I placed a hand on a section of the wall made of earth magic. It would be the basis for the fortress wall.
“Harden… Harden…” I focused my magical energy into the wall. I was picturing a wall made of concrete, but given the sheer size of the thing I needed to produce, this was going to take a while. Arrows could come flying over the wall at any moment, so it was prudent to have our able-bodied troops carry the materials and put them together while I worked.
Wow, who came up with such a great plan? Just Van, the one and only boy super-genius. Great job, me!
With a new spring in my step, I kept on working. At this rate we’d have the fortress done in no time.
As if on cue, I heard something crack on the other side, and the wall sent violent vibrations through my hand and up my arm. It nearly knocked me over.
“Ugh, those black balls,” I groaned. Had they opened a hole in the wall? I shook my head, trying to visualize what had happened—then sensed something off. I whipped around and saw that a portion of the wall had been destroyed, leaving a hole big enough for our enemies to enter.
This was bad. I pictured Yelenettan soldiers throwing black balls through the hole, and then a chill shot down my spine. “Dee, protect me!”
“Understood!” Dee instantly raised his massive shield and stepped in front of me, facing the hole. I put my hand on the wall and began to pour my magic into it, focusing everything on repairing this single point. If I didn’t hurry, the black balls would come flying, and not even Dee would emerge unscathed from a direct hit.
Under normal circumstances, no amount of repair work could return a wall to its original strength once part of it had cracked. If our enemies were operating under that assumption, they would focus their attacks on the same point again.
Ugh, how had it come to this? I just wanted to go home.
Orders kept flying around me.
“Hurry! Focus on durability over height!”
“Watch for attacks from above! Their arrows could fly right over!”
I focused on the fortress. Since we had prepared the materials ahead of time, the work went several times faster than it normally would. Just as planned.
Unfortunately, dealing with so many materials meant mistakes were unavoidable. I pointed them out whenever I noticed them, even as I rushed to fuse together the materials people constructed for me. “Ah, that’s for the flooring! Lay those out!”
“Got it!”
“That’s for the exterior wall!”
“Roger that!”
I’d repaired the damaged wall by this point, so my top priority was ensuring that this fortress functioned like one. Before I could do that, though, I heard horses from the other side of the wall, then loud blasts against its surface.
“Black balls again?!” I cried. “How many do they have? They have to run out soon, right?”
Even from my position of relative safety on this side of the wall, the sounds of explosions didn’t exactly inspire comfort. My ears hurt, the vibrations were jolting through my stomach, and whether I liked it or not, I was afraid. Hearing explosions so close to me really soured my mood.
My fear was born of knowing exactly what gunpowder was and why it was so dangerous. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how my Chivalric Order, having no idea how the stuff worked, must have felt. Even in a world that valued magic most of all, there was no doubt in my mind that gunpowder would be a game-changing weapon in the future. We had to find a way to produce the stuff in Seatoh Village.
I thought this over as I worked on the fortress. Soon enough, I heard a different kind of impact against the wall. As predicted, they were focusing their attacks on the area they’d damaged in the first assault.
“Ha ha ha! You’re so obedient, Yelenetta!” I shouted over the cacophony. “Want to bring me some sweet milk bread, too? How about some cream puffs?”
Was this nonsense I was spouting just what happened to people who found themselves in extreme combat? I wasn’t even doing any fighting! Feeling very stupid, I redoubled my efforts, hoping to finish the fortress in one fell swoop. I’d already completed everything up through the second floor. Next came the third floor, and then I’d finish off with the towers, which essentially functioned as a fourth floor.
“Dee, we’re going up to the second floor!” I said.
“Understood!” he called back cheerfully.
Ortho, Arb, Lowe, and Khamsin all snatched up materials and hit the ground running, shouting at each other to hurry. They preceded me up the stairs.
Oh, come on. How do they have so much stamina? I’ve been training under Dee too!
As I reached the roof, I found my sightlines obstructed, like I’d entered some kind of sandstorm. I braced myself and looked around cautiously. Ahead of me, Dee said, “It’s dust from all the explosions and spells.” His shield didn’t waver.
Meanwhile, intermittent blasts collided with the fortress wall. They didn’t sound like explosions, so they must have been magic attacks.
“Visibility is bad up here,” I said to Dee’s back. “Since we can’t see what the enemy is up to, I’d better hurry and at least put up the bones of the fortress.”
Before my eyes, Dee suddenly shook. He lowered his hips and braced himself, groaning with effort as he leaned back toward me. He must’ve blocked a magic attack with his shield. “Dee?!”
“Ha ha ha! I’m fine!” He rolled his shoulders, then took his shield up again. I looked down at his feet and saw chunks of stone about the size of large fists rolling away. He must have used his shield to block a huge boulder flying toward us, then destroyed it. What a terrifying man.
I continued my work on the fortress. I built small windows into the towers on the left, right, and center of the building—they’d make good sniping positions.
“Lord Van! The dust is clearing!” Dee reported just as I completed the right-side tower.
“Just in the nick of time.” I flashed him a weary smile as I slapped an uneven wall onto the roof. The front of the fortress was complete.
I walked back into the fortress, but Dee stayed behind, staring up at the towers. “This is incredible.”
“What’s incredible?” I asked, turning back.
Dee looked briefly surprised at my question. “This fortress. To build something like this in such a short span of time… This will change the way wars are fought.” He grinned. “It’s unfortunate you’re the only one capable of things like this.”
“Yeah, well, save your compliments, we’re not done yet! We have to hurry and beef up our defenses!”
“Ooh, ballistae? Excellent. At this range, our enemies don’t stand a chance.”
I quickly set the ballistae up along the roof of the fortress while chatting with a very cheery Dee. Surely two rapid-fire ballistae would be enough for now.
“We have shields, so we should be fine, right?” Glancing away from the ballistae and over to the enemy’s fortress, I frowned. Two people who looked to be high-ranking knights were quarreling with one another. “Huh? Are they fighting over there?”