Chapter 60
Chapter 60
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 60
Chapter Title: The Impregnable Fortress
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Shhh!
The surrounding fortress wall, or more accurately, the wooden stockade, was enveloped in a green aura.
Ding!
A series of notification windows popped up before Carlyle's eyes.
[Notification: The effect has been activated!]
[Notification: The structure's defense has increased by 200%!]
[Notification: Allied morale has increased by 150%!]
[Notification: All allied stats have increased by 30%!]
‘If only the walls were made of brick.’
Carlyle bit his lower lip in frustration.
[Impregnable Fortress] was an item that, when embedded in a fortress wall, increased the structure's defense by up to 300%.
However, Bowden Fortress was just a wooden stockade built on an earthen mound, hardly the ideal conditions for [Impregnable Fortress] to display its full power.
Even so, it had been enough to send the seven barbarian warriors who had used [Juggernaut] flying far, far away.
“Private Carlyle…?”
“Yes?”
“What was that just now…? Was it the effect of that brick you just buried?”
“Yes, something like that.”
Carlyle shrugged as if it were nothing.
“Puhahahaha!”
“Serves them right!”
“They must’ve fallen to their deaths!”
At this astonishing turn of events, the soldiers of Bowden Fortress burst into laughter.
“Hey, you bastards! How do you like that?!”
“Go on, try ramming it again!”
As if they had never been trembling in fear, the soldiers' faces were now filled with fighting spirit and confidence.
It was a complete reversal from their terrified state just moments before.
This, too, was an effect of [Impregnable Fortress].
It boosted not only allied morale but their stats as well.
“Private Carlyle.”
“Yes.”
“What happens now?”
“Who knows.”
Carlyle answered Helen’s question as if he didn't really know.
“We just have to hold out for now. We don’t know how long the walls will last.”
“I see.”
“Still, they won’t break through easily, so we should be able to hold on for at least a couple of hours, don’t you think?”
“A couple of hours isn’t enough.”
Helen’s expression darkened slightly.
Reinforcements would need at least a few more hours, possibly even a full day, to arrive.
“What choice do we have? If we can’t hold out, then that’s that.”
“That’s unexpected.”
“What is?”
“Are you… not afraid of death? That wasn’t the impression I had of you.”
*What kind of impression was that supposed to be…?*
Carlyle was slightly baffled, but he figured it was the price he had to pay for possessing the body of a scoundrel and decided to let it go.
“What’s the big deal about dying? If you die, you die. It’s living that’s tiring.”
“Living is tiring…”
“What about you, Sir Helen?”
“Me? I… I’m not afraid of death either. People die here almost every day. If I feared death, I wouldn’t have been able to serve here for years. However…”
“However?”
“It’s true that I find it difficult to bear my subordinates dying because of my incompetence or my orders. Though that, too, is a responsibility and duty a commander must carry…”
Carlyle understood Helen’s words with his head, but his heart didn’t comprehend them at all.
If he claimed to understand, it would most likely be a lie.
Why?
Because Carlyle had never been responsible for someone else’s life.
“Well, at least for today, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re all going to die together anyway. Will there be any time to feel guilty?”
“…”
Helen frowned in disbelief.
But Carlyle’s words weren’t wrong, so Helen didn’t press the issue.
*Right, once you’re dead, it’s all over anyway.*
“Yes, perhaps you’re right. Guilt is something I can only feel if I’m alive. Your words about living being tiring… I can sympathize with that to some extent.”
Carlyle didn't have a chance to reply to Helen.
“Valhallaaaaa!”
“Gwaaaaaaaak!”
The enemies—the warriors of the Butcher Tribe and the undead monsters—were advancing.
***
“Fire!”
Whoooosh!
At Helen’s command, the soldiers rained arrows down upon the enemy.
“Come on, you bastards!”
“I’ll kill you all!”
The soldiers gripped their weapons and unleashed a fierce assault on the enemies climbing the fortress walls—the stockade.
“Va-Valhal—Keuk!”
“Gwaaak!”
The warriors of the Butcher Tribe and the undead monsters fell one by one, unable to get over the stockade.
This was made possible by Bowden Fortress’s geographical advantage and the effect of [Impregnable Fortress].
A fortress, by nature, is always situated in a strategically and tactically advantageous location.
Bowden Fortress was no exception.
Though it was but a small fortress made of a wooden stockade on an earthen mound, its location was specialized for defense.
With the added effect of [Impregnable Fortress], the warriors of the Butcher Tribe and the undead monsters couldn’t easily scale the stockade.
When they tried to climb it, they would slip as if by magic, and when they tried to break it, its strength, harder than stone or steel, was impenetrable.
“So they did have an ace up their sleeve.”
Jarkan, chief of the Butcher Tribe, frowned as he watched the battle unfold.
He had found it strange that they hadn't retreated from such a tiny fortress, and this led him to that conclusion.
In reality, the Decaron Army's 2nd Corps Command had ordered them to press on with the mining operation, but Jarkan had no way of knowing that.
“Our warriors’ casualties are mounting. Do you have a solution, Necromancer?”
Jarkan turned to the old mage watching the battle beside him.
The gaunt old mage, who resembled a skeleton, frowned as if to ask why he was being asked such a question.
