Chapter 186: Castle Defense
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Pranav
During the middle ages of my former world, fortresses and castle walls were considered the penultimate defenses of their time, but due to the eventual development of modern technology, they fell into disfavor and became nothing more than teardrops in history.
Aerial bombings, long-distance artillery, large-scale weapons of ma.s.s destruction, and iron tanks that could forcefully break through walls all caused these immovable barriers to become obsolete. That was why these historical places of legend, which had been so significant in wars of past, were opened to the public as scenic tourist spots in a relatively more peaceful era.
“The times will change, and with the emergence of new technology and species, the old maxims of battle will be nothing more than garbage. Even the strongest fortresses will become nothing more than scenic locations in the end.”
I had always believed that. Even if the development of magic and technology caused many differences between this world and my previous one, with the people here not inventing weapons like tanks and air bombers, high-ranked air cavalry served a similar purpose. It could ignore castle walls and lob destructive weapons, and with the progress of the engineers’ technology in this world, a magical mechanical monstrosity was possible already—since I had already based several magical mechanical monstrosities on the weapons from my previous world. As for weapons of ma.s.s destruction, weren’t there already forbidden magic spells?
Even though few mages could use forbidden spells, and the ones that dared to use them were even fewer, with the development of magic it didn’t seem impossible for strong attack magic—that could affect even wars—to become commonplace. At least, I also based several insane magical weapons on ideas from my past world as well.
For instance, undead carrying biological viruses, slimes carrying radiation, flying aerial fortresses of destruction, concealed biological poison gas weapons…
Cough, as a believer in peace, let’s just seal those obviously anti-human ideas away until the next Armageddon. Now back to the main topic; according to my judgment, I came up with a conclusion that was against the norm of this world.
“In the future, wars will enter a new generation where castle walls are irrelevant.”
That was why I took an entirely divergent path from the Sleuweir Kingdom, which had spent so many resources on building high-defense fortresses. No matter whether in the Underground of the past or in the East Mist Communal Country in the future, I unhesitatingly abandoned the system of castle wall defense, which takes much time and energy to build. Instead, I spent my resources on developing new technologies, soldier types, and so on for practical combat.
“Defensive battles with solid castle walls as the foundation might just become nothing more than garbage swept away in history during this Holy War.”
But the time for change wasn’t now.
Fortresses and castles seemed to be pa.s.sive defensive structures, but in the era of limited weaponry, they were critically important. Whether it be for facing the cavalry attacks of nomadic tribes that were like the wind or defending against the beasts that would hunt prey in the darkness of the night, fortresses and castles were irreplaceable tactical centers.
Defending the castle, and attacking a castle. This was the standard of countless battles. Not only were they obstacles in real life, but they were also mental protectors. The citizens living in the castle would definitely feel safe as they looked at the tall castle walls that offered them protection.
Even if the era had already begun to change, castle walls weren’t entirely outdated yet. Besides, humanity’s stubborn habits were difficult to change, as most people still believed that the castle wall’s destruction meant the loss of the battle.
Currently, the Red Maple defense line was being held entirely by the humans’ morale. If their morale suffered a heavy blow…
“It’s over! There’s no hope anymore; we’re all going to die!”
The person who was shouting out in such despair was no coward. It was coming from a general who had just killed dozens of beastmen in close combat, and he hadn’t even had time to treat his injuries yet. But his shouts were just like that of a useless deserting soldier who didn’t want to become cannon fodder.
The castle walls weren’t entirely destroyed by the earthquake, but numerous large cracks in it allowed the beastmen to enter as they pleased to catch and hunt the humans. The castle walls were now meaningless.
“The castle walls are destroyed” is equal to “the battle is lost”—this was an iron maxim in the general’s mind, and the subsequent mental breakdown caused this brave warrior to begin wailing in despair.
There were many warriors similar to him. Even the most resolute of warriors instantly felt that the battle was already lost.
Battle out in the open against the beastmen who had the numerical advantage? Each individual human couldn’t match up to an individual beastman in strength already, and now they were also suppressed in terms of morale. This seemed suicidal.
Never underestimate the experience and wisdom of the long-lived G.o.ds. Emordilorcan, who didn’t seem to be much of a thinker, was actually a sly one. Even as a partic.i.p.ant in the Holy War, he had not only paid attention to everything that was occurring without directly intervening, but he also had done his best to understand the combat situation.
That was why he had viciously attacked the humans at their most significant weak spot in a critical time when he was destined to die. He knew that the fall of Red Maple Castle would cause the most damage by far.
