"Arghhhh!!! This is annoying!! When are they going to stop attacking!?!?!? I want to go to the town! I missed my friend's wedding!! I can't buy my kid new toys from the city! I can't stand day after day after day after day of bandit attacks!!"
"Don't complain. At least we haven't incurred any casualties. All thanks to the walls."
"Yeah, yeah, thank you for rebuilding the walls every time it got damaged."
"Don't take that tone with me. I'm not asking for praise."
"I know, I know. Sorry, brill. I haven't had any sleep in a few days."
"That's because you kept screaming at the bandits all night. How drunk were you to even do that?"
"It has been a while since my week off, so I might have gotten carried away."
"Also, you aren't married. You don't have a kid."
"I might still be drunk.
I should say that I don't blame him considering the situation but if you have a week off, avoid going to your workplace. If you are off from your work then you need to avoid anything related to work like the plague. An off is to release your piled up frustrations from work. If you return there then you won't release any pent up frustration, it would increase instead.
The current situation isn't all that bad. The bandits may have attacked us more frequently, sometimes they take turns on the siege so that we won't have time to rest but they suffer casualties, we don't. Sooner or later, they will run out of bandits to throw at us.
I don't know why they are doing this but I think they are just sore losers. The big siege where they sent a group of ambushers to the volcanic region was a couple of months ago. They started redoubling their efforts a few weeks after that. They are clearly on the losing side, so the leaders might have blown a fuse and decided to put all of their efforts into attacking us.
However, they haven't sent anyone around the volcanic region, not even once. I say, the plan we did back then was a resounding success.
"Bron, I would have figured that you would hang out with your herd during your day off. What are you even doing at the wall?"
"The animals have been restless. They are safe from the battle since the pasture isn't located near the main side of the battle but they can feel the tension from the battle. It also doesn't help that I have been tired coming back from the battle often. It felt that I was passing on the fatigue I experienced in the siege, so I was avoiding them. I wanted to go somewhere to relax and vent out all of my frustration, so that I could take care of them for the rest of the days of my break."
"I see, I thought it wouldn't matter to them as long as they have food and water though. They are safe enough from harm inside the village."
"It's true that those are their most basic needs but once those are met, their minds wander to everything else. They don't see the battle and they don't know the danger since most of them are raised inside the village by me but whenever I come home tired and battered from the siege, they worry for me. They are experiencing the battle through me! That is why I need a day of adjustment period to get my spirits up before I play with them. Ah, I can still take care of them no problem even with my duties. They may feel neglected a bit but I'll solve that once I have a day off."
"Well, you are the one who insisted on taking care of that many animals, so it's your responsibility to care for them. Anyway, how are the new recruits? It has been some time, are they ready enough to handle the defence?"
The more people that could help defend the village, the safer we will be. The more our force grows, the sooner we could send a force to track the bandits and wipe out their base.
"They are getting there but they panic from time to time when something unexpected comes up. They still aren't sure on what they could and couldn't do. Their decision could affect not just them but the safety of the village, so they are a bit timid on improvising. A few more months and they should be ok with doing defence shifts by themselves. As for leading, well we have our eye on a few of them."
"Really? You must be putting effort into nurturing those."
"No, we won't do that. It gives them a big head, which will be a fatal problem later on. We will teach all of them as if everyone can take the lead. This will uncover any hidden gems from the group while building up their teamwork. This isn't only for those few we have our eyes on to learn humility but for the rest too. We don't want them to slack off and pass the responsibility to others, since they aren't good leaders and can only follow orders."
"I'm not really sure but this is how the village trains their defence force, so I won't say anything about it. I don't even know how to, so all the more reason not to."
"Thanks, brill. Talking to you made me feel better."
"Don't worry about it. I'm not much of a talker but you are getting your weapon and armour maintained. As long as it doesn't distract me from what I am doing then feel free to blabber away. Anyway, I'm done. There were a couple of broken spots but I already fixed them. There are some parts where the joints were frayed. You should have felt it scraping against your skin. Why didn't you come sooner?"
"Oh, so that is why I had an itchy feeling lately. I think some of the fur from the animals got stuck in my armour. They do like to play in it."
"There was also some fur in it. Here, everything is done. Take good care of it from now on. If you feel something is off about the equipment, then come to me right away. It's better than to find out there is a problem in the middle of battle."
"Thanks Brill, just put it on the defence force's tab. I'll go on ahead."
"Bye!"
I'm finally done. The maintenance for the defence force have been occupying most of my time lately. It's mostly because I rarely go outside the village. The bandits made it hard for me to frequently go to the nearby town. I do still visit the town and take commissions but sometimes I don't come back to the town for a few months.
The customers understand this and they can't exactly do anything about it, so they just wait for me to come. They really are taking a gamble because if a bandit killed me on the way, then they will lose their investment.
I still deliver the mail for and from the village. It doesn't really bother me that much since a bunch of packages and letters isn't that heavy. Other than the small fee the village chief gives me, which I tried to turn down multiple times, I do have the benefit of knowing some confidential information. It's mostly from the village chief communicating with the town mayor because of the bandits. He makes sure to tell me the details since he trusts everyone living in the village, and chatty, more on the chatty side.
The village wasn't the only one suffering thanks to the continuous bandit siege. It seems that the other surviving villages have been destroyed because of it. The bandits are clearing out the small fries. The village chief thinks they are preparing to set up a stronghold here as their main headquarters against the elder's army.
Bandits should be decreasing in number thanks to the casualty they receive after every siege against us and the towns but they keep increasing in number. This could mean that more and more bandit groups are heading to our region, or they recruited the villagers from the villages they destroyed to be part of their team.
If they want to have a standing in the dwarf continent then it's easier for them to defend from a corner.
We don't want to give them the chance to do that since to complete that plan, they would need to destroy every village, every town, and every city in this region. They would absorb us as bandits. They might take our loved ones as hostages in exchange for service and the next generation would be indoctrinated to be bandits, or so the village chief explained.
The countermeasure they came up with is a big sweeping offensive to wipe out all the bandits in this region. They would recruit every available fighting force that this region has, and some from the nearby region, to create a cage around the whole region.
They would then slowly close that cage smaller and smaller, until someone finds the bandit base. When it's found the people nearest would wait there and guard their side, while the others slowly finish off every bandit they meet and encircle the other sides of the bandit base. After that, we would sige them like they do to our village.
The only problem for this is it might leave some places with the minimum number of defenders. That is why a lot of planning is going back and forth with everyone. It's taking some time for them to figure out the finer details but it should happen in half a year or so.
The longer the planning gets, the more the chances that the bandits will figure out that something is happening, so they want this to happen as quickly as possible.
Half of our defenders will also be stationed to one side of our region, so the rest of the villagers are being taught on how to help with defending the walls while they are away.
We are the only surviving village now, according to the news the village chief received from the town mayor, so the bandits would be focusing on us the most. We can't let them find out that we lost a lot of our defenders for no reason, so the rest of the villagers will don armour, and defend the walls like the village defence force.
I'm also part of it but they stationed me with the siege equipements. It's so I could repair it should it be damaged.
I'm not saying I wanted to be part of the people on top of the walls but it would be nice if my station had a view. I wish I could have figured out how to make those ballista towers.
Oh, well, at least it doesn't involve us charging into the enemy.
