The autumn wind over the small city of Severn fell still at this noon hour.
The originally desolate and deathly silent fringe of the Gobi now stood encircled by a ring of dead-gray city wall that looked as though it had been cast from molten iron.
After several days and nights of sleepless, hurried labor, the gray slurry that had churned in the long iron troughs, catalyzed by the alternation of the Northern border's signature bitter night winds and the blazing daytime sun, had at last dried thoroughly through.
"Clang—clang—"
Grand Commander Bardess unslung the heavy noble longsword, extended a fist sheathed in a fine-steel vambrace, and slammed it hard twice against the rigid surface of the city wall.
The somewhat coarse stone and mortar now gave off a dull thud like striking cured leather—not so much as a fleck of stone chip flaked off.
"Good. Truly good."
Bardess's bright, large eyes brimmed with admiration she could not conceal.
As a Mason soldier who held an almost rigidly meticulous standard for battlefield defense, gazing now at this new city wall before her—without a single crack, its height and width perfectly regular—the faint streak of obsessive-compulsion in her heart received its most thorough cure.
Not only the city wall. In the center of this dilapidated little city that had once held only a few thousand souls, the ruins of the old bell tower that had been on the verge of collapse had now been completely cleared away.
Under Irene's command, with soldiers and townsfolk digging through the night, four extremely concealed underground tunnel entrances—each wide enough for two soldiers in fine-iron padded armor to pass through swiftly side by side—now lay quietly hidden beneath thick wooden planks and crushed-stone camouflage.
Following the tunnels outward, the spacious underground passages skirted all the way around the hard granite stratum and ran straight to the depths of the Red Maple Forest a li outside the city.
And atop the towering city wall, a lofty watchtower had been erected every fifty paces.
Trebuchets assembled from wrought-iron gears and top-grade red maple wood—neutral-lever trebuchets—had already been locked firmly into the core grooves of the city wall.
Their stout throwing arms slanted up toward the azure firmament, as if ready at any moment to pour deadly Black powder great explosive bombs down upon the heads of enemies at the far end of the horizon.
"Oh-oh-oh!! Long live the new Order!!"
"We've actually rebuilt the fortress!!"
"Completely transformed—is this really our home?"
Looking at the small city of Severn, utterly made over in less than a single short week, the several thousand townsfolk within the city and the three thousand Mason elite infantry erupted into a mountain-toppling, sea-overturning frenzy of cheers.
Those poor, suffering commoners who had once trembled under the rule of the old nobles, who couldn't even eat their fill, now gathered at the foot of the new city wall, gazing up at that unscalable gray rampart, so moved they embraced one another—and not a few even knelt right there on the ground, weeping for joy as they kissed the brand-new wall base.
High atop the watchtower, Irene sprawled rather undignifiedly against the edge of a clean wooden crate.
Her exquisite pink, lightweight dress had inevitably picked up a few wisps of gray stone powder and yellow-brown mud spots, and her long pink twin tails hung somewhat disheveled over her slender shoulders.
"Haa... this Inventor is worked to death."
Irene used her fair, tender little hand as a fan, vigorously waving it at her own flushed round face.
Although her whole body ached terribly—even her waist and arms faintly sore from days of high-intensity command—those large, sapphire-like eyes of hers now shone bright and sparkling, brimming with incomparable pride and delight.
Your Majesty, hurry and behold this lady's brilliance!
Once this Inventor brings back this whole great stretch of completed iron-and-steel defensive engineering to the Royal City, let's see how you still have the nerve to sit in that white-fox-fur soft chair every day docking this lady's snacks.
Just as Irene sat on the tower platform, her heart sweet as she somewhat smugly twisted the hem of her own dress, an extremely awkward yet timid set of footsteps came slowly up the wooden stone stairs.
"In... Inventor, my lord."
The newcomer was the grandmother of that little girl with the top-knot from yesterday—that is, the somewhat gaunt young huntress of the city.
Behind her followed several elderly townsfolk of considerable age, dressed in patched short shirts washed pale.
These citizens of the small city of Severn clutched tightly to their cleanly washed, chipped wooden bowls, and the instant they stepped onto the platform—catching sight of Irene's air of artisan authority, and of Grand Commander Bardess pressing her hand to her longsword not far off—their knees went weak, and instinctively they made to kneel right there on the spot.
"Aiya, get up, get up quickly—you've all been worn ragged these days, and now you'd kneel too."
Startled, Irene hurriedly hopped down from the wooden crate, stretched out her fair, tender arm, and caught hold of the old man at the very front who leaned on a withered-wood cane.
The moment the old grandmother touched Irene's delicate little hand—slick with a trace of wrought-iron powder—a layer of glistening moisture welled up at once in her clouded eyes.
She sniffed her aching nose, glanced at the desolate Gobi outside the city undulating faintly in the early-autumn chill wind, and finally, mustering some courage, asked in a thin, intensely hopeful voice:
"Merciful Inventor, my lord... we, these few hard-up families, have a matter as great as the sky, and we want to beg the lord to point us to a clear road.
We heard from the mouths of the traveling merchants who fled here from Leighton city and the central main base...
that our supreme Your Majesty Sophia holds a kind of extremely miraculous, extremely extraordinary Black Rose wheat..."
Saying this, she swallowed the somewhat dry saliva, those gaunt hands clawing tightly at the wood grain of the cane, even her breathing growing somewhat stilled:
"The merchants said, that miraculous wheat—you only have to plant it in the soil, with hardly any need for fertilizer, and in half a month it sprouts; the grain it yields can fill several great granaries, can let hundreds of thousands of refugees eat great Black Bread every single meal.
My lord, now that our small city of Severn's wall is built as high as a mountain, everyone's heart has settled.
We just want to ask... could we, too, beg Your Majesty to bestow a little of that miraculous wheat seed, and plant some upon the wasteland outside this city?"
The young huntress couldn't help shuffling a step forward too, her dark face—roughened from years of wind—full of fervor:
"That's right, Inventor, my lord!
The several thousand souls of our small city of Severn have nearly dug up every last wild-vegetable root by year's end.
Now that we have the protection of the iron-armored big-sisters bestowed by Your Majesty, if we could also plant that grain that staves off hunger, then all we subjects of Severn would gladly hand over our very lives to the banner of Black Rose for the rest of our days, without the slightest complaint!!"
Several pairs of bloodshot eyes—yet bright as if brimming with flame—locked fixedly upon Irene.
That craving for warmth and a full belly, that blind reverence for the young Queen who sat in the central Temporary Palace, face cold as frost yet bestowing upon them refined salt and stewed beans, reached its most extreme summit in that instant.
Listening to these most sincere hopes, Irene—who had originally wanted to brag a little smugly—suddenly went faintly blank.
The pink-haired girl gently pressed her moist lips together, gazing at these Severn folk who had suffered half a lifetime amid the wind and sand, and that pool of maidenly tenderness within her could not help but slowly ripple with a faint trace of bitter ache.
How could she possibly not know of that miraculous wheat?
But...
Irene lifted her head, her gaze rising over the towering gray city wall to look toward the far, distant end of the horizon to the south.
Out across that flat, level plain in the far south, the ancient Empire now crouched like a terrifying, vicious wolf lurking in the dead of night, ready at any moment to muster hundreds of thousands of heavy-armored infantry and a torrent of fine copper and steel, roaring northward.
"Elder."
Irene reined in the carefree smile on her face, her expression turning unusually serious.
She folded both hands very properly before her and, in that crisp, ringing voice, said gently yet with extraordinary firmness:
"This Chief Inventor gives you my guarantee right here: that miraculous wheat, the kind that can let every single person eat their fill, truly does exist.
And the wheat seed our Majesty holds in hand is even more extraordinary than what the merchants brag!"
Hearing this, the several old townsfolk trembled violently with excitement, and just as they were about to let out a cheer, Irene gave a somewhat helpless sigh and went on:
"But... right now we cannot plant it.
Not only can it not be planted outside this small city of Severn—these several border cities near the south absolutely must not let a single grain of wheat seed fall into the soil this autumn."
The light in the old man's eyes dimmed ever so slightly at once, his gaunt lips trembling:
"This... why is that, Inventor, my lord?
Could it be that we, these newly joined subjects, are unworthy of receiving Your Majesty's divine grace?"
