All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 287: After the Breach

Hajin returned from the southern gate while repair crews carried the Command House records back toward Marrick’s old registry.

The existing manor still stood behind them, but braces sealed its eastern wing beneath the roof Hajin had folded across the assassins.

Its route hall remained open to the night, and the dispatch office had lost the outer wall holding its patrol slates.

Workers recovered every readable sheet before rain reached the exposed rooms, leaving eight assassin bodies under separate registry covers.

The captured leader traveled toward the quarry custody yard between two witnesses, four binders, plus guards carrying her numbered weapons.

No household member remained inside the damaged building while masons checked whether its central roof could survive another attack.

The registry had once become too narrow for command work, forcing Hajin to move maps into the empty manor.

Now carpenters removed the witness counter’s rear partition, making space for one planning table plus the recovered dispatch cabinets.

They laid an unbroken manor door across two reinforced trestles, turning salvaged timber into the region’s new command surface.

Loccy’s wall crews stacked stone outside both registry approaches while Taren inspected the hinges without wearing a House clasp.

Marrick met him beside the employment ledger with ink, two witnesses, plus an empty line where family affiliation belonged.

"The census requires the name you claim," Marrick said, keeping his pen above the line, "it does not require one somebody else owns."

"Taren," he said, placing one hand beneath the page, "record no House, inherited title, or authority beyond work I accept here."

Marrick wrote the single name, added today’s convoy rescue as his first witnessed service, then gave him a registry key.

"This opens the rear equipment room, not the treasury," Marrick said, passing it across, "earn that disappointment after we survive."

Taren accepted the key with the nearest thing Hajin had seen to an unguarded smile.

Lana occupied the restored witness desk beyond them, arranging casualty rolls, custody transfers, plus sealed testimony from the assassin leader.

Ash had awakened beside Lana in the clinic before she carried him back with the returning witness books.

He slept again on a low pallet behind her chair, covered by the same registry coat she had worn while catching him.

Two guards remained inside the rear room while another four watched both approaches from positions without shared sight lines.

The cellar entrance stayed barred beneath a stone brace, preventing anyone from repeating the quarantine route used during the Gate lash.

"Ash remains here until the siege ends," Hajin said, checking every window from the new planning table, "no clinic, forge, or command-house transfer."

"He stays where I can see him," Lana said, setting her complaint slate beside the witness rolls, "the records stay with us."

Her answer fixed both child and evidence inside the protected rear post before any counter-offensive moved defenders forward.

Hans entered with two route boards beneath his arm, followed by Juna carrying the latest scent lines from the encirclement.

Vella remained at the clinic because her golden healing still required touch, while Ferra could not leave the fractured furnace seal.

Loccy held the western wall with numbness lingering through both forearms whenever she tried closing her hands around the hammer.

Hans placed three damage rolls across the salvaged door before unfolding Dreth’s current siege map above them.

"We held every front once," he said, marking the wall, forge, clinic, manor, plus convoy road, "none can absorb the same attack twice."

The forge had consumed its anomaly channels and stopped production after the furnace lining cracked.

Fifty-nine serious-wound entries filled the clinic ledger while Vella’s violet reserve remained empty after her reversal.

Coordination had left the converted manor, and the Stolen Moment remained unavailable throughout the artifact’s fixed cooldown.

Twenty-one Sixth names occupied the death roll, including Garret plus Toma from two attacks separated by less than an hour.

Across those losses, Dreth still commanded one thousand one hundred twenty-two active soldiers around the valley.

[ Current defense checkpoint ]

[ Active Flint siege force: 1,122 ]

[ Sixth campaign ledger: 21 deceased / 59 serious injuries ]

[ Hajin Ring Progress: 23,710,000 / 25,000,000 EXP ]

[ The Stolen Moment: cooldown active ]

"Repairs buy one target another day," Hans said, placing a black marker beyond the southern road, "Dreth chooses which target spends it."

Juna added four fresh scent marks where reserve companies had begun measuring the western crater plus clinic approaches again.

"They are testing both routes," she said, keeping one claw over the map, "the next attack splits after we commit defenders."

Taren studied the spacing from beyond the table, reading the same pattern he had used when testing Hajin’s attachments.

"Dreth attacks what you refuse to leave," he said, indicating every civilian route, "remaining inside lets him decide which refusal costs blood."

Hajin looked from the protected registry toward the town defenses repaired with timber taken from homes, wagons, plus abandoned roofs.

Another defensive victory would save one position while a secondary team reached people assigned somewhere else.

The Sixth had built walls, routes, bells, and defenders, but none changed the arithmetic while Dreth kept surrounding them.

"What does moving first require?" Hajin asked, turning the black marker away from town, "not a raid, a plan that breaks the encirclement."

Hans cleared the damage pages from the map and placed the western field loop beside Dreth’s central column.

"Ground we choose, retreat lanes they cannot turn, plus every fighter committed after civilians clear," he said, aligning both routes, "then we make his army respond."

"The clinic becomes the rear treatment point," Juna said, following the field loop, "I can remove scouts before they redirect the column."

"The registry remains behind every route," Lana said, holding the casualty roll, "reports return here even when the manor stays closed."

Hajin kept one hand over the central Flint standards while the bells outside continued measuring another enemy rotation.

Waiting preserved Dreth’s choices, whereas advancing would finally place the next cost inside Hans’s map instead of the enemy commander’s.

"We counterattack," Hajin said, moving the Sixth marker beyond the wall, "repair what lets people move, and stop rebuilding anything meant only to wait."

Marrick opened a fresh command ledger beneath his hand, recording the order under the current date with Lana witnessing.

{Regional order: prepare a counter-offensive against the existing Flint siege, entered under today’s date with Marrick and Lana witnessing.}

Hans rotated the salvaged door until the western field loop faced everyone responsible for using it.

"Then tomorrow we draw the ground," he said, setting empty markers beside each route, "tonight, every defender learns how to leave the wall."

Hajin remained at the restored registry while runners carried that order toward Juna, Loccy, Vella, Ferra, plus every militia post.