81漫画

Chapter 221 - The Beginning (3)

Twisting castle walls.

Ryushu, one of the well known architectural masters among the artisans of Monsieur, was the mastermind behind this creation. He was one of those masters who came up with such imaginative ideas that most architects couldn’t even think of in their work.

These twisting castle walls lived up to his reputation.

“Turn harder!”

“Turn, turn!”

Even though the city troops had managed to undergo military training in a short amount of time, the imperial troops were overall superior. Thus, there was nothing they could do on their own to narrow the gap between them and the imperial troops.

However, Ryushu’s twisting castle didn’t require skilled individuals to maneuver it; it just required a bunch of ordinary people to push the levers. This made it an extremely efficient defensive mechanism for sieges, suitable for the city troops who were inferior to the imperial troops in multiple aspects.

“Hehehe, I knew I was right.”

After the siege had begun, Vant had relocated the artisans of Monsieur to the castle rear to keep them safe, but just like any artist, Ryushu wanted to see his work in action. Thus, he had made his way through the crowd, leaving the safe zone, and climbed up the castle to admire his masterpiece as it was being used. He couldn’t help but smile as he saw the castle walls continue to move.

"Harder!"

"Hoooah!"

When someone let out a battle cry, the others followed. They didn’t need coordination like in a three-legged race, but they maintained the rhythm to keep the castle walls constantly rotating.

Ryushu was extremely satisfied to see that his masterpiece worked perfectly. Then, as he saw the city troops going in circles, he thought to himself, ‘Hehehe, this is all thanks to the Archmage. Without him, I wouldn’t have been able to use all those costly wizards like my slaves.’

Given how Ryushu had designed the twisting castle walls, it would’ve been impossible to complete this project by himself. In fact, it was the wizards who had done the hard work.

If a certain material was too heavy, the wizards made it lighter with magic, and if there were some places where they couldn’t fit something, the wizards cast magic to somehow make it possible.

The collaboration between the wizards and the architect had resulted in a truly amazing piece of work.

“This is crazy...!”

As the castle walls turned and the ladders leaning on them fell down one after another, Rockefeller got increasingly more frustrated, the veins bulging on his head.

‘You’re telling me that there are walls that move?!’

Even though he was seeing the walls turn in front of him, he was still in disbelief because he had never seen anything like that during his lifetime.

“Out of my way!”

Rockefeller figured that if they couldn’t engage with the enemy in melee combat, he had no choice but to step up himself. He knew this was the only way because the Fourth Corps currently didn’t have a magic artillery barrage that could destroy the castle walls, nor any engineers to create new siege weapons.

‘Those damn bastards!’

Rockefeller raised his sword up high, his ego bruised. Then, a thick, blue Aura, which looked like fog, formed around the tip of his sword. He held his breath as the Aura became thicker, and shortly after, he swung his sword forward.

Swish!

With that, the concentrated Aura resembling a blue half-moon shot out from his blade akin to an arrow.

Slash!

With that, the flying Aura blade hit the castle wall, and judging by how loud the impact was, it seemed it had damaged the castle wall quite a bit. Rockefeller smiled as he looked at the thick cloud of dust from afar.

‘I knew it. You thought you were being smart by spending all that money on those fancy architects. I’ll make you realize that nothing matters in front of overwhelming power. You just wait.”

He was technically telling the truth. No matter how good their technology was, at the end of the day, overwhelming power triumphed over everything.

However, as the dust cleared out, Rockefeller was taken aback.

“Hmm...?”

He had expected to see the castle walls badly damaged, but as the dust cleared out, he could see that they were in perfect condition, as if he hadn’t even hit them in the first place.

“How in the world...?”

Rockefeller couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He couldn’t imagine that some castle wall could withstand a flying Aura blade, especially since he had launched that attack with a lot of determination and anger. In fact, it was only natural for Rockefeller to be in disbelief, since he wasn’t some ordinary knight, but a Peak Sword Master and a general.

‘Don’t tell me...?!’

Something didn’t seem right, so he raised his sword and shot another flying Aura blade.

Bang!

Once again, a big explosion echoed throughout the battlefield. He knew there was nothing wrong with his swordsmanship, and he definitely felt that his attack had hit something sturdy. However, as the dust cleared, there wasn’t even a single scratch on the wall...

