For the first quarter-hour after the Great Oriyan left, Redwood Town remained relatively calm. Perhaps it was the lingering aura of the Sixth Order Beast, or perhaps it was the scent it had left behind acting as a deterrent.
Whatever the reason, for a short period of time, no Wild Beasts dared to approach the human settlement.
However, this was never meant to last.
Approximately 20 minutes after the giant Spirit Beast departed, hunters' horns began blaring again from the western outskirts of town.
The first horn that sounded was like a grim herald's call, signaling the beginning of a calamity; and, from that moment on, the flood of Wild Beasts basically never ceased.
Fortunately, during the roughly 4 hours period that the Great Oriyan was in Redwood Town, the barricades had been expanded and many more traps were set.
Most importantly, the number of defenders stationed at the western barricades had almost doubled during this time. Some people were re-assigned after evacuations inside the town was finished, but most of the new recruits were from the recently arrived village refugees.
The villager militia had even worse arms and armour than the already motley crew from Redwood Town, but they were strong, able, and willing to fight, so no one who met the minimum standard was refused.
At first, by rotating people off the front lines, allowing the tired to rest and the injured to be treated, the barricades held firm against the various beast attacks, but as the hours dragged on, fatigue began to set in and the situation grew ever more dire.
2 hours after the Great Oriyan left, just after midnight had passed, under the light of Spirit Lamps and torches, Charles and 5 others had left the security of the barricade to engage in a fierce melee with a hulking Crested Kodiak.
The bear was over 3 metres tall when it reared up on its hind legs, and a single swipe of its claws was powerful enough to knock a fully armoured man off his feet.
It took all 6 of the defenders working together, striking at the beast from all direction, just to pin it down; otherwise, it would have smashed through the makeshift barricade already and wrought havoc amidst the weaker fighters.
Every now and then, an arrow would fly over and sink into the flesh of the Kodiak, but rather than injure the beast, these attacks only seemed to enrage it further, causing it to become even wilder and more aggressive.
Agilely dodging a smack from the beast's foreclaw, Charles dove in close and delivered a long slash to the Kodiak's flank, cutting a deep wound into it and drawing a hot spurt of blood. Before Charles could withdraw, the bear swung its entire frame towards him and smashed him away, sending him tumbling several metres before he crashed into a nearby building.
Charles' teammates were naturally worried about the Town Lord when they saw him being knocked down, but they didn't dare to divert their attention, or they would be next.
Taking advantage of the Kodiak's distraction, 3 members of Charles' group with spears stabbed the beast from the opposite side, further injuring it. In response, the bear violently swung a claw at them. Fortunately for these 3, the Kodiak was off-balance from having just tackled Charles, so it took longer to shift its weight back, allowing them to avoid the deadly attack.
This dangerous dance continued for nearly 10 minutes before the Crested Kodiak's wounds became too numerous. Having lost too much blood, the beast became sluggish and slowed down just enough for Charles to sink his sword deep into its neck.
As the furious light in the bear's eyes finally went out, Charles and his team all breathed a deep sigh of relief.
This Crested Kodiak was a Low Third Order Beast, equivalent to a Second or Third Step Core Formation Practitioner, so even with Charles being in the First Step Core Formation Realm, and the other 5 members of his team being experienced Vein Opening warriors, it hadn't been an easy fight.
In fact, half of them were now sporting non-minor injuries, including Charles who had a nasty gash on his left shoulder that was dripping blood down his arm.
The one fortunate turn of events in all of this was that the presence of the Crested Kodiak had kept many of the weaker wolves, foxes, deer, and boar away from the main street barricade; but now that it was dead, those beasts would soon return.
Looking down at the large predator, Charles wasn't sure what to feel. If this had been back during his adventuring days, he would have been celebrating as every part of this Crested Kodiak could be sold for a great deal of money.
Right now, however, this supposedly valuable corpse was just another burden he had to deal with.
Shaking his head, Charles let out a sigh before waving over the volunteers from the non-combat team.
"Same as last time, try to drag the body out past the town limits; fall back if the horns sound again. We'll deal with it later if something doesn't deal with it first," Charles ordered in a dull, flat tone before he and his team withdrew to get treated. The night had barely begun, yet he had already gotten a serious injury, which didn't bode well for what was to come.
Once he was back behind the barricade, Charles immediately headed to one of the nearby houses which had been set up like a field hospital with soap, boiled water, needles, and bandages.
