Paonia
"Send the attack signal to the Temple Knights!"
The priest shouted. Enemy mages had joined the fray, and no proper assault was getting through.
The head of House Paonia was just as frustrated watching it unfold.
They had to shatter the enemy line and seize Elwin and the Second Princess. Only then could they stop the disaster bearing down on them.
"Tell the operatives to prepare themselves for death. Capture Elwin and the Second Princess at all costs!"
The command post's orders raced across the battlefield, and the assault intensified.
Operatives drove into the Phalanx formation even as spears punched through their bodies. Temple Knights forced their way through the mages' interference and charged, accepting whatever stragglers fell behind in the process.
"Good. At this rate..."
Just a little more...
Priest and Paonia head shared the same hope. They were almost there.
Until a deep voice rolled over the battlefield.
"Earthquake."
The ground began to tremble. The shaking grew worse until standing upright became nearly impossible.
The earth itself split apart with a colossal roar.
A massive explosion followed. The tremors redoubled, and men dropped to their knees, both hands planted on the ground just to stay upright.
When the noise finally died and the dust blanketing the field cleared, the sight that remained left them stunned for entirely different reasons.
"What in the world..."
"So he came after all..."
The priest reeled at the sheer destructive power of the magic. The battlefield had been turned inside out.
Buffed soldiers flailed half-buried in the earth. Half the Temple Knights who had weathered countless attacks had been thrown from their mounts. Some were nowhere to be seen — likely dead.
And yet, right in the middle of the field, the ground around Elwin's forces alone remained calm and untouched.
What stunned the head of House Paonia was something else entirely. If that man had come, an Earthquake spell of this caliber was only to be expected.
"So he came after all..."
Before the aftershocks of the Earthquake could even settle, fists of earth erupted from the ground in every direction. Those fists struck without mercy at the fallen soldiers and holy knights.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Thud. Thud.
The Frontier Magic Division. The second-strongest fighting force on Monster Island. They had arrived.
Earthquake. A high-circle earth-attribute spell — and one that had deliberately spared the area where allies stood. Anyone who could wield magic with that kind of precision...
"Father."
Dozens more earthen fists punched up from the ground and hammered the terrain. Enemies must have been buried beneath.
Elsewhere the earth simply collapsed, trapping foes or choking off their movement.
If the situation had to be summed up in a single phrase:
"The ground itself is alive."
The earth was attacking the enemy of its own accord — or more precisely, the Frontier Magic Division was making it do so.
With Father at their head, the Frontier Magic Division advanced.
I sheathed my sword.
The battle was over. Father had come.
Hooves clopped closer. Father and the Magic Division approached, and the jumbled, broken earth smoothed itself flat beneath their feet as they walked.
"Elwin."
"Yes, Father."
"Clean up the battlefield. I will hold House Paonia to account."
"Understood."
For the first time since the fighting began, we broke the circular formation.
The Phalanx and shield-bearers bound the fallen enemy. Mercenaries and Alencia's knights turned on the Temple Knights.
Twenty minutes after Father's arrival, the battle was finished.
The two men ultimately responsible knelt on the ground. One was the head of House Paonia. The other was the priest.
Father's face, usually so impassive, was dark with fury. He listed their crimes one by one.
"The crime of organizing a secret society on the Island."
"The crime of inserting operatives into the administration of every territory."
"The crime of bribing, coercing, and threatening the vassals of House Frontier."
...
Before naming the final charge, Father's eyes went red.
"The crime of murdering Sylvia Frontier, lady of House Frontier."
Steel whispered free of its scabbard. Father drew his sword — the blade of the Frontier lord.
"Your sins will not be forgiven even by death."
Soldiers forced the priest's and the Paonia head's necks out straight.
"Viscount — Viscount Frontier! Wait just a moment! I am a priest of the Moon! Not some ordinary priest — a high-ranking—!"
A wet slash. A soft thud... and a head rolled.
The Moon Cult. One of the most powerful organizations in the Holy Royal Empire. Even so, Father did not hesitate for an instant.
"Next is yours, Elwin."
If Father had lost a wife, I had lost a mother. Perhaps that was why he left the Paonia head's execution to me.
I walked over and stood beside the family head. His face was calm, as though he had expected exactly this.
"Where is Gibson?"
The moment the battle ended I had sent hunters into the manor. They had found no trace of him.
