To prepare for the upcoming siege battle, countless containers of water were arranged for the soldiers along with enclosure walls.
“Will these be useful against demons?”
“I don’t know, but you never know what tricks your opponent will pull, so it’s best to be prepared.”
Welner answered Holzdeppe’s question. These water containers were set up to detect the enemies that tried to enter the town by digging an underground tunnel.
When the underground near the water container was dug by the enemies, the water inside the container would shake. In short, these water containers were simple vibration-detecting devices.
“With the demons’ physical abilities, they can create an underground tunnel fast.”
“Well, you are right.”
“Your Excellency.”
Hearing Eickstedt’s call, Welner and Holzdeppe stopped and waited for Eickstedt to catch up with them. When Eickstedt caught up with them, he reported that the preparation for the catapult had finished.
“How is the preparation for the projectiles?”
“The preparation has finished. Though I hope we had more of them.”
“It can’t be helped.”
Not only projectiles, but if he had more anti-demon medicine, the army would have been able to buy more time by just throwing the anti-demon medicines randomly on the demon army. But on a battlefield, basic necessities such as food were often very limited, let alone things like anti-demon medicines. Just the simple fact that the army had sufficient arrows and food supplies was something that could be celebrated.
“As long as we can protect the gate until the reinforcement arrives, we can just leave the rest to the reinforcement.”
Welner answered with a smile. As for the worst-case scenario of the reinforcement not arriving even after the wall was breached, Welner chose not to speak about it. After all, it was best to be optimistic.
Speaking of which, walls that protected a castle were commonly known as castle walls, while the walls that protected the town were called enclosure walls.
In addition, although this was rarely used, the wall that protected the entire Castletown along with the castle was called the town wall.
(T/N: I’ve been using the town wall since the novel just used ‘wall’ but I’ll change it to ‘enclosure wall’ according to the author’s wishes.)
Neurath shouted, “Welner-sama!!”
Eickstedt saw the signal on top of the enclosure wall and then ordered to start moving the catapult. After that, he, along with Neurath and Schunzel, went up to the top of the enclosure wall.
As the town was created to protect the border, the enclosure walls of Anheim were wide and strong. There was more than enough room to put ballistas on top of the walls. There was also a water moat outside of the wall. With sufficient time and equipment, the army could modify the moat. Unfortunately, the army had neither enough time nor equipment, so the water moat was left as it was.
After nodding to Kesten, who greeted the three when they arrived on top of the wall, they looked in the distance and saw the demon army kicking up dust as they approached the town.
“Oh, wow. They seem quite energetic.”
“What in the world did you do to them, sir?”
“Ah, well, I did a few things I guess…”
Kesten, who was holding a short metal rod, asked Welner with an amused expression and Welner chose to not answer.
Welner looked at his surroundings to check the preparation of his army. He saw that the support troops and the town guards had also come up to the wall and their eyes were glued to the sight of the approaching demon army.
Some people on top of the walls seemed terrified. After all, it was quite rare to see demons with your own eyes.
Welner was a bit impressed to see the demon army stop right before they entered the range of arrows. It would have been more convenient for Welner if the demon army had just rushed blindly in the range of arrows, but Welner knew that was just his wishful thought.
In the next moment…
“BRAT!! ARE YOU THERE!?”
Gezarius’s loud shout filled with anger that seemed to make the air shake startled Welner.
It was good that Welner, Neurath, and the others were just surprised since some new soldiers fell to the ground in fear after hearing Gezarius’s voice. With a dumbfounded look, Kesten turned to Welner.
“What exactly have you done, sir?”
“I provoked them… I guess?”
“I guess you say…”
The fact that Welner provoked Gezarius was true, but what Welner didn’t mention was the fact that he provoked Gezarius really badly.
Although Gezarius was furious, he didn’t dare to approach the town carelessly when all of his subordinates had not arrived yet. For a while, a strange staring contest happened between the demon army and the human army.
When Gezarius saw most of his subordinates had arrived, he ordered the demon army to move. Seeing that, Welner waved the flag and ordered the catapult team to start their preparation. After the preparation was finished, the catapults shot boxes toward the demon army.
As the boxes fell to the ground, they broke and their content was revealed. There were cylindrical-shaped metals inside the boxes, not stones. The metal rods that reflected the sunlight looked pretty, as if they didn’t belong to the fierce battlefield.