Just as Charles sat down, and one of the Herbalist apprentices came up to help dress his wound, Old Austin, the taciturn hunter who had taught Lucas about tapping lych trees for their sap, came up to Charles with a graver-than-usual look on his face.
Charles wanted nothing more than to ignore this grumpy old man, because he could tell that Austin was bringing him bad news just by the latter's expression, but not hearing bad news wouldn't make it go away, so with an exhausted voice, Charles simply muttered, "What?"
The gruff old hunter, who was technically Charles' elder, wrinkled his nose for a moment before stating bluntly, "We're almost out of arrows."
"Huh?" Charles could barely believe his ears when those words came out and responded with a dumbfounded look, "How can we be out of arrows already?"
"It was inevitable," Austin, who once served as an archer and scout in the kingdom's army, simply replied, finding the situation perfectly understandable.
"What's that supposed to… tsss…" Charles began to raise his voice in frustration, but the stinging of the soap and water on his wound quickly cooled his head. Gritting his teeth, the local Baron took a deep breath and tried to steady himself.
The old hunter, still with a frown on his face, decided he had said what needed to be said, turned around, and headed back to his post. Stopping at the door, old man Austin briefly said, "I'll tell the boys to be more careful picking their targets. You try to find us more arrows."
Damn it, where am I supposed to find more arrows at this point?! Charles cursed to himself.
For the rest of the time his wound was being dressed, Charles wracked his brain trying to come up with a way to procure more of the precious projectiles, but he always came back to the same conclusion, there wasn't one.
The Town Guard kept a stock of roughly 3,000 arrows, which before today everyone had considered excessive.
For a remote place like Redwood Town, which was not along a major trading route and was nowhere near a national border, there was simply no need to maintain a large garrison for defensive purposes. The same logic applied to keeping large amounts of weapons and armour on hand, including arrows.
These were not ordinary times, though.
As tonight's defence was being organized, Charles had sent people to the various blacksmiths and equipment shops in town to collect any and all usable weapons. This search, along with contributions from individual hunters, adventurers, and the later arriving villagers yielded another 2,000 or so arrows.
When he first heard that there was a combined stockpile of 5,000 arrows, Charles had smiled heartily, thinking this would surely be enough to last a few days; but clearly, he had been mistaken.
Unable to comprehend what had gone wrong, Charles was forced to consult with Farah again; however, her response completely flabbergasted him.
"Oh, they lasted longer that I expected," Farah commented casually.
"Huh?" Charles muttered in a dumb tone.
Tilting her head at his confusion, it took Farah a moment to remember that despite inheriting the title of Baron, Charles hadn't actually been groomed for this role at all and only assumed it after his elder brother passed away in an unfortunate accident.
Charles had also never served in the army, so he was unfamiliar with the situation Redwood Town was in.
"This isn't a hunt, it's a siege. Expending arrows rapidly is perfectly normal," Farah explained, "On top of that, the archers here are basically all hunters or adventurers, used to bringing down their targets before they get too close. Even if we've told them to hold back, it's not easy to ignore years of ingrained habits."
When it was spelled out like this for Charles, he quickly understood. He knew that he was leading the defense of the town, but since the enemy was a horde of beasts, he had unconsciously been thinking about it like he would a hunt.
While his doubts had been answered, this didn't actually provide Charles with a solution to the problem.
What Farah said next, however, set his mind a bit more at ease, "Austin was right, running out of arrows was inevitable. What's more, it's the middle of the night, so most of our archers aren't able to hit anything from any kind of distance. It would be better to make them join the melee fighters, rather than waste what arrows we have left."
"Are you saying we should just do nothing?" Charles asked in a somewhat dumbfounded tone.
"Pretty much," Farah shrugged nonchalantly, "In fact, you should have all but the best archers stop firing entirely for now."
Pursing his lips, Charles nodded before making his way back to the temporary command post, where he would deliver the bad news to the archers.
After discussing the matter with Austin, who while not pleased still accepted the order, Charles sent runners to the other 5 barricades to have the archers preserve what arrows they had left.
Just in case, Charles also sent a runner to the Manor in hopes that someone might have a clever solution to boost the number of arrows.
Charles had barely finished issuing this last round of instructions before the horns sounded again, blaring twice from multiple directions, indicating that significant threats had appeared.
With no time to spare, the Town Lord grabbed his sword, which still had traces of blood on it from the last battle he fought, and rushed out to the barricade for the next engagement.