"Aiya! It's not like that at all!!"
Seeing the old man somewhat crestfallen and misunderstanding, Irene grew so anxious that even the disheveled pair of pink twin tails atop her head seemed to bounce. Clutching her dress hem, she hurriedly explained:
"It's because right now that old emperor in the south is grinding his teeth together with that pack of malicious old nobles!
It's only a matter of these few days before the news reaches the Imperial Capital. The moment the situation turns completely over, when the south's iron torrent bears down upon the whole line, the small city of Severn—being near the south—will inevitably bear the first brunt of the war's flames."
The pink-haired girl's large sapphire eyes flickered with the strategic wisdom of a core backbone of the main base, and she dissected it for the several townsfolk word by word:
"Just think about it: the miraculous wheat grows so fast. If we now toil and scatter all the wheat seed into the fields, and then in a couple of months the vicious wolves of the south come charging in on warhorses—
the waves of wheat in the fields golden and ripe, and we without the troops outside the wall to guard the harvest—wouldn't this vast, vast stretch of grain be handed over for free to those southern scoundrels, turned right around into the army provisions they use to attack us?
In the art of war, this is called supplying the enemy—it's the most loss-making, money-sinking deal of all!"
Grand Commander Bardess, standing off to one side, had been silently pulling a somewhat uneven hemp rope dangling over the wall's edge taut and straight; the instant she heard these words from Irene, her hand froze dead-still for a full second in the most minute way.
This somewhat obsessive-compulsive Mason commander's bright, large eyes abruptly widened, and within her heart, once again surged a mountain-toppling, sea-overturning, worshipful astonishment and a frenzied, drawn-out cry of awe:
Brilliant... truly far too brilliant!!
On the grand strategy of fortifying the walls and clearing the fields, her vision has reached such a terrifying extent!
No—this is absolutely not a stratagem of Miss Irene alone.
This order not to plant the miraculous wheat is most likely a supreme directive that our Your Majesty Sophia, in the deep-night bedchamber, had already worked out clean down to every clause together with Miss Irene long ago—
Her Majesty transferring all the cattle and sheep and supplies of the southern cities to Yurilland, not letting a single grain of miraculous wheat seed fall here—the whole point is that when the southern old emperor's great army bears down, on this barren wasteland they won't be able to seize so much as a single mouthful of dry rations or a single head of livestock.
They'll be left to freeze and starve to death in the ice and snow!
Her Majesty sits high in the Temporary Palace, moving but a fingertip, and has already calculated every single step of the southern Empire's grain-and-forage consumption to the utmost!
Thinking this far, the gaze with which Grand Commander Bardess looked at Irene was practically that of one gazing upon the Chief Priest beside a deity.
She at once stepped forward, her fine-iron chainmail giving off an extremely regular crisp ring, and in that crisp, forceful neutral girl's voice cried aloud beneath the firmament:
"What Miss Irene says is Her Majesty's supreme iron law!
Beneath the banner of Black Rose, every action must proceed according to the regulations of the main base!
To not plant now is to protect your family stores.
Once we've utterly crushed and completely settled accounts with those vicious wolves of the south, Her Majesty will naturally make every inch of this westernmost-fringe wasteland grow thick with the most golden waves of wheat!
Do you understand?!"
Hearing the joint explanation of these two noble lords from the main base, the several somewhat crestfallen Severn townsfolk instantly brain-filled in their minds the supreme divine character of that young Queen—flawless in calculation, planning ahead for their very safety.
So that's it... so Her Majesty is aching with care for us, is guarding against those vicious wolves of the south...
The old man rubbed his moist eye-corners, and leaning on his cane, bent down once more, tremblingly, his voice filled with an almost faith-like fervor and resolve:
"Understood!
My lords, rest assured—since this is Her Majesty's foresight, we people of Severn, even if we have to cinch our belts tighter still, will absolutely not cause Her Majesty the slightest trouble at this time!
We will guard this new city wall to the death, waiting for the day Her Majesty leads us to wipe out every last southern scoundrel! Praise Your Majesty Sophia!!"
Watching the several townsfolk cradle their empty bowls, their expressions turned from crestfallen to a kind of almost tragically heroic, exhilarated fervent resolve, retreating exceedingly cheerfully down the platform to spread word through the city of Her Majesty's divine grace of fortifying the walls and clearing the fields, Irene blinked somewhat dazedly.
Seeing that the hearts of this whole dilapidated little city had not scattered but instead drawn together as tight and seamless as Cement, the pink-haired girl's little streak of pride tilted high once more in the end.
By afternoon, the sky gradually dimmed, and on the front-gate plaza of the small city of Severn, the high-piled bonfires were once again lit by the soldiers with dry kindling.
"Alright! All Black Rose infantry squares, and the laborers of Severn—this afternoon's procedures are wholly declared concluded!
Everyone rest where you are, and line up in proper order to receive the dry rations that belong to you!!"
With Grand Commander Bardess's crisp, brisk loud proclamation, the entire fortress worksite that had bustled all day finally settled slowly into a rare tranquility.
Having endured four days of wall-building and three days of tunnel-digging in high-intensity labor, whether the three thousand iron-armored Mason elites or the several thousand exhausted, falling-apart poor commoners of the city, all of them now sprawled in disarray, every which way, undignified, upon the thick sand.
Only, unlike the despairing, deathly silence before they had been merged into Mason's territory a few days earlier, on the plaza now, every person was so tired they didn't want to so much as move a finger.
But as they cradled that heavy hunk of Black Bread in hand and gulped it down with warm bean soup, their coarse faces all wore an unprecedented look of settled, easy smiles.
With the city wall built so high, and the escape tunnels carved out below by the Inventor's own hands, their hearts had, from this moment on, truly come to rest on solid ground.
Irene rubbed her somewhat sore knuckles and, swaying this way and that, slowly climbed the city wall stairs up onto a newly built watchtower at the southernmost end of the entire fortress.
The early-autumn evening wind howled in from the depths of the wasteland, setting her lace-trimmed pink lightweight dress fluttering and snapping, bringing wave upon wave of somewhat bone-piercing chill.
Yet Irene was utterly oblivious; she merely propped her chin most improperly atop the cold, regular gray crenellation of the city wall, her large sapphire eyes gazing somewhat dazedly toward the direction of the central main base.
The last touch of the setting sun's red glow was now slowly sinking at the far end of the horizon, and that rich, alluring orange-red, falling into the pink-haired girl's eyes, looked—however she gazed—just like the caramel Pudding and red maple cakes blended by master craftsmen in the Temporary Palace's flower house.
"Shff, shff, shff..."
An extremely steady scraping of armor—each step as if precisely measured with a ruler—came abruptly up the stone stairs behind her.
Grand Commander Bardess had by now donned anew that dark cloak representing Black Rose's most impregnable line of defense.
This tall, upright Grand Commander's face was steady and composed, her handsome, androgynous features without any extraneous ripple of emotion.
She merely strode swiftly to Irene's side, those bright, large eyes locking fixedly, in the sunset's last glow, upon the pitch-black southern horizon.
"Miss Irene, don't linger too long at the city wall's edge—the early-autumn wind is too fierce; it's easy to catch a chill."
Bardess's androgynous, pleasant voice sounded particularly grim and severe in the cold wind.
As she spoke, she habitually moved a piece of crushed stone on the crenellation—set half an inch askew by the construction—back exactly to the center, and then, in a heavy tone, issued the military order:
"All forces, heed the command!
The Third and Fourth Musketeer Squads, along with the thirty most elite scouts of the First Heavy Cavalry Phalanx—from this moment, fully strip off the baggage camouflage!
Don your sturdiest fine-iron padded armor, carry three days' worth of dry rations and Black powder shot!!"
As Bardess's longsword carved a regular arc through the air, dozens of Black Rose elite female soldiers who had been drinking soup below the wall instantly cast aside the wooden bowls in their hands, rose up in unison with cold, severe expressions, and with extremely brisk movements gripped their leveled black muskets fast in their hands.
"Go!!
Split into five patrol squads, keep to the regulation single-file column, and stand and patrol in rotation, ceaselessly, before the foremost five-li border line on the outer perimeter of the small city of Severn!!"
