Invasion

*BOOOOM*

"But what?!" Sanryu, who was currently busy checking the blade of his sword, is shocked by the violent explosion in the center of the city. 'What was that green explosion?' Sanryu looks out of the room's window and immediately notices the enormous column of smoke rising up into the sky. 'Are we kidding?! Who could have caused such damage?'

"What was that explosion?""Should we escape the city?""I'm sure the Marquis will do something about it." Various voices belonging to the people who were staying in the inn are heard by the young man's ears.

"I have to go see what's happening." Sanryu quickly puts on his armor, and before sheathing his sword, he looks at it. 'My friend, try to resist.' After thinking those words, he inserts the sword into the sheath, and then leaves the room.

"Excuse me!" A gentleman moves Sanryu away a little, moving quickly towards the stairs, there is a lot of movement in the inn, and many people are out of their rooms, the inn staff tries to calm all the customers, telling them to stay safe in their rooms, but without success.

'Panic is already spreading, something big must have happened.' Sanryu prepares to go down the stairs, as soon as he arrives on the lower floor, he finds the innkeeper talking to two city guards.

"Are you telling me that I have to let my customers stay inside the inn? But this is as if I were keeping them in prison." The innkeeper seems enraged by the guards' words.

"We know but it's the only way we can maintain order. If all the people went out into the streets, even more chaos would spread. You have to be patient." One of the guards explains to the innkeeper, and there are also some customers around the guards, and they can hear the conversation.

"This is an injustice!" "Yes, you're right, you can't stop us from leaving the buildings!" "This is an abuse of power, beautiful is good!" As expected, the citizens are not at all happy with this situation and begin to rail against the guards.

"Everyone stay calm!" "Let's try to keep a clear head, please!" The guards try to calm the crowd, and Sanryu takes advantage of this moment to sneak out of the inn.

'It feels like a war is coming.' As soon as he goes outside, Sanryu sees many guards running, armed, towards the center of the city, and some are trying to bring back the civilians who have left their homes.

"You! What are you doing out there? Go back straight back to where you came from!" A guard spots Sanryu and orders him to return to the inn.

"I'm sure I'm more useful out here than inside the inn, look at this." Sanryu shows his document to the guard, demonstrating his role as an adventurer. "What do you think? It's better to have an adventurer in action than safe inside a building, right?" Sanryu tries to convince the guard.

"It's actually not a bad idea, and then we were ordered to keep civilians inside their homes, and adventurers are not civilians." The guard begins to think of something. "Okay, you'll come with us to see what the hell is going on in the city center." The guard leads the way to Sanryu, heading towards the site of the explosion.

'I hope Lurue, Zaria and Fenrya are okay...well Lurue is a goddess, there are few things in the world that can hurt a god.' Sanryu follows the guard, always staying alert for any threats.

"And what the hell are those?!" A guard loudly exclaims his amazement as he turns his gaze towards a direction, the place where the guard is looking is a dark alley, where creatures never seen before by these people are coming out.

"Sniff the MONKEYS to death!!!" A creature, which appears to be a mix between a rat and a human, screams these phrases, engraving the charge of its peers, against the humans.

"Men! Attack these beasts!" A guard who appears to be a captain commands the guards to fight back against these creatures.

'I've never heard of these strange rats.' Sanryu also draws his sword and begins to battle these humanoid rats.

"Die, monkey!" A skaven, armed with a sword and shield, throws himself at Sanryu, with a quick sprint.

"No thank you!" Sanryu strikes the skaven's weapon with his sword and pushes him back. 'This smell...it's coming from the sewers!!' Sanryu realizes that these humanoid rats must have come from the city sewers. 'But I didn't see them at all yesterday, when did they arrive?' Sanryu tackles the skaven in front of him, but fortunately notices something. These humanoid rats do not have adequate martial discipline, a bit like gnolls, but unlike the latter, rats do not have much muscle strength either. So for the boy, but also for the guards, it is easy to counter their strength.

Sanryu performs skillful moves and techniques and takes little time to overwhelm his opponent, piercing his heart. 'They don't even have armor on them, their skin cuts and pierces easily.' Sanryu already begins to analyze the enemy's skills and equipment, formulating the strategies to use to kill them.

"Kill the monkeys!" Two more rats throw themselves at Sanryu, but the latter manages to get away well, he kills them in a few minutes.

"Kill them all, by the horned rat!" Now three of these humanoid rats attack Sanryu.

'Okay, they're easy to kill...but they never end!!' Sanryu faces the three rats and with a little more effort, manages to defeat them.

"Let's kill that monkey!" Now even four of these rats go towards Sanryu.

"Damnation!" Sanryu is starting to understand why these rats are so easy to kill and why they have almost no equipment. 'Could it be a coincidence?' The boy thinks about various things, but he does not have time for deep and prolonged reasoning, he has to face four of these monstrosities.

After a few minutes it's a real effort, he manages to get by even against these four rats.

"Captain! No matter how many we kill, they never run out! We've already lost some men." A guard warns his captain, who is currently busy dealing with three rats.

"Don't give in! They'll have to end sooner or later, nothing lasts forever." The captain says this as he decapitates one of the attacking rats.

"ARGHH!" Suddenly a guard next to Sanryu dies, but there was no enemy around him, but the boy can see some stones on the ground, it is known that the guard died due to a stone thrown on his neck, with moderate strength.

