Defense of the Northern Fortress (1)

I returned to the doors of the conference room with Irene, who had finally regained her composure.

Aside from the soldiers standing guard, the area around the room was empty.

"You've been working hard."

At my greeting, the sentry startled and fumbled for a reply.

"Ah… y-yes, sir! That is—"

"My name is Swen."

"Yes, Lord Swen. Um… so you've chosen to remain and defend the fortress?"

"I have. Together with General Irene."

"I see…"

The soldier fell silent for a moment, then turned and bowed deeply toward Irene.

"…General Irene. We'll give everything we have until the very end. Thank you—truly—for staying to fight alongside us."

Thank you for staying to fight with us…

In the game, soldiers were nothing more than a number on a screen. But in this world, where that game had become reality, they lived and breathed. Each of them carried a universe of their own.

Of course they understood. They knew full well that they had been cast into a death trap. No matter how binding the order, what must they have felt watching their own superiors flee this place?

Thinking of it that way, I could understand why this soldier was offering his gratitude.

Irene had always been a commander who stood with her men. Night watch, the endless menial tasks of a march—she had shared every burden by the same standard as the lowest soldier. Even if Lin Brans had cast her aside, among the rank and file who formed the true pillars of the Brans Army, she had surely earned their absolute trust.

The people of this world were not data.

Irene received the soldier's words, then answered in a tone of grave sincerity.

"Mm. I will fight beside you to the end. And I will not allow any of you to die."

"Yes, ma'am!"

The soldier's reply rang out loud and clear. His morale, it seemed, had risen.

Well—high morale never hurt anyone. There was no need to add anything further.

We stepped into the conference room. An empty chamber, stripped of every soul, greeted the two of us.

They cleared out fast.

Then again, if you wanted to keep your life, moving quickly was the wise choice. I had no intention of resenting them now.

"Um… Swen."

"Yes?"

"What should we do from here?"

The worry on her face made me suddenly want to tease her.

"You're asking me? Lady Irene, didn't you just tell that soldier you wouldn't let anyone die?"

I expected her to fluster—something along the lines of, Th-that was… ahem… are you joking even at a time like this?

But the answer that came back was nothing like what I'd anticipated.

"I trust you, Swen."

"…Pardon?"

"I trust you."

Irene said it with a soft, open smile. Sunlight spilling through the window lit her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cheek with a warm glow.

"So I'm not worried. You said you could hold this fortress. That means we can save everyone. That's what I believe."

"…"

Feeling oddly sheepish, I let out a short breath and sat down in one of the empty chairs.

"Well… as you say. We will win."

"Do you have some kind of plan?"

A plan.

Yes. A plan.

Everything had been moving so fast that I was only now starting to think it through—but a plan did exist.

If the prediction said to hold the fort, then that was the correct answer. Which meant there was a way.

The problem was—

Why is holding the fort the right answer?

I knew the solution, but not the reason behind it.

Still, I had two advantages. First, I had poured ten thousand hours into this miserable classic strategy game. Second, my words were always correct. With those two premises alone, I could force my way to the answer.

I pulled out the map of the fortress surroundings that I had sketched at Irene's house. I'd drawn it in spare moments on a hunch—and sure enough, it was about to prove useful.

"What's that?"

"A map. I'm going to figure out what we need to do. There's something hazy taking shape in my mind… but I'm not certain of the steps yet."

An ordinary person might have lost their temper—after all the talk of earning glory, only to receive such a vague answer when asked for a plan. But Irene simply nodded without a word of complaint.

"Understood. Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Nothing in particular."

"Then I'll go check on the wounded, if that's all right."

"Yes, that's fine. Actually—that would be a tremendous help."

Holding a fort was not something I could do alone. It required every soldier still inside these walls. If a general of Irene's renown was seen fighting rather than fleeing, the morale of those who remained would rise. In a situation where anything could happen, boosting morale could only help.

"Understood, Swen."

"?"

"If anything comes up… call for me whenever you need. I'll come running."

She said it with a faint smile. Those violet eyes, which only moments ago had been lost and wavering, now held a clear, unshaken light—as if she had finally settled on the path she needed to take.

Irene left the conference room at a measured pace. And with what I had told her, the moment had come for me to act.

