Chapter 196 - Smoke on the Wall

Leif and I sat on top of the wall, my back resting against the parapet while Leif sat in front of me. I took a long drag from my cigarette, which I had made using herbs I had found in town.

As the number of enemies outside increased, so did my stress and my craving to smoke.

“Looks like leadership is taking a toll on you,” Leif said, looking at me. Then, grinning, he continued, “Pass me one too.”

I threw him a cigarette.

Catching it, he looked at me with a frown. “How do I light it?”

I took out a wooden block on which I had drawn a flame rune. Igniting it with a little mana, I passed it to Leif.

After lighting his cigarette, Leif asked, “These are different from what people use in the capital. Do they sell these in town?”

“No, I made them. I added some of the herbs I collected during my travels. One gives the smoke a better flavor, and another helps increase focus.”

“Are you not afraid that combining random herbs could make things worse?”

At Leif’s question, I gave him a deadpan look for asking something so stupid.

“I know which herbs to mix, which ones not to mix, and how their properties change after drying and burning. I had a lieutenant who knew more about herbs than anyone else I know. If I had not learned these basics, he would never have let me treat any soldier.”

“Hmm, so can you also treat diseases?”

“No, that is something I never had time to learn. I mostly know about vitality herbs used to treat injuries.”

Then, grinning, I continued, “After that, I took some time to research herbs that work well when smoked. They were easy to find. Some regions in the east burn herbs for various effects. Some are used for calming the mind, some for increasing focus, and some simply for their pleasant smell. People there have done a lot of research on that, so I took herbs from there and modified the ratios for smoking.”

“I think you should visit Lady Flavia and Lela,” Leif said, jumping to what felt like a completely different topic.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, taking another drag.

“Oh, you don’t know? With your familiarity with House Petrae, I thought you would. Lady Flavia and Lela are organizing the women of the town to provide first aid, supplies, and even emergency support if the situation worsens.”

“Oh, so that was what Eleanor meant when she talked about helping House Petrae by introducing them to the town’s women.”

Suddenly, a conversation I had had with Eleanor came back to me. At the time, my mind had been so caught up in militia training and maintaining healthy competition between the merchant-house recruits and the commoner recruits without letting it turn into a physical confrontation that I had barely paid attention to her.

“I do not think I am needed there. Lady Flavia has access to Caeso, a Tier-4 healer. He would know far more than I do about these things.”

Now that Leif had mentioned the role of the town’s women in the defense, I could not help but remember something that had been bothering me almost from the moment I was first posted at Fort Darrow.

“Hey, I was wondering what happened to the girls who trained with us. I have always wondered why I never see female soldiers posted at any of the forts.”

“From what we were taught at the Academy, there are a few female-only battalions, with at least one in each legion,” Leif replied. “Women and men are allowed to serve in the same battalion, but it rarely happens because the female-only battalions are almost always low on soldiers, so women are usually sent directly there.

“As for why you do not see many female soldiers, it is because the north has the fewest women in the Royal Army. Legion Seven ranks at the bottom when it comes to the number of female soldiers.”

I frowned at Leif’s last statement. “Why is that? Legion Seven is under Count Petrae, right? He seems like a good man, if he is anything like Captain Petrae. Then why does our region have the fewest female soldiers?”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from NovelPhoenix. Please report it.

Leif shook his head. “The reason has nothing to do with House Petrae. It is just that the north has a lot of small houses. If I am not wrong, the north has the largest number of nobles.”

He glanced toward the town behind us.

“You see, a small town like Velkar has three noble houses. Even though the mayor’s family has no Tier-4 knight, it is still descended from a lineage of landed knights. All these nobles poach a lot of female soldiers trained by the Royal Army, mostly to act as close personal guards for the women of their houses.”

Leif took another drag before continuing.

“Moreover, from what I have heard, female guards trained by the Royal Army are sometimes paid more than male guards, so some noble houses even go as far as hiring guards who have already received their postings, paying hefty fines in the process.”

“Why? That does not make sense. I have never heard of them doing that for any talented male soldier.”

“Well, according to Lela, old houses have a lot of great training methods for male soldiers, but they lack such methods for women. Something about some princess creating them.”

