When Basia City first saw the long-rumored Moon Clan, the Ster Family castle had finally been made habitable after construction crews worked around the clock.
Unfortunately, the cold fortress no longer looked anything like the elegant, splendid castle it once had. At a glance, it looked imposing—and downright suffocating.
With the Moon Clan likely to cause even more harm than the unchecked mages of bygone days, Earl Ster had dug out the plans his ancestors had left for a massive fortress designed specifically to defend against mages.
Ever since Triton had been driven from the continent, the Damboro people had thought they would never need that old relic again!
Even against Silk Spiders, there would have been no point building it. If those things managed to invade, a castle was the least useful defense imaginable.
Against something so small, a clear view of the surroundings mattered most.
As Earl Ster rummaged through the old plans, he almost laughed. He had never imagined they would one day rebuild the old castle to defend against allies their own people had summoned.
Fortunately, nobles had a habit of preserving anything old that could prove their lineage.
One consolation was that, with new materials and machinery, buildings that had once demanded vast amounts of labor, resources, and time could now be finished quickly.
They would even resist fire, frost, and heavy blows a little better than they had a thousand years ago.
Ugly as it was, the sprawling castle had observation ports everywhere. It could spot anything amiss in the nearby mountains at any time, and it had plenty of routes for a rapid response.
Most importantly, it had room for more retainers and their families to move in.
Since Grand Sage Ismael had appeared in Damboro, officials and guards had grown less and