'Maybe the dungeon never planned to let the Deux city survive the upcoming warfare?'

It was not unlikely that the dungeon wanted everything to happen as it was currently the case, and maybe it was only Shane and Ilya's advantage that made them believe it was possible to protect Deux.

Nevertheless, Shane couldn't help but feel that there was a chance as long as the fittest citizens helped too.

Some of them could assist the soldiers by reloading the crossbows while the soldiers were to aim and shoot, but that was not possible for every single citizen.

Their aim might not be perfect either, but that was also no problem as long as the enemies were close enough to inflict some kind of injury.

As long as the city walls stood strong, there wouldn't be a problem with allowing the Ara race to approach the city's border.

That was because Shane had yet to see anyone with long-range weapons!!

When he had handed out the crossbows, the city lord had been astonished, yet it didn't seem like he was oblivious to that kind of weapon.

However, that was exactly what made Shane suspicious about everything that happened on the third floor until now because the crossbow could be considered a game-changer!

Were they in a different dimension right now? Was the dungeon messing with their head and everything was an illusion, or are the three kingdoms real, deprived of their freedom, forced to come back to alive every single time the dungeon reopens, only to witness the same missions over and over again?

Shane didn't know, and it was only when he heard a lesser demon's mumbling that he realised something essential!

"Isn't that a crossbow? Since when has the world's voice allowed us to produce them once again? Weren't they forbidden?

"

Because of that, Shane learned several things.

The demons knew about crossbows, they were forbidden to produce them, and it was a certain voice that set this restriction.

While the voice should have been the dungeon itself as it was a sentient being and could transmit thoughts, the former information allowed Shane to comprehend that the demons knew more than they revealed.

Other than that, it was also possible for the demons to be a part of the system's world, only in a restrictive manner, allowing the participants of the third-floor task to create a disastrous advantage.

The existence of almost 10,000 crossbows with more than a half-million mana bolts was more than enough to disrupt the balance between the three kingdoms, and Shane was aware of this.

That was also the reason for him to eye the city lord curiously, as he tried to gauge whether he would become greedy after Shane had dragged their race out of the disastrous state they had been in.

Fortunately, he sensed no such thing, and the Astral Artisans emerged only a moment later out of the Hidden Paradise.

With several portals that suddenly materialized around Shane, it was almost as if he had summoned the craftsmen around them.

This astonished the city lord and everyone around, but neither Shane nor the artisans had time to bother about that.

There was lots of work to do!

While Shane tried to explain several possible strategies to the city lord that they could employ, his Astral artisans had already started to work.

They tried to ignore the hideous looks of the demon race, but it was hardly possible.

Some younger members were using their utmost efforts to stop trembling and others maintained a poker face, only for their body to be covered with goosebumps that exposed them!

Meanwhile, Princess Ilya was taking a look at the city's infrastructure and state of citizens.

Everyone who was capable of using a crossbow even remotely was told to gather in front of the city lord.

Ilya was handing out food and other necessities too, trying to make the situation of the young and elderly as easy as possible.

They were hit the worst, and it was not difficult to perceive that they were the ones to die first, even if there wouldn't be a second attack by the Ara race.

In the end, the entire situation was worse than Ilya, and even Shane had estimated.

Even if Deux were to win the warfare against the Ara race, there was a food shortage and a lack of a proper sleeping place.

Many roofs had been destroyed, and it made both Shane and Princess Ilya wonder as to how that was even possible.

There shouldn't have been an attack that caused the destruction of roofs.

As such, they believed that the city must have been likely hit by a natural disaster or something else destroying every single building inside Deux city.

It was only when they had figured out that the cause of all problems was acid rain.

The soil didn't have enough nutrition to plant something in it due to the acid rain, and the houses had turned unfit for living because of the same reason!

Because the dungeon task told them to protect the kingdom, finding a solution to this was a necessity too!

As such, Shane had told Talia to search for certain cement, a protection film or other possibilities to protect the various structures and buildings from being affected by acid rain.

At the same time, he told Louis to take a look at possible plants that didn't require much nutrition and could survive in the acid rain.

There were multiple plants Shane could think of, but all of them required lots of nutrition. As such, they were not useful for the Karn race's situation.

Trying to find out and solve every issue the Karn kingdom had was not easy because both Shane and Ilya were strangers who shouldn't have a reason to act as saviors at all.

It was suspicious and both Shane and Ilya were fully aware of this as they felt the same.

However, what else could they do? There was a task they had to fulfill after all!

Nevertheless, the lesser demons couldn't complain because Shane and Ilya's help was what they had prayed for, and it didn't even matter that they had destroyed the Ara race's cathedral to cause another attack of the addict Ara race.

They were trying to help after all!

In the end, the demons were tired of being under a constant attack that was monthly or more often.

It was frustrating and a full-scale attack of the Ara race might as well determine the fate of the Karn kingdom.

Being afraid of the unknown attacks every now and then was worse than knowing that one was freed as long as they survived and emerged victorious in the next large-scale battle!

They hadn't been confident in the beginning, but with the city walls that were rapidly rebuilt and the mana-sphere crossbows, this had begun to change slowly.

Shane and Princess Ilya couldn't fight against a huge army of addict Aras alone. As such, they were glad that the demons were not discouraged to fight.

Instead, it was the complete opposite.

This was great and gave Shane and Princess Ilya the necessary motivation to give their utmost efforts to sustain the fewest casualties.

Three days had passed without an attack before a report from the surrounding demon scouts arrived.

"Most enemies are at the Expert stage, but there are not many with a mana purity of 60% or higher.

With Umbra, fending off these attacks wouldn't be much of a problem. However, the real issue is the commanders because they have a pitch-black rune on their chest, and the mana fluctuations radiating from them are vast, to put it simply.

There should be more than 10 of them, and their combat prowess should be comparable to someone with a mana purity of 93%!

"

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