System vs Rebirth

"Close the gate."

All the soldiers he brought earlier immediately closed the gate, making sure that no demons entered the gate.

*Bang!*

Seeing the gate was finally closed, Noel could finally feel at ease.

"Hello." A feminine voice soon echoed in everyone's ears as they turned around and found the saintess coming.

'Saintess Layla, the person that is said to be the strongest Saintess of the Moon Temple. Though, she died in my hand before she could develop all her strength.' Anna narrowed her eyes, looking at this saintess wearing a white robe as if symbolizing the light from the moon. She could also see the crescent moon symbol on her chest. 'She's truly the one I fought that time.'

Anna confirmed her identity and politely bowed her head. "Saintess Layla."

"Oh my." The Saintess raised her eyebrows, but because she was blindfolded, no one could see her surprised eyes. "Do you know me?"

"Who doesn't know the Saintess of the Moon Temple." Anna smiled.

"This is quite surprising… I guess I'm infamous."

"Infamous? Not at all, you are a kind soul, so there's no reason for me to see you in a bad way." Anna shook her head politely.

"Is that so? The way you talk to me feels a bit familiar." The Saintess smiled, not knowing why she felt that Anna seemed to know her more than she imagined her to be. Still, there was one important question that needed to be asked. "May I know who you are?"

"Apprentice Knight of the Demon Banner Army, Anna Stargaze."

"Likewise, Noel Ardagan."

"Oh my. You two are nobles." The Saintess was quite shocked that the people that endangered their lives to save them were actually nobles.

"Fallen, yes." Noel didn't hesitate to add this time, not wanting to make them think he was using his family name to instill something in their heart.

"…" The Saintess fell silent as the atmosphere became awkward.

"The Demon Banner Army?" The knight captain was the first to react from the important information they just shared. "The Demon Banner Army is a special elite army specialized in solving problems related to demons. No wonder that you're so strong… But Apprentice Knight should be recruited four months earlier, so… how in the world the army train their people to make them so strong in just a short amount of time?"

"I don't think that's an appropriate question in this situation." The Saintess stopped him before the two talked, considering each army had their own training method and secret.

"Let's just say that both of us are a special case." Anna added, which could be taken as the answer.

"Ah, I apologize." The knight captain lowered his head. Although he was a bit skeptical to these two kids, it was clear that they could easily kill those demons and enter the city unscathed. Their skills were enough to give some respect.

"In that case, let me formally introduce myself. I am the Saintess of the Moon Temple, Layla. It's my pleasure to meet you." The Saintess gently nodded with a smile on her face.

Noel was curious about the blindfold but didn't say anything. Even so, she must look beautiful if she had ever taken off that blindfold, he thought.

Instead of thinking about such a useless question, Noel immediately cut to the chase and asked, "May I know the situation of the city?"

"Please tell him everything. I hate to admit it but he's smarter than me." Anna shrugged. Although she could analyze the information as well, she didn't want to do it to keep the little pride she had left in terms of analyzing.

"The situation is a bit dire. There are around seven hundred demons surrounding the city. And I don't think there will be help coming to this place. In other words, we need to defend the city ourselves."

"No, I'm not talking about that." Noel shook his head. "We can talk about the demons later. What I want to know is the city's situation. How many people are living in the city, how many injured people, and how much supply left?"

"!!!" The captain and the Saintess were amused by Noel's question. The Demon Banner Army was specialized in hunting demons, so their priority should be the demons outside. Yet, the man in front of her actually cared people more than the demons.

The Saintess thought for a moment and glanced to the knight captain. "Can you?"

That glance was enough to tell Noel that she had no problem in sensing the people around her. But Noel ignored his curiosity and immediately turned to the knight captain.

"There are around 5,000 people in this place, 2,000 of them are soldiers. But because of the continuous fights, the number of soldiers have been reduced to one thousand. To protect the Saintess, there are four division of Holy Knights. In total, we have around one hundred holy knights that could kill Low Level Demons.

"There are already 676 deaths and the rest are injured. As for the supply, we have no problem in food supply since we can use the demons to supply food. The problem is the water. Due to the lack of outside help, the water is scarce. The well seems to have been drained out and the river has been blocked. It's impossible to get any more water."

Noel lowered his head, thinking, 'Now that I think about it, when I was in that village, I could feed around one hundred people with a water gallon. And if I remember all the past missions about helping the townspeople, it gives me around 3 Honor Points per one hundred people I save…

'And there are around 4,300 people in the city. If I use 2 Honor Points and get 3 Honor Points per one hundred people, I can get an additional 43 Honor Points. But then again, I can only do this once since Ardagan only consider the first help to be valid unless I give them a different kind of help that's completely unrelated to the first form of help. It's his way to prevent me from abusing it I guess.'

"I'm sorry, but even if you're here, I don't think we can spare you much food and water as well." The knight captain apologized since they came here just to suffer.

However, Noel waved his hand and smiled, "I'll solve the water problem for at least a day. Within that time, we'll try to finish the problem as soon as possible. So, let's talk about the demons now."