One of the preparations they made for a siege on Anheim was surrounding the town walls with countless vessels of water. In China and Japan, these containers would be either jars or buckets, and in Europe, they tended to be troughs. However, the idea behind them was the same in both the East and West.
“Do you think we can use these against the Demon Army?” Holzdeppe asked.
“We don’t know what they have up their sleeves. It’s best to be careful,” Werner answered. These vessels would be used if their opponents tried to tunnel into the city, or if they tried to hollow out the ground beneath the walls to cause them to come crashing down. If the ground was being dug near the buckets, vibrations would appear on the water’s surface, telling them that the ground was shaking as well. It could be considered a rudimentary vibration detector.
“With a Demon’s strength, they’d get right to the town walls as soon as they started digging.”
“True.”
“Your Lordship.” Eickstedt came running to Werner and Holzdeppe. Seeing him, the two stopped walking and waited for him to catch up. He reported that the catapults were set and ready to fire.
“And the projectiles?”
“They’re all ready, though I do wish we had more.”
“This is no time to be wishing for what we don’t have. More importantly, I want you to secure all the lids we’ll need today.”
If they had abundant Monster Repel, they would be able to buy time just by launching it over the town walls. But a lack of important provisions was part and parcel of being on the battlefield. They were just lucky they had all the arrows they needed.
“As long as the gates are safe, we’ll get by,” laughed Werner while pounding his fist on the town walls. He didn’t want to think about what would happen if the monsters overwhelmed the ramparts before reinforcements got there. He’d just have to hope for the best.
Incidentally, in Japanese, the word jōheki (literally “castle walls”) refers to walls that protect the outside of the castle, while the word iheki (literally “surrounding walls”) refers to walls that protect the town. Another word written with the characters for “town” and “wall” is rarely used, but when it is, it denotes walls that encompass the whole town below a castle.
“Lord Werner.” It was Neurath. The signal from above the town walls had been sent. Werner nodded and ordered Eickstedt to launch the catapults whenever he saw that signal. Then, Werner, Neurath, and Schünzel ascended the wall themselves.
As a border city, Anheim had robust walls with wide ramparts. There was ample space for ballistae and stones, and a section of the walls even had a moat fronting it. If Werner had more time and resources, he may have been able to utilize it, but since he didn’t, it was left as is.
Kesten came to greet them atop the walls, and Werner acknowledged him with a curt nod. Then, he stuck his head from a saw-shaped parapet that hung over the wall’s edge. He could see the Demon army descending on them, kicking up dust and sand as they went. Their numbers were scarcely diminished.
“Whoa. They’re really gunning it.”
“Just what did you do to them?” Kesten asked, throwing Werner a bemused grin. He was brandishing a metal club in his hand the size of—to put it in terms of Werner’s previous life—a plastic bottle.
“Oh, well, nothing much,” Werner demurred. His attention was on the preparations. Both the volunteer squad and the garrison had climbed up on the walls and were watching their approaching foes.
Most Anheim residents had never seen a Lycanthrope, so it was only natural that most of those watching from the walls had gone stock-still with fear. Werner, on the other hand, was pleased to see that he had enraged Gezarius enough that the Demon now charged them at full pelt; he wouldn’t come knocking on the gates as Mangold, demanding to be let in. It was the kind of trick that might’ve turned things around after his series of defeats, but it seemed a bold display of power was more a monster’s style.
Werner watched the Demon army’s mad dash from atop the town gates. He was impressed to see they stopped just out of reach of their arrows. It would have been nice had they simply rushed in, but Werner knew that was too much wishful thinking.
A voice rang out. “Are you there, brat?!”
His voice was so thunderous it shocked even Werner. The Demon Commander was truly furious. His howl sent a gust of wind that blew back Werner’s hair and rattled the air. Those like Werner and Neurath managed to shake it off, but some of the garrison and volunteer soldiers were so terrified that their legs gave way beneath them.
Kesten just seemed exasperated. “Really, what did you do, Lord Werner?”
“I…taunted him?”
“That’s a question, not an answer.”
