Things about the female knight in black stockings

"You can abandon this approach, and..."

Ailanfeier sighed again as she spoke:

“Actually, from the beginning, I was not in favor of the decapitation operation because I thought it was probably useless... Even if it could stop Savat Langdon, it would be difficult to save the hostages.”

"The decapitation strike was ineffective?"

Valencia frowned immediately upon hearing this.

She does have some vague ideas now, but no matter which idea it is, the core tactic is the decapitation plan of capturing the leader first.

But now Alan Feier says that the decapitation operation is probably useless.

"Why do you say that, Sister Alan Fei'er?"

Valensa asked hastily.

"...My judgment is based on two points."

Ailanfeier then leisurely poured herself a cup of tea and took two small sips:

"Didn't I say before? Savat Langdon's actions are very unusual. After taking hostages of an entire city, he showed no intention of negotiating. This suggests that he may have a bigger plan. Taking over the city and holding hostages is just buying time for that plan."

Since the goal is to buy time, the more than 100,000 hostages in Poliland are not bargaining chips in Savart Langdon's hands to blackmail us, but rather expendable resources to hinder us.

These two concepts may sound similar, but they are actually quite different.

If Savat Langdon wants to negotiate with us, he will be relatively careful in using the hostages, because in negotiations, the hostages in his hands are like money in the hands of a businessman.

But consumables are different. To buy as much time as possible, he will be more ruthless and decisive in executing hostages... because he doesn't care what terms the hostages can be exchanged for; he only wants to use their deaths to intimidate us and prevent us from making any rash moves.

“…Yes, I understand what you mean, Sister Alanfeier.”

Valensa nodded slightly:

"Simply put, Savat Langdon is not like a typical kidnapper. The triggers for him to execute hostages are easier to meet, so we must be careful in our operation... Once he senses that our actions may pose a threat, he will not hesitate to execute hostages as a deterrent, right?"

Seeing Alan Feel's light laugh in affirmation, Valensa frowned and asked, puzzled:

"But what does all this have to do with the fact that the decapitation operation is unlikely to be effective?"

"Of course it matters."

Ailanfeier took another sip of tea and asked in return:

"Since Savat Langdon's purpose in taking hostages is to buy time, what do you think he'll be doing now? Will he personally control the undead army and stare at us blankly? Of course not, he must be focused on completing his plan."

But if he focuses all his attention on his plans, how will he determine when to execute the hostages as a deterrent? Or rather… is the decision to execute the hostages truly based on Savart Langdon's own judgment and orders?

"What Sister Alanfeier means is..."

Valensa also looked at the undead creatures projected onto the oval table:

"These undead are not puppets constantly controlled by Savat Langdon's magic, but rather possess a certain degree of independent judgment?"

"Is such that."

Ailanfeier nodded, then put down her teacup and shrugged:

"As a paladin, you should have a good understanding of the relationship between necromancers and the undead, right? Undead creatures were not created by necromancers. There were already many undead creatures in this world long before the first necromancer was born."

Most undead creatures harbor extreme hatred for necromancers who enslave them and treat them as tools in battle; their hatred is far stronger than their hatred for ordinary living beings.

Therefore, in order to better control the undead, most necromancers will erase the undead's consciousness when creating or summoning them, turning them into puppets completely under their control.

These undead creatures, no matter how powerful their legions become, will become like broken puppets and cease to function once the necromancer controlling them is killed... This is why we always prioritize decapitation tactics when fighting necromancers.

But... nothing is absolute; scarcity does not mean non-existence.

I've also carefully reviewed the information about Savat Langdon, especially the research materials found in his abandoned stronghold... It's safe to say he's undoubtedly a genius. If he hadn't gone astray, he would have been among the top 10 in the Sage's Tower sooner or later.

If someone like that were to develop some new technology that could grant undead creatures controlled by necromancy a certain degree of automatic judgment, I wouldn't be surprised at all.

Ignoring the rather unpleasant expressions on the faces of the Sage's Tower members, Alanfeier objectively praised Savat Langdon's abilities before continuing to speak to Valensa:

"You must have seen what happened before, right? Then you should remember that the skeleton warrior didn't kill the hostage child directly. Before it did, it threatened the child to stop crying. The child was so frightened that it couldn't stop crying and was killed."

If this skeleton warrior is being controlled by Savart Langdon's consciousness, do you think Savart Langdon, focused on completing his plan, would have the patience to intimidate the child before killing him? I certainly don't think he would have that patience; he would have killed the child like crushing an insect.