Bardess's crisp voice carried far across the desolate open wilds, bearing the supreme majesty of a great general on the eve of a decisive battle:
"Open wide your eyes, and watch fixedly for every beacon tower and every forest-path movement of the ancient Empire to the south!
The moment you spot any black Imperial rose banner other than traveling merchants', or the faintest dust-shadow of those accursed old-noble vanguard scout-riders—
you need no needless panic; immediately, before the border line, pull the ignition fuse—
the twenty lever trebuchets atop the city wall will provide you, at any moment, the most ferocious Black powder great explosive bombs as the sturdiest escort of the new Order!
Do you understand?!"
"Roar——!! Sworn loyalty unto death to Her Majesty!! Obey the Grand Commander's order!!"
The dozens of Guard big-sisters and scout cavalry erupted in a thunderous roar of fervor.
Without any needless hesitation, they vaulted onto their horses with great briskness, or marched off in regulation step, squad by squad melting naturally into the deepest depths of the Red Maple Forest, now wholly swallowed by the night.
Upon the border wilds, for a time there was only the cold wind raking across the icy Cement behemoth of a city wall, giving off wave after wave of low, mournful keening.
Irene stood high atop the watchtower, gazing at those squad after squad of regular figures leveling their black muskets, patrolling in rotation before the border line, and in her large sapphire eyes, the idle wandering thoughts vanished utterly in that instant, leaving only a streak of absolute calm and resolve befitting Black Rose's Chief Inventor.
Several days of border patrol alternated peacefully over this somewhat grim wasteland.
Ever since that towering gray behemoth rampart had fully closed into one, the defensive line of the small city of Severn had entered the highest level of alert.
Grand Commander Bardess was a person who conducted matters with extreme attention to regulation; every dawn, the moment the sky grew faintly light, she would, without fail, personally mount her warhorse to inspect those five regular columns leveling their black muskets, patrolling in rotation before the five-li border line.
And over these several days, apart from the occasional swirl of wind and sand, the southern horizon saw nothing unexpected come to pass.
Those old-noble scout-riders lurking in the shadows, upon catching sight of the cold, regular watchtowers atop the small city of Severn, as well as those stout, heavy lever-trebuchet arms, seemed to have been thoroughly cowed by this unreasonable display of defensive might, and for several days running did not dare overstep half a pace forward.
By noon of the fourth day, a somewhat wavering blazing sun hung in the sky, and the soldiers and townsfolk—taut for days on end—had at last caught a breath in this rare calm.
At this moment, beside the ruins of the central bell tower of the little city, Irene sat upon a clean stone step, both little hands propping up her cheeks, her large sapphire eyes staring somewhat absentmindedly at the ground.
And just at this strange and sweet juncture, from the watchtower atop the city wall there suddenly came an extremely crisp, rhythmic clanging of a brass alarm bell.
"Clang! Clang! Clang!"
"Commander Bardess! Lord Irene!
On the western Red Maple Forest road, a baggage convoy from the central Yurilland main base has appeared!
They fly our Black Rose banner!!"
Hearing the shout of the Guard big-sister up high, Bardess—who had been sitting off to one side wiping her noble longsword with cotton cloth in the most regular fashion—rose to her full height in an instant.
She briskly sheathed her longsword, and that androgynous, pleasant girl's voice rang out at once across the open ground:
"All forces, heed the command!
The scout phalanx, keep to single-file column and follow this Commander out of the city to receive them!
Stragglers forfeit tonight's bean soup!!"
"Coming, coming! Wait up for this Inventor!!"
Irene hurriedly sprang up from the stone step as well, no time to rub her still somewhat aching flank, swinging a pair of long pink twin tails, and bustled off briskly after Bardess toward that towering stone gate just completed.
When the small city of Severn's heavy, regular pure-iron gate slowly opened amid a teeth-grating screech, what came forward—just as expected—was an entire column of travel-worn Black Rose heavy cavalry.
Behind them followed a full several dozen enormous wagons covered seamlessly with thick coarse hemp cloth.
The sturdy oxen pulling the carts panted in great heaving breaths, the wheels pressing two deep ruts into the sand—evidently laden with extremely heavy military supplies.
"Greetings, Commander Bardess! Greetings, Inventor, my lord!!"
The Black Rose centurion at the head, catching sight of the two figures, dismounted his warhorse with great briskness, his fine-iron chainmail giving off a crisp ring.
From within his bosom he carefully drew out a sheepskin letter sealed tight with Black Rose wax, its surface untouched by even a speck of sand and dust, and respectfully presented it with both hands into Bardess's grasp:
"This is an urgent secret letter that, early this very morning, Your Majesty Sophia personally instructed us before the long desk in the Yurilland Temporary Palace to deliver here through the night without rest!"
Bardess's face went solemn, and taking the letter in both hands without any needless hesitation, she briskly broke the wax seal.
Irene, somewhat curious, poked over a fluffy little pink head as well, her large sapphire eyes blinking as they flitted along the lines of text.
Upon the sheepskin, the handwriting personally penned by the supreme Queen with a quill was extremely clean and crisp, exuding a coldness and haughtiness bred into the bone:
"Bardess, Irene.
The several southern cities around Yurilland, under the dispatch of Liliana and Willow, have now had their city walls and granaries all rebuilt and reinforced.
But by This Queen's survival calculations upon the detailed map of the Northern border, the small city of Severn, as the westernmost-fringe defensive line, is the most isolated in terrain, and most likely to become the south's foremost target in the great war to come.
This Queen has this morning already issued the new Order's supreme mobilization decree.
At this very moment, Delilah is conducting extremely brutal, high-intensity emergency troop-training on the drill ground of the western camp district.
Once this batch of elite black-musket heavy-armor phalanxes is fully drilled into regulation order, This Queen will dispatch another twenty thousand heavy troops to rush to Severn through the night, to weld shut for you the westernmost gate of Black Rose.
In addition, enclosed with this letter are thirty wagons of top-grade foodstuffs, dry goods, and daily-use items; be sure to distribute them by regulation into the hands of every single townsperson.
Do not let the loss of these trivial supplies disturb This Queen's coming schedule."
Having finished reading this supreme secret letter—cold in tone yet calculating every step of the border defense seamlessly tight—Grand Commander Bardess drew a sharp breath, those bright, large eyes abruptly widening within a ten-thousandth of a second.
This somewhat obsessive-compulsive commander pressed her hand to her sword-hilt, and within her heart there once again irrepressibly rose wave upon ever-higher wave of worshipful astonishment and a frenzied, drawn-out cry of awe:
Divine Authority... this is the supreme divine character of our Your Majesty Sophia, transcending the worldly!!
The southern Empire's iron-and-steel host has not yet stirred, yet Her Majesty, seated in the white-fox-fur soft chair of the Temporary Palace, moving but a fair fingertip, has already calculated the dispatch of twenty thousand heavy troops and thirty wagons of winter clothing down to the very marrow!
And Delilah too...
Heavens—General Delilah is normally formidable, yet this time in the western camp district she has actually begun training troops with an almost self-tormenting madness!
To make that First General drill the soldiers heedless of life and death, carrying a sky-piercing murderous aura nearly enough to tear the whole drill ground apart—
this plainly means General Delilah, through Her Majesty's pair of pale-golden Queen's eyes, has already foreseen in full how terrifying, how brutal a decisive offensive the southern Empire is about to launch!
Her Majesty and the General—they are plainly, in the rear, sleeplessly bearing all the pressure for us, to protect every last foundation-root of our new Order!!
"Gr-Grand Commander, my lord, Inventor, my lord, please wait a moment."
Just as Bardess was about to issue the order, most regularly, to haul the thirty wagons of military supplies into the city's main warehouse, the Black Rose centurion at the head glanced left and right with a somewhat guilty air, then carefully beckoned to two close guards behind him.
Two cavalrymen hurriedly heaved out, with their combined effort, from one of the most heavily defended fine-iron wagons, an exquisite little box roughly a foot square, fashioned seamlessly from top-grade agarwood.
The surface of that box was carved with intricate Black Rose vine patterns, and stranger still, even baked by the blazing sun, the box continuously seeped out from its whole body wisp after wisp of an extremely cool, ethereal, crystalline white mist.
"Both my lords, beyond the letter, Her Majesty specially entrusted this lowly one with a single, extremely secret task."
