For the next hour or so, the small group of 4 continued discussing what to do next, and how to go about doing it.
During this time, Celestina's adjutant, Allina Crest, and the Vice-Captain of the Redwood Town Guard, Carl, joined the meeting after completing the tasks they had been previously assigned.
A steady stream of runners and messengers also delivered updates from around town, adding to the information which was available to the group of leaders.
While Carl had grown somewhat used to the sight of Lucas participating in high-level discussions about Redwood Town, Allina was initially quite confused about the little boy's presence. However, since her Lord and commanding officer didn't raise any objections, she also held her tongue.
Of course, after engaging with Lucas on a variety of subjects, Allina was shocked to discover the depth of the young boy's knowledge about both strategy and tactics. The creative ideas and insightful points that Lucas continuously brought up also greatly impressed the military veteran.
Unfortunately, despite putting the best minds in Redwood Town together and working through a multitude of proposals, the meeting ultimately proved quite frustrating to everyone involved.
The simple truth was there was too much to do, and too little to do it with.
Celestina and the troops she had brought were all elites among elites, but no matter how strong each of them was individually, there were still just 40 of them. There were only so many places they could be at once, and only so long they could fight continuously without tiring.
Although Redwood Town was undoubtedly the first human settlement to be hit by the effects of the explosion in the Great Western Forest, the fallout from that event would likely affect every town and city situated on the western edge of the Rockwell Kingdom.
Desperate beasts would spread out from the initial blast zone, which would disturb more distant eco-systems, which would in turn set off more territorial disputes, migrations, and stampedes, starting the process all over again, forming a vicious cycle.
Now, there would certainly be a limit to the spread of this chaos, but where that limit would appear, no one could yet tell.
On top of that, even if the risk of a horde of beasts swarming out of the forest ebbed as one headed further north, that didn't mean the distant cities and settlements wouldn't still be in danger from powerful, lone beast attacks, especially flying ones.
A Sixth Order Great Oriyan had already shown up in Redwood Town, and although its appearance ultimately proved beneficial, there were many other types of avian beasts out there, and most were not nearly as friendly.
Even a single Fourth Order flying beast could prove to be a huge menace if it attacked a smaller human settlement, and such a creature's range of movement was much, much farther than a similarly power terrestrial beast.
As for Fifth or Sixth Order predatory flying beasts, if one were to appear in any of the towns or cities of the South-West Province, it would surely wreak absolute havoc and cause the loss of many lives.
The direct threat of Wild Beasts attacking humans was certainly an immediate concern; however, the greater threat was actually far more subtle.
Redwood Town was a little more than halfway through its fall harvest, but even that level of progress was largely thanks to coordinated efforts and getting starting several days ahead of schedule.
In other words, the food situation in Redwood Town was likely better than most other places in the South-West Province.
Elsewhere, in farming villages, towns, and cities, harvest season had just barely begun, with most settlements having collected and processed less than a quarter of all their crops.
Now, hundreds of thousands of Wild Beasts were flooding out of the Great Western Forest, trampling vast tracks of farmland while destroying pastures and fields used for livestock. It didn't matter that over 90% of these Wild Beasts were just First Order, the damage a single boar or deer could do to a field was still immense.
Large numbers of people had already died in the Newton Barony, victims of the fangs and claws of stampeding beasts, but if the situation wasn't quickly contained and relief efforts implemented, the widespread famine that almost assuredly would follow could easily kill 10 times as many.
To put it in military terms, the kingdom had been hit by a massive surprise attack on its undefended western border, and it had no way of quickly fortifying or reinforcing the threatened territory, allowing the enemy to simply run rampant.
When Celestina first set out from Misty City, her intention was to investigate the situation and set up some kind of defence perimeter to contain the crisis. To that end, she had loaded a large amount of spears, shields, bows, arrows, and armour aboard the Sunchaser, enough to equip 3 full Battalions, 300 people in total.
However, as she got closer to the actually disaster and surveyed the ongoing damage from the air, she realized she had greatly underestimated just how large the crisis was. Now, after obtaining a comprehensive report from the locals in Redwood Town, Celestina knew that launching an investigation would have to wait.
Right now, her only priority had to be protecting lives and stemming the damage.
Several suggestions were made to address these issues, but each of them was quickly struck down due to lack of personnel.
Not all of the Masters who had come with Celestina needed to stay in Redwood Town to keep it secure, but even with 400 or so hastily recruited local militia, guarding some 6,000 civilians from constant beast attacks would require most of the General's elite soldiers to remain nearby.
At the very least, Celestina figured that half of the troops she brought would be needed to fortify Redwood Town. Excluding the Spirit Doctors, the remaining half her force consisted of just 6 Spirit Initiates and 12 Sea Establishment Practitioners, which was hardly enough to set up any kind of border patrol.
Without proper mounts, and taking the need for rest and equipment maintenance into consideration, 6 Commanders, 12 Captains, and 100 militia could maybe secure a 25 km stretch of border land without leaving too many obvious gaps. Compared to the nearly 600 km long section of the South-West Province which bordered the Great Western Forest, this wasn't even worth mentioning.
In the end, a much more conservative approach was decided upon, whereby the first priority would be to secure Redwood Town and its surroundings as best as possible. Some hunting parties would be set up, along with a few external patrols, but for the most part, they would just hunker down.
Of course, sitting on their hands and waiting wouldn't accomplish anything, so at the same time, Celestina decided to send 4 Spirit Initiates and 12 Sea Establishment Realm Practitioners from the troops she had brought with her to the South-West Province's 4 closest major cities, including Herald City.
Celestina felt that instead of using her limit personnel to sparsely patrol the vast western border, it would be better to have the Spirit Initiates under her command move out and organize more local forces to join the battle.
By using the Sunchaser, it would take less than a day to drop these Spirit Initiate Commanders off at the various cities where they could begin organizing whatever troops were available to expand the defence perimeter or at least secure the local region.
The only city not included in this plan was Southbridge, the capital city of the Drax Family, as it was both the furthest away and best defended settlement in the South-West Province. Southbridge would also likely be the place the kingdom's army from the Royal Province would first pass through on their way from the capital, so Celestina figured it would be safe either way.
Using the Sunchaser in this manner was extremely expensive; for reference, to get to Redwood Town, the Skyship had flown at maximum cruising speed for over 12 hours straight and then activated its Wind Burst Array, consuming over 3,500 Low-Grade Spirit Crystals in the process. Still, Celestina knew that now wasn't the time to be concerned about cost, as every moment they delayed, enormous amounts of damage was being done to the kingdom.
The faster an organized resistance could be put together, the better the situation could be contained, and the more the losses could be minimized.
After issuing the necessary orders, the meeting then moved on to other subjects such as organizing search parties for possible survivors in the surrounding villages, what to do with the various slain beasts, how to handle all of the wounded, what kind immediate and long-term aid Redwood Town and the South-West Province as a whole would require, and so on and so forth.
All of this put together made for a daunting task.
Just as the group was beginning to discuss possible relief measures to request from the capital, though, one of the herbalist assistants from the infirmary knocked on the office door to deliver an important message, Eris had woken up.