Problem Solved
Afterglow Fortress was holding firm.
That did not mean the situation was improving.
No—if anything, it was growing worse, little by little.
Most of the stockpiled supplies were more than sufficient; they were overflowing. In a defensive war like this, they could hold out for years. Thanks to the townsfolk who had begun gathering in the city to weather the winter, Present at least had no shortage of manpower. The same held true for Afterglow Fortress itself, where the expedition that had returned from beyond the mountains—the one with the higher proportion of veterans—had rejoined the garrison.
Morale in both Afterglow Fortress and Present was high.
There were people in Present who fretted over the rocks, ice chunks, and lesser undead that occasionally overshot the fortress walls and struck the streets. But they were a true minority. Those who had lived through the previous duke’s era, when famine was simply a fact of life, kept the rest in line.
“So we’re surrounded on all sides. What’s the big deal?”
“An endless undead horde? Last year’s stampede was more of a threat.”
“Cut the whining! We’re not going hungry and there’s more work than we can handle—what are you young ones complaining about?”
Brutal cold and frequent monster raids. Even when the raids stopped, life was never peaceful. No raids meant no monster byproducts either. No matter how hard they scraped together food before the next winter, it was never enough in the Highland region—already infamous for being the most barren part of barren Iceland, and freezing on top of that. Trees were plentiful and snow covered everything, so at least no one froze or died of dehydration. Whether that was a blessing or simply a way of dragging out a future without hope was anyone’s guess.
Which was why those who had survived the years when famine was ordinary could now say, with absolute certainty:
There would be losses, sure—but at this rate, they could hold for years.
“I’ll be blunt. The fact that we’ve lasted this long is already a miracle.”
Richard did not share that view.
Summoned by the Margrave’s call, they had left their posts and gathered: Baston, commander of the Royal Guard; the officers of every unit; the junior officers; the warriors. And finally Gordon, the outside collaborator, who looked thoroughly bewildered by the sudden news.
While the others traded silent, questioning glances, Baston was the first to recover his composure.
“They say a man who changes overnight is about to die. Looks like your time’s finally come!”
“You son of a bitch, I’m trying to have a serious conversation and you come all the way here to pull this shit?”
“Then it really is your time, isn’t it? What else would you call it?”
Baston looked around as if seeking agreement.
“Weapons and supplies are piled high, and we’ve got enough food to last years. Same for every other kind of logistics. So what’s the problem?”
“The chief’s right, Boss. It’s only been a few days since this started.”
“My lord. Not a single man has died since the fighting began.”
One after another they spoke up, all of them of the same mind as Baston. Even Gordon, standing a step behind, nodded in agreement.
“You muscle-brained idiots. Fine, say the fortress holds. What about Present?”
The noisy crowd fell silent at a single sentence.
Good gods—who was calling whom a muscle-brain?
“And the holy water is being used up faster than expected.”
Every face in the room registered the same sudden realization.
This was not some prideful outburst. Most of the men gathered here were fortress commanders. They shut their mouths at once.
“We can’t exactly ration the holy water.”
He was right. The undead army was stacking corpse towers against the fortress walls. The walls were tall, of course, but they could not simply stand by and watch. In that respect Present was better off than the fortress in several ways: fewer undead overall, and fewer high-grade ones. But every one of those advantages rested on holy water.
“Can’t we ask the priests to push a little harder?”
“…Hey, now that you mention it, I feel kind of bad. Have those guys even rested since they got back?”
“Ah. The priests who make the holy water and perform the consecrations are collapsing.”
A murmur of understanding ran through the group—of course they were, and it was a wonder they had lasted this long. Since their return the priests had not rested; they had been producing holy water nonstop.
“Until the priests recover, we could try to conserve the holy water… ah, right, we just said we can’t.”
“Even if we substitute flame barrels, oil drums, and ballista bolts, none of them are as instant or as effective as holy water.”
“More importantly, the rear…”
Never mind the fortress—Present, the rear, could fall.
Baston stroked his beard with a troubled look.
“So we can’t spare the holy water.”
“Right. On our side, cutting back would just start producing casualties. But the town is full of soft civilians—men, women, old and young—and they’re already fighting an all-out war.”
“…Shit. I don’t want to accept losses the way we used to.”
Everyone in the command room, Richard included, agreed.
“Ah, I think we’re missing something important.”
Gordon, who had been hanging back a step, raised a hand.
“So. Exactly how much of that holy water is left?”
“At the current rate of use, three days.”
“Hold on—you said every other supply was stocked for years. Well, counting the rear it would be less, sure. But the holy water—”
“Did anyone expect the undead to come pouring in from behind us in this season?”
Richard looked around with an aggrieved expression. Everyone except the man who had asked the question was nodding.
Undead appeared in spring and summer and vanished in autumn and winter. That was common knowledge for anyone who lived in Iceland. It was the will and decree of Skadi, Winter’s Mistress of the Three Gods Sect. And right now it was autumn. In the Highland region Skadi’s touch arrived even earlier—winter came sooner.
An endless tide of undead surrounding even the rear, a giant commanding that tide, a great mage who could stand comparison with Catherine… Even Afterglow Fortress, the absolute front line of civilization that fought a war every year, had limits to the scenarios it could prepare for.
“I’d almost rather have last year’s full-scale sub-dragon migration or the stampede the year before. At least those felt cleaner.”
“…Wait, did something terrifying just slip out?”
“Hah. Back then I really thought we were done for.”
Richard shuddered as if the memory alone were enough. The entire command room agreed.