If Red Maple Castle fell, then there would be nothing else blocking the beastmen on the open fields, and it would definitely topple the balance of power between the two sides. The entire human allied army would be s...o...b..lled with continuous defeats, proceeding with the beastmen turning back, surrounding, and conquering Antuen. This would mean he would succeed in his revenge.
“Hurry up and run, the beastmen are coming!”
“I can’t stand it, we’ve stood here and fought them to this step already!”
Luckily, not everyone had abandoned hope. Perhaps a certain princess’s bravery seemed idiotic and gave many people headaches, but her personality of never surrendering until the very end was still quite popular.
The flag of the Mist had yet to fall, and the People of the Mist had experienced being pushed to the brink countless times. If even the slaughters of their cities couldn’t scare them, then how could a simple castle wall’s collapse scare them?
“Abandon the outer castle walls; everyone retreat to the inner city. The injured should go first, and whoever can still stand—block those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds for me!”
Her roaring, angry voice, which still sounded quite young, sounded out from the top of the city, causing the warriors to wake up from their stupors and transmit her words. The dazed warriors soon began moving again.
“We’ve already endured countless bloodbaths; now’s not the time to give up!”
They instantly abandoned the outer castle walls that were about to collapse. Most of the residents were in the inner city to begin with, and the most number of people that needed to be transferred were the injured. As for the defending soldiers below the collapsed castle walls, they had no spare time right now to clean up the mess of stone shards.
The more critical the situation, the higher the importance of an ace card.
Finally, the People of the Mist used their last trump card.
“Great Judgement!”
The G.o.d Equipment Book of Origins was activated, and a silver holy light instantly covered the entire city. As the beastmen were judged guilty of the crime of invasion, all the beastmen immediately felt a restriction to their freedom, and they suffered under invisible handcuffs, leg irons, weapon confiscations, and many other similar constraints.
Unfortunately, though, before Wumianzhe became the Guardian G.o.d of the Northlands, the Church of Law had no reason to interfere in this battle. The members of the Church of Law in Red Maple Castle consisted only of a few of Reyne’s companions. There was minimal benefit gained from increasing their powers.
Yet even the effect of just restraining the enemy was enough. At a time like this, when every second was crucial, every minute that the beastmen were stalled would help more soldiers retreat to the inner city, where additional warriors were constructing new defensive structures.
“Notify the Borealis to attack with full firepower, we need aerial support… Overload the Train King, and give these d.a.m.ned beastmen a nice present!”
In this time of danger, Reyne showed her true leaders.h.i.+p abilities. She didn’t need a vast amount of wisdom or experience; as long as she could remain calm and think of ideas to deal with the situation, it would be enough to rea.s.sure everyone.
The chaos outside the western castle door was pacified under Reyne’s leaders.h.i.+p. As everyone watched regretfully, the overloaded Train King was tossed down the castle wall.
*Boom!*
Yet another mushroom cloud rose up on the battlefield.
The violent explosion sent even the entire castle door flying and vaporized those beastmen who were in the midst of crossing through it. The ma.s.sive hole could even be used as a makes.h.i.+ft moat now, but everyone had been taken away by the floating airs.h.i.+ps to reconstruct new defensive structures in the inner city. They were now at a distance from the staggering castle walls.
Finally, the castle walls collapsed entirely, crus.h.i.+ng a significant number of beastmen with it. At this time, Reyne was silently cursing the beastmen as she stood inside the floating airs.h.i.+p as she gazed at the pile of rubble.
“d.a.m.ned beastmen! I’m going to make sure your souls eternally struggle painfully in the River Styx… Wait, what did I just say? What is the River Styx?”
If she could look at herself in a mirror right now, Reyne would be even more shocked. The current Reyne had blood-red eyes, and the ethereal black wings on her back were beginning to materialize… Behind her, a ghostly black figure could be seen cackling maniacally.
“Haha, the seed has finally sprouted!”
…
Even though it was now late into the night, Antuen’s mage guild was rather hectic.
In the field in front of the mage tower, hundreds of mages were busy etching innumerable magical runes into the ground. Large amounts of precious resources were being utilized, and dragon blood was being used for drawing the runes, which was a difficult and expensive material.
Their precious magical cup of flames was being used as lighting, and even the archmages were crouching on the ground, researching the incredibly rare magical rune arrays.
“Is it still not ready yet?”
“Do you think that mega-long-distance teleportation is supposed to be easy? Let me tell you, this precision has no difference from opening a door to another dimension. Just one small miscalculation will cause you to be tossed into another dimension. Sit there and don’t move; I need to calculate your weight.”
The women pa.s.sing by kept covering their mouths and snickering, and even the mages seemed to be trying their best not to laugh. It was only natural because my current appearance was a fresh humiliation for me.
