*Boom*
The ambushers finally arrived.
"Brill, did you finish the traps?"
"Yeah, they should trigger it soon. I'm actually surprised that they didn't send scouts before charging towards us."
"They are a hidden ambush force. I'm assuming that they didn't want any possibility of being discovered."
"How are the two of you calling at this moment! The front walls are starting to crack! Brill, sean, we need the two of you at the front wall immediately. Sean, bring as much of your family as possible. We need emergency repair over there right now!!"
"It's going to be fine. I designed the walls myself. The walls can crack and crumble but the foundation will hold up. Even if they batter the outside, there are still hidden bones beneath the stones."
Calm down kid. It looks like filling in for your father, the village chief, will still take some time.
I guess it's only normal for him to react like that. The walls never did sustain this much damage recently. It's partly because we got used to defending the village and partly because we have new reinforcements thanks to some of the evacuated villagers who came back.
Our walls did crumble a lot before but we got sick of rebuilding it all the time, so Sean, the head of the carpenter family, designed an inner wall. As he said, the inside of the walls has 'bones'. I made a metal framework that could hold up by itself. It cost us a lot of metal, so it's not that big but once we layer stones to cover it, it would act as bones to solidify the walls.
Even if the stones did crumble, that metal framework could still act as defence by itself, and when the battle is done, we can easily rebuild the wall back to its full strength easily.
"The front will be fine. The captain had already seen the situation and went to the volcanic region to take charge there. That means that he thinks those left there can handle the situation by themselves."
"Yeah, as brill said. This is part of the plan, so don't worry right now. This monster tide should be one of the bandit's hidden tricks along with the ambushers. Didn't you hear how the bandits that recklessly advanced near the moat only dug down and shut themselves there after reaching this far? They are trying to hide from the monsters since those things don't differentiate from allies and enemies. Once the catapult hits them, they should buckle and show a gap."
"Like Sean said, son. Those monsters are currently attacking the walls out of anger. However, to make those monsters more aggressive, the bandits barely fed them. Compared to the inorganic wall, they would soon be attracted to the bandits hiding before the moat. The only reason they won't is because their shields are harder than our walls. We just need to give them a little help."
"Dad?"
"Hehehe, we weren't just barely surviving after years of bandit attacks, son. We advance and get better at battles the more they attack. Of course, the same goes for the bandits but while we can minimise the damages on our side thanks to the wall, they always lose with a great amount of casualties. In short, we have more people here with experience against these sorts of things."
It is true that we got a shortcut to warfare experience thanks to the constant bandit attacks. However, that is only limited to sieges, and against bandits. It's better than nothing but that doesn't mean we want the high level battle experience against a real army.
"....Aaaahhhh!!!"
"....Heeellllppp!!!"
"...ugh!"
Looks like the bandits that are attacking the volcanic region have finally reached the traps.
"Though that may be true, it is time for us to get to our positions. Brill, sean, see you all later. Good luck and be careful."
"Don't worry, village chief. We will be careful. Let's go brill."
"Yeah, give me a minute. I'll just grab a bit more materials. It seems that the scale of the attack is more intense than we thought."
"Don't take too much time though. I'll go on ahead."
I need to go back and get some more iron spikes. I made them extra pointy and extra prickly. Rocks won't really do a lot of damage against armour. It might rattle the person inside but those bandits are used to being pelted by arrows. They are used to being on the edge of life and death. It's their daily experience. We won't rattle them with a few rocks. We need something that would do damage to them.
Not only do we need to damage them. We need to do it fast, aggressive, and with such ferocity that the fear would flash through their eyes everytime they hear the name of our village!
"...I'm sorry father."
"...Don't worry about it. It takes time to get used to this position. When I was still starting out, I couldn't even talk properly with the neighbours. Everything changes once you become a village chief. You can't be biassed and you can't favour a single family. Everything is for the village but that doesn't mean you can do everything perfectly. As long as you keep in mind that everyone is your neighbour, and everyone is doing their best for the village, you will slowly have a grasp on what the right thing to do is. For now, study up on what you missed while you were in the city. Everything should all be in my book."
"...Yes, father."
The village chief isn't really too hands on when managing the village. However, I can say that he does his job very well. He handles problems before they appear. He actually builds the relationship among the villagers. He keeps the village harmonious and friendly. There are even times when disaster happens and we find out that he already has a solution prepared.
That should come from years and years of experience being the village chief, so as he said, the new village chief can just take his time. He has the former village chief to guide him, so it should turn out fine
"Brill, you're finally here."
"Hello, captain. How are the bandits?"
"There are more than anticipated but everything is still proceeding well. Did you bring the spikes?"