The centurion politely set the agarwood box down steadily upon the stone step, and in that hoarse voice said in a low murmur:
"Her Majesty said: the affairs of the small city of Severn are weighty, and you two lords, working overtime at high intensity these days on end, must surely be most fatigued.
So... Her Majesty this morning personally dispatched all these items from the Temporary Palace's private ice chest, and had Saint Daphne, through the night, employ the most pure Druid ice-system magic to reinforce them layer upon layer—only thus did we deliver them here all the way without wasting even a single second."
"Eh? What good thing is this?"
The instant Irene caught sight of that beautiful box billowing cold air, her large sapphire eyes lit up at once.
The pink-haired girl no longer cared a whit for any Chief Inventor's dignity; like a happy pink lop-eared rabbit she went whoosh, springing over, crouching on the ground, stretching out her fair, tender little hand and with a brisk twist undoing the golden clasp atop it.
"Click."
As the heavy agarwood lid was slowly lifted open, an extremely rich, utterly pure fragrance and sweetness instantly spread, together with the white mist, into every nook before the city gate of the little city.
Before the Hall of State Affairs, even the Severn commoners and the soldiers hauling crushed stone were so smoke-tickled by this supremely sweet aroma they had never smelled before that they very briskly swallowed their saliva.
Within that exquisite box lay, plain to see, several blocks of near-transparent, glistening white ice-bricks wholly solidified by Daphne's holy magic.
And at the very center of that ring upon ring of supreme magical ice radiating wisps of coolness, there sat enshrined, steadily, a full ten-inch red maple cake, cut with the utmost regularity!
The cake's surface was spread with a thick layer of fine, snow-white top-grade fresh cream, giving off a rich milky fragrance.
Atop the cake, most extravagantly, was meticulously traced in red maple syrup a lifelike Black Rose emblem—even after two days and two nights of jolting, under the protection of the magical ice it had not shown the slightest loss or deformation.
Not only that, around the enormous cake were arrayed in pleasing disorder several caramel Puddings set in exquisite little white porcelain boxes!
Those Puddings shimmered an alluring golden hue in the morning light, the caramel on the top layer translucent as amber, quivering ever so bashfully with the jostling of the box, exuding wisp after wisp of a sweetness and warmth pure to the very bone.
"Wahh...!!
It's red maple cake and Pudding!!"
Gazing at this supreme holy repast—which, only in the deepest depths of the Temporary Palace, the poker-faced Majesty was qualified to enjoy when vexed at reviewing documents—Irene's large eyes went utterly absent in an instant, and even the pair of pink twin tails atop her head stood bolt upright from excessive delight.
Heavens, oh heavens!!
This—this is plainly that ten-inch great cake that this lady, before she left, loudly insisted she herself was forbidden to sneak-eat!
Her Majesty... she... she actually sent it all this great distance?
"Both my lords."
The centurion at the head, looking at the two Mason high officials frozen in place, somewhat enviously rubbed his nose, then bent down and most earnestly conveyed the silver-haired Queen's exact words from before her departure:
"Her Majesty's sacred decree:
These sweets won't last long in the cold wind of the Northern border. This Queen orders you two to be sure to finish all of them within three days—do not waste even the slightest crumb.
Furthermore... the flames of war upon the Northern border wilds draw near. You two, as the iron wall and gears of Black Rose, must be sure to take good care of your own bodies for This Queen.
If you come back a few catties of flesh lighter, This Queen shall pile the entire coming year's accounts of the main warehouse onto your desks."
Hearing this exceedingly familiar voice—cold yet, ever so secretly within that coldness, threaded with a supreme indulgence and warm doting—Irene felt that pool of bittersweet maidenly spring-waters of first-budding love within her heart utterly burst its banks in that instant.
"Boo-hoo-hoo, Your Majesty!"
Beside her, Grand Commander Bardess, gazing at that red maple cake without a single wrinkle under the protection of the magical ice, was likewise so moved her eye-rims went red.
This commander—normally somewhat by-the-book, formidable enough to shout aloud at a rifle-butt moved even an inch out of place—now pressed both somewhat trembling hands upon her longsword, and her androgynous, pleasant voice carried even a few traces of unprecedented hoarseness and sob:
"Your Majesty...
Her Majesty truly treats us, these vassals, with kindness weighty as a mountain!
Not only did she bestow the refined salt of the main warehouse upon the common folk of Severn, even this private holy repast belonging to the supreme Great Emperor of Mason she has wholly used to reward these coarse hands of ours, caked all over with wrought-iron powder...
This subject, Bardess—even if I die in battle upon this gray-behemoth city wall, I will absolutely not let the vicious wolves of the southern Empire advance a single step forward!!"
"Alright, alright!
Commander Bardess, let's hurry and haul Her Majesty's bestowal into the city first!"
Irene patted her cool palm against her own still somewhat feverish cheek, turning her flushed face away, and muttered with a touch of bashful petulance:
"Her Majesty said it herself—we must finish within three days!
In a bit we'll divvy up these Puddings, and once we've eaten our fill of sweets, this afternoon this Inventor will take you to make the four most crucial defensive tunnels beneath the fortifications even sturdier than Cement."
The sweet lingering warmth beside the Red Maple Forest had not yet wholly dispersed when, over the skies of the small city of Severn, a wisp of war's storm cloud at last pressed soundlessly down.
After eating some sweets, Irene patted her chest, skipped even her noon rest, and went straight down into the earth with the soldiers, adjusting the reinforced ceiling-beams of the last four defensive tunnels to perfection without the slightest error.
Yet this rare calm was shattered utterly that very evening.
At dusk, the sunset glow at the edge of the sky was red as a pool of wine splashed across the Gobi.
Before the newly built gray city gate of the small city of Severn, a sudden, dense thunder of hooves broke the stillness of the open wilds.
A single elite female scout in fine-iron padded armor, a black musket slung on her back, was lashing her whip with all her might, the warhorse beneath her foaming at the mouth from the long, hard gallop.
"Report——!!"
The sharp, urgent cry of military intelligence instantly alerted Grand Commander Bardess and Chief Inventor Irene, who were patrolling the watchtower atop the city wall.
Bardess's face went grave, and her whole body, like a longsword drawn from its sheath, strode briskly down the wall along the wide stone stairs.
Irene hurriedly gathered her skirt hem too, her long pink twin tails swinging in flustered disorder in the wind, and followed close behind.
"What's happening?
Has the marching dust of the southern Empire been spotted beyond the border line?"
Bardess pressed her hand to the hilt of her noble longsword, those bright, large eyes full of grim severity, her androgynous, pleasant voice sounding particularly steady in the cold wind.
The scout-soldier briskly dismounted, no time to wipe the sweat and sand from her face, knelt on one knee, cupped her fists, and in a voice pressed extremely low yet unusually clear, said:
"Grand Commander, my lord, Inventor, my lord!
The five patrol squads up ahead caught the fox's tail at the forest-road boundary five li out on Severn's perimeter!
During these days of concealed patrol, we discovered extremely professional spies secretly probing the fortress's true strength!"
"Professional spies?"
Off to the side, Irene went faintly blank, her large sapphire eyes blinking curiously.
"Yes, my lord."
The scout-soldier nodded heavily, her gaze flickering with the vigilance unique to Mason elites:
"The other side's methods are extremely skilled—absolutely ace scouts rigorously trained by the Empire's military department, or elite deathsworn lavishly kept by those great southern nobles.
When they move, not only is there no sound of hooves, even the sound of treading on dead leaves is wholly erased; all along the way they most cautiously swept away every footprint with brushes."
Saying this, the soldier's lips curled into a cold smile:
"They thought themselves hidden without a single flaw, able to deceive the heavens and cross the sea.
But these days, they came far too frequently!
Even though each time they carefully restored the grass and trees, because they walked back and forth too many times, the broken-leaf traces at several hidden thickets beside the Red Maple Forest road finally overlapped together.
More importantly—the several fine Black Rose threads we left on the dead branches were, this very afternoon, snapped ever so minutely!"
Under the falcon-like, airtight watch of the Black Rose Guards, these Imperial elites who fancied themselves invisible men at last let slip a single fatal flaw.