“There were several breath-breathing sub-dragons, and one of them was as big as the fortress itself.”
“That’s why every mage the ducal castle sent got wiped out, right?”
“With that many breaths coming at us, just surviving was the real miracle.”
“Still, thanks to that every last man got a brand-new set of armor, so it wasn’t all bad—”
“Man, good thing we stripped every last bone clean back then.”
“If we hadn’t, those bastards would be part of that undead swarm right now.”
The gloom that had settled over the room flipped in an instant. Gordon could not keep up with the conversation at all. A full-scale sub-dragon migration? A sub-dragon as huge as this fortress? Several of them breathing fire? And why was everyone so casual about it?
“All right, all right. Looked at the other way, that means we’ve still got three whole days.”
Baston clapped his hands to gather every eye.
“So how about we settle the whole business inside those three days?”
“End this situation in three days? How?”
“The real problem is that the undead are taking orders, isn’t it?”
The encirclement of Present, the assault on Afterglow Fortress, the unseasonal mass appearance of undead, even the sudden infiltration that had turned the fortress upside down once already—every one of them had a single cause.
Which meant the solution was simple.
“We send a strike team and blow the head clean off.”
A decapitation operation. Simple, clean, decisive.
The men who had been watching with skeptical faces began nodding one by one as Baston spoke. Richard himself looked thoroughly tempted, lips pursed in interest.
“Then the Vanguard Royal Guard absolutely has to be in on it!”
“There must be a song to raise strength and courage!”
“Boss! You’re not thinking of letting only your boys have all the fun, are you?!”
A barbarian warrior who had been listening from the back threw in a word. A knight hungry for the glory of the strike team added another. An adventurer looking to pad his record shoved his way into the conversation. In no time the command room that oversaw all of Afterglow Fortress was as noisy as a marketplace.
Gordon, who had been watching in silence, shook his head. At any rate, as a Sword Master his odds of being assigned to the strike team were about fifty-fifty. Someone still had to stay and protect Catherine while she dueled the enemy great mage in a war of nerves—
“…I just can’t make sense of any of this.”
“E-excuse me.”
“Hm?”
A hesitant voice came from beside him. Gordon glanced over to find a maid who had somehow entered the command room, looking thoroughly awkward.
“Urgent news? Things are a bit chaotic right now—you may have to wait.”
“Yes, sir. Steward Hartman sent me.”
“Sir Hartman?”
The maid nodded.
“The holy water problem has been solved.”
“What?”
A commander stocks supplies and prepares water sources and wells against the day the castle must be sealed or is surrounded by the enemy. Afterglow Fortress was no different.
There was, however, one difference.
“This is the fortress well.”
The well had been built inside the fortress itself.
“…A well?”
Karem blinked and looked around. Wooden barrels of every size were stacked neatly on all sides, and in the middle stood a hexagonal stone well fitted with a rope-and-pulley. He peered over the edge and felt his knees go weak of their own accord.
Whoooooooosh.
The wind-moaning well had no bottom in sight. The rope hanging from the pulley vanished into the endless abyss below.
“More precisely, one of the wells.”
“…Did they install this the same way they did the elevators?”
“No.”
Wallace, who had been directing the servants to stack sacks of salt to one side, shook his head.
“According to the records, the well has existed since the very beginning—since the day Tutatis himself raised the fortress.”
“Just building the place must have been hard enough.”
“When you’ve got nothing to eat, at least having plenty of water is something to be grateful for.”
As far as Karem knew, ordinary wells came in three varieties: ones that drew up groundwater, ones that tapped an underground water vein, and ones that were simply artificial pits filled with water. The well in front of him was a variation on the first type—built over groundwater that naturally welled up from the Gogmagog Mountains. In other words, aside from the opening at the top, it was essentially a sealed space.
“But… is this really going to work?”
Wallace had gathered several sacks of salt as Karem requested, yet he still asked with clear skepticism.
Karem did not answer. Instead he drew out the fist-sized sacred relic he always carried against his chest.
Clink.
“…Hah!”
For a noble, discernment could be as important as bloodline or honor. In that sense Wallace’s eyes were speaking for him. The luminous sphere the boy had just produced from his clothes was something that would make anyone—Three Gods Sect affiliate or not—turn their world upside down. To even attempt an appraisal of it might be an insult.
“H-how on earth did you come by a sacred relic that could represent an entire order—no, an entire denomination—”
“I don’t think that’s the important part right now.”
“Ah—right. Of course.”
Having neither the confidence nor the desire to explain properly, Karem simply changed the subject and pointed at the well. Wallace, snapping back from the shock, urged the servants on. They carried the salt sacks to the well, tore them open, and upended them at once.
Shhhhhhhhhh—!
Sssssssssss—!
Plunk— plop— plunk—
Even though the water was cold enough that it never froze, there was no need to worry whether the salt would dissolve. As far as Karem knew, whether the salt dissolved or not made no difference to the process of making holy water. Every consecration rite he had ever seen worked that way.
The last sack went in.
“Still—”
A thought flickered through his mind: is it really all right to handle it this roughly? And right on its heels came another: Now you’re worried?
Well, if he were going to be struck by hail for blasphemy, it would have happened long ago. Karem cleanly brushed the irreverent anxiety out of his heart.
With a flick of his wrist he tossed the relic. It fell in a perfect vertical line, without so much as a scrape of stone, vanishing into the terrifying silence of the abyss below.
And then—
Plink.
A clear, pure sound rang out, small and bright.
Immediately after—
Fwaaaaaaaaaah—!!!!!!
A brilliant light surged up from the well.