The demon army stopped in their tracks. As expected, after falling to Welner’s tricks many times, they had learned their lesson. After a short time passed, the metal rods exploded and white mist filled the area.
These cylindrical-shaped objects were modified magic stoves or, in principle, it was closer to the magic kettles. The water inside was constantly heated, making it expand until finally the specially made container exploded (or leaked) and produced this white mist, which was the water vapor.
The vapor limited the sight of demons inside it, but that was all. Although the vapor was hot, it couldn’t harm the physically strong demon army. The vapor slowly disappeared because of the wind, leaving the demon army completely unharmed.
When the vapor cleared up, the demon army started to run again.
Just as they ran some distance, some members of the demon army started to scream, including Gezarius, who was leading the army in the front.
Welner merely created holes filled with spikes and covered them with soft soil.
After thinking that whatever Welner was planning with the explosion had failed, the demon army let down their guard and confidently rushed to the town without being careful of their footing, causing their feet to step on the hole traps that Welner had prepared. From the beginning, the explosions were to distract demons, not to harm them directly.
The demons whose feet were pierced by the spikes writhed in agony. The spikes were also covered with barbs, so it was hard to pull them out.
The spikes deeply pierced Gezarius’s foot because of his heavy body. The humiliation that he felt after being caught by these kinds of simple traps would not disappear easily. His anger and impatience robbed him of the ability to deal with the situation calmly.
Another reason for demons to fall for this trick was their attention to the conspicuous moat that surrounded the town. Demons felt that Welner must have done something to it.
It would be easy for the demons who had superior physician capability compared to humans to jump over the moat and large holes. In addition, it would take more effort to hide large holes, so Welner chose to create many small holes. The principle of Welner’s trap was like the principle of a minefield.
Because of the traps, the demon army became disorganized. Some sporadically kept approaching the wall while some stopped because their feet were pierced by spikes and they were busy dealing with them. The situation of the demon army was chaotic, and it was at that moment, the human army started their attack.
“Fire!!”
At Kesten’s command, the arrows from the crossbows, roman lead bullets from slings and the rugby ball-shaped metal ammunition from the catapult started flying toward the demon army.
(T/N: Roman lead bullets are bullets used by Rome for slingshot.)
A direct hit from ball-shaped metal ammunition at a fatal location would kill demons with no problem. As for roman lead bullets, being hit by them would cause a lot of pain.
But that was not all. Several members of the demon army had died and become literal porcupines as the arrows rained down on them. Even Gezarius couldn’t help but to stop moving as he couldn’t process what had happened in front of his eyes.
On top of the wall, Kesten was giving instructions to the archers using the magic tool devised by Welner. Although Kesten’s face was calm, he too was shocked inside.
The red light from the magic tool shaped like a stick pointed to a certain demon that had gotten closer to the wall. Seeing that light, the archers immediately focused their attack on that demon and the demon died on the spot. Once again, Kesten masked his shock with a calm expression on his face.
This magic tool was basically a modified version of the magic lamp.
In a defense battle, it was very hard for all archer groups to concentrate their attacks at one point because of difficulty in relaying commander’s orders to all archer groups fast and accurately.
After all, the actual battlefield was filled with shouting, screaming, the sound of metals hitting each other, sound of stones and even the sound of bodies rolling on the ground, so even if the commander ordered ‘Attack this spot!’ only the archers in the commander’s vicinity could hear it.
In addition, a skilled archer didn’t mean a skilled commander or tactician. Moat archers wouldn’t be able to ascertain the enemy’s weak point in the middle of the battlefield and then attack that weak point without being ordered by the commander.
The case of mages on the battlefield was even more serious. Many mages were inexperienced in the battlefield and they could only decide to attack based on stuff like ‘this guy has a best-looking armor’ or ‘Just use my most powerful magic to the enemy’. Only a few people with both experience and talent could ascertain the enemy’s weak point in the middle of the battlefield.
But with the laser pointer-like magic tool created by Welner, the skilled commander or the tactician could pinpoint the enemy’s weak point using the magic tool as a signal for everyone to focus their attack in that place. Although this method was not completely foolproof, it was much better than current solutions.
This magic tool was kept a secret for a while, but 20 years later, it became known to the world in a dispute with the neighboring country, as that country’s king’s younger brother, who was the army commander, became a literal porcupine. The tactic was later known as Zeavert house’s light pointer tactic.
