The war was not over.
The Nobles supporting the Mad Dog Duke kept sending their private troops south.
The Nobles supporting Annan and Girardi, meanwhile, kept sending south the news that "the Nobles supporting the Mad Dog Duke kept sending their private troops south."
Girardi cursed them, declaring that he would punish them once he became Grand Duke. Annan gave him an odd look.
"Uh... I'm human. I don't have the Blood of Madness."
"I know. I just thought you were being too lenient."
It would be at least a week before the Mad Dog Duke returned. There was no time to extend the Great Wall from the west, but there was time to build a stretch of wall several hundred meters long.
Free City, now swollen to thirty thousand residents, began to mobilize.
First came the expansion of the musketeers. The first unit had suffered heavy losses, so its survivors were divided among a replenished First Unit and the newly formed Second and Third Squad.
Luoxi commanded the First Unit of Guards, Femi commanded the Second Unit of Hellfire, and one of the Thirty-Four Jacks, newly promoted to Soldier Captain, commanded the Third Squad.
If most of the residents had not still been malnourished, Annan would have expanded the force to five Musketeer Corps. Instead, he established two reserve corps to replace casualties in the three active ones.
Turning cavalry who had never touched a Magic Musket into elite soldiers would take time. Building defenses would not. Men, women, the elderly, and children all contributed to the wall.
Workers built the wall. Men and women carried cement, while the elderly and children delivered water and food.
Annan also had Olmedo record a short Magic Film, which was projected above the construction site through a Magic Stone:
"Every drop of