Chapter 8.2 – Fortress Assault Exercise

“That may be so… The enemy is keeping just outside our bow range while ‘encircling’ us. Well, with so few of them, it’s hardly even an encirclement…”

“Hm. They might be trying to provoke us, but we can’t bite.”

The garrison was a straight hundred human soldiers.

With only that, Triman wasn’t confident they could leave the fort and defeat an eighty-strong force that included twenty Ogres.

They might win—but not certainly, and the losses would be heavy.

Holding the fort and refusing to budge was the wiser play.

“Since our arrows can’t reach them from here, their arrows can reach even less. If they stay put, so do we.”

“That’s fine, sir, but… what moves do you expect next?”

“Is this a test?”

“No, sir. I simply wish to confirm the possible tactics.”

Like an extension of the drill, the veteran kept asking.

Triman, a little irritated, answered anyway.

“We can’t sally, so all we can do is defend. If they advance?”

“Basic plan: meet them with arrows; if arrow stocks run low, switch to magic; if they close, throw stones. Preparations are done.”

“And if they set ladders, we draw swords… textbook stuff.”

“Still, once the fighting starts, problems crop up. Shoring those up is my job.”

“…Understood, sir.”

A siege is simple. The attacker makes a move; the defender answers.

That very simplicity is the defender’s edge: the height of the walls, stone cover, ample stores—terrain amassed over time.

Without siege engines or overwhelming numbers, the fort is near impregnable.

“Even so, Commander, not knowing their aim is unsettling.”

“Yeah… If this is an exercise, it’s half-baked.”

The country around the fort held no real forests.

Lines of sight were clear; no room for hidden troops unless placed far away—and then they couldn’t approach unseen anyway.

“…Could they have an elite in their ranks on her first outing?”

“Maybe, but why pick this backwater fort for that?”

Elites—fighters several, dozens of times stronger than normal—were rare.

Risking one here over a meaningless fort made little sense.

“Then it’s still a drill? A provocation?”

“Most likely. Unfortunately, that leaves us guessing.”

Young though he was, Triman stayed earnest, never coasting on half-learned experience.

But he simply couldn’t imagine what would come next—there was nothing to base an estimate on.

※

Gaikaku, provisional Knight Commander, sat in the rear camp.

Though mage and commander, he’d often lurked at the front lines; this time, quite conventionally, he remained in back.

Aside from Gaikaku the camp held ten Dark Elves, twenty Elves, and forty humans.

As a reserve that was fine—though perhaps the humans should really be up front… or maybe expecting to take the fort with so few was folly.

“Well then… forward positions are set?”

“Seems so…”

The camp presented a bizarre sight: telescopes.

Large ones, tripod-mounted—twenty in all, arrayed toward the fort like a trade fair.

“Time to field-test the new weapon. Couldn’t use it before—too few troops. But with a hundred extra humans, now we can.”

“…Yet we Elves are still the ammo hoppers, I see.”

“Relax, relax! Zero life risk!”

“…That’s somehow sadder.”

As usual, each Elf sat atop her own magic circle. The circles would drain each girl’s mana and funnel it into one shot. So far, nothing new.

“Shooter team, ready?”

“W-we don’t actually do anything special…”

“Sure you do—vital job!”

The twist: the ‘turrets’ now resembled matchlock guns, and humans were holding them, prone, aiming toward the fort.

Looked like snipers—yet they weren’t sighting at all; the tubes lacked sights. All the girls had to do was brace the barrels and pull triggers.

“Spotter team, sights aligned?”

“Y-yes! All targets marked!”

“Good!”

The spotter team—human soldiers—peered through those telescopes.

Each scope bore a tiny mana pointer, shining a dot of light on the chosen mark. Keeping that dot steady on a far-distant figure was hard—any twitch lost it—but the garrison soldiers, stuck on watch, barely moved, which helped.

“During drills the output was puny, but not today. We’ll siphon every drop from a Low-Rank Elf, compress it—and snipe… all twenty of you at once!”

First mission from Supreme Knight Commander Tistria or no, Gaikaku still thrilled at new-weapon live fire. This was why he lived as a mage.

“Right, counting down…”

The twenty Elves surrendered themselves to the circles.

Mana ripped from them, funneled down cables to the shooters’ guns.

San.

The tubes grew hot; each now brimmed with the mana of two humans plus one Elf. Shooters swallowed nervously.

Ni.