"Yeah, here they are. Where is sean?"
"His wife is about to give birth, so he went home."
Really? The plan should still proceed without him but I will have to do the emergency repairs to the gate myself. It will only be temporary, so I guess it's fine. It's not like we need a working gate.
That is his second child since we finished building the village fortifications. That couple really is trying to catch up on time. Their job usually takes them to other villages and when they come back, they just sleep and rest. After waking up, they would need to check on materials and tools needed for the next job.
It's an endless cycle of work and rest. Now that they have less work because they have to lessen their work for safety reasons, and that there are less villages too, which means more time for them to spend with their family. Those leisure times really lead to what it is today.
Well congratulations to them but now, I have to help repel these bandits.
"All right, brill, go to your position. All of you Attack!!"
*Thack* *Thack* *Thack*
"...Arghh! My eyes!!"
"...My leg!!!"
There it is, the panic. The panic makes it easier for them to fall for the traps. There are around 400 of them and there are only 100 of them now.
They should be pretty terrified now but we need something more memorable to really imprint that fear.
"Brill!!!"
"Everyone clear!! I'm launching it now!!"
"Bang!!!!!" *Boooooommm!!!!!"
Say hello to our newest weapon!! The gate launcher!!
Designing this thing was tricky since we can't aim it and if it gets caught onto something then the machine would explode in place but thanks to me, the carpenter family, and everyone else, we got it working.
The aim problem is solved thanks to the captain's idea to force the enemy into the line of fire. We just set the traps heavily on the sides and make it so that the other paths are dangerous, so they would gather on our target.
The only problem was that once we use this, we won't have a gate. This is why me and Sean are here whenever we need to use this weapon. We could 'speed build' a temporary gate. In the middle of a siege, we won't need to use the gate that much other than using it as a shield, so as long as we have something to block the path of the bandit then it would work out for us.
However, since he is not here on account of his wife's childbirth, I would need to do the 'speed building' all by myself.
"Quickly raise the replacement!!! Help me move the platform, so I can reach the hinges!!"
Thankfully, I have help. It would be faster with the help of Sean, since he has [Carpenter] skills to speed things up more but I'll just weld the hinges and locks shut. We would need to break and replace those afterwards but that is a problem for later.
"Pass me the iron block!!! Hurry on to the next!!!"
A few more here and some more there, and done!
"Welcome back, brill. Good work."
"The repairs will take us a lot of time this time."
"It can't be helped that the bandits strengthened their assault, though it looks like they won't attack from this side for a long time. They are already retreating."
"Hmm? Oh, I see them. That guy looks like the leader. I saw him commanding everyone when I spotted them hiding in the volcanic region. Don't tell me you are going to let him leave?"
"Can I borrow that?"
"Ah, yes captain."
"Thanks. Don't worry, brill. Though he will be leaving with his life, he won't leave unscathe. Huff!!"
*Whoooooossshh!* *Bang!*
That is some accurate spike throwing, and powerful too. I have never seen an arm explode like that.
"The leader will take the blame for their subordinates' failure. Even if they failed here, he has the most credibility among all of the bandits on this side. If he returns and explains the situation here while being half-crazed then it would be easier for us to reach the effect we desired."
"I see. Well, everything looks alright here. I'll go back and finish some business. Just knock on my door if something else happens or we need to start the reconstruction."
"Go ahead and rest. We can take care of it from here."
I hope this failure will give us more time. Even bandits need some day off, right? This siege caused a lot of damages to the walls, so we would need some time to rebuild all of them. I'm certain that we could finish it in a few days, since we would rebuild the outside first while we slowly do the inside work.
Things only reached this state because the new recruits couldn't keep the bandits at our front entrance at bay. If they crushed a few more bandits then it would be harder for them to reach the moat. Also, if they reacted fast enough, they could have crushed their defensive stance after the monsters were released.
If they did that then the monsters would have attacked them rather than attack the walls.
Their target priority could have been better too. They shouldn't have attacked the monsters before they clashed with the bandits near the moat. If they did that then they would have more strength to deal with the bandits. If they attacked at that time then they could have weakened both sides with the least damages to the walls.
I know that the veterans left in charge did that to make them more aware of the consequences of their actions in battle, and they only did it because they are sure that the wall would hold but I want them to remember that we also need to rebuild the walls!!!
They are the ones that suffer the most when building the wall, so I know that they remember but I think they just want to drag everyone into it to share the burden!!
Those newbie defenders should learn from this, and keep on learning from the battles that would come in the future. The village will keep getting stronger and stronger.
I hope we get strong enough to clean away the bandit base hidden somewhere in our region.