"This……"

Valensa thought about it carefully and admitted that there was some truth to Alan Fair's analysis.

However, she also had her own guesses:

"Perhaps... perhaps Savat Langdon was indeed focused on a certain plan, but the fact that the Skeleton War warned before killing the child was not out of its own judgment, but rather some kind of self-discipline command that Savat Langdon had set up beforehand? Like those constructs that the Sage's Tower often sells to rich people as guards?"

"I think the possibility is very low."

Ailanfeier shook her head:

"Savat Langdon pre-set self-discipline commands for the undead to prevent us from stalling for time, while he himself focused on completing the plan... Well, that is one way, but it shouldn't be like this."

Having some autonomy and acting autonomously according to a program might seem similar, but they are fundamentally different. Take the little boy who was just killed, for example… Do you think a construct puppet acting autonomously would care about the cries of a mere hostage child?

"That... seems to be true."

Valensa was persuaded by Alan Feier and, following Alan Feier's line of reasoning, speculated:

"So, Sister Alanfeier, you believe that even a decapitation strike won't save the hostages... because undead creatures with a degree of self-awareness don't immediately cease activity upon the death of the necromancer. They might begin mass executions of the hostages as soon as Savat Landon dies... no, from the moment Savat Landon is attacked?"

"Yes."

Alanfeier nodded, then pointed again at the magical projection of Poliland City:

"Take a closer look at the distribution of these hostages. Do you notice anything?"

"The distribution of the hostages?"

Valensa looked over upon hearing this and observed carefully.

The more than 100,000 people in the city of Poliland should have been moved outdoors by now.

They were divided into more than forty groups, each with a number ranging from over a thousand to over ten thousand people, all of whom were concentrated in various squares and relatively wide streets within the city of Poliland.

Valensa tried to analyze the location and type of the hostages, hoping to find the discovery that Alan Fair had mentioned, but after two minutes she hadn't made any progress.

The hostages' appearance, clothing, gender, age, and identity are completely mixed. The hostages at each gathering point should be randomly assigned without any pattern.

Valensa, not wanting to waste any more time, looked directly at Alan Fehr:

"I'm not very bright, so please be honest with me, elder sister."

“Look at these squares and streets.”

Ailanfeier casually pointed to several gathering points of the crowd:

“These squares and streets still have plenty of space and can accommodate more people. There’s no need to divide the hostages into so many groups… Especially this big square in the city center, which could easily hold most of the population, but right now the number of people there is just over 10,000.”

"And when your Sun Church failed in that decapitation operation, the undead creatures simply executed all the hostages at one of the gathering points... Now you should understand, right?"

"……Understood."

Valensa nodded heavily:

“Sawat Langdon deliberately divided the hostages into more groups. Whenever we did anything that he felt threatened, he would execute a group of hostages to intimidate us… This also confirms Sister Alan Fei’er’s guess that his real purpose in taking hostages was to use them as expendable tools to hinder us and buy time.”

"Yes, that's right... but it's actually a good thing."

Alan Feier shrugged:

"This may sound cruel, but it's true... In order to maximize the use of these hostages to hinder us, Savat Langdon will not easily execute all the hostages at the same time. Instead, he will execute them in batches to intimidate us and delay as much time as possible."

In other words, if you, Valencia, have any ideas... as long as you don't provoke Savat Langdon too much, there is actually some room for error.

Although every mistake you make will result in the execution of at least a thousand hostages, at least you won't lose everything in one wrong move... So, Valencia, you don't need to be overly cautious.

Although Alanfeier's words sounded somewhat cold and even cruel, her analysis was indeed very reasonable.

Valensa knew that Elanfeel was trying to comfort her and make her less nervous, but this method of comforting her... well, she can only say that she is indeed a witch.

Moreover, Valensa's previous praise of Elanfell was not wrong. This beautiful and powerful witch also had a very sharp mind and saw the problems that others had not yet noticed.

Without Alan Fehr's analysis, Valensa would likely have remained stuck on the flawed idea of ​​a decapitation strike for much longer.

"Then... Sister Alanfeier, what do you think is the best way to rescue the hostages?"

Seeing that Alan Fey had stopped talking and started drinking tea again after comforting herself, Valensa tried asking a question.

"do not know."

Ailan Fei'er shook her head decisively:

"If I knew how to rescue the hostages, I would have acted already. Would I still be here drinking tea?"