But Werner had no other answer, and Kesten knew it was no time to probe further. With a shrug of his shoulders, he left Werner’s side and headed to his post. Gezarius seemed beyond furious, but with his forces scattered, he couldn’t simply advance. For an odd while, they simply glared each other down.
Finally, the Demon army had gathered sufficient numbers. They made their move. As soon as Werner caught sight of this, he raised the flags and commanded the catapult squad to shoot. As Werner watched the Demon army’s mad dash, the catapults sent boxes arcing over his head and into their massed enemies.
The boxes twisted as they flew, and their contents rained down on the ground below. They weren’t stones but round balls of metal. Had the Demon army continued uninterrupted, they would have fallen upon the gates in mere moments, but as the balls scattered across the ground, their metal reflected the sun’s light. The ground glittered with them, and viewed from the walls, one might forget that it was a battlefield.
The Demon army came to a sudden halt. They had learned from Werner’s trickery. They approached the metal balls to take a good look at them. That’s when they exploded, filling their fields of vision with white.
As tools, these balls served the same purpose as magic stoves, though in this case, “magic kettles” was probably a better term. However, to keep the lids closed, large covers made from monster hide had been put on top and then plastered down with glue. Then, another adhesive made from monster materials was applied over that. It adhered them so well together that they could no longer be used for their original purpose.
They sent the heating element in the magic kettles into overdrive so that the hermetically sealed contents spiked to alarming temperatures in an instant. The water inside boiled into steam, causing the kettle to erupt and a hot mist to blast into the air, obstructing the Demons’ visions.
But that was it. The vapor was hot, but there was nothing else remarkable about it. The Demons stepped back, and once the white mist had blown away, they were none the worse. The metal balls lay on the ground where they had burst open, glimmering idly in the sun.
Once they confirmed that the eruption was over, the Demon army once again began to rush for the town, kicking up the burst open shells of kettles in their wake. They kept their momentum right up to the gates, but suddenly, a few of the Lycanthropes let out screams as they tumbled to the ground. Gezarius, who had been heading the pack, was amongst those numbers.
What they faced was the most rudimentary of traps: soft ground covering a pitfall with stakes driven into the earth beneath. They had never seen a steam explosion before, but its quaint effects had led them to lower their guard. They had bolted straight for the gates with little care to what lay out their feet. Werner never had any intentions of harming them with the steam explosion anyway.
The Lycanthropes whose feet were stabbed by the stakes were stuck. They writhed in agony. The stakes were affixed with barbs, making it hard for them to free themselves. Gezarius’s large frame worked against him, driving his feet deep into the ground. He had no way of freeing himself. His shame for falling victim to such a simple trap would not easily leave him, but panic clouded all else from his thoughts.
The monsters who had headed for elsewhere on the wall were also trapped. The moat had been obvious, but they had not been paying attention to the ground leading to it. Their legs got stuck in small pitfalls only twenty to thirty inches in diameter, and the force of their dash caused them to pitch forward, bringing their charge to a stumbling halt.
With their strength, any monster could have easily cleared a moat or a pit, but it would take time to lay those traps, and effort to conceal them. Thus, Werner instead decided to dig small holes to make it more difficult for their enemies to determine where the traps were. He laid them out like mines in a field.
Stuck inside the pit, Gezarius was unable to take command. The monsters’ formation fell apart. While some scattered groups made it to the walls, others were trapped, and the confusion caused many more to simply stand still. Their forces were spread before the walls.
“Volley!” ordered Kesten. With that, the soldiers on the wall began their assault. Crossbows launched bolts, and slings flung metal bullets like tiny rugby balls. The missiles rained down upon the Lycanthropes.
The damage they caused exceeded Werner’s expectations. In an experiment carried out in his old world, trained soldiers launched the same fifty-gram lead balls the Roman army once used. Their kinetic energy and force rivaled the shots of a large rifle. They carried enough force to render leather armor meaningless. This storm of bullets would bring about large numbers of causalities even against monsters.
However, that wasn’t what surprised Gezarius. The monsters who had made it to the walls and gates were such the brunt of this focused attack that it turned them into porcupines, causing them to collapse on the ground. Seeing his men attacked outside the walls, even Gezarius froze. His expression made it clear that even he had no idea what was going on.