“Honestly, how do they expect me to swing a hammer all day after eating this slop?” I finished my tasteless wheat porridge in frustration. I couldn’t believe I’m saying this, but I missed risking my life in that death jungle- at least I got to eat meat when I killed things.

Looking back, the poor kid’s body was pretty malnourished when I landed in it. Thanks to 3 years of constant hunting in the Wild as a Ranger, I was able to fill up my boney frame with some honest-to-goodness muscles. Heck, there were days when I felt like my mana reserve grew to unimaginable heights. I know that’s not physically possible, but it sure felt like it.

“It’s not so bad, friend Rummy. I kinda like the simplicity of porridge. Besides, it’s better than nothing!” Roshan, the ever-friendly doormat, cheerfully replied as he got up. We’re just about to be done with lunch in the mess hall. Time to head back to the forge on that 72 hour work-week grind (Can somebody invent Saturday yet?).

It had been a quiet 3 months after my run-in with the Witches. I’d decided to lay low for a while in case the Witches changed their minds about coming after me (besides, I had to transfer Cohorts after my 3 years were up). After all that I’ve been through, I deserved some nice R&R- in a hot stuffy forge with no ventilation from dawn to dusk. And because I hadn’t eaten meat in a month due to the lockdown, I was more irritated and crabby than usual. It was kinda like a non-vegetarian version of PMS~

Well, at least I was learning a proper craft in relative safety. I sure didn't miss fighting off mana-beasts with only a bow. No siree, I’d prefer to risk my life out there with a rifle in my hands instead. And mastering the forge was the 2nd major step in my plan to develop this world’s first firearm.

Thanks to the tutelage of Arminius, I was able to learn the basics of forge-smithing from this world’s perspective. I had some experience in metalworking from my previous life, so my goal for my 2nd tour was to integrate what I knew with what they knew. I also needed to begin to stockpile the resources necessary to do some proof-of-concept testing on a new way to refine high-carbon steel without bankrupting me. Kudos to these guys on figuring out a way to refine and forge high carbon steel with medieval tech, but the way they do it was so inefficient and expensive. Time to add a modern touch to it…

Sadly, I didn’t get many chances to see how mana crystals are integrated in the weapons. Only master-level forge-smiths like Arminius got to work with those, and peons like me were always needed in the forge-smithy to blow the billows or to fetch more coal.

“Fuck this. I’m going out to hunt tomorrow night. I can’t take more of this tasteless existence. You wanna come? We can work on your piss-poor aim while we’re out.” Most people wouldn’t forego sleep to hunt at night, but I wasn’t most people.

“I’d love to, friend Rummy. But my father has set up a marriage interview that day. So I have to decline your offer.”

“Oh, wow. Congrats, I guess. How do you feel about it?”

“I’m very excited! I hear she comes from a Legion family too, and has a 6 star mana talent just like you! I think we’ll have a fruitful marriage.”

Oh right, romantic marriages were a modern invention in my old world. In any other point in history of both worlds, arranged marriage based on family interests and dynastic politics were the norm. Well, if he was happy about it, who was I to argue against it?

“Well, let me know how that turns out. We might have to celebrate your upcoming promotion and marriage. I’ll let Mike and Armin know th-”

*RING* *RING* *RING* *RING* *RING*

The castle bell reverberated across the mess hall, signaling an imminent attack. By who?!? What the fuck is happening?

As much as I’d love to sit back and let the non-Aux people take care of this, we were still required to fight with the Rangers and the Reserves in emergency situations like this. Besides, if things got really bad and the castle fell, I’d be screwed either way. Just my luck- another unavoidable battle.

We grabbed our weapons, ran to the ramparts, and manned whatever post was empty since we weren’t with our Decani (plural form of Decanus). For reasons unknown, there was no leadership beyond the Squad level at the walls. When I got onto the ramparts, I saw a sea of mana-beasts charging at the castle with no regard for their own individual safety. To me, they looked like either they’ve collectively lost their damn minds, or somebody was commanding them to suicide charge into a fortified position. Neither scenario boded well for my safety…

“Well, fuck me sideways…” I muttered under my own breath. I did NOT sign up for this Helms Deep bullshit!!!