Spotters locked onto their dots, too tense even to blink.

Ichi… fire!

Triggers clicked.

Twenty mana rounds left the muzzles—so fast a normal human couldn’t even see them, shooting straight for the glowing dots a full kilometer away.

Each dot sat on a sentry atop the northern wall—bow raised.

Every one of those twenty soldiers was hit.

…

Some took rounds to the chest, some the head, some the shoulder—each impact punched a fist-sized hole.

Enough power to kill outright, without even pain.

Bodies jerked back, then toppled inside the fort, spilling blood.

Twenty men died simultaneously—before the battle had even begun.

Their nearby comrades turned—Huh?—unable even to shout. Others, hearing armored bodies crash below, went wide-eyed. But wall guards couldn’t abandon posts; none grasped the danger until the twenty were dead.

Inside, a relief squad would soon discover the carnage, but until then, confusion reigned.

“Beastkin squad, now!”

“Got it!”

Behind the twenty-strong Ogre line on the north side, ten Beastkin received the signal.

Wearing Sea Runner rigs that lightened their steps, they dashed for the wall, fuses already sparking on clay grenades.

(Just this moment… the north side’s utterly naked! With this gear we can scale it!)

Slow for Beastkin, they were still twice human speed, yet cursed their own sluggishness.

(Hurry… hurry! If they spot us we’re dead—we’ve got no real armor!)

Lightened, they ran straight up the stone.

Though twenty defenders had fallen, dozens remained—but the Beastkin vaulted over.

(Take this!)

From the parapet walkway they rolled their grenades—one each—among the archers who still hadn’t processed the rear noise.

“N-ngh?!”

Job done, they leapt back down and sprinted off. Some guards noticed—but whether it even registered was doubtful.

“B-bombs—clay bombs!”

Too late.

Thrown from behind and at their feet, there was no tossing them back.

The grenades BOOMED, spraying shrapnel and deafening blasts.

“Gyaaah!”

“My leg—damn, shrapnel!”

“W-what hit us?!”

“Blood from my ears—can’t hear—just roaring—!”

“Hyaaa?! What—corpses inside the fort?!”

“I-intruders?! Still hiding?!”

“Look, these are wall guards!”

“What’s going on—twenty bodies—all dead!”

Chaos swallowed the fort.

Well-stocked, well-manned defenses shattered without ever fighting the enemy. The uproar was loud enough for even the distant perimeter troops to hear.

“Seems the plan worked… no wonder the Supreme Knight Commander scouted him.”

From the south, the former Amazoness leader—now infantry captain—watched, pleased.

“Right then… as planned.”

She signaled the ladder crews.

“All units, fall back! Return to camp!”

“Roger!”

Already their “encirclement” was loose; now they withdrew without lifting a finger. All four sides turned and marched away.

Any sane eye would find it absurd: the fort lay ripe—why retreat? It looked like throwing victory away.

“Commander Triman! The enemy’s pulling back—orders?!”

“?!”

“Shall we pursue?!”

“No—rescue the wounded first! Then start questioning survivors. Move!”

Triman had no idea what the enemy intended. With forces too weak to chase, all he could do was triage.

Before the fight he’d known nothing of their plan; after, he still knew nothing.

“What sort of trick did they pull…!”

The only sure fact: the fort as a fighting unit had collapsed.

※

Evening neared at the Slave Knight camp.

Twenty Elves lay spent on cots; the rest gathered to review progress.

“Per the Supreme Knight Commander: few enemy deaths, minimal fort damage, swift capture—that’s the grading rubric.”

Gaikaku repeated the goal.

“So a perfect score is: zero kills, zero damage, taken on day one.”

Achievable in theory—just not this time. The day was already ending.

“Forcing it and getting you hurt helps no one. The Beastkin already took risks; storming inside would’ve meant more accidents, especially with unknown enemy makeup.”

He’d never aimed for a perfect score—only a passing one. Overreach and lose troops; smarter to play safe.

“With this plan we can seize the fort by tomorrow morning—barring a huge relief army, which even the Supreme-Commander would excuse.”

“You think it’ll go that smoothly?”

A Dark Elf voiced her doubt—success aside, complacency scared her.

“Maybe not. Worst for us would be a night raid. That would sting. So you lot keep watch—we’ll be ready. Victory’s basically ours!”

Gaikaku crowed; the Dark Elves still fretted, but the Amazonesses looked relaxed.

