"Has the situation really become that bad?" Charles asked the question, though it was fairly obvious he knew the answer already.
Nodding solemnly, Celestina explained, "The Zocam I just killed is a predatory type of Wild Beast that is usually only found in perpetually frozen wastelands. It should have been impossible for it to appear here, but it has. Something more than just displacement of beasts within the Great Western Forest is going on here, making the situation far more dangerous than I had anticipated."
"En, although there are some areas of the Barrier Mountains which remain snow-covered year-round, there's no such habitat between here and where the explosion occurred," Sasha muttered, "How could such a beast appear here?"
Shaking her head, Celestina continued, "I have no idea. As far as I knew, Zocams were only native to the far north of the continent, nowhere near here. What's more, a few other powerful beasts that have appeared don't seem to be local species either. It's like they were just randomly dropped into the Great Western Forest."
The room was silent for a time as everyone digested this disturbing information; however, with so few clues to go on, there didn't seem to be a way to unravel this mystery right now.
With no one having any suggestions about how to further investigate what was happening in the Great Western Forest, Charles brought the conversation back to the present, "How strong was the beast that appeared?"
"While the strongest of the Zocams had only just reached the Sixth Order and wasn't a problem for me to deal with, at their peak, this species can usually reach the Mid-Rank Sixth Order. Given the natural advantage beasts have over humans, if such a creature were to appear, even I might struggle against it," Celestina answered.
Frowning, Lucas surmised, "So, what Master means is, we have no idea what kind of beasts will emerge from the Great Western Forest, or how powerful they might be?"
"Indeed," Celestina acknowledged, "Any previous records of the bestiary in the Great Western Forest's periphery seem to be useless now."
The room suddenly fell silent, with all the adults and Lucas mulling over the rapidly deteriorating situation.
Eventually, it was Eris who spoke up in a somewhat forlorn tone, "Are we going to have to leave?"
Everyone else in the office frowned at that moment.
It was fairly obvious to them that it was no longer safe to remain here, so their best option would be to withdraw further from the forest, but none of them had been willing to actually say those words just now because of what they implied.
To put it simply, trying to evacuate all the townsfolk and villagers who were currently taking shelter in Redwood Town wasn't possible, at least not with the resources and personnel on hand.
It was one thing for the local villages to evacuate to Redwood Town as most were only a couple of hours walking distance away, but the nearest settlement that Redwood Town could evacuate to was Herald City.
The path from Redwood Town to Harold City was about 170 km long and quite rough, so even for a fit, healthy adult, it would take about 10 days to make the journey on foot while also carrying the necessary supplies and equipment to survive in the wilderness.
Of course, there were many wagons and horses available, so a kind of caravan could be formed to move people faster, but even then, it would be a long and arduous trek between the two settlements.
Assuming they could convince everyone to pack up and set out, organizing as many carts and wagons as possible to carry the less mobile civilians, trying to protect a group of nearly 6,000 refugees while hordes of rampaging beasts were running about nearby was completely impractical.
If they tried to flee Redwood Town under the current circumstances, even with Celestina and her soldiers to help, 50% of the civilians surviving the trip to Harold City was probably the upper limit.
"Evacuating now isn't an option," Charles stated unequivocally.
This wasn't Charles being unwilling to abandon his family's home and territory, but rather his fear that if they tried to escape, most of them would simply perish along the way. The way he saw it, staying and fighting was preferable, even if the odds were stacked against them.
"I agree," Celestina voiced her support, "Although we call it a 10-days-journey to the nearest city, that's only for a strong, healthy, well-prepared adult. We have scores of injured, elderly, and children here who will move much slower."
"There's also the supply issue," Sasha added, "We have enough food here for several months, but very little of it is portable. If we wanted to set up a large-scale caravan, we'd also need to take into consideration how to transport enough food and also how to cook it to feed everyone."
The adults all seemed to have reached the same conclusion. Their best bet was to stay put.
However, one individual in the room disagreed, "No, we need to evacuate, and I think I have a way we can do it."
By now, all of the adults had learned to not just dismiss Lucas' ideas even if they didn't seem reasonable at first glance, so they turned their eyes to him and waited for him to continue.
As for Eris, she had never doubted her smart little brother before, so she just fixed her gaze on him in anticipation.
Having gotten everyone's attention, Lucas first asked a question, "Master, how much fuel does the Sunchaser have left?"
Catching onto Lucas' thoughts, Celestina quickly did some estimations before shaking her head, "It won't work. While it's true that the distance between here and Herald City would be more than cut in half by flying, with the current reserves, the ship could at most make 15 return trips. Even if we crammed as many people onboard as possible, with no regard for comfort at all, the most we could transport that way would be a little less than 2,000."
Celestina admitted it was a creative idea, using what was considered a major military asset as a refugee transportation device, but on top of not being very practical, it wouldn't be very effective either.
There were some 6,000 people currently taking refuge in Redwood Town, meaning about a third of them could be evacuated on the Sunchaser; it was significant number, but far from enough.
"We could at least use the Skyship to evacuate the children and the injured, that would allow us to move quite a bit faster if we have to evacuate by ground," Charles spoke up, thinking Lucas' idea was still worth considering.
"If we only needed to send children below the age of 15, we could probably do it. There are about 1,000 of them, so the numbers still work, but we can't just send them alone. A significant number of adults would need to go with them," Sasha shook her head, "As for the injured, they're an even bigger problem. There are over 1,000 people with serious wounds in town, and there's no way we can just cram them in like we would ordinary people."
Many in the room nodded at Sasha's analysis.
Even in ordinary times, sending a large group of young children to an unfamiliar city all on their own would be questionable, so sending hundreds of them, unattended, to the surely chaotic Harold City right now would likely be life-threatening.
The older kids would probably be able to help corral the younger ones, but a fair number of strong adults would still be needed to guide and protect them. For the roughly 1,000 children in Redwood Town, ranging from newborns to 15-years-old, sending 100 able-bodied adults would likely be the bare-minimum requirement to maintain order and safety.
Then there was the matter of selecting who would go and who would stay, as well as how to convince the parents of these children to let them go. Needless to say, it would be difficult to pull this off; however, this was nothing compared to trying to transport the numerous wounded and injured.
Simply put, you could force 3 or 4 healthy adults to squish into a tight space for an hour without any issues; it would be uncomfortable, but nothing that couldn't be walked off on the other side of the trip. However, you couldn't just pile people who were missing limbs or who were unconscious and barely breathing on top of each other.
Trying to move critical patients in such cramped conditions would at minimum be excruciatingly painful, and at worst, deadly.
The simple solution would be to leave some of the injured behind, or force them to take the land route, but again, how were they supposed to choose who goes and who stays?
Would the families of the injured even agree to evacuate if they knew their wounded loved ones were essentially being abandoned?
Just as the adults were beginning to debate the pros and cons of using the Skyship, Lucas cut in again, "Wait wait wait, what I wanted to ask, Master, was how long could the Spirit Crystals last if all the Sunchaser had to do was float?"
Tilting her head in confusion, Celestina didn't understand why her First Disciple was asking such a question; after all, even if the Sunchaser could float off the ground, if it just stayed put, it wouldn't help them evacuate at all.
Still, Celestina didn't think Lucas would be making pointless inquires in this situation, so she thought about it for a moment before concluding, "Maintaining a fixed altitude consumes about a third the World Qi from the Spirit Crystals compared to flying at a normal cruising speed. So, if the ship just had to float, I'd guess that it could operate for about 80 hours before completely depleting the current reserves."
Lucas fell into contemplation upon hearing this, doing some calculations of his own before muttering, "That might be enough…"