"The patrol captain, mindful of Her Majesty's sacred will to fortify the walls and clear the fields, did not, in order to avoid alerting the snake, open fire and encircle them on the spot in the woods.
The captain ordered us to keep our eyes fixed dead on the enemy's bearings, and specially dispatched this lowly one to rush back through the night to beg you two lords for a decision!"
Having heard the scout's detailed report, the atmosphere before the entire fortress gate plunged to a freezing point in an instant, a faint, bone-piercing chill spreading through the air.
Yet the Grand Commander Bardess standing at the very front—those large eyes of hers, in that instant, snapped wide open, and her originally solemn wheat-colored face shifted, within a ten-thousandth of a second, from gravity into a kind of near-stupefied shock!
This somewhat obsessive-compulsive Grand Commander's two arms, sheathed in fine-steel vambraces, trembled most violently.
Prophecy... this is absolutely a supreme prophecy that only a deity could possess!!
I had thought the ten-inch red maple cake Her Majesty sent was merely an ordinary reward out of pity for our overtime.
But why... why did Her Majesty stipulate that we absolutely must finish it all within three days?!
Because today happens to be exactly the fourth day!!
Her Majesty, moving but a fingertip in the Temporary Palace, not only calculated the dispatch of twenty thousand heavy troops crystal-clear—even on which day, which moment the southern Empire's elite spies would precisely creep to the foot of the small city of Severn's walls, she held it all wholly within her grasp!
Her Majesty had us finish the sweets within three days, the whole point being that on the fourth day, we could meet the enemy's first probing wave with the fullest physical strength and peak vigor, without the slightest flaw!
Brilliant! A supreme, flawless, profound foresight!!
Thinking this far, Bardess's faith in Sophia's all-foreseeing divine character soared utterly to a realm where even her very soul trembled.
Those southern scoundrels had, in the end, come to fight Her Majesty for territory after all.
"Miss Irene, by the look of it, Her Majesty's game of strategy is, from this moment, formally laying down its stones."
Bardess rose to her full height and, with great briskness, drew the noble longsword at her waist out half an inch; the snow-white blade, under the last touch of the setting sun's glow, refracted a streak of cold, bone-chilling light.
Her androgynous, pleasant girl's voice was now brimming with absolute slaughter and resolve:
"Since those rats think our small city of Severn is still that same broken-down dirt kiln as before, then tonight we absolutely must not betray the high hopes of Her Majesty and General Delilah.
In your view, how should our defensive regulations going forward be drawn up to best fit the rules?"
Irene clasped both hands behind her back and, with a somewhat spirited air, sniffed her somewhat aching nose.
At this very moment, the pair of disheveled pink twin tails atop her head stood bolt upright in the cold wind, her large sapphire eyes full of a shrewdness that was set on certain victory:
"Commander Bardess, does this even need any thought!
Since those spies love to sneak around peeping, then tonight, let's openly and grandly give them an eyeful to their heart's content!"
The pink-haired girl, treading nimble steps—swaying this way and that yet exceedingly swiftly—climbed back up to the summit of the gray city wall, towering several zhang high.
She stretched out her fair, tender little hand to point at the surrounding Cement walls, already dried as hard as iron, and reckoned aloud:
"Relay my command!
Have the patrol squads in the woods keep pretending they've noticed nothing—they can even deliberately leave a few irregular gaps in the patrol formation, to lure the spies in closer!
Have two hundred elites leveling their black muskets slip in early to lie in ambush at the four underground tunnel entrances beneath the wall, and guard their retreat dead-tight!"
A carefree, petulant smile spread across Irene's little face, and she pointed at those lever trebuchets locked fast in the wall's grooves, her voice crisp and ringing:
"Once it's deep night, the moment they dare step into the absolute bombardment range of these twenty great trebuchets atop our walls—
Bardess, you pull the ignition fuse right there on the city wall!
This lady wants to, this very night, with the freshest-out-of-the-oven Black powder great explosive bombs, give every one of these southern rats the most fervent, most thorough Black Rose-style grand baptism!!"
"Good! It's settled with one strike—we'll do it your way!!"
Grand Commander Bardess's face went solemn; she abruptly leveled her longsword toward the azure firmament, and that pleasant girl's voice cracked out like a thunderclap in the heavy night:
"All Black Rose, heed the command! Fully extinguish the bonfires within the city!
Change into your sturdiest fine-iron padded armor; tunnel phalanxes take your positions at once!
Tonight, before this new city wall, we shall let the rats of the Empire know what a never-falling iron rampart of Mason truly is!!"
"Roar——!! Sworn loyalty unto death to Her Majesty!! Defend the new Order!!"
Night fell utterly, and the dying embers beneath the several dozen marching cauldrons of the small city of Severn were briskly buried by the soldiers with sand and earth.
This whole newly built gray Cement behemoth, in that instant, soundlessly melted into the deepest darkness of the Northern border wasteland.
Only the twenty enormous wooden throwing arms reared high, like statue after statue of silent deities, quietly awaiting the first batch of sacrificial victims to deliver themselves into the net, to weld this westernmost-fringe supreme victory wholly fast beneath the banner of Black Rose.
The cold wind of deep night swept silently across this Gobi fringe, raising wave after wave of rustling sound.
The two hundred Black Rose elite Guards hidden beneath the city wall, within the tunnels, now leveled their heavy black muskets, breathing with extreme steadiness and rhythm.
Their large eyes stared fixedly at that pitch-black stretch of Red Maple Forest not far beyond the city gate. And atop the city wall, the twenty enormous lever trebuchets, like silent iron behemoths, lay dormant in the night.
Bardess and Irene stood shoulder to shoulder at the very core of the watchtower, their breathing extremely faint, their pre-battle calm—that of true Mason soldiers—drawn fully to the maximum.
Time slipped by drop by drop.
At last, from the silent edge of the Red Maple Forest road, there came, ever so faintly, a "shff-shff" of dead leaves being crushed underfoot.
The sound was so small that, were it not for the Black Rose female soldiers' high-intensity hearing drills, it could never have been caught.
Following close after, several figures, wrapped from head to toe in black skintight garb, their forms extremely nimble, slipped out of the woods.
Their advancing posture was extremely strange—each step most cautiously avoiding the open level ground, hugging fast to the shadows of the Cement wall, their eyes beneath the face-masks ceaselessly scanning their surroundings.
As they walked, they also most professionally felt about the surrounding sand, as if searching for those few regular gaps the Black Rose patrol squads had deliberately left.
When the very last spy too had wholly stepped into the absolute bombardment range of the twenty great trebuchets, and was less than fifty paces from the city gate——
"Shing——!!"
An extremely cold, crisp clash of chainmail abruptly tore through the void.
Bardess's bright, large eyes snapped round and wide in the dark of night; she had no needless hesitation.
Most briskly she drew that snow-white noble longsword from her waist, the sword-tip pointing straight at the Imperial rats below, and that crisp neutral girl's voice cracked out like a thunderclap in the deep night:
"Black Rose, full lights on!! Surround these rats on every side!!"
As the order came down, the summit of the originally pitch-black Cement-gray behemoth instantly blazed with dozens of torches smeared with fierce grease.
The orange-red firelight naturally lit the whole stretch of sand before the city gate bright as day.
"Oh-oh-oh!! Praise Your Majesty! Catch the rats!!"
The several hundred Black Rose female soldiers in ambush at the tunnel exits and the corners of the city wall let out wave upon wave of fervent roars.
Treading in regular step, they most briskly leveled the black muskets in their hands at these few black figures squinting half-blind from the firelight, forming a seamless encirclement.
Looking at the surrounding Mason big-sisters in fine-iron padded armor, faces cold and severe, and then at those leveled black musket-muzzles, those few Imperial ace scouts understood utterly within a ten-thousandth of a second:
They had fallen for the trap.
These past days' so-called flaws and irregularities were all bait these Mason rats had deliberately left to lure them onto the hook!
"Damn it... we've been toyed with by these Northern border barbarians!!"
The lead spy let out a somewhat hoarse, despairing curse.
He knew he absolutely could not walk out of this encirclement alive today, but as a deathsworn of the Empire, he had to send out the intelligence of the small city of Severn's wholly renewed iron defenses and those unreasonable trebuchets to the great army waiting outside the woods.
