Seeing it with his own eyes was far more shocking than watching it on Magic Film. That bombing run alone had reduced at least hundreds of thousands of Ratfolk to ash. What pained Annan wasn't their deaths, or even the thousands of pounds of oil they had dropped, worth several thousand gold narls. It was that after killing so many Ratfolk, they couldn't recover a single pair of rat ears.
Evelyn hadn't understood at first, so Annan compared it to shopping: "I can accept paying a hundred gold narls for something. But if I forget to use a coupon that would've saved me fifty silver coins, I'll be devastated."
Evelyn understood at once and began mourning the loss with him.
"My army's in position. Let's join forces and take Old Val Town."
Grand Marshal Garkin didn't answer. Instead, he asked, "Do you have much more of that oil?"
Annan shook his head, then remembered Garkin couldn't see him. "That batch alone would take my alchemy workshop three days to produce."
"You won't be any help."
Grand Marshal Garkin was as cold as a client who had paid for the hour. "Give me all your oil, then take your people and hold the Graypeak Mountains."
Annan said nothing. He simply had the Reconnaissance Airship drop off a highlight reel of the defense of the Northern Great Wall.
"You can't do it."
Grand Marshal Garkin still held to that verdict. Annan was ready to argue, but one sentence stopped him cold.
"Whether the plan succeeds or fails, the losses will be devastating. Even I'll die here. Can you accept losing every cavalryman you've trained so carefully?"
Annan was alarmed. "Surely things haven't come to that..."
This wasn't the main battlefield, after all. Taking Old Val Town wouldn't change the overall situation. In