"Woooo—"
The deep, muffled horn sounded, and the fortress began to operate like a precision machine. Though the guarding soldiers were somewhat flustered, they still quickly reached their battle stations. They had never fought Devils before, so fear was unavoidable, but their sense of duty and excellent professionalism helped them overcome it.
To face another direct war against Devils after a century, whether they were the kingdom's original garrison or the reinforcements brought by the Duke Capet's son, every one of them was a carefully chosen elite warrior. Not a single one was a forcibly conscripted peasant.
Many nobles boasted all manner of "glorious" records, casually claiming to fight a hundred men alone. That was precisely because there were too many pitiful souls dragged into ordinary battlefields as conscripts.
Clad head to toe in fine armor, well-fed, possessing a bit of extraordinary power, and even bringing a personal guard, they bullied old farmers who could not scrape together a full set of leather armor and might not eat meat more than a few times a year. They even had the nerve to boast about such achievements. From a certain perspective, that took quite a bit of "courage."
Once the fortress garrison reached their positions, they immediately set up rune-enchanted heavy crossbows, extended muskets through the battlements, used crystal magic arrays to grant the weapons temporary enchantments, and took out alchemical potions, ready to use them at any moment.
These were necessary measures for fighting the Devil Race. Of course, they could also be used when groups faced extraordinary beings of their own race.
No single nation could bear the cost of equipping an entire legion with enchanted weapons capable of harming Devils. Perhaps only by emptying the coffers of the entire continent could such a force be assembled.
Thus, temporary