I kept s.h.i.+vering due to the cold winds as I was only wearing a piece of underwear… Wait, wait! Let me first explain that I was not infected by Xueti!
“Stop shaking; how am I supposed to measure your weight like this? Oh my, you’re a bit overweight—a tad too heavy for my spell’s power. You still need to lose weight!”
I was currently s.h.i.+vering on top of a large balance that was originally used to measure the weight of magical ingredients. Strange dragon blood runes could be seen drawn all over my body.
How else was I supposed to lose some weight? I hesitatingly reached to my final piece of clothing, but seeing as how more and more spectators were gathering around me and that those two women were covering their eyes but secretly peeking at my bottom half, I found myself unable to remove my underwear.
“You’re overweight by too much; just your underwear alone won’t be enough. Let’s shave off all your hair and your eyebrows.”
The cold Margaret adjusted her gla.s.ses as she made a pragmatic—yet fatal—decision.
I have to shave everything? For some reason, I thought of the smooth sh.e.l.l of an egg.
“Having a smooth round head will be cool in the summer. In winter, you can even reflect the sunlight and obtain warmth that way. How nice, you can even save money on the lighting at nighttime, and that blinding Bullet of Light technique will even have double its power.”
“Adam, stop finding such stupid reasons for me to become bald! If you want to reflect the sunlight, go do it yourself!”
Adam, who was watching from the side, was already rolling on the floor with laughter. Those ridiculous words could only be said by someone like him, or perhaps I should say that only he was such a boring person.
Yet my hemming and hawing was causing Margaret’s expression to become icier and icier. Her displeasure was evident.
“Is there any other method?”
“Hand.”
Instantly, I felt an ache in my heart. Cutting off my hand to decrease my weight; that seemed like the only method left to me.
After some hesitation, I withdrew the Roland Sacred Sword, and measured it against my hand for quite some time… before finally chucking the sword to Adam.
“Adam, do it for me. I’m afraid of pain!”
I shut my eyes and waited for quite a while, but I only heard the sounds of giggling. When I opened my eyes, I saw that Adam and Margaret were exchanging strange looks with each other.
“Stop wasting time, we don’t have much time to spare! Hurry up with the sword; I can just find a priest later to reattach my hand… wait, why are you guys laughing?”
“Hahaha!”
Hearing this, Adam began laughing to the point that he had difficulty breathing, while Margaret readjusted her gla.s.ses.
“Why are you trying to cut your hand off? It’s not necessary, or were you intending to replace it with a hook and pretend to be a pirate captain?”
“Then what about the weight? Were you just having a joke on me! Can you teleport me already?”
“No, I never joke about anything related to magic.” As always, Margaret wore a serious expression with that icy gaze of hers that would easily send chills through anyone’s heart. She was definitely serious. “Your current weight is a bit too much, but when I said ‘hand,’ I was referring to the Age Ring on your hand.”
I instantly understood. If the current me was overweight by just a little, the younger me definitely wouldn’t be. Just removing the Age Ring would be enough.
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier? Did you just want to see me suffer? Hey, hey, wait a moment, I still have…”
I was quite angry as I hurriedly removed my ring, but before I could even articulate my complaints, Margaret’s staff swung downwards and the light of the teleportation spell enveloped me.
Now, I could only hurriedly pick up my Roland Sacred Sword and prepare myself as I helplessly accepted the fact that I had been pranked.
After I left, the field fell silent again. Adam suddenly spoke up.
“Was that fun?”
“Of course. This b.a.s.t.a.r.d actually forgot about me again; what a terrible friend. It’s annoying to be treated like a stranger.”
The oracle, who always seemed so calm, actually had such a fiery, angry side to her. Immediately afterward, though, Margaret’s expression turned dark as she burst out laughing.
“Well, it’s not entirely his fault, so let’s just let the past be the past. And even if he forgot the past, we just have to create new memories. This should probably give him a deep impression of me.”
Adam could only helplessly shake his head before turning to look southwards. The final critical battle involving the entire fate of the Northlands would take place in that direction.
“I wonder if Roland will be able to deal with things by himself. It won’t be easy.”
“Hmph, he won’t be there by himself. Did you forget about Amelia and that cat? Why do you think they disappeared for so long? That Roland brat is ridiculously cautious; he must have left several trump cards up his sleeve that n.o.body knows about.”
And just as she expected, right then and there, in the market district of Red Maple Castle, a certain witch had finished her final pre-combat preparations.
“Oh my, I ended up using so many resources; I should ask my junior to pay me back for all this later. My babies, it’s time to wake up and eat. Relax, this time your food isn’t going to be those zombies that are difficult to chew. Let’s play plants versus beastmen this time!”