Chapter 197 - Why this Valley?

Rachel

Everyone stood and observed the icy encasement for a while longer but no one said anything. There was nothing they could do.

Some had tears welling up and falling, others looked downcast at who they thought would lead them for years to come. Rachel herself was upset.

Before the System, she and Christopher weren't the closest in the world but they had spent a decent amount of time together practicing their various skills. Other than watching him grow up, she got to watch him grow in a different way.

It was odd to have that pillar removed from her life. She hadn't even known the pillar had been there in the first place. The sturdy...strength he had that made nothing seem to be out of hand. Hell, he fought the waves alone!? Having someone who did that just took the edge off as they explored their new circumstances.

Besides the silent but steady support being gone, she became that support for everybody else. Rachel wasn't sure if it was an unconscious thing, but it was like they looked toward the next powerful person to lean on.

She didn't hate doing so, but after the day she had, and standing over the near-dead body of her nephew, she wasn't prepared for this.

The people from their City arriving to ask for directions only made it worse.

She had to tear herself away and take care of matters, as Elizabeth and Gabriel were never going to be able to do it. Gabriel because his powers were needed to keep the ice frozen and Elizabeth because the world would sooner stop spinning than her leaving her son's side.

Oh, how she wished Abigail was here to take care of all this. Scratch that, she would honestly be worse with Chris in that condition.

"I need a count of how many healing potions we have left. Run triage on the most wounded and separate those who can't be healed anymore." She commanded to those of her City that were still standing.

Hesitating, she called one aside to talk privately, "I need to know how many survived."

The Rogue she called over looked surprised for a second before nodding grimly. Rogues were the Class that made it out of the fight the most unscathed. Well, the group of Rogues who weren't given the task of charging in.

Those suffered losses equal, if not higher, than the Warriors and Spellblades. The reason they made it out better was their job was clean-up duty.

The Rogues more centered around stealth or assassination weren't told to charge in and waste their skills, instead, they were arranged in formation surrounding the Valley. They, along with the lower leveled participants, were tasked with not letting any of the Demons escape encirclement.

The... lowest level of their number weren't particularly... useful. Not that she said that aloud, but it was the truth. A few volunteers weren't even in the F-rank, let alone E-rank!

Rachel thought they were insane for even coming along but Chris wouldn't disparage their resolve. They were grouped up in teams to do the same as the Rogues in the hope that they would be able to pick off the Demons as they ran away.

She ended up being so busy directing everyone during the clean-up that the sun swiftly set and reached the horizon before she even knew it was close to dark.

She took care of everyone on their side of the Valley, regardless of whether they were from Frostheim or not. Before the battle, there were nearly 800 people to organize and plan around.

Half that remained.

When the Rogue she tasked with counting the casualties came back, she got the hard numbers. Of the 321 people who followed Christopher's charge, 180 were still alive.

The Rogues stationed along the perimeter lost some as well, nearly 20 of the hundred. Some of the lower lever teams were decimated completely, but most of them still stood.

With their frontline being so small compared to the number of Demons, some had gotten through or around and reached the Mages and Rangers in the backline, causing their numbers to take a hit as well.

Not as many as the Warriors, but still enough to sting.

Nearly 100 Rangers and Mages fell. Not all of that was from Demons that got through and was instead because of a Demonic spell launched at them they couldn't defend.

Even the Healers weren't spared from the casualties. Most Healers had stayed behind to be of use after the fighting was over but some had joined the battle.

Not every healer was as passive as the others. Some had classes specific to being a Battle Medic while others had buffs they could use. Their losses were similar to the Rogues.

Even more than that were the wounded. Healers were scrambling this way and that trying to treat the people they could. Those with egregious injuries like Christopher had to be isolated so as to not be confused with the waiting.

The human body could only take so much healing at one time. It wasn't possible to drown the person in healing and for them to be fine. They knew that from experience.

As soon as the body's limit was reached, instead of healing the body, it would be treated as a foreign object and rejected. Similar to how some patients would reject donated organs.

To deal with those, Healers with medicinal knowledge from before were required. Not every healer was a previous doctor or nurse, meaning they didn't have the background knowledge on how to treat people other than their skills.

Those who could, used mundane methods to do what they could.

Those methods had changed, obviously, but they were still rooted in how things were done previously, only they were a touch more... barbaric.

If they worried your body couldn't take the healing required, it was better to chop off the limb instead and grow it back later. Healing over a missing stump taxed the body a lot less than reconstituting a completely smashed leg.

In some cases, multiple limbs were removed to focus the healing on the major organs. The process was extremely gruesome and bloody.

After the initial crazy of the aftermath, Rachel found herself without anything to do. She had been so busy that when the rush that demanded her attention stopped, it did so completely.

She went from rushed from fire to fire, to standing there without anything to do.