"You will not find him on the Island."
"You sent him to the continent?"
"Heh... you could say that."
"Any last words?"
The family head turned. His gaze, which had been fixed on the ground, lifted to meet mine.
"Do not think this is the end of Paonia."
I raised my sword high.
"I hope you're right. If there's a next time, I'll crush you even more thoroughly."
A wet slash. A soft thud... and a head rolled.
A week had passed since the fall of House Paonia.
"My lord, it is mealtime."
"I'm fine. Eat without me."
"My lord, you skipped breakfast as well. You need to eat lunch."
Isaac forcibly set food down on my desk.
The battle with Paonia kept circling through my mind. That fight had produced a great many casualties.
"Have the dead increased?"
"No change, my lord. We used potions freely and even brought in priests. There will be no further deaths."
A force of twenty-five hundred. Of those, three hundred forty-one dead.
We had poured potions like water and, once the fighting ended, gathered every priest in Frontier territory for treatment. And still more than three hundred men had died.
"My lord, this is not your responsibility. No one could have predicted they would move that quickly — or that they would field a hundred knights."
I had been wrong on two counts.
First: the enemy's counterattack. It had come far too soon.
Second: the enemy's strength. I had expected a backer. I had not expected that backer to be the Moon Cult, one of the strongest powers in the Empire. I never imagined they would dispatch a high priest and a hundred Temple Knights.
"I focused too much on internal administration... Isaac."
"Yes, my lord."
"From now on, you will handle all domestic affairs."
"My lord...?"
"I'm going to Iron."
...
Iron — the city of mines and workshops. I arrived.
Iron had developed remarkably. Not only the number of mine workers but the number of blacksmiths had grown. The settlement itself had expanded, and its streets were packed with workshops.
And yet... the mission is still in progress.
Construct Mining Village (In Progress)
After touring Iron, I entered the central workshop.
"Master, you're here?"
Dve, who had been inside, greeted me.
"The village has come a long way. Well done."
"I didn't do much. It grew on its own. More importantly — what brings you this time? Something else for me to build?"
Dve's eyes flicked between my hands, searching for a blueprint.
"I plan to design it from here on."
Dve cleared the cluttered desk and stacked hundreds of blank sheets on top of it.
"Then I'll leave you to it. My shift is over."
Dve left, and I was alone in the workshop.
"I need to get stronger."
The autonomous territory I held was badly unbalanced between military and administration — skewed extremely toward domestic development.
1) Strengthen military capability.
The first objective was set. So how to achieve it?
2) Method.
There was no easy way to boost military power in a short time. In this world, quality mattered far more than quantity.
Knights, mages, priests, Temple Knights — a handful of them could equal hundreds or thousands of ordinary soldiers.
With military expansion as my goal, I asked Grandfather about the current level of the students. He told me that a good number of knight-class students and graduates had reached Sword User level.
Considering that the minimum standard for a proper knight was low-rank Sword Expert, that was hardly satisfying.
He had also sent magically gifted students to the Gray Magic Tower. Among them, some had reached the second circle.
Second circle was far too little.
As for priests, there was even less to say. The theology class had only recently been established.
"In that case, I need to overturn my thinking entirely."
This world's common sense: quality over quantity.
I needed a way to flip that on its head.
I spread a blank sheet and began to draw.
Completion: 0
Completion: 0
Completion: 0
Completion: 0
...
Completion: 0
"Aaaargh!"
Dozens of sheets, and every single one came back with a completion of zero.
"This isn't working."
I had served in the military back in Korea. I knew the basic shape of a gun. I had even seen the insides a few times while assembling one.
Bolt, bolt stop. Barrel, magazine, trigger. Bayonet, standard rounds. I recalled countless parts and put them all into the blueprints.
And still the completion sat at zero. Not a single digit budged. No matter what I changed, the result was always zero.
"A modern firearm is impossible. In that case..."
An older gun. The kind used in the Napoleonic era — or earlier still, the matchlocks of the Imjin War.
"A matchlock, maybe..."
I had seen modern guns in person and fired them. I had done basic field-stripping and reassembly, if not a full teardown.
But a matchlock...
All I had was game knowledge.
"Can I even make a matchlock?"
The moment I put pen to paper and drew a line, I hit the first wall.
"I'd have to make the gunpowder first, wouldn't I?"