“If the Dark Elves keep watch, we’re golden.”

“Didn’t know what to expect, but we landed a good boss~”

They knew their worth—and feared nothing.

※

Pre-dawn inside the fort.

Even past midnight the place was noisy with wounded and dead.

Half the garrison shattered in an instant—during a defensive siege, with clear sight lines, against a countable enemy.

Commanders couldn’t indulge confusion; they had to decide.

“Everyone, listen up.”

Triman gathered the other noble cadet-officers. His face held grim resolve—decision made. To the shaken young officers that was reassuring; no one else knew what to do.

“…When morning breaks—indeed, it’s almost dawn—the enemy will likely demand surrender. We will accept, become prisoners, have our men released, and yield the fort.”

The words were plain—and bleak. Total capitulation. It meant captivity now and disgrace back home. The future looked grim.

“Commander Triman?! Isn’t there—some trump card, secret move, hidden ace?!”

“There is not!”

“A latent talent awakening, reinforcements, anything!”

“There is not!”

“Then at least—some weakness of theirs? How did they do all that?!”

“That, I can partly explain.”

Triman had questioned survivors and examined bodies—a miserable task, but informative.

“All twenty men on the north wall were dead from obvious high-grade magic. Others were wounded by clay bombs—mostly lower limbs. From that I conclude…”

His deduction neared the truth.

“The enemy placed the twenty Ogres on the north front, but Ogres can’t cast such magic or throw bombs deftly. Therefore, hidden behind them were Elves and Beastkin.”

“…Using the Ogres’ bulk as cover?”

“If the Ogres advanced we’d see them, so the enemy kept their distance. To make that natural, the other flanks also stayed back.”

“Thus Elves sniped the wall guards, Beastkin rushed up and rolled bombs… it’s simple once stated.”

The officers nodded; doable, at least in theory.

“However… that assumes elite Elves. Sniping twenty half-shielded soldiers simultaneously from beyond bow range is impossible otherwise.”

An elite could manage—if utterly protected, totally focused—conditions met by hiding behind Ogres.

“Sprinting up the wall to bomb us—any Beastkin could, elite or not.”

“So the enemy’s tactic is clear!”

“And such magic would exhaust even elite Elves!”

“And they can’t have many bombs!”

“That’s why they hit once and pulled back!”

The officers brightened: the devastating attack couldn’t be repeated easily.

But Triman still scowled.

“It’s only a theory. More: why waste elite Elves so crudely? And such high-level magic should require large circles—our sentries would have noticed and shouted. Why didn’t they?”

“That is… true…”

“The Beastkin bombers ran off instead of fighting. Why?”

Possible, but why choose it? And pondering why was pointless.

“Here’s the critical, decisive point.”

Cold water over hopeful cadets.

“Even assuming no hidden reserves at all… can we beat a force of sixty humans and twenty Ogres with what we have left?”

Silence—faces went ashen. Not vague fear, but concrete despair.

“Roughly thirty dead, twice that wounded. Combat-ready troops including us: maybe ten. All exhausted, running on little food or rest. How fight eighty fresh troops?”

“We can’t even engage, let alone win…”

Triman’s logic sank in.

“The enemy wanted us to hole up with those eighty. Now they’re more than enough to finish us.”

“Whether they’re out of bombs or mana doesn’t matter…”

“We can’t beat the force they’ve shown…”

Human troops had not shone today; a Dark Elf could have done a spotter’s job, true—but their very normality let the plan unfold so smoothly. The defenders could predict nothing exotic.

“The enemy has solid regulars plus decisive ambushers. We never had a chance.”

“I see that, but one thing still puzzles me.”

One officer, half resigned, asked:

“Why didn’t they finish us yesterday? They could’ve stormed or demanded surrender. By retreating, they let us treat the wounded and gather intel.”

Oddly merciful.

“Exactly.”

Triman exhaled.

“Treating our wounded is troublesome—they let us handle it. Sorting the facts proves we can’t win—they wanted us to see that. All to ensure surrender proceeds smoothly.”

A bitter laugh.

“And maybe… so the tale won’t say we fell in a single stroke. We lasted a day, surrendered on the second. A kinder record.”

“…Kind, huh?”

“No. Arrogant—but the arrogance of the strong.”

The officers accepted that patronizing mercy.

With sunrise, they offered surrender.

Gaikaku accepted, and the battle was over.