She knew someone should reach out to the other side to see how they were doing but that could wait for later. It was already dark and everyone was drained.

If it was something important, they would come to her.

It stayed that way as those healthy enough to function hauled everyone back to their camp. Luckily, they had set it up before the battle started so all they had to do was haul everybody back.

They had to walk a bit, as they couldn't set up too close, but it was close enough that people could slump into at least a bedroll.

When she walked in with the rest of their group, she found that Christopher had already been moved. His body was placed in his tent while her family stood guard outside.

She didn't have the energy to deal with that, nor the ability to do anything helpful.

Instead, she found her bedroll and passed out.

~~

The work began in the morning again. Not that Rachel hadn't expected it to, but to not even get to eat breakfast in peace was aggravating.

What she did get to look at were the numerous notifications that were blinking for her attention. There was so much work to do that she had delayed looking at them but waking up gave her the perfect chance to look them over.

And by god were there a lot.

She doubted that she singlehandedly killed the most out of everyone, a certain explosion could claim that, but she would wager she at least had a hand in the most deaths.

Her spells and Fire were used liberally and in extremely wide ranges, giving her a piece of nearly every Demon that was killed. Most of the time it was only a small piece, but even singing a Demon's skin gave her a notification for participating in its death.

The number of partial kills was astronomical, the most she had ever received and she had the essence to back it up. Her level leaped up from the battle.

She was now level 87.

87! That was a massive jump, nearly 15 levels in one day! She had overtaken Chris in level a few months ago and this jump would take her way above him. Oh, probably not. Her mind flashed and the river of essence she saw stream popped up.

The rarity of his Class made it take more essence to level but even so, there was a veritable river that gushed into him. Even with his legendary soaking it up, he would wake up with a lot more levels.

If he woke up.

No! She couldn't think like that.

After checking her status, she was taken into the throng of work. People still needed healing and other various things but that wasn't her focus. She tried to organize the mass of people and calm the chaos.

This was usually Abigail's job, but without her here, it fell to Rachel.

That didn't take nearly as long as she expected and she was once again without anything to do. Chris still hadn't woken up and it wasn't like they were in any condition to leave.

She did receive a runner with the status of the other half of their army and it was much the same as theirs was. Recovering as best they could.

Something poked at her that something went wrong with the plan on their side but she didn't know enough to come to any conclusions. The fact she only sensed one mana type stood out.

Other than that, another thought kept reappearing in her mind.

Why did the Demons stop here? Why this Valley of all places?

To find the Demons and get to the Valley, they followed their trail for days. The Demons had trekked through plenty of areas just like this one but they decided to stop here for some reason and she didn't know why.

It bugged her.

The Valley was lush with plant life and the mana was thick, but there wasn't anything that instantly stood out. The mana was a bit thicker here than in other areas but it wasn't outstandingly so.

Wait, is the mana thicker now than it was yesterday?

People generated mana, every living thing did, but there weren't that many of them to contribute to such an increase. Plus, while people did generate mana, they also used it at a commensurate rate most of the time.

Turning the ambient mana into healing mana through their Class Skills and then using that mana to stitch people back together was only just one of the ways it was being used. If anything, they should have been a drain on the mana yet it had increased.

It could be attributed to the Demons being gone but even that didn't account for the increase. While they did consume the mana, they usually emitted enough Demonic Mana to even it out.

This was something else.

To find out, she closed her eyes and searched out where the flow was coming from. If there was more mana, it had to come from somewhere. It was surprisingly easy to pick up on the mana flows in the area.

Because they were all emanating from one place.

Mana was wafting out of the Valley. Rachel wasn't sure what the reason was, but the feeling was the opposite of a Dungeon. Where Dungeons pulled in mana from wide ranges, this seemed to supply massive amounts of mana that diffused into the surroundings instead.

It was small now, but she could tell it was growing.

Something they did during the battle caused it if she had to guess.

She followed her senses and they drew her deeper into the Valley. The terrain was still destroyed but at least the bodies were cleaned up. The Human ones. Demons still littered the area but she stepped over those.

She walked past where the front line used to be and continued further in. The ground got worse as she closed in on where the explosion originated. The grass and plants were torn out and only bare dirt was left to walk on.

As she got closer, the mana only rose.

It continued to thicken as she reached the heart of the Valley and what she saw took her breath away. Greed wasn't a strong emotion she usually felt but even she noticed it creeping up inside her.

The explosion had created a massive divot into the earth, leaving multiple yards of underground exposed. This exposed ground was lined with glittering crystals and the mana was thicker than syrup inside the divot.

The blue gems were easy to identify as she had seen them before in the tutorial. Knowing what they were only made the feeling of greed worse because she knew how valuable they were.

They had stumbled onto a vein of mana crystals.