Leaving the elven village behind, I left the forest and headed west toward Ludoria...or so I would have liked. Instead, my plans had changed, taking me toward the capital of Zieden. It seemed I had much less time to act than I had first hoped.
It was clear that if Zieden was demanding that the elves provide soldiers for the army, they were looking to expand their military might. If they were so determined to bolster their military, they must have been intending to use it soon. That meant I could easily predict their next move. Whether it was to escalate their war with Vilestorika, invade the Alliance, or turn their sights on Ludoria, I couldn’t yet tell. But it was clear they were planning some large-scale movement. If they had difficulty enlisting the elves, they might burn one or two forests down to make a show of them first...but either way, I wasn’t happy with how things were turning out.
My journey to the East had taught me that when I wanted to do something, there was a difference between what I felt I should do, and what I actually had to do. If it was something I really wanted to do, I should do it. That was simply responding to my natural desires as a living being. Those were the kinds of things I could be selfish about.
However, if it was something I didn’t really want to do but did just because I thought I should, I would inevitably end up making a mistake somewhere. I would turn into a walking disaster. As a high elf, I had too much power at my disposal, and was capable of too many things, so I couldn’t allow myself to fall into that trap.
Now that I thought about it, the rest of my people deciding to seclude themselves in the Forest Depths had been right to do so. There was virtually nothing that could happen in this world that would require the high elves to step up and lead.
However, I knew I couldn’t live like that, and that still wasn’t an option for me now. In the same way, I couldn’t stand idle while tragedy threatened the people and places that I loved.
Ignoring the roads, I walked through the fields. Ignoring the bridges, I crossed over the surface of the rivers, heading in a straight line for the capital of Zieden. Humans were the most prosperous race in this world at the moment, but they still existed in a limited domain. The unreliability of torches, candles, and burning oil had left night an untamed frontier. Though they might proudly claim a territory as theirs, they saw next to nothing off the main roads, and couldn’t stop those roads from being attacked by herds of wild animals. A high elf like myself could easily pass below the notice of any human eye, even as I approached the largest city in the kingdom.
After a few weeks of walking and then waiting for nightfall, I approached the city of Jingar, Zieden’s capital. It was an enormous city built on an open plain, positioned well to connect to the various roads running through the kingdom, built with an emphasis on its economic and political purposes. The walls surrounding the city looked fairly new in the moonlight.
Before their merger, Zaints and Jidael of course had their own capital cities. I had even visited the old capital of Zaints, a city named Sviej. After the merger though, those old capitals were lower in status compared to the new one they had built. Jingar, the city before my eyes, was that new capital. In truth, if I wanted to do something politically about Zieden, I would need to deal with those two old capitals as well, but that was beyond the scope of my plans at the moment.
However, as convenient as a city built on the plains was for other reasons, that also left it vulnerable to attack. Zieden’s capital was no exception. As much as it was protected by high walls, it looked far easier to breach than a mountain stronghold.
That wasn’t good. For normal countries it was one thing, but it seemed especially careless for a kingdom like Zieden that was in constant conflict with its neighbors. It would put unnecessary stress on the people living there. So, I figured I’d give them a hand and bolster the defenses of the city a bit.
The city gate was already closed, and I could see the light from the torches of soldiers patrolling the walls. Getting as close as I could without being spotted, I took a deep breath to calm myself and put my hand to the ground. What I was about to ask the spirits was huge in scale, but still a surprisingly delicate operation despite its simplicity. However, ever since my time spent with the golden dragon in the Ancient Gold Empire, I felt my connection with the spirits was stronger than ever. I was pretty confident I could do this without a problem.
“Spirits of the earth,” I intoned, picturing what I desired in my mind. A mountain born from the earth. Not an entire mountain range, but just a single, solid, stone mountain, maybe one or two hundred meters tall, so that it would be difficult but crossable by humans.
It would emerge just barely outside the city gate. Naturally, such a large mountain emerging would create a lot of noise and shaking. But with some effort on the part of the spirits, that noise and shaking could be reduced enough to make them effectively unnoticeable. Doing something like that would have been quite difficult for me in the past, but right now, things were going well.
Of course, no matter how quiet and gentle the birth of the mountain was, creating something that large wouldn’t go unnoticed by the guards on watch. It would certainly cause a huge uproar and gather an immense crowd in no time. That would still buy me a bit more time than I would have had with the noise though.
And this wasn’t the end either. Sliding down the newly born mountain, I quickly ran over to the next gate. Jingar had been built as a square, so it had one gate facing each of the cardinal directions. I had just sealed the eastern gate, with my next target being the southern one.
No doubt once the southern gate was closed, they would realize what my goal here was. No matter how quickly I worked, or how stealthily I moved, I figured the best I could manage was to seal off three of them.
But that would be enough. I never intended to entirely block off the city in the first place. With three of the gates sealed, the residents would realize that they could be very easily trapped within by a siege at any time. It seemed quite suitable as a threat.
But as they say, “the last drop makes the cup run over.” If I sealed off the city entirely, it might drive Zieden into a panic, spurring them onto further, more drastic action. That was the opposite of what I wanted. Cutting off all hope of escape had a tendency to provoke someone to desperate action. Leaving a route of escape for your opponent to sap their resolve to fight was essential, or so it was written in a certain book of wartime tactics. I couldn’t remember if that book had been one I read in my past life or in this one, but either way I was putting its teachings to use.
After closing three of Jingar’s gates, I left the city behind, returning on the path I had come back to the elven village. I felt like Zieden’s efforts would be focused internally for the next little while.