander and Helena had been racking their brains while trying to figure out what to do best.
The two of them know that their army is vastly outnumbered and it wasn't the same situation as before when it was the weak soldiers of the Dumont Dukedom who were attacking.
This time, properly trained soldiers and war veterans from actual kingdoms are attacking them. Not only are they outnumbered, but some of the opponent's elites are actually on par with their elites.
Due to this, the two of them know that they cannot simply overwhelm the enemy in a head-on fight as they did against the Dumont Dukedom.
"Tch! If this stupid Kairuku Kingdom didn't join then it would be much easier!"
Helena complained as she ruffled her hair in frustration. She didn't like thinking about strategies like these but she's a grand marshal now so she had to put in some effort to learn military tactics.
Although Helena had always been gifted with sharp instincts on the battlefield, there would come a day when she would need theoretical knowledge to efficiently defeat the enemies so she set up a military meeting with Alexander.
Unfortunately, although Alexander had studied a lot about military strategies during the past two years, his knowledge wasn't enough to find an immediate solution to their problem of being outnumbered.
*Knock* *Knock*
Helena and Alexander looked at each other and after a while, the two of them smiled.
Alexander immediately stood up, opened the door, and upon confirming that it was indeed Blanc who arrived, he knelt on the ground and said.
"Greetings, Your Majesty!"
Blanc sighed after seeing Alexander was still the same old stiff and formal guy.
"Alex, I already told you that when it's just the three of us, there's no need to kneel. We're practically brothers now so there's no need to perform such formalities when no eyes are watching."
After hearing what Blanc said, Alexander stood up and gave Blanc a slight bow.
"Apologies, King Blanc, I will try to comply next time."
Blanc nodded before walking towards Helena who was trying her hardest not to laugh. Watching Blanc and Alexander's awkward and stiff conversations was always hilarious for her.
Upon seeing Helena trying so hard to restrain her laugh, Blanc couldn't help but display a fake frown on his face.
"HAHAHAHAHA! S-Sorry Blanc, it was just too funny for me…Should we resume the meeting soon?"
He knew that Helena would burst out laughing if he frowned so he did it to let her have some fun before engaging in war as Rougenfort Kingdom's Grand Marshal.
He also liked hearing Helena's laugh anyway so why not ride along?
After a short moment of distraction, the three of them immediately got back to talking about military strategies.
"Hnnghh…I'm struggling on this part Blanc, should we defend inside the walls or should we position some infantry in front of the walls?"
Helena asked Blanc with a confused look on her face. Seeing that she was trying so hard to learn which strategy was more effective in this scenario, Blanc smiled.
He then explained that in this case, simply staying inside the fort was way better because the opponent's soldiers were as strong as theirs.
In addition to this, the area in front of the fort is a wide open field so the opponents had no choice but to either climb the walls with ladders or siege towers because they would suffer if they stayed in the range of the archers and the Resonance Ballistas.
Now, once the enemies have started climbing the walls, it would be very easy for them to defend by simply destroying the ladders and holding the choke points of the siege towers.
Unless the enemy had any more unique weapons to break through the walls, then there should be no problem for them to defend for a long time.
Since Blasridge City is very close to Fort Shadowsong, logistics weren't a problem for them either, unlike the Kairuku Army who had limited food supplies, and if their logistics officers weren't competent, their army would collapse in a month.
Of course, the Samara Kingdom can temporarily supply them with food supplies but how long can they last when they have to feed twice the amount of people compared to Rougenfort Kingdom?
After hearing Blanc's explanation, Helena was enlightened.
It seems that a battle of attrition is very advantageous for them, however, the question is, would they be able to last that long when both their soldiers and Swordmasters are outnumbered?