“What in the world?!”

Rockefeller was furious. He was absolutely baffled by the fact that the castle walls withstood his attack not once, but twice, without even a single scratch on them. More than that, those attacks hadn’t come from a second-rate soldier; he was Rockefeller Igdom, the fourth sword of the Imperial Ten Swords.

On top of being furious, he was now dumbfounded as he couldn’t understand what was going on.

Rockefeller got off his horse.

He then squinted his eyes and looked closely at the castle wall where his flying Aura sword had struck.

“Is that a...?”

Rockefeller concentrated Aura into his eyes and tried to calm down as he scouted ahead. Upon doing so, he could see something overlapped on the castle walls. After looking at it for a while, his confused and agitated mind finally put the pieces together.

“B-barrier?” he blurted.

Indeed, there was a barrier in the far distance, and after staring at it for a while, Rockefeller confirmed it. Moreover, it wasn’t just any barrier; it was a magic barrier.

‘Why is there a magic barrier there?’

Only wizards could cast magic barriers, and to have a barrier large enough to cover the entire castle wall, the spell to cast it had to have been quite complex. Moreover, a magic barrier of this size clearly required a tremendous amount of mana to maintain it.

Rockefeller couldn’t figure out how a magic barrier like this could suddenly appear out of nowhere.

‘There are wizards here? That can’t be...’

At the moment, he could come up with only one possible explanation: wizards, the war criminals whom the emperor had ordered to be executed, were hiding here in Vivaldi.

"Hahaha!"

Rockefeller couldn’t help laughing. He had actually been wondering what had made Vivaldi so confident to declare independence out of nowhere, but now he knew. He couldn’t believe that the people of Vivaldi had put their faith in some wizards.

Realizing what was going on, Rockefeller brushed off his disbelief at not being able to damage the castle walls. He came to his senses, and his anger amplified.

“Well, all the more reason we have to win this.”

Initially, he hadn’t considered Vivaldi Town a worthy opponent, but now that he knew wizards were hiding there, he was doubly motivated to crush them.

He smirked as he tried to compose himself.

“Let’s see who has the last laugh.”

Rockefeller sort of understood how his attack had been blocked twice. It was possible for the wizards to gather all the mana they had to block his attacks, but even so, he was a Peak Sword Master. To block a sword strike from someone like him, there had to be a group of advanced wizards within the castle walls. They were at least mages.

Knowing all of this, Rockefeller decided to do a little test on them: a test to see how long they could hold out against him.

Of course, he wasn’t going to do this simply out of anger. He knew that would be a waste of strength. Rather, he planned to break down the barrier with continuous attacks. Once he did that, he would order his troops to charge and tear down the castle walls.

Moreover, in the event that he didn’t manage to destroy the magic barrier, Rockefeller thought that he would at least confirm something very interesting and of vital importance: that the wizards of the Magical Spire had fled to Vivaldi.

If the latter was the case, Rockefeller had no intention of going through with the siege. All he would have to do in that case was to set his pride aside once, camp in front of the castle walls, and report this piece of information to the imperial palace.

If it came to reporting that, Rockefeller was certain that the emperor would be delighted just with the fact that he had found out where the runaway wizards were.

After thinking all of this through, Rockefeller raised his sword again and amassed Aura into its tip.

Shing!

Boom!

Thick dust rose from the ground; this attack was more powerful than the last one. The silhouette of the castle was once again slowly revealed as the dust cleared away.

"Hmm?"

Through the dust, Rockefeller could see the shattered castle wall, which baffled him. He had expected the magic barrier to block his attack once again.

‘Was I just imagining things then?’

He had previously thought that there were high-ranking wizards lined up to defend the castle, but with this attack, he confirmed they had given their everything to repel the two previous attacks.

Rockefeller was a bit disappointed to see the castle walls go down, but regardless of that, the important thing was that he had finally managed to create a way into Vivaldi Town.

Looking at the gap in the wall, Rockefeller gave the order.

“We have a way in! Everyone charge!”

“RAAAAAA!”

The Fourth Corps, despite the earlier demoralizing struggles, felt a new spark.

