16 One battle after another

" Are you really serious? " Jamal asked Lina with a surprised tone.

Lina remained with her fake innocent smile on her face when she responded " it is the crucial point of my plan. There is no way we could make it without that, and anyway, I don't know where is the problem with what I'm asking ".

She rose her sight to gaze at the three people in the living room while they were presenting their dumbfounded expressions on their faces. Jamal took a low and calm voice when he started to respond, " Do you realize the scale of your request? You want me to go finishing the war in the neighboring cities all by myself ".

Indeed, when Lina started to expose her plan to defeat the army of undead which was intending to come to destroy their dear Stainfall city in less than one week. She explained to them that before they looked for a way to handle the attack of the undead only on Natasha, who was the only one able to kill them definitively, they had to find out, at first, a way to hold on to their progress to the main city.

" The dream of Matteo explicitly said that they first would come in their human form isn't it? " she moved her sight to Matteo and the boy scratched the back of her head unconsciously showing that he had a doubt, Lina shook her head and carried on, " we will assume that's the case, so we would have to kill them on a first time in their human form then kill them again after they transform into undead ".

" Yeah I'm already aware of that and I think I got your point, " Jamal admitted, " For the plan to work well, we have only two options; whether we lay a trap for outlaws to guide where would be Natasha and kill them there or we kill them directly after they crossed the barrier and we will guide the undead at the specific venue where we would wipe them out " he paused " however... "

Natasha cut him on his track and said " both of these options will fail if we don't manage to kill them all at the same time, as they might get scared and in the panic spread in the town which would be the worst scenario ".

" Yes. That is why I suggested going to stop the war in the other cities, I'm sure you already know why I asked this. At this rate, I predict that those battles would be fatal for both sides and only the death would come out victorious, " she turned towards Jamal, " however... if you go to help them now, we might be able to limit the losses ".

In simple words, her plan consisted to collect the remaining soldiers in the neighbors' cities who would manage to survive after Jamal ended up in the wars, then she would use them in their battle against the undead. She explained that those people, whom they would save from the war, would be the solution to their problem as they would be large enough to kill all the outlaws in one attack.

" What I wanted to say is that if we help them in their battles they would help us back in ours, it would not be too difficult for me to implement an ambush which would serve to exterminate all the outlaws in one surprise attack, I just need those men for that ".

" But you are asking Jamal to go win four wars by himself, moreover, he has to take less than one week to do it to organize our main battle, " Matteo tried to argue, " how can he do that? It is impossible, it is not like I'm trying to be pessimistic or anything but I remind you that those wars have been going on for months ".

Lina rolled her eyes, exasperated, and sighed as he replied " Oh please, I could have finished them for a long time if those men were not so stubborn and proud to let a stranger woman guide them. I proposed to the mayors to let me commend their armies but they all refused, they seem to not fully trust me or us, otherwise, those battle would all be over at the time we speak. Now we are in a hurry I don't have any other choice but to rely on Jamal ".

Matteo turned to Jamal and tried desperately to convince him " it's a suicide, " he said with pleading eyes, but as usual, Jamal chose to not run away from his task, he smiled at Matteo, and within his eyes, there was no trace of fear. Matteo realized that was one of the reasons he was still a bit afraid of him, [a man who has no fear to lose his life, that's what he is] the boy thought. He turned to Natasha but she knew him well enough to know that he would never step back.

" Perhaps I should accompany him, like that it would be less dangerous and more effective, " she suggested as she thought that instead of trying to convince him in vain to not go it would be easier and more useful to help him in that way, but Lina directly turned her down. " Why? " Natasha asked with a mix of anger, deception, and astonishment in her voice.

" It is not the kind of mission you can handle " Lina replied, but it seemed that it was not very convincing as Natasha responded to her immediately " in which way, he fully trained me to be able to use any kind of firearms, why would we have to always let him handle the dangerous situation and wast while praying for him to come back safely? "

Jamal sighed loudly and stepped forward while all eyes turned to him " well, first of all, thank you guys to worry so much about me, I'm very grateful, " he paused and gazed down at Matteo and Natasha and at that moment they realized that his decision was already taken, " but I will go and I will go all alone without you Natasha ".

She tried to protest but he didn't let her do and directly went on explaining his point, " you have one week to upgrade your mastery of the sword to be able to deal with an army of more than one hundred super dead humans estimated, you cannot waste your time. Moreover, in a raid like this, I prefer to work alone when I switch to mode rampage ".