'Don't tell me...' Sanryu turns his gaze upwards, it's just as he feared, on the roofs there are some of these rats with slingshots in their hands, intent on throwing stones at the poor guards. "ON THE ROOFTOPS! THEY'RE ON THE ROOFTOPS!" Sanryu shouts these phrases, warning the guards of the danger above their heads.

The skaven on the roofs bombard the guards with a hail of stones, luckily their aim is poor and most of the stones that hit the guards are cushioned by their steel armour. But they are still distracting, and skaven on the ground have even more of an advantage against humans.

'It's going very badly, at this rate we'll be overwhelmed!' Sanryu avoids some stones, he has to be very careful as he doesn't have steel armor like the guards, it's more dangerous, he doesn't have a helmet to protect his head. 'Sorry mate, but I think this serves me more than you.' Sanryu goes to a corpse and picks up the guard's emo, putting it on, so he has more protection.

The situation seems quite desperate, these creatures seem to never end, and the guards are starting to lose their numbers, and the ones left are starting to lose hope.

"AHHHHH!""MONSTERS!""HELP US, PLEASE!" Screams come from the houses around the battle.

'They broke into houses, you bastards!' Sanryu decapitates a skaven, while hearing the desperate screams of the citizens begging for help, but unfortunately for them it is now too late. 'I am sorry.' Sanryu is certainly not a hero, but she is still sensitive to certain things.

"We must fall back! Retreat to the guild square! Move!" The captain of the guard understands that they can't do anything here, among the skave who continue to come out of the alleys, there are those on the roofs who pel them with stones, it's a losing battle. He therefore decided to fall back in front of the guild headquarters.

The men begin to fall back, covering each other's backs, he is trying to avoid the stones being thrown at him. Sanryu follows the guards, as he can't afford to remain isolated, otherwise it's over for him.

Some guards are killed on the way, and the skave seem to give the poor men no respite. After an exhausting retreat, Sanryu's group reaches the guild square, they see, to their great joy, some guards who are flanked by about ten adventurers.

"Captain Ros, you have arrived, well done!" Another guard, who appears to have a higher rank than Captain Ros, greets the latter.

"Commander Jery, thank you." Ros gives a slight military bow, apparently Jery is the commander of all the city's guards "We tried to do as much as possible, but this is the maximum number of men I could bring with me...for the civilians instead..." Ros managed to bring about twenty men to the square, plus Sanryu, but no civilians.

"Don't be discouraged, Captain, you still managed to bring these men here. You're not the only captain who managed to reach the meeting place, others also made it there, and I'm confident that others will come too." The commander doesn't seem to lose faith in his men. "We are also joined by the adventurers of the guild, and surely others too, they will be fighting in the city." Jery watches as the adventuring party fights alongside the guards, killing a large number of skaven.

'Indeed the adventurers are an ace in the hole...but they too are human, how much longer will they be able to resist?' Sanryu is well aware of the advantage they have thanks to the adventurers, but they too will run out of energy sooner or later, they must find a solution. 'If only Lurue were there, she would have eaten these skaven.' Sanryu thinks of the goddess, that he doesn't know where she has gone.

The group of adventurers is made up of: Two warriors, a paladin, a priest, three archers, two wizards and a monk. As long as the paladin and priest live, the party can continue longer than expected in this battle. 'I will join them, for now.' Sanryu heads towards the adventurers, warning them of his arrival.

"Great! Another comrade, I take it you are a melee fighter, please help the front line resist the waves of these rats." One of the magicians, who seems to have the most experience of all, tells Sanryu to support the vanguard, the boy just nods his head and heads to the front line.

"Welcome, boy. I hope you're prepared for the worst, because I'm looking for a very bad place here." One of the warriors welcomes Sanryu, warning him that the situation is not the best.

"Yes, sir!" Sanryu responds as a cadet would respond to his superior, and begins to fight off the skaven. Sanryu never misses a chance to take a look at the paladin.

Paladins are a very rare class, as only a few are born with the ability to harness the light of the gods within their bodies. Obviously they do not acquire a power equal to divine beings, but it is a very useful secondary power, especially against beasts that cannot stand divine light.

Time passes, and other patrols of guards reach the square, with even some adventurers following them, but unfortunately, the clash in the square was becoming more and more frenetic and many guards lost their lives.

*Booom*

Another explosion occurs in the city, but this time, it comes from the neighborhood where the Marquis lives. "And the Marquis' mansion, what the hell happened?" The commander observes the cloud of smoke starting to rise from the nobleman's house. "And under attack, damn it! We can't afford to lose the Marquis too, we have to do something." The commander seems to be thinking of a plan. "I will have to raise a rescue party to see what happened, men! I want thirty female warriors heading towards the Marquis' mansion, and I also ask for the assistance of you adventurers, is that possible?" The commander looks straight at the magician who gave Sanryu instructions earlier.

"Certainly!" That wizard seems to have taken command of the adventurers and is starting to form a group to assist the guard patrol.

The group was quickly formed, Sanryu is also part of it. "Good, thank you, wizard. Now all of you, go and see what happened to the mansion, if the Marquis is still alive, escort him here, this square has become our point of reference, and the most defended area of the city, it is If by any chance you don't find the Marquis alive, return here immediately, we need as many men as possible to face this threat." The commander gives the rescue group very clear orders, that's it, Sanryu's group quickly heads towards the Marquis' mansion.

'Zaria...I hope you are well.' Sanryu seems to be very worried about the girl, he is happy that he was chosen as one of the members of this group.