Without any hesitation, the spy most decisively drew from his bosom a somewhat aged, strange bamboo tube fashioned from coarse bronze.
"Ssss-rip——!"
The ignition fuse was yanked hard.
"Pak——boom!!"
An extremely piercing, dull roar instantly split the night.
Following it, an extremely dazzling, brilliant-bright white point of light most overbearingly shot up several hundred meters into the sky above the small city of Severn.
That white point of light looked extremely abrupt in the deep night; though it lacked the riotous colors of the miraculous fireworks Irene made, this overbearing, pure white light flickered for a full three seconds in the dark—enough for the Imperial host several li away to see it crystal-clear.
Irene, standing atop the city wall summit, gazed at that white flickering above her head, and her large sapphire eyes constricted slightly, that layer of petulance and little glee vanishing in an instant.
That ghastly-pale signal-light burst extremely glaringly in mid-air, mirrored in Irene's large sapphire eyes, and her expression sank utterly in an instant.
"Worthy of the elites the Imperial Capital sent out—their minds are first-rate in decisiveness..."
A rare gravity welled up in Irene's heart.
In the dead of night like this, the moment the enemy saw they'd fallen into the encirclement, they didn't hesitate even half a second, but directly used this piercing, overbearing flare to send word to their distant comrades.
Just how deep did the foundations of that ancient southern Empire run?
Merely a few spies who had infiltrated, and the alchemical little gadgets they wielded were already so brisk.
If that iron torrent that claimed to devour all things truly bore down upon the whole line, could the new Order of the Northern border truly hold steady?
But this thought lingered only a single second in Irene's mind.
The pink-haired girl spat most fiercely, abruptly tossed the pair of bolt-upright pink twin tails atop her head, and shouted in her crisp voice:
"Stop standing there dazed!
Hurry and pin down these few wildly firing dead rats for this lady!
Dislocate their jaws—whatever you do, don't let them swallow poison and kill themselves!!"
"Roar——!!"
The dozens of Black Rose elite female soldiers encircling the outer ring woke as if from a dream, surging up all at once with heavy steps.
Those Imperial deathsworn, wrapped all in black, still tried to draw their poison-tempered daggers in last-ditch resistance, but two fists are no match for four hands—much less, under the close-range glare of dozens of black musket-muzzles, their every dodge and twist was locked down dead-tight.
Only a series of teeth-grating crunches of dislocating joints and muffled groans was heard, and within a few breaths' time these Imperial rats were most brutally dislocated at the joints by the towering Guard big-sisters and slammed hard, like dead pigs, against the brand-new Cement wall base.
Yet before everyone could let out even a slight, long breath—indeed, less than a minute after the flare had fully gone out in the night sky——
"Rumble, rumble... rumble, rumble..."
A faint yet extremely dense tremor conducted itself most abruptly through the cold sand, transmitting itself naturally to the soles of every single person's feet.
From the deepest depths of that whole stretch of Red Maple Forest undulating in the night beyond the city wall, there abruptly erupted a mountain-toppling, sea-overturning thunder of hooves!
That sound was dull and savage, like countless ancient behemoths waking in the dead of night, treading a frenzied drumbeat, wrapped in a sky-piercing murderous aura, roaring as they tore in toward the small city of Severn.
"The southern old-noble vanguard cavalry are charging in!!"
"Alert! Sound the alert, quickly!"
The Guards atop the high watchtower bellowed at the top of their lungs, the urgent brass alarm bell instantly clanging "clang-clang-clang" into one continuous din.
By the sheer scale of that hoofbeat-thunder, sheltered by the cover of night, the enemy lurking in the Red Maple Forest absolutely numbered more than a few hundred cavalry—this was plainly the Empire military department's heavy vanguard camp, which, disguised as traveling merchants, had long since secretly crept to the very edge of the border line!
"All forces on alert!! Musketeers, all to the walls!!"
Grand Commander Bardess's bright, large eyes abruptly constricted.
Her fine-iron chainmail gave off an extremely high, sharp ring, and the noble longsword in her hand swept out a dazzling cold gleam in the firelight as she loudly commanded:
"Haul all the Black powder great explosive bombs from the main warehouse up here for this Commander!!
Tonight, whoever dares let a single living soul near the wall base, will scrub the stables for a whole year for this Commander!!"
Looking at those just-completed defensive works before the city gate, and the laborers frantically shoving supplies about, Bardess turned her head, caught sight of Irene at her side still leveling her little hands, somewhat eager to give it a go, and her heart gave a sudden lurch.
This obsessive-compulsive Grand Commander had no needless hesitation; she stepped forward, stretched out that stout arm sheathed in a fine-steel vambrace, and most roughly yet most carefully shoved Irene off toward the stone stairs on the inner side of the high platform.
"Miss Irene!
Blades and swords have no eyes on the front line, and this pack of southern vicious wolves comes on with overwhelming force!
You are Her Majesty's core gear—you absolutely must not scrape off the slightest bit of skin here! Please retreat at once to the core safety command post beneath the bell tower ruins!!
Deploy the forces by way of the tunnels!!"
Bardess's tone was extremely stern, carrying even a trace of unquestionable commander's authority.
Irene was shoved into a stagger, yet she wasn't precious about it.
As a core upper echelon of the Black Rose main base, she understood crystal-clear in her heart that her own Great Inventor head was full of nothing but blueprints and regulations; were she truly to stay on the wall's crenellations, she'd be nothing but a living target adding to the trouble for the Guard big-sisters, of no use whatsoever.
"I know, I know!
Bardess, you keep those twenty great trebuchets dead-tight watched for this lady!
In a bit, the moment this lady strikes the bronze gong below, you pull the ignition fuse for me with all your might, and blast every one of those scoundrels into fireworks at the edge of the sky!!"
Tossing out this fierce, vicious line, the pink-haired girl clutched her mud-spotted pink dress hem and most briskly trotted down the wide, regular stone stairs, ducking—swaying this way and that—into the safest central bell tower defensive core under the dead-tight protection of a squad of close female guards.
Watching Irene's bustling figure melt into the darkness, Grand Commander Bardess, standing in the wind's path, once again irrepressibly surged with wave upon ever-higher wave of worshipful astonishment within her heart.
Brilliant... truly brilliant to the very extreme!
"In that case... this Commander absolutely cannot let slip a single rule either."
Bardess's face went grim and severe; she leveled her longsword fiercely before her, and her whole body, like an insurmountable gray-behemoth line of defense, welded itself dead-fast at the very center of the fortress gate.
And at this moment, the night at the little city's edge was at last overbearingly torn open.
Countless tattered Imperial iron armors, reflecting the chilling firelight, roared out of the dense woods in the cold early-autumn evening wind, charging straight at the towering wall-base of the small city of Severn!
That silent stretch of woods, in that instant, seemed split utterly open by an invisible giant blade.
Dozens of vanguard light cavalry bearing the old nobles' family crests, like vicious wolves crawled up from hell, leveled their sharp lances and, under the cover of night, madly trampled the sand as they charged.
"Fire!!"
Grand Commander Bardess, standing at the very center of the city wall, had not the slightest hesitation.
As her crisp, forceful neutral voice cracked out across the firmament, the black-musket phalanx rooted dense and thick atop the gray crenellations fired at full volley.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
In an instant, the wall-top spewed a long string of dazzling orange-red tongues of flame, the pungent Black powder smoke surging violently through the cold wind.
Those Imperial light cavalry, so proud of their warhorses' speed, had not even touched the small city of Severn's brand-new Cement wall-base before they fell in swathes under the dense storm of iron shot, like wheat being reaped.
The wail of warhorses and the crack of shattering bone intertwined; within a few breaths' time, this proud, lofty vanguard squad utterly collapsed, the dozen-odd surviving riders wheeling their horses about in disgrace and scrambling, tumbling, fleeing back into the darkness.
The Black Rose female soldiers atop the wall had just been about to let out a victory cheer—yet Grand Commander Bardess's face turned exceedingly grave in an instant.
Before the gunsmoke had even cleared, the whole stretch of wasteland before the small city of Severn began to tremble utterly and violently.
Dong, dong, dong——
It was a kind of dull, immense rumble that made every soldier's scalp prickle.
At the far end of sight, a black, dense iron torrent like an endless tide was bearing down on the whole line from the deeper depths of the Red Maple Forest!
