Blackpine's Five Rings

Inside the command tent, before a rough Sand Table representing Blackpine Fief, stood Mack, the old master craftsman, with a dozen or so calloused foremen. Victor, the one-armed old man, stood where he always did: in the shadows.

Shien had taken care to protect the craftsmen during the march and the battle against the Bloodthirsty Rot Rats, so they had suffered few losses.

He wore a dark coat and leaned back in the chair at the head of the table. The red veins in his eyes had yet to fade as his gaze swept over the Sand Table.

"We've surveyed the surrounding terrain." Fatigue had left Shien's voice a little hoarse. "Tell me, how do you plan to build this wall?"

Mack carefully took a roll of yellowed parchment from inside his coat and slowly spread it across the table.

This was no sketch they had dreamed up on a whim. It was a standard Church fortress plan, born of centuries of experience the Most Holy Church had paid for in flesh and blood.

"My lord, look here." Mack tapped the plan with a rough finger. "This design has held through more Blood Moon Seasons on the front lines than anyone can count. You can rely on it."

Mack's finger moved farther inward. "We'd build it from whole blocks of rough-hewn stone, interlocked all the way up to a height of six meters. Each of the four corners would have a fully enclosed arrow tower. Not a single blind spot."

The tent fell quiet.

Shien lowered his eyes to the old, intricate plan, rapidly comparing it with the knowledge of [Lv. 2 Large-Scale Defensive Construction] in his mind.

From a purely military standpoint, in an age that fought supernatural Demonic Beasts with cold steel and flesh, this system truly was a sound model.

He nodded slightly. "A classic design. It's certainly been tested by blood and fire."

Hearing their lord's approval, Mack and several of the construction foremen visibly relaxed.

"But." Shien's next word shattered that brief ease. "It still won't be enough here."

Without softening his words, Shien set his charcoal pencil on the outermost moat.

"We have to judge the ground in front of us. Take this deep, dry ditch. A few days into the fighting, Demonic Beast corpses will fill it. Then it becomes a ramp for their charge."

The craftsmen's faces changed at once. They had never considered how the terrain would change as the dead piled up.

Shien gave them no time to absorb it. His charcoal pencil swept straight across the thick, six-meter stone wall.

"This would take enormous time and labor. Only six months remain until the Blood Moon Season truly begins. Even if we put every person and resource the Church has promised us to work,

"along with everyone still on the road, we wouldn't build half this wall in time."

Silence filled the tent. No one answered.

Shien continued, "If we lower the standard to finish faster and end up with a rotten wall that collapses at the first blow, what will you use to stop Demonic Beasts of the Third Tier or higher? And this Blood Moon Season, we'll very likely face Werewolves."

Charcoal cracked in the brazier, the sound painfully sharp inside the tent.

"No matter how perfect this plan is, if it ignores reality, all we're building is a prettier tombstone."

Under the stunned gazes of the old craftsmen, Shien drew a huge black cross over the plan without hesitation.

"Hiss—" Mack sucked in a sharp breath. "My lord! Our forebears paid for this with their flesh and blood—"

Shien paid him no mind. His gaze passed over the Sand Table. "We have to make the harshest choices with the resources we actually hold."

Taking the Sacred Flame Altar at the center of the Sand Table as his point of origin, Shien grabbed a handful of sand and scattered it.

The grains spread across the Sand Table in a broad, fan-shaped shadow.

Mack stared. "My lord, what does that mean?"

"We use that defensive plan to build an inner fortress around the Sacred Flame Altar. Then we lay out a deep killing zone beyond it." Shien's finger struck the edge of the fan.

"When the Blood Moon Season arrives, it will suppress the Sacred Flame. But I'll push the Sacred Flame Altar beyond its normal limits, forcibly expand its area of light, and cover this entire sector.

"Even during the Blood Moon Season, once Dark Creatures enter the Sacred Flame's light, their regeneration will be suppressed and their frenzy broken. That's the condition we need to establish a defensive line."

Shien paused, then raised his eyes. "But how we kill them inside that light matters. First, what are the Werewolves' greatest advantages?"