“Charge! We must not let this opportunity slip!”

As soon as one side of the castle wall collapsed, the battle became even more chaotic. This was because the castle could no longer rotate. The imperial troops picked up on that and quickly set the siege ladders against the walls, storming the castle once again.

Seeing this, Rockefeller was confident that he’d be the one laughing at the end of the day. He felt that if they pushed a little harder, they could take down the castle much faster than he anticipated.

But at that moment...

BUUU!!!

A horn went off in the distance, the sound coming from the barracks of the corps. Rockefeller turned around to see the barracks, his eyes wide in astonishment.

‘An emergency signal?’

Rockefeller knew nobody would’ve sounded the horn unless there was a truly urgent situation. However, the moment he turned around to look at the barracks, he saw huge clouds of gray smoke billowing from them.

‘Fire?!’

Just as Rockefeller and his men were about to take down the castle, a fire broke out in the Fourth Corps barracks.

* * *

‘So it begins.’

Immediately after the Fourth Corps started the siege on the castle, Henry hovered high in the air and observed every move from above.

As soon as Henry saw the castle walls twist, he burst into laughter.

“I knew Ryushu would pull off something like this.”

He thought his idea was brilliant. As a matter of fact, Henry was the one who had supported Ryushu with wizards so that he could complete his twisting walls project.

After he saw the ladders set against the castle walls get knocked down, Henry prepared to execute his plan, but then, Rockefeller, who had been watching his men closely, suddenly unleashed repeated attacks at the castle wall.

‘Well, we most definitely don’t want to get hit by all of those.’

Rockefeller wasn’t just a random general; he was a Peak Sword Master. Henry had placed the first and second-class wizards in the back just in case, but he hadn’t ordered them to activate the magic barrier because he thought it would be too early to reveal every trick they had.

However, if Rockefeller kept on attacking with flying Aura blades like that, it was only a matter of time before the worst would happen.

‘Tsk. He sure is annoying.’

Henry ended up blocking Rockefeller twice with his magic. He figured that if he blocked him two times or so, the wizards in the back would notice and take action. He only left the battlefield after confirming that the wizards had mobilized.

The area Henry relocated to was none other than the front area of the barracks of the Fourth Corps. As he arrived there, he saw the piles of supplies they had brought with them.

‘I have ten minutes at most.’

He had only ten minutes to execute his plan. If he dragged it any longer than that, regardless of how many tricks the city troops had up their sleeves, they wouldn’t be able to handle Rockefeller’s rampage.

Thus, once Henry got to the supply barracks, he immediately summoned Klever.

“Klever.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Remember what I ordered you to do?”

“Of course.”

Klever inflated his body as Henry had ordered beforehand. He looked like black fog, which reminded Henry of toxic smoke. Once Klever grew large enough, he started swallowing whatever supplies he found in the barracks.

Klever was absorbing an incredible amount of supplies. Even though he had maximized his Chest ability, there were tens of thousands of items in the barracks. He couldn’t swallow all of them in just ten minutes.

Henry stopped Klever after he swallowed around half of the supplies the enemies had brought with them.

“That’s good enough.”

Henry knew he shouldn’t steal all the supplies the imperial troops had because keeping them in Vivaldi for as long as possible was the most important thing.

Having taken about half of their supplies, Henry took out several barrels of oil and spilled it all over the place. Then, he ignited a spark on his finger and flicked it at the ground.

Roar!

Once the spark made contact with the oil, the fire engulfed and devoured all the supplies in the barracks similarly to how Klever had done earlier. The only difference was that the supplies were turning to ash.

Henry then cast Wind to ensure that the fire would properly spread and that the enemies could see the smoke from afar.

‘This should do it.’

As he checked the time, he realized that exactly seven minutes had passed since he had arrived at the barracks. Henry had finished his task a lot faster than he had expected. All he had to do now was to run back without anyone noticing him.

“Fi-fire!”

At that moment, a supply unit specialist, who was in the back, spotted the fire and alerted the others. Henry took it as a good signal for him to retreat.

‘Alright, should I get back to the castle now?’

Henry smirked in satisfaction as he thought about all the supplies he had stolen and walked back to the castle walls.