Those towering heavy shields, those lance phalanxes reflecting the cold moonlight—how could their number be anything less than ten times what had come before?!
The fine-steel vambrace on Bardess's hand pressing the longsword trembled violently, those bright, large eyes abruptly widening, and within her heart there once again surged a mountain-toppling, sea-overturning worshipful astonishment:
"So that's it...
These southern scoundrels actually hid their main host in the blind spot five li away!
They'd long anticipated that getting too close would be discovered by our scouts, and so they held their troops still, not stirring, until they saw that ghastly-pale flare just now, then burst into full speed and rushed over!"
"Brilliant... but Your Majesty, you are even more brilliant than they are!
Your stipulating that we finish the cake within three days—what you calculated was not at all these few tiny spies, but this chain of iron-and-steel mad tides following hard on their heels, giving the defenders not the slightest moment to breathe!!"
"Black Rose, heed the command!!"
Bardess reined in her shock utterly, her longsword pointing straight below as she loudly cried:
"Heavy-armor infantry, hold the city-gate line dead-fast for me!
Musketeers, reload in alternation—you absolutely may not retreat half a step!!"
Below the city wall, countless old-noble infantry wielding fine-copper lances had already slammed in like mad dogs, frenziedly battering the body of the gray behemoth.
At the same time, Irene, seated in the underground ruins of the central clock tower's defensive core, was, through several brilliant-bright pure-copper voice-transmission pipes, staring fixedly at every piece of intelligence fed back from the battlefield.
"These southern scoundrels—not sleeping in the dead of night, and actually coming in such numbers!?"
Yet Irene's large sapphire eyes flickered with the absolute shrewdness of a Chief Inventor.
Looking at those southern soldiers swarming densely about the foot of the gray city wall, she let out a most willful snort:
"You want to fill up the city wall this lady built with your heads?
Go dream your sweet dreams!
Messenger!
Have the twenty great trebuchet teams atop the wall immediately unload, in full, the spare great stones from the core grooves!"
"Then... my lord, what do we swap in?!"
The urgent query of a Guard big-sister came through the voice-pipe.
Irene smacked the wooden desk before her hard, the pair of pink twin tails atop her head swaying violently with her motion:
"Swap in the Black Rose secret-recipe glycerin fire bottles this lady blended through the night!
On this lady's bronze-gong signal, aim dead-center at the dense phalanx on the Red Maple Forest road, and smash them with all your might!!"
Atop the city wall summit, the twenty enormous wooden lever trebuchets swiftly gave off a teeth-grating meshing of gears.
At the tip of each enormous throwing arm, the net-pouches that had originally carried great boulders were now all swapped, in full, for enormous clay jars brimming with dark-red liquid and bound with ignition fuses.
"Clang——!!"
As a crisp, impassioned bronze-gong note from within the underground clock tower spread out violently, Commander Bardess swung her longsword atop the wall:
"Fire!!"
In the first volley, twenty enormous clay jars carved slantwise across the azure night sky.
The instant they landed, the clay jars smashed against the Empire's iron shields and the sand, bursting open at once.
The intensely viscous glycerin ignited the moment it met fire, and across the wasteland it roared up an entire blazing sea of flame several zhang high!
"Aaaah——! My eyes!!"
"Scatter, scatter quickly! The other side is using fire!"
The most harrowing wails of agony instantly resounded through the whole stretch of Red Maple Forest.
Countless southern soldiers were caught by the scorching flames, the battle-armor on their bodies instead becoming heat-conducting instruments of torture, searing them until they rolled madly on the ground.
The originally seamless Imperial lance phalanx was, in that instant, burned raw with twenty enormous vacuum gaps!
Just as it seemed the enemy's assault had been cut off by the sky-high sea of flame, before Irene could even reveal a smug, petulant little smile, the situation on the battlefield reversed once more in the most uncanny way.
Amid the rolling thick smoke, a phalanx of roughly a thousand elite heavy-armor troops actually trod over the still-burning corpses of their comrades and, faces cold and cruel, passed through the sea of flame!
That scorching glycerin fire, splashed upon their dark cloaks and specially made heavy armor, merely gave off a hissing white smoke, then slid down the strange grooves on the armor's surface to the sand, utterly unable to inflict the slightest substantial harm.
"Eh? These people actually aren't afraid of fire?!"
Through the firing-slit, Irene's large sapphire eyes constricted slightly.
She most keenly discovered that this group of soldiers' armor surfaces were all smeared with a thick layer of yellow-brown clay glinting with a strange oily sheen, and they were even draped in damp leather armor soaked through with special grease.
This was plainly a fireproof deathsworn battalion specially armed by the Empire's military department to counter the fire attacks that might exist on the Northern border!
"Hmph—you think that by donning some fireproof rags, this lady has no way to deal with you?"
Irene propped her chin on her fair, tender little hand, her crisp voice carrying a trace of victory-certain decisiveness as she swiftly issued, into the voice-pipe, a supreme regulation of consummate strategic vision.
Those whose surfaces were smeared with yellow-brown clay, immune to ordinary fierce flames, with extremely fast charge speed—let them pass, draw them in beneath the city wall, and have Grand Commander Bardess's black-musket squads call them out and blow their heads off at close range!
The ordinary heavy infantry behind, wearing regular fine-copper bright armor without any flame-resistant coating, terrified of the glycerin flames—the priority bombardment target!
Raise the trebuchets two graduations and, with full force, sever their rear supply line!
"Did you understand?!"
Irene shouted at the top of her voice, her little face full of seriousness and spirit.
"Those mud-clothed freaks—let them come beneath the city wall; Bardess's longsword will teach them how to behave!
Trebuchet teams, smash all the remaining fire bottles, in full, onto those poor wretches behind their backsides who aren't wearing fireproof gear!!"
Atop the city wall summit, hearing the precise orders coming up from underground, Bardess's bright, large eyes nearly overflowed with boundless adoration.
"Worthy of Miss Irene...
Amid such brutal flames of war, she can still, within a single second, calculate the enemy's armament loophole this seamlessly tight!!"
As the Grand Commander's longsword once again carved regularly across the firmament, the throwing arms of the twenty behemoth trebuchets gave a fierce shudder.
With a vengeful shriek, they poured a sky-full of blazing clay jars, precisely and without error, in full, upon the heads of those follow-up Imperial troops without fireproof leather armor!
In an instant, the fireproof deathsworn charging at the very front and the heavy-armor main force behind were sliced raw by this sudden high wall of flame into two utterly isolated battle-zones——
Atop the city wall, though the glycerin flames had torn open the southern Empire's battle array raw, that rolling thick smoke and the pungent stench of scorched flesh became the prelude to the death-god's carnival of reaping lives.
Grand Commander Bardess wielded her longsword, fiercely running through a fireproof deathsworn who had managed, with great difficulty, to climb up a siege ladder. The yellow-brown clay on that deathsworn's body had long since cracked apart under the black muskets' repeated calling-out, exposing the despairing, ferocious grin beneath.
"Kill!! For the Empire!!"
More southern soldiers, braving the fire bottles and iron shot that occasionally fell upon their heads, surged forward heedless of their lives like sharks that had scented blood.
The Imperial Capital's troop strength was simply too vast; that black, dense iron torrent seemed endless, and even though the small city of Severn's defenders were well-trained, by now they too gradually gave rise to a deep sense of powerlessness.
The Black powder reserves were dropping at frightening speed, and the wooden structures of the lever trebuchets began to give off overburdened creaks under the prolonged, high-intensity operation.
Bardess panted somewhat, swiping a hand offhandedly across the blood on her face. In her bright, large eyes, that signature streak of obsessive-compulsive rigor had now been replaced by a thick murderous severity and a faint, barely perceptible despair.
Just at this darkest hour of the deadlocked battle, when the Mason soldiers were practically fighting with their very lives——a tremor even more violent, even denser than before, abruptly conducted itself over, naturally, from due north of the small city of Severn—that is, from the open wilds at their rear!
Rumble, rumble... rumble, rumble...
That was not the somewhat scattered hoofbeats of the southern light cavalry—that was the terrifying din of tens of thousands of heavy cavalry, treading a step-cadence regular to the utmost extreme, trampling the sand like ten thousand thunderbolts roaring as one!