He answered his own question before anyone else could. "Speed, and the ability to leap beyond any natural limit. Build our defenses on flat ground, and they'll climb over a six-meter wall on the bodies of their own kind.

"So we don't meet their charge head-on. We use the earth to break it apart."

His wooden stick came down. Across the fan-shaped area, he drew five staggered, sawtoothed trenches from the outside in.

"The first ring: the Rending Fang Trench." Shien tapped the outermost line with the stick.

"Its floor will be studded with iron-capped sharpened stakes. Channels will carry Alchemical Fire Oil into it. Once the Demonic Beasts fall in, they'll land on our first open-air roasting rack."

Old Mack frowned and raised the most pressing objection.

"My lord, a frenzied Werewolf can leap seven or eight meters without trouble. This trench... they'll jump straight over it."

"On flat ground, they could." The corner of Shien's mouth lifted.

"But what if I build a reverse slope in front of the trench?" He quickly drew a gentle upward incline outside it.

"We pile all the excavated earth on the outer side and tamp it into a slope. Then... we pour boiled fat mixed with lime over it and let it set into a smooth, hard crust."

Shien glanced at Victor. The old man flinched but said nothing, so Shien went on.

"The frenzied pack charges uphill at full speed, but their claws can't bite into the smooth surface. Forget seven or eight meters—they won't even jump one. Their momentum will carry them headfirst into the fire pit."

Mack's mouth hung open. He could already see it: the charging pack slipping at the crest, whole ranks tumbling into a sea of fire.

"The second ring: the Ground-Spike Trap Trench." Shien kept drawing with the stick.

Jack, a young craftsman, couldn't hold back. "My lord, traps that complicated won't last. The battlefield will be choked with mud, sand, blood, and flesh. One jammed gear, and the whole defensive line is useless."

"Who said we'd use gears?" Shien pulled over a discarded sheet of parchment and sketched rapidly with his charcoal pencil.

They looked. It showed only the simplest lever mechanism and a springy base.

"The more precise a machine, the easier it breaks. We'll use brute-force passive energy storage." Shien slapped the sketch onto the table.

"The Werewolves' own weight triggers the bow spring when they fall. The heavier they are and the harder they land, the more force the Refined-Steel Ground Spikes will have when they rebound through their bellies."

Jack stared fixedly at the drawing, his breathing growing heavy. He had never seen a trap built like this.

It was brutally simple, yet it made perfect sense. The design overturned almost everything he thought he knew about traps.

"The third ring: the Poison-Mist Trench," Shien continued. "We bury brittle clay jars inside it. Weight crushes them and releases a large volume of irritant gas."

"My lord... a single drop of Abyssal Venom strong enough to kill a High-Rank Magic Beast costs a hundred gold. We can't afford it."

"Who said we have to poison them to death? We only need to cause trouble. A Werewolf's sense of smell and hearing are dozens of times sharper than a human's, but to me, that's its deadliest weakness."

"Mix discarded Lesser Holy Water with acid from the Corrupt Rats' glands. The reaction between the sacred and the foul will produce intensely pungent Boiling-Blood Smoke."

"At high concentrations, the gas will burn their nasal passages and eyes. A frenzied pack stripped of sight and smell will only tear into its own kind inside the trench."

Victor pictured it. It seemed possible.

Using holy water to make poison gas—this Heretic-to-the-extreme chemical warfare idea sent a strange fervor through him.

"The fourth ring: the Alchemical Blast Trench." Shien fixed his gaze on the route any attacker would have to take toward the heart of the defenses.

"We'll prepare a powerful explosive for High-Rank Werewolf leaders and siege beasts. When their strongest fighters gather, we light a Flint Fuse and detonate it."

At last, the wooden stick came to rest on the innermost trench.

"The fifth ring: the Holy-Silver Bone-Eater Trench. We line it with barbed scrap-iron netting, coated in acid and Holy Silver Powder."

"Werewolves might survive this far through regeneration, but the barbs will tear open their flesh, and the Holy Silver powder will follow the acid into their blood.

"Their frenzy will break. Their regeneration will fail completely. Then they'll hang like stray dogs on a slaughterhouse hook, waiting for the crossbow bolts from the wall."

The command tent fell deathly still. Only Shien's voice lingered in the air.