[NR] Calico Catkin Cleanup - Chapter 450 (Patreon)

Calico Catkin Cleanup

A certain calico catkin captain takes a moment to wipe her brow and glance around. The kingdom’s capital was on fire. Though that was the preferred outcome, no matter how sad that might sound. Much of it was even self-inflicted.

Over the five decades she had grown up in the kingdom, this was the first time the Order of the Raging Fire was forced to fight in friendly fields. Still, when the capital was threatened by a Maralith and their army of demons, a little fire isn’t that bad. Especially with rivers on two sides of the capital.

Maybe it would have been better if the premier fighting force wasn’t based around fire when most demons are at least a little resistant to the stuff. Though if a little resistance was enough to stop the order, it wouldn’t be the premier fighting force. After all, of all the elements, fire is the most common to default to when going for a resistance.

The order gets around this through their devotion to a Goddess of Fire, War, and the Hearth. By her power, they can bless their flames, elevating it from the mundane to the divine. Suffice it to say, holy fire does a decent job when fighting even heavily fire resistant demons.

In fact, through his devotion, the current head of the order has transformed even his internal mana into divine fire aligned mana. An impressive feat, to say the least. Though as she thinks about this all, the captain can’t help but sigh. Just because the fire is divine, doesn’t mean the stuff doesn’t burn a house down just as good as the next fire.

The catkin, however, is happy that the order went around and applied even more fire. After all, while holy fire isn’t going to not burn a house down, it at least isn’t malicious about it. Whereas, demonic fires will specifically target things like important belongings, structural supports, and anyone trapped in the building. So while a little extra fire on a building might seem like a bad idea, when used to cancel out demonic fires it was almost always a net positive.

Though the captain had seen way too many bodies. Still, she soldiers on, forming bucket chains for the smaller fires while directing her unit’s mages to the larger fires so they can use group magic to put it out. A popular spell for the task is ironically one meant for helping people temper their bodies by preparing a bath of water that is colder than freezing without turning into ice.

While the amount of water might be a little less than some water focused spells, the unnatural chill helps make sure that once the flame is out, it stays out. Though the fact that all these fires are simply from the small fry getting through was enough to make her fur stand on end whenever she thought about it. Her tail hadn’t looked slim and sleek in over a week.

The calico catkin captain could only give thanks that the higher demons and the Marilith got stopped outside of the city. She had been on the walls when the main fight occurred and so had basically the safest front-row seat to the main battle that someone as weak as her, could get. Sure, she had to constantly sweep off various demons trying to climb the wall and use an extra long spear to impale any that might fly too low, but she still saw quite a bit of the fight.

It wasn’t some fairy tale fight full of glory, either. Even with the heads-up that one traveller provided, they barely had time to put in truly effective deterrents. Plus, while not the strongest demons out there, the Marilith are particularly known for their army tactics and a love of grand strategy.

That all added up to a very tragic fight the kingdom might take centuries to fully recover from. The only bright light in it all is that since the capital was a center of trade, there were a ton of travellers around that were willing to throw themselves at the problem. She could only shake her head at how willing some of them are to die at the drop of a hat.

Sure, they’re immortal and would be coming back, but even they admit that dying hurts. Then again, their willingness to do these kinds of things is likely why they’re on average a bottleneck ahead of the common person at the low end. It is only with crafting that they lag behind and that is more just because they don’t have a solid foundation.

At that point in her musings, the captain notices the current fire is almost gone, so she watches it carefully and throws a few extra buckets of water on it. After being sure that it is truly out, she snakes the line over to the next fire while getting more people involved so it can stretch. In normal instances of a house fire, there are enough measures taken that such a bucket chain wouldn’t be needed, but when you start with about a sixth of the city burning, there isn’t really much of a choice.

She sighs, if they had been able to get started on putting out the fires as soon as the fight was over, maybe only a twelfth or possibly even just a twentieth of the city would have been on fire. Still an unconscionable amount of the city to be on fire, but more controllable.

That, of course, wasn’t how things worked. Even in defeat, the demons lived up to their name. The lowly demons that managed to get into the city reacted one of two ways when the Marilith died. Either they grabbed up something burning and started to run around, lighting up more stuff or they hid in ambush.

That second type was the real problem in the end. Sure, a crazed demon spreading fire was bad, but those were small fires that if gotten too early enough wouldn’t have caused much damage. Normal citizens, however, weren’t able to get to those fires safely, as a hidden demon might pop out of anywhere, even the fire itself.

In fact, things would be a lot worse if not for the travellers returning to the city after the fight. Though even their crafting types got in on the fun, acting as canaries in the coal mine. Not only because if killed in an ambush it isn’t the end for them, but also because they’re more likely to survive said ambush in the first place. That extra break made all the difference and even their crafters had the levels despite having a lower level crafting skill.

The calico catkin captain sighs as she takes one more glance around and smiles. The losses were tragic and the damage would require a ton of labor to set right. In the end, though, they pulled through.