On the battlefield, due to the fierce slaughter and the rolling thick smoke, visibility was pitiably low.
Under this heavy cover of night, Bardess and the Guards atop the wall could only faintly make out, on the distant northern horizon, an entire unbroken stretch of black tide wrapped in a sky-piercing murderous aura, roaring as it stabbed fiercely toward the small city of Severn's isolated, unsupported back!
In that instant, Bardess felt as though the blood throughout her body had congealed in a flash, the arm that had been pressing the sword-hilt trembling violently.
"The north... why would there be an army to the north too?!"
"Could it be...
that old emperor of the south not only deployed the whole line of the iron torrent to bear down, but even secretly allied with those barbarian tribes deep in the Northern border, or some other rebel army, to give us a complete fortify-the-walls-and-clear-the-fields grand encirclement?!"
"My life is forfeit..."
Bardess bitterly closed her eyes, and the wave upon ever-higher wave of worshipful astonishment within her heart at last, in this moment, transformed into the most extreme tragic heroism.
Your Majesty...
So you calculated everything—calculated the spies, calculated the fire-attack deathsworn—yet the one thing you alone failed to calculate was that this pack of base southern scoundrels would actually be shameless to such a degree, deploying this chained, must-die killing snare!!
Irene, seated in the underground core safety command post, naturally heard through the voice-pipe that terrifying thunder coming from the rear as well.
The sword the pink-haired girl had been holding somewhat eagerly clattered to the ground with a clink.
In her large sapphire eyes, the original shrewdness and spirit collapsed in an instant, leaving only a streak of unprecedented terror and stupefaction.
"No... it can't be...
The tunnels this Inventor built... and the city wall..."
A sob entered Irene's voice; she could never have imagined that the gray Cement behemoth she had poured out her very heart's blood building in less than a single short week would, in the dead of this night, have to face a despairing death-trap of a pincer attack front and back.
No more caramel Pudding...
And no chance to see Her Majesty again...
But until the very last moment, these Mason vassals with Black Rose's hot blood coursing through their veins would absolutely never concede defeat!!
"Black Rose, heed the command!!"
Atop the city wall, Bardess abruptly opened her eyes once more, and from those two pupils erupted a fervor and resolve almost like a dying flame's final flare.
Her fine-iron chainmail gave off an extremely shrill, high ring, the longsword pointing straight at the still-madly-roaring southern army below, and her androgynous, pleasant voice cracked out heart-rendingly in the cold wind:
"Since the heavens would have us die in battle here, then before we die, let us drag every last one of these southern rats down to be buried with us!!
The remaining Black powder great explosive bombs, the fire bottles—anything that can go off—smash it all down, in full, for this Commander!!
Kill——!!"
"Roar——!!
Sworn loyalty unto death to Her Majesty!! Slaughter them all!!"
The originally despairing defenders had the ferocity in the depths of their souls instantly ignited by this tragic, heroic mobilization of the Grand Commander.
They let out wave upon wave of thunderous, fervent roars, and heedless of the wear on their own armor, heedless of their lives, poured down every killing weapon in their hands.
The roar of Black powder linked into one continuous din at the wall-base, the glaring firelight lighting the whole battlefield like a ghastly-pale purgatory.
And the southern main host on the city wall's outer perimeter, looking at this pack of Northern border barbarians before their eyes—as if gone mad, heedless of all cost, wanting only mutual destruction—at last felt a bone-deep terror too, their assault actually frozen stiff raw for a full second.
And just at this life-and-death instant, when the brutal slaughter and fighting back and forth on the spot, and everyone's emotional feedback, had all reached their most extreme peak——
That heavy-armored black tide roaring in from the northern night had at last drawn near!
So near that, by the sky-piercing firelight on the battlefield, Bardess atop the wall could make out clearly the banner at the very front!
That was no southern reinforcement at all, much less any barbarian cavalry!
Upon that pitch-black banner snapping in the wind, an enormous Black Rose emblem embroidered in pure silver thread now flickered, under the firelight's reflection, with a supreme cold haughtiness that transcended the worldly!!
Beneath the banner, the female general at the head was clad in silver full-coverage battle armor reflecting the cold moonlight, wielding a stout, heavy fine-steel dragon-lance, the warhorse beneath her like a savage beast charging in treading on flame.
"That's... General Delilah!
And the banner—it's the banner of Black Rose!"
Bardess gazed somewhat dazedly at that familiar banner, and within her heart there once again irrepressibly surged wave upon ever-higher wave of worshipful astonishment and frenzied, drawn-out cries of awe that set even her very soul madly trembling:
Brilliant—this is true Divine Authority...
The supreme divine character that towers above all living souls!!
Your Majesty... Her Majesty was never sitting in the Temporary Palace at Yurilland at all!
Employing that pair of pale-golden Queen's eyes, she had long since calculated, in full, every single time-clause of the southern host bearing down upon the whole line!
That so-called emergency troop-training in the western camp district, that so-called "do not disturb the schedule"...
was plainly the supreme Queen's sacred decree—to protect her westernmost-fringe defensive line, donning armor and going into battle in person in the dead of night, marshaling through the night a full eighty thousand of the most elite, most sleeplessly tireless Black Rose heavy host, Saint Daphne included, rushing here through the night to weld shut the gate dead-fast for us!!
At the same time, an extremely crisp, lofty neutral girl's voice—plainly amplified by the most pure Druid magic that Saint Daphne had employed—instantly blanketed the whole sky over the small city of Severn, with all its brutal gunsmoke and wails:
"Mason's supreme Queen Sophia arrives in person at the western defensive line!!"
General Delilah's voice cracked out like a thunderclap across the wasteland, bearing the supreme majesty and slaughter of a great general on the eve of a decisive battle:
"Wherever the Black Rose banner points is the iron rampart of the new Order!
You traitors—why do you not swiftly bind your own hands and surrender, what are you waiting for?!
Otherwise—total settlement of accounts, not a chicken or dog spared!!"
"Roar——!!
Sworn loyalty unto death to Your Majesty Sophia!! Long live Black Rose!!"
Eighty thousand Mason elite infantry and heavy cavalry phalanxes in fine-iron padded armor, leveling black muskets and fine-copper lances, erupted at Delilah's single roar into a mountain-toppling, sea-overturning frenzy of fury.
Without any needless hesitation, treading those armored, regular steps as if each were precisely measured with a ruler, with an unstoppable, magnificent momentum, they naturally slammed headlong into the already somewhat wavering flank of the southern Empire's main host!
The situation on the battlefield, in that instant, reversed utterly!
As General Delilah's rolling-thunder roar tore the night sky, the entire wilderness outside the small city of Severn turned utterly into a vast meat-grinder belonging to Black Rose's new Order.
The full bearing-down of an eighty-thousand-strong host was absolutely not merely a number. It was an iron-and-steel mad tide treading an extremely regular, dull cadence—like a heavy hammer pounding down stroke by stroke into the sand—advancing wholly forward, from far to near.
The flames blazed, lighting up the Black Rose battle array charging at the very front.
Walking at the very core position was, plain to see, a supreme war-chariot drawn by four snow-whitewarhorses.
Atop the war-chariot, the silver-haired Queen Sophia was clad in silver full-coverage fine-iron armor that glimmered with a cold, chill light amid the blazing fire; in one hand she leaned upon a slender royal-authority sword engraved with the intricate patterns of Black Rose, and her pair of pale-golden Queen's eyes, without the slightest ripple, looked down upon the southern Empire's main host caught in heavy encirclement, its formation thrown into utter chaos.
At Sophia's side, General Delilah's face was cold and grim as iron, the fine-steel dragon-lance in her hand glinting a chilling, bone-piercing gleam under the moonlight.
Saint Daphne, in a white Druid sacred robe untouched by a single trace of gunsmoke, held aloft with both hands a staff of life carved from ten-thousand-year red maple wood, her pure face full of holiness and grim severity.
And handling the heavy deployment at the rear, Willow had likewise changed into lightweight fine-steel chainmail, her pair of beautiful eyes locking fixedly upon every tactical blind spot ahead.
"That's... Your Majesty!!"
Atop the city wall summit, Grand Commander Bardess—who had originally already made ready to live or die together with the fortress—abruptly opened her eyes wide!
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