"Right."

Valensa gave a wry smile, then left Ailanfeier's tea without disturbing her, and fell into deep thought.

How should this problem in Poliland be solved?

Savat Landon's undead army looks strong, with more than double digits of Radiant-rank undead, but these are actually the easiest to deal with.

Ailanfeier said she could single-handedly defeat this undead legion, and with the addition of the Church of the Sun and the others from the Sage's Tower, it would be a one-sided crushing victory, and the undead legion would be nothing to worry about.

The real difficulty lies in the more than 100,000 hostages.

Valensa's previous approach was the same as the rest of the Joint Task Force: the old method for dealing with necromancers—decapitation strikes.

But now, Ailanfeier has pointed out with reasoned analysis that the decapitation operation is likely to be useless.

so what should I do now?

If the decapitation operation is ineffective, what other methods are there to render the entire undead army incapable of moving in a very short time and rescue the hostages?

Find another forty or so top-tier Moonblade experts with strength similar to Ailanfeier to launch a surprise attack. Use a one-on-one, point-to-point elimination method to simultaneously attack the hostage concentration points in Poliland City, and surgically and precisely eliminate all the undead guarding the hostages in an instant.

This method is theoretically feasible, but the problem is where to find so many experts in a short period of time?

A top-tier Moonbeam like Ailanfeier is undoubtedly at the pinnacle of this world. To gather more than forty of them would probably require the entire leadership of the Church of the Sun, the Sage's Tower, and the Witch's Forest.

As a standard lawful good organization, the Church of the Sun might actually have its headquarters' saintesses take collective action for the sake of more than 100,000 innocent hostages, but what about the Sage's Tower and the Witch's Forest?

Sages are generally very concerned about their reputation, and witches also have their own pride... Would they be willing to join forces with more than forty top-tier Moonlit warriors just to deal with Savat Landon, a Starlit necromancer who couldn't even defeat Rika in a head-on battle?

It's hard to believe... In the hearts of those top sages and witches, their own pride is probably far more important than the lives of a mere hundred thousand people.

Therefore, this theoretically feasible method is actually completely impractical.

A decapitation strike is not feasible, and surgically annihilating all the undead without harming the hostages is even more impossible. Therefore, there is only one way to rescue the hostages.

Negotiate with Savat Langdon and get him to order the release of the prisoners himself.

But Savat Langdon had absolutely no intention of negotiating; he didn't even show his face after taking over Poliland.

The sages in the joint action team could only locate Savat Langdon in the city of Poliland through divination spells, but they didn't know exactly where he was or what he was doing in the city.

However... while Alan Fehr's analysis pointed out that the decapitation operation was likely to fail, it also gave Valensa a crucial clue.

Savat Langdon is currently focused on accomplishing something, and to that end, he is not only using more than 100,000 people in Poliland City as hostages to buy time, but he also doesn't care about his own life—he has already been targeted by the United Action Team with divination magic, and this time he can't escape no matter what.

This shows that what Savat Langdon wanted to accomplish was extremely important to him, and was likely his ultimate goal in life, even more important than his own life.

If we could figure out what exactly happened and then use it to force Savat Langdon to negotiate... wouldn't that allow us to rescue the more than 100,000 hostages in the city?

Valensa thought about this line of thought carefully and felt that it did seem feasible.

She didn't hide it and immediately voiced her idea to seek the opinions of the entire joint operations team's senior management.

"I think this method might be worth a try."

After a brief silence in the room, the first to speak was the old man at the 15th seat of the Sage's Tower.

As he spoke, he stroked his beard with his hand:

"I also think Ms. Ailanfeier's analysis makes a lot of sense. Since the decapitation operation is useless, it seems that forcing the other side to negotiate is the only way to rescue the hostages."

"We don't have any objection either."

The three officers from the Chamber of Commerce also expressed their opinions:

"If we can really save the people of Poliland, it wouldn't be a bad idea to agree to some of Savat Landon's conditions... In fact, the Chamber of Commerce had already prepared for negotiations, and had urgently allocated a large sum of money and gathered many negotiation experts, but unfortunately the other party has never shown any intention to negotiate."

Gamona did not object either, and stated that all the paladins in the Joint Operations Team would obey Valenza's orders, including himself.

Finally, it was the witch Elanfiel who pointed out the problem with this line of thinking.

"The idea is indeed good—forcing Savat Langdon to negotiate terms is likely the only feasible way to rescue those more than 100,000 hostages."