He laid his right hand on Natasha's shoulder, " it will be okay, I will come back in six days with the reinforcements ".

She didn't reply. She suddenly started to remember two years ago when he decided to stop the increase of criminality in the city. He had a similar speech with the same determination and at that time he accepted Lina and her to help him but on the only condition that they would not take part in the fights. At that time Natasha asked him how would he fight all those people as the criminality was constantly increasing but he just responded briefly.

[Now I understand, surely back then he already decided to kill whoever committed a severe crime without any trial, he kept his mouth closed as he thought I was too young and ready to understand] she realized, [ it is his nature to always carry others' weights even though it may hurt him instead of watching them suffer ].

" You cannot carry our weights and problems all by yourself eternally ", she said with a very low but everyone heard it, Matteo bowed his head and it could be seen the culpability on Lina's face but Jamal remained proud while still smiling as he replied, " I know that and I'm waiting for the day you will be able to relieve me, even a little, of those charges ".

[ How can this day come if you turn me down every time I try ] but that she didn't let it come out from her mind.

" So what shall we do now as everything has been already decided? " Matteo asked, to change the subject as he thought the mood was about to become a little too depressing. " I wanted to discuss Jamal's mission but I don't think you would want, " Lina said with a little voice, " so maybe we'll go home and make the necessary arrangements ".

" No need since we are here, let's discuss together, " Jamal replied, " first of all I have to know which among the four cities needs my help the most ".

" The ideal would be to go in the city where there are more people from the good side since the goal of this mission is to recruit as many soldiers as we can, " Matteo suggested.

" Said like that it could be thought that I'm just a cold-hearted girl only interested by the profit we can get in these wars, " Lina commented.

" But this is exactly what you said, " He replied, for almost ten seconds they engaged in a battle of look before Natasha interrupted them. " He should, on contrary, concentrate his efforts where the situation is the worst. Lina said that the four cities have the advantage over the outlaws but I doubt the situation is the same everywhere, " she said.

" Yeah you're right, in the cities with the biggest number of soldiers, their situation must be more or less stable, different from those with a smaller number of soldiers remaining and where the situation can change at any moment, " Jamal commented.

" Wouldn't it be easier and faster to go where the situation is stable, there you would quickly finish and it would be a time saving, wouldn't it? " Matteo asked.

" It is the opposite. Over there, we don't expect some immediate losses as the fight doesn't go on at the same rate as the cities with a smalls number of soldiers where we record deaths every day " Lina explained.

The boy nodded to show that he understood. Natasha continued " now we decided by which order he will intervene in the cities, another problem remains, all the soldiers may not be able to fight in our battle. We should not forget that most of them must be severely injured with very grave wounds, so we may not receive the number of soldiers we need ".

Lina shook her head " it is not a problem since I already considered that in my calculations as well as the number of them would just not want to fight in our battle. I inquire frequently about their conditions and according to my estimations we must get the number of soldiers we need or more than it ".

Seeing that the most important points have been already discussed, Jamal thought it was the moment to conclude the meeting, he clapped his hands and said " Well I think we came to an agreement so I shall go home to prepare to leave by tomorrow Lina will give me the details I must know later, " he turned to Natasha, " from now on you will be in charge of both the patrols and the fighting training at the dojo, so tomorrow you have to wake up early and go alone at the barrier if there is no problem signaled you go start training with your sword without me ".

She nodded to confirm that she accepted the request. Then Lina said to Matteo " I may be, sometimes, too busy to coordinate Jamal's mission, so I may not be able to fulfill my work at city hall so you will take care of it and you will have to continue collecting the information I need for the project we discussed earlier " and he nodded as well.

Both Jamal and Natasha were perplexed, he headed on to ask her " What is it? ", but she didn't respond to him and instead she chuckled slightly then she said, " not telling you, I have never interfered in your affairs between you and your students so don't interfere in mine between my student and me ".

" Since when did I become your student? " Matteo asked. Lina laid a finger on her lips as to tell him to not talk " you're right, you are not my student you are my probationer ".

They said goodbye to each other and they left, as Jamal was reaching the door Natasha shouted to him, " good luck and see you in six days, " he smiled and replied while shouting too, " thank you and good luck to you as well, see you next week, " Lina sent her a flying kiss and they left the house.