~ Day 1 – Randell Environs ~
It would perhaps be apt to call the battle happening in the environs of the Carmine Duchy central city Randell a [host becomes guest] situation. The Royal Guard who should’ve been attaching the Carmine Duchy was fighting a defensive battle against the Army who should’ve been on the defending side. Right now, hidden behind the walls inside the ‘stronghold’ being attacked by the forty thousand strong Army, Hulbert Magna was grumbling.
“Goddammit … Mister enemy’s way too persistent aren’t they?”
“That can’t be helped you know Hal”
The one answering him was Kaede Foxia who was likewise hiding herself behind the bulwarks. She was speaking nonchalantly in spite of the friendly and enemy arrows being exchanged, flying over her head.
“From how the enemy sees it, they woke up to find a fortress in front of their eyes, and even filled with the Royal Guard, too. So of course they’d be flustered”
“Well yeah … that King sure thinks up incredible things, huh”
It was yesterday that Soma gave Georg Carmine his Final Counsel. As soon as the Final Counsel was rebuffed, Soma dispatched the Royal Guard to the Carmine Duchy, but the first thing they did was to build a ‘fortress’ right under the eyes of the Carmine Duchy’s central city Randell.
“There was originally a fortress here where we would watch the Amidonians from, but the borders were expanded west in the antepenultimate King’s time so it was torn down. The King made us rebuild that. Also … the one here before was a fortress focused on defense”
Each and every one of the ten thousand Royal Guard that had been recruited by Soma for engineering works have now become excellent combat engineers. The earth mages used earth magic to dig the ground to create trenches, piled up earth to create walls, and used hardening magic to harden those walls. The soldiers dug and piled up earth using manpower, hardened the walls with primitive concrete, and used the machinery they brought from the capital for construction. It’s common sense in this world that when one wants to build a fortress out of wasteland one would use only earth mages, but since the all common soldiers and not just the mages could also do construction work this time, the work speed was much faster than usual.
In addition to that, thanks to the addition of Tomoe Inui, they were able to transport materials and people in a short time thanks to the massive moving power of Rhinosaurus Land Trains. The materials were two-by-fours gathered from what was already there at the capital that they can install at the designated places at the destination. For this, he used the way Toyotomi Hideyoshi built the [One Night Castle] at Sunomata as a reference. To wit, he used the Rhinosaurus Land Trains in place of the Kiso River.
Then, despite the Royal Guard only having arrived on the evening the previous day, the fortress had already been completed by morning. From the Randellians’ point of view, it was exactly that a fortress had sprung up overnight. In later histories this would be referred to [Randell One Night Castle]. The Army, busy dealing with the populace enraged by the Final Counsel televised like in the Vargas Duchy, could not interfere with the fort’s construction.
“But still, you gotta hand it to Lord Carmine. He managed to gather the whole Army in Randell before the Final Counsel”
“Though we’re now taking the attack from the forty thousand strong Army because of that. Anyway”
KABOOOM!
There was the sound of a great explosion. It was probably the enemy’s attack magic hitting the walls. Even though they’re strengthened with Kaede’s corps’ anti-magic, it won’t withstand repeated hits like that. Hulbert picked up a nearby throwing spear, clad it in fire magic, and threw it through the bulwarks in the walls at a group that probably fired the magic earlier. The spear flew like a missile, hit a person and exploded, burning down the group.
After making sure of that, Hal went back to hide behind the walls and sighed.
“Aren’t they attacking way too doggedly here in the west side? The other sides look like they only get sporadic attacks”
“…. That would be the Zemish mercenaries. Probably the ones the corrupt nobles hired”