“Listen here, barbarian chief. I am a scholar who delves into the truths of darkness. Do you think it’s reasonable to ask someone like me to provide a solution through physical force?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I have no particular way to bring down a fortress wall.”
“So you’re weak.”
“Heh heh.”
Crowley simply let out a dry laugh.
Necromancers specialized in magic targeting individuals, like necromancy and curses.
Whether or not they could cast powerful, wide-area destructive spells wasn’t a very important factor in evaluating a necromancer, was it?
And yet, this barbarian ignored such characteristics and simply defined him as [weak]…
*Ignorant barbarian.*
Crowley cursed Jarkan’s ignorance inwardly but didn’t bother to argue.
Barbarians possessed not an iota of magical knowledge, and they never tried to understand it.
“In any case, breaching the walls is your job, not mine, so handle it yourselves.”
“Hmph.”
“Once you bring down the walls, I will take care of the rest as promised.”
“Then it can’t be helped. We’ll have our warriors find a way to breach the walls. But you must keep your promise after that.”
Jarkan’s gaze shifted to the undead warrior standing guard right next to Crowley.
The undead warrior was massive, and its lifeless, decaying skin was covered in livor mortis, suggesting it had not been dead for long.
Furthermore, the tattoos etched by barbarian shamans on its deathly pale skin indicated that it had been a barbarian warrior in life.
The grotesque cross-section of its severed neck was exposed, and its head was held in its left hand.
[Dullahan].
A warrior of death, either with its head severed or carrying its severed head.
An undead being that novice necromancers wouldn't even dare to create.
“You must keep your promise to send my brother to Valhalla, even if it’s belated. Do you understand?”
“Of course. If I can have the Sigmund’s corpse, what’s a little promise like that? I’d keep it a hundred, even a thousand times over.”
Crowley nodded readily.
“Just hand over the Sigmund’s body to me, and the promise will be kept unconditionally.”
“Good.”
Jarkan nodded, his gaze falling upon his brother, Bjornsen, who was now a Dullahan.
If they were continentals, sitting face-to-face and talking with the necromancer who had turned his own brother into a Dullahan would have been unimaginable.
To continentals, turning a person—let alone a blood relative—into an undead was considered an act of desecrating the deceased, a defilement of the corpse.
But the barbarians were a people with different cultures and customs from the continentals, so it wasn't much of an issue.
In fact, Jarkan was quite pleased that Crowley had turned Bjornsen into a Dullahan.
“My brother. I will wash away your dishonor, no matter what. Though you have become one of the undead, if you succeed in your revenge even in death and fight honorably, our ancestors in Valhalla will welcome you with open arms.”
“Val… hallaa… Valhal… laaa…”
The head in Bjornsen’s left hand muttered [Valhalla] like a parrot.
Perhaps because he had become a wandering spirit, his obsession with Valhalla—a place only honorable warriors could enter—seemed immense.
Meanwhile, Crowley could hardly contain his excitement at the thought of turning a direct blood relative of the Sigmunds into an undead.
“To make a Sigmund my thrall… To think such fortune would come my way… Carlyle van Sigmund, was it…? I’ve never seen such a handsome man in all my life… Haaaah…!”
“Ugh.”
Jarkan grimaced in disgust.
The breathless moan escaping the old man's lips was deeply unpleasant, even for a barbarian who was liberal about lust.
And that wasn't all.
“Hah, haaah…”
Crowley’s wrinkled hand caressed his own neck and chest.
*Disgusting mage.*
Unable to watch the perverted Crowley any longer, Jarkan turned his head away.
He wanted to lop off the mage’s head right then and there out of disgust, but Jarkan wasn’t that foolish.
Besides, they were currently in an alliance based on restoring his brother Bjornsen’s honor and seizing control of the region.
Jarkan couldn't afford to create conflict with Crowley simply because he disliked him.
Moreover, no matter how ignorant a barbarian he was, he knew enough to understand how dangerous necromancers were and what kind of tricks they might have up their sleeves.
***
Bowden Fortress performed the remarkable feat of holding out for a full two hours against the enemy's all-out assault.
Despite the onslaught of the Butcher Tribe's warriors and undead monsters, they had defended the fortress without suffering major casualties.
It was all thanks to [Impregnable Fortress].
But even that had its limits…
“Th-The enemy is getting over!”
“What are you doing, you bastards! Block them! Block them, I said!”
As the bodies piled up, the enemy began using the corpses of their own fallen as footholds to climb into the fortress.
KABOOM!
CRACK!
Furthermore, the constant attacks from the [Juggernauts] were gradually wearing down the stockade’s durability.
It was an expected outcome.
The difference in forces was too great; it was inevitable that they would eventually fall, no matter how well they fought.
*This is the limit.*
Carlyle knew this was the end of [Impregnable Fortress]'s remarkable effects.
Of course, the morale and stat boosts would remain, but it was painfully obvious that if the stockade serving as the wall collapsed, the fortress would be annihilated in the blink of an eye.
And Carlyle's prediction soon became reality.
*At this rate, we won’t even last thirty minu—*
CRASH!
The wooden gates shattered into pieces, and the enemy began to pour in.