"Is that true?" Flora widened her eyes in shock. She had known that Nathan had been relying on Jinwu to scout the area, but he had never thought it would be this effective.
Then again, Jinwu looked like a normal crow without his battle body. His third leg could be easily hidden, so he could fly or perch near the enemy's base.
It wouldn't be weird for Jinwu to find that location.
"This is amazing. To think our information is wrong…" He looked down before apologizing. "I'm sorry, sir. I gave you the wrong information."
"That's fine." Nathan waved his hand. "If we take a look at this map, their situation is clear. Is there any force that can rival them?"
"None from what I can see." Jinwu shook his head.
"There are multiple gangs in the slum, but none is as big as them. After all, this Crimson Skeleton is backed by a powerful individual. So, we can't really mess with them. Unless they're launching an all-out attack against us, we can't do anything against them."
"I see." Nathan pointed to a small area. "If you take a look at this place, it should be able to handle a few hundred people at once, right?"
"Ah. This place…" The mayor nodded. "Actually, there is one more area like that. The one you choose is a small plaza, while this one was actually the main plaza before the current one was built."
"Is that so?" Nathan crossed his arms. "No. This place is too big. We can use this smaller one. As long as this place can contain two to three hundred people at once, it should be fine to let the rest on the streets around them."
"What are you planning to do with this plaza?"
Nathan grabbed the chalk from Jinwu and circled a quite big area. "Do you think it's possible to evacuate the people around this area?"
"Hmm. That's too big. If what you want is a complete evacuation, it's possible. However, I won't be able to do it secretly."
"I see. The evacuation will be done from my side. What you need to do is to set up a perimeter in this area." Nathan created another circle. "This perimeter is outside the Crimson Skeleton's territory, so we will lure the enemies into this plaza, which will be our execution zone.
"I'd like to ask you to mobilize the soldiers to create this perimeter. Help normal people but defeat the thugs if they're trying to escape.
"I will try to evacuate all the people before it happens, so your soldiers should receive them and place them in a safer place. After all, the battle this time was going to be inside the slum. The damage won't be small either, so I want to limit it to the building only," Nathan explained.
"Building only, huh? I'm grateful for your consideration." The mayor lowered his head.
"Well, you can always use this chance to boost the economy, Mayor."
"Ah!" Flora nodded in agreement. "You can do that. If the buildings are destroyed, people have to work to repair or rebuild them. They will receive wages, and the money will somehow circulate a bit. Although it won't impact the entire city, the effect will still be quite nice."
"Ah…" The mayor agreed with the conclusion.
"Well, I want to talk about the city's condition as well, but I guess it can wait until the mission is over." Nathan crossed his arms. "Anyway, station your soldiers far away. We have to lower their number a bit before you can make your move, so be careful. We don't want the enemy to realize our movement.
"It should be possible for you, right?" Nathan asked.
The mayor nodded. "Indeed. I will arrange the soldiers that way."
"Great. We will make our move in a few days. In this battle, we will kill the two bosses and as many people as possible. Catching them is fine, but I don't want to have a variable when they have the number advantage."
"Understood. I'll follow your instructions."
Nathan then turned to Jinwu. "Alright, Jinwu. What are their main paths?"
Jinwu began drawing a line. "I'm not sure about the main path, but from the ground's location, I can see that these paths have much worse conditions. There must be a lot of people using those paths.
"Looking at the size of the slum as well as their number, I bet a huge portion of the Crimson Skeleton is using these paths."
Nathan smiled. "Got it. Mayor. Please strengthen the areas that have these lines. We'll try to send the people through other paths to make it safer."
"How are you going to evacuate them? Aren't there only the two of you?"
Nathan shrugged. "Don't worry. We have our own method. Flora. Look at the paths carefully and remember them. We will use this place as an execution zone and to do that, we need to lower their number to about 300-400 before the final battle.
"Once we've finished our preparation, we'll attack. At the very least, I'll inform you one day prior so that we can reorganize the soldiers. How many soldiers do we have here?"
"Because of the current situation, we have to lay off a lot of soldiers. Currently, I can only mobilize about 800 soldiers."
"Mhmm…" Nathan frowned. It was pretty bad to hear that the number of soldiers was far lower than the number of thugs, so Nathan raised one finger. "Got it. It's fine if you spread them thin. What we want is to plant the thought of a wall surrounding them. That's all."
Nathan stood up. "And that's about it. We'll finish our preparation and make our move starting tomorrow. Also, can I get a copy of the map here? I want to study it more."
"Yes, sir. I will have my butler bring it to you."
"Thanks." Nathan turned to Flora. "Do you want to add anything?"
Flora shook her head with a smile. "No. Everything will go according to your plan."