62 Dealing with the Aftermath

The demon army was broken at the battle outside the City of Glow. With the destruction of the army, the demons were no longer able to pose a significant threat to the human forces. The human army moved on to destroy the remainder of the demon outposts. In an ordinary war with other humans, there would always be a concern of remnants wandering around and causing chaos and performing guerilla warfare. However, this was not a concern with the demons because once they were cut off from the Red Mist, they would quickly all die out.

The devastation wrought by the demon invasion was vast. Not only was the capital ruined, many other large cities were overrun by the demons. The amount of small towns and villages destroyed or abandoned was innumerable. Civilian casualties were heavy, and there were many people displaced by the conflict. In time, many of them would be able to return to their homes, but they would have to rebuild their lives from scratch.

Most concerning was the collapse of authority. The royal family had been wiped out when the demons attacked the City of Glow. The kingdom of Dawn was leaderless. In any other time, this would not be as disastrous. However, another effect of the demon invasion was that the nobility had their numbers devastated. In the feudal system, nobles protect the the commoners and as such, they train to be knights from a young age.

The knights had been mobilized and called to battle during the invasion. During the war, they were all wiped out in the disastrous battle against the demons. With the best and finest of the nobility dead on the field, most of those left were children or those on their deathbed. This problem didn't just affect a single region, it affected the entire kingdom, even those areas that the demons had not touched.

Central and local authority had utterly collapsed. Rebuilding was always going to be a difficult task, without central leadership it might as well be an impossibility. The kingdom could not recover on its own.

It was in this circumstance that outside forces established order. The armies of the church were already present in the kingdom as they were mopping up the remnant forces of the demons. The result was that they stepped in and occupied the kingdom.

Since the church had just saved the kingdom from total destruction, the people had quite the positive impression of them. Furthermore, there really wasn't anyone left who could oppose them. By the time the church formally annexed the Kingdom of Dawn, it was merely a formality recognizing the true situation on the ground.

The rebuilding process began, but it was not an easy task. Fixing an entire kingdom required vast amounts of resources which simply couldn't be obtained in such a short time period. Most of the refugees were redistributed to villages where they themselves built up their houses out of wood. One thing they were given were the special seeds used to produce Golden Twos. The high yields would allow the citizens to get enough to eat even though the land was underdeveloped.

In the cities, construction proceeded slowly. It was decided that since the cities were basically leveled anyways, it would be better to simply rebuild them from scratch. The cities would be planned from the start with orderly streets in straight rows and columns. The space was left in for the development of public water and power systems. Those developments would take place in the future since there were no resources to implement them.

For the most part, the main activity in the cities was the building of new houses made of concrete. Due to limited resources, only one city was being rebuilt - the city of Glow. All of the refugees from other cities would be resettled in other areas. Perhaps in the future settlement would begin elsewhere.

The newly built city had some limited industry as it was deemed a good idea to get people used to the idea of factories. However, with industrialization in the lands of Everwinter and Wolfheart not yet complete, there weren't enough resources to fully industrialize the lands of Dawn.

The activity in the Kingdom of Dawn was still only a sideshow. The main action would be taking place on the front against the demons.

Construction had sped up after the defeat of the demon army. With the demons having lost a large part of their deployable forces, the risk of attacks was lower. It was also a priority to close the gap in the defensive line as soon as possible. More workers were gathered and sent to help the construction crews. This also required more resources such as concrete and steel. The great expenditure of concrete here was one of the reasons why rebuilding in the lands of Dawn was so slow.

Eventually, the line from Neverwinter and the line from Hermes met, merging to form one line. This line would also be the main defensive barrier to protect the lands of the humans from the demons. From here, they would progress to Taquila which was now only a short distance away. They continued to slowly progress by building outposts toward Taquila.

They were cautious as they began building closer and closer to the demon base at Taquila. With every kilometer closer, the threat of a demon attack became greater. The pace of construction slowed as it was now important to fully examine the area and clear out any enemies, be they above ground or below ground.

Finally, an outpost was constructed 30 kilometers from Taquila. If they were to construct one more outpost, the human forces would be able to directly bombard the city from the safety of their base. The command staff knew that the demons were preparing and that this last step would be full of danger as the demons were sure to respond.

In addition, since they were so close to the demon base, the demons would be able to dispatch forces quickly and it would be very difficult to clear out all of the demons if they could keep sending more. The end was in sight but it seemed that the most difficult part was just beginning.