***

“We’re out! Get me more arrows, Roshan!” I screamed at him as I picked up a half-empty quiver of a nearby fallen comrade on the castle walls. Normally, I’d frown at stealing other people’s shit. But since the previous owner had a dozen icicle spikes stuck in his chest cavity, he wouldn’t miss the arrows anyways. My fellow archers all had similar ideas as we scavenged for any spare arrows. After shooting for 30 minutes at an endless sea of hostile targets, we were running dry, again.

Bodies of mana-beasts and Rangers had piled up on the narrow rampart nearby. The battle cries and death rattles echo across the battlements. That’s one thing they rarely shown in movie battles; real-life background noises were so loud that it was damn near impossible to hear anybody shouting at you, let alone saying Schwarzeneggerian one-liners like “stick around”.

Thankfully, Roshan seemed to have gotten the message and rushed off. In the meanwhile, I had to make do with the 9 or so arrows I have left. I nocked and loosed them in quick succession into a crowd of mana-beast wolves on the rampart. Since arrows were hard to come by at the moment, I had to be economical- eyes and snouts only. Once the wolves were cripped by my snipes, the fighter went in for the kill.

Now, normally 8 meter tall castle walls do a great job of keeping them out of the castle. But with a massive pile of mana-beast corpses 6 meters high, the more agile wolves easily cleared that hurdle (Good thing the bears and boars could not).

Fortunately, only that section of the rampart was breached. So we were still able to contain them at this beachhead. The fighters held the line while archers like me sniped from behind the frontline. Despite how disorganized and unprepared we were, we managed to hold the line against the onslaught, at least for now.

“AHHHH!” One of the frontline fighters screamed in agony as a wolf bit into his sword arm. Icicles the size of my fingers erupted from his arm as the wolf applied its version of <<Frostbite>>. The poor guy dropped his sword right before a vicious claw to the jugular ended his watch. 45 minutes after the raid began, our frontline was starting to crack, and the backline was running out of arrows. I was starting to consider a way to retreat without getting court-martialed. Fuck me sideways!

Luckily, another squad of Rangers showed up with Roshan in tow. He quickly passed out the quivers to the grateful archers and began to enchant the arrows of the spare quivers with <<Reinforce>>. The reinforcement helped hold the line, but as long as that giant pile of corpses was here, we’d get grinded down eventually. I knew I had to do something about that damn pile, or we were all fucked.

I scanned the pile with <<Farsight>> to look for a weakness. Well, most of the pile on the right side was supported by 2 champion bear mana-beasts positioned parallel to the castle wall (with 3 champion boar mana-beasts laying on top of them). Sigh… even an overcharged <<Air Blast>> couldn’t dislodge that kind of bulk.

OK, next idea- use the bulk against them. I could <<Sap>> the ground beneath the right side of the pile and let gravity do its thing. Great idea, except for the sea of rampaging mana-beasts that would instantly shred me to ribbons if I ever got too close. Wait, hold on. If I could somehow quickly hurl myself into the narrow spaces between the dead bodies, then <<Sap>> the ground, and stay safely hidden underground as the whole pile falls apart… I wouldn’t call this a good idea, but that was certainly not a worse idea than that one time with the rabid champion bear…

Wow, I had really low standards for bad ideas. But unfortunately, the desperate situation called for desperate measures. If I did nothing, we’d get overrun before the hour was over. Sure, I was hoping the Knights in the Carnwennan garrison would get off their over-privileged asses for once and actually contribute to the defense, but I knew deep down they’d only come after the battle was already won to claim credit for work they didn’t do. After all, why risk your own noble life when you can risk the lives of the peasantry?

Alrighty then, let’s do this! I told Roshan to make another supply run and to call for more reinforcement. I didn’t think he needed to see this stunt I was about to pull. After he bolted off, I took out my rope and grappling hook. I tied the rope around the merlon on top of the rampart and secured the hook on a corner. I took aim with my bow and shot a couple of boars and wolves straggling near my landing zone next to the pile. Fortunately, most of the mana-beasts were