“Princess Aurora,” I reminded Leif.

“Yeah, her. She created the structure and methods used to train female soldiers. Now, even though nobles know those methods, they still cannot reproduce the same results as the Royal Army. And I know why that is,” Leif said, sounding far too proud of something he had probably been taught at the Academy.

“The reason is the lack of unawakened female recruits in noble houses. Commoners do not allow their young daughters to join just any noble house, especially as guards, whereas they have some faith that the Royal Army will treat their girls properly. Moreover, the Royal Army makes sure to include at least a few female recruits in each group, so they can spar with one another and prevent the initial gap in physical stats between boys and girls from affecting their growth.”

“Hmm...” I nodded. That made a lot of sense. Even if each noble house recruited only ten female guards, they would collectively end up poaching a huge number of female recruits from the Royal Army. As for why the Royal Army allowed it, my theory was that it was due to pressure from the nobility and those fines being seen as a source of revenue.

Our conversation over cigarettes continued for some time, jumping from one topic to another, from our futures to the places we had visited and many other subjects.

Just when we were both about to leave, I sensed a huge amount of familiar earth mana surrounding us.

Without saying a word, both of us stood back-to-back, completely on guard.

“You can relax, Sergeant Edward and Student Leif. It is me, Captain Petrae,” Captain Petrae’s voice called out.

But we still did not lower our guard until the mana around us stopped moving and took on a dome-like shape, surrounding both of us. Only then was I able to sense the mana properly and confirm that it did belong to Captain Petrae.

I relaxed a little.

“The mana signature is similar to Captain Petrae’s,” I informed Leif.

Even then, I was having a hard time understanding why both of us were inside this dome of earth mana. If the Captain had something to say, he could have simply called us.

“Sergeant, when do you think the enemy will attack?” Captain Petrae’s voice asked.

I did not reply immediately. Instead, I looked beyond the wall to observe the enemy camp. In the last two days, the size of their camp had doubled, and an army of approximately twenty thousand soldiers had assembled outside.

“Now that their numbers have stopped increasing, I would assume they will attack within the next few days,” I replied.

“Five days,” Captain Petrae said in a firm tone. “Torquatus was finally able to sense the Tier-5 yesterday, and he estimates the mage can maintain the domain for another five days"

“But I do not think they will launch a full attack as soon as the domain drops. We will get more information about how the rest of the north is faring once that happens, but looking at the size of the army in front of us, I would assume it is not faring well. That means the chance of receiving reinforcements is minimal.”

His voice remained calm.

“So, instead of attacking us in haste, they will keep pestering us and testing our defenses.

“There are two more reasons they will not attack immediately. First, their Tier-5 mage will be out of mana. It should take him around twenty days to recover. Second, according to Torquatus, it will take twenty-five days from today for the siege weapons they brought to be assembled and charged with mana.”

While the Captain explained the situation, I started wondering why I was being given all this sensitive information.

Finally, the Captain provided the answer to all my questions.

“The reason I have you under this dome is that I have a mission for both of you, and it must remain absolutely secret. Other than the three of us, no one should know the exact details of this mission.”

His voice hardened slightly.

“I want the two of you to find a way to sneak out of town using minimal mana. Both of you should also select separate teams capable of performing quick attacks. I am not the type of commander who sits and reacts to the enemy’s movements. I am the type who forces the enemy to respond to mine.”

“I will share more details once the domain is gone.”

After saying those words, the Captain retracted his earth mana, leaving Leif and me with a huge responsibility and far too many questions.

I wanted to ask some of them aloud.

Had Frosthallow calculated all of this from the beginning?

With the amount of food we initially had, forty-five days was the estimated point at which the town would start running out of resources. If not for the starch noodles, the commoners would have started feeling the shortage right around now.

Add a massive army outside the walls, and chaos would have spread on its own.

Frosthallow might have won this battle without suffering many losses.

A starving city might have opened its gates to the enemy by itself.

And that was only the part I could see.

The amount of coordination required to tie up House Petrae and the entire Royal Army legion, preventing them from sending support to Velkar, was absurd.

I turned and looked at the enemy forces.

Now, I was about to go on a mission aimed at disrupting that plan.