It felt daunting at first glance. But in the end, I only needed to do what I had always done: account for every variable, and eliminate everything that couldn't work.

First, the terrain.

I studied the map of the fortress surroundings with care.

To begin with: the odds of winning a direct battle were near zero. Zero, for all practical purposes. Irene excelled at siege assaults, but her defensive command was merely average. Her stats were S-rank overall, true—but with my low Martial and Command values, and only ten thousand troops in a poorly fortified stronghold, defeating thirty thousand was a tall order.

The moment they brought up siege engines, we'd be forced to sortie whether we liked it or not—and that would mean abandoning the prediction to hold the fort. So combat was out. If nothing else intervened, this battle was one we would lose without question.

Time to consider other possibilities.

The first idea that came to me was a landslide. This game was infamous for its absurd random encounter events—sudden famines from locust swarms devouring the grain fields, epidemics that erupted without the slightest warning, and natural disasters so extreme they barely made sense within the world's own logic. The most plausible among them was a sudden landslide annihilating the advancing enemy force.

But there wasn't a single mountain range near the fortress capable of producing a landslide. Everywhere I looked, there were only gentle hills and wide-open plains. Riding a horse across them would feel like cruising down a highway.

Not a landslide.

Even tracing the likely advance route from Chorel Castle—where Serpina's army had almost certainly set out—to this fortress, the path never crossed any mountain range. That possibility was eliminated.

Next: some sudden crisis within Serpina's army forcing the advancing troops to retreat. The possibilities were many—another rebellion, or something happening to Serpina herself this time. In terms of pure likelihood, this was actually more realistic than a natural disaster.

One might argue that a second rebellion so soon after the first was absurd—but working from the prediction, something would happen, however hard it was to believe.

And yet a particular phrase kept nagging at me.

The answer my Intelligence of 100 had produced was not simply Hold the fort.

It was: Take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠position where the enemy troops can see you, then hold the fort.

Not a single word of a prediction result was ever wasted. The existence of near-miss predictions only reinforced that fact.

If the enemy simply retreated of their own accord due to internal problems, why would I need to position myself where they could see me?

If that hypothesis were true, the prediction would have simply said "Hold the fort." Thinking it through that way, the possibility of something happening inside Serpina's army fell away just as quickly.

And once that was gone… only one option remained.

…A natural disaster will strike.

I didn't know precisely what kind—but something so catastrophically unlucky for Serpina's army would actually occur. No matter how low the probability, no matter how little sense it made in context—when every impossible option was eliminated, the one that remained was the truth.

A natural disaster will hit Serpina's army hard enough to force a full retreat.

Lightning was the most likely candidate. If the weather turned heavy and overcast as the enemy drew near, I could treat it as near-certain. Earthquakes were the most frequent disaster in the game… but if an earthquake struck, staying inside the fortress might not be the right call, so I set that aside for now. Besides, to position myself where the enemy could see me, I'd need to be up on the fortress walls.

But thinking that far brought me to a far more fundamental question.

Why did I need to take position where the enemy troops could see me in the first place?

If a natural disaster was simply going to happen, couldn't I just hole up inside the fortress the same as before? A moment's thought dismantled the hypothesis with almost the same logic as earlier.

I pushed both theories—"something happens in Serpina's army forcing a retreat" and "a natural disaster occurs"—to the back of my mind and focused on the essence of the sentence itself.

Take position where the enemy troops can see you.

Nothing else. Just that sentence.

The fortress sits on gentle hills close to open plain… If I need to hold the fort from inside while positioning myself where the enemy is clearly visible, that means the walls facing the direction of their approach—the northwest side, most likely.

If I stood there, in a place where the enemy could see me, what would happen?

The road down from Chorel Castle was a gentle slope—a downhill approach. Meaning that once they drew close enough, they would be able to see me as well.

I… need to be seen by them…?

The pieces of the puzzle began to lock together.

A sudden natural disaster. The necessity of being visible to the enemy.

…!!!!

I slammed my palm down on the empty conference table before I even realized it.

I need to make it look as though I summoned the disaster upon them.

I had to appear, before a host of enemy soldiers, as if I myself had called down the catastrophe. Nothing else explained why I needed to take position where they could see me.

Having reached that far, I had one more point to check.

What if I grafted the "must be seen" requirement onto the discarded theory of an internal crisis forcing the enemy's retreat? Standing on the walls and the enemy withdrawing—those two facts never formed a clean, interlocking sentence the way "I need to look like I summoned a natural disaster" did. No matter what I did up there, if the enemy had a clear, independent reason for retreating, no one would believe I had driven them off by my own power. Being seen would mean nothing. And if it meant nothing, it would never have appeared in the prediction.

Therefore—this wasn't about something happening inside Serpina's army. It was simply a natural disaster. That had to be it. No matter how I turned it over, that was the correct answer.

But that didn't resolve every problem.

This was likely the final question.

Why did I need to make people believe I had personally summoned the disaster? Why was that the most efficient course of action available to us at this moment?

Once I organized my thoughts that far, the answer came with surprising ease.

If the invading enemy mistakes me for the one who caused the disaster… they'll run.

Take lightning, for example. The damage would be real—but it wouldn't necessarily stop their advance. In the game, a lightning strike could kill anywhere from a few thousand to, if you were unlucky, ten thousand men in an instant. Assuming the same rules applied here, even after taking losses, soldiers would remain. Kill ten thousand at most, and they'd still try to storm this fortress with whatever was left—siege engines included.

But if they came to believe this wasn't a natural disaster at all… if they believed I had worked some kind of sorcery… if the thought took root that they might be struck by lightning again and again—

Would they stand and fight this inexplicable, impossible power? Or would they flee?

The moment I thought that far, the fog in my mind cleared all at once.

That's it.

I slapped my knee.

Yes. That was why we would win. I was certain now of the meaning packed into "hold the fort where you can be seen."

And yet… something told me that wasn't the whole of it.

This time, I ran a simulation of how the situation would spread from our army's perspective.

A newcomer in the Brans Army had driven off the enemy with a power like magic. Too many people had witnessed it for the story to be dismissed as exaggeration. Irene and every soldier in the fortress would serve as living eyewitnesses.

So what would a third party in the Brans Army think upon hearing the rumor? What an extraordinary man. Unbelievable. That newcomer pulled off something incredible…

Pulled off something incredible…?

Only then did I recall a fact I had set aside while thinking about Irene.

I—Swen—whether for Irene's sake or, as others seemed to believe, for Kalintz's faction—had defied my sovereign Lin Brans's order to return. However good my intentions, I had disobeyed my lord's command and acted on my own.

But what if generals that even the sovereign herself had written off as disposable achieved an overwhelming victory through impossible ability? And a fair number of officers already seemed to interpret my actions as being "for Kalintz." Irene was one thing—but Kalintz was different. He was bound to Lin Brans by blood. Any action taken for a man who harbored no fundamental hostility toward Lin was, in effect, an action taken for the Brans Army itself.

So if this rumor spread, if word of my achievement became known, and if on the surface it was framed entirely as a service to the Brans Army—then even someone as willful as Lin Brans could hardly harm me for the mere crime of disobeying an order.

And as that thought settled into place, I found myself laughing without meaning to.

"…Pfft—!"

Of course.

That was why a brain with Intelligence 100—a mind that only ever spoke absolute truth—had predicted: Take position where the enemy troops can see you, then hold the fort.

I laughed until the empty conference room rang with it, like a man gone mad. It didn't matter. Compared to the truly insane thing I was about to do, this was nothing.

I rose from my seat and took three deep breaths.

"…All right. Time to go."

It was time to go work a miracle.

Finding Irene among the wounded was not difficult. I approached her.

"Lady Irene."

"Swen. Have you finished thinking it through?"

"I have. And as it happens, I've brought a task that will need your help as well. Would that be all right?"

Irene nodded.

"Of course. In this moment, Swen, you are my commanding officer. What do you need me to do?"

"That's good to hear."

Because what I was about to ask was completely absurd.

"Please gather as many usable bricks as you can find."

"Hm? Bricks? There should be some left over from when the fortress was built… but ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠why, all of a sudden?"

I answered her in a tone of absolute confidence—wearing an expression that suggested I could see through everything.

"The energy of the heavens is unsettled. From this moment on, we will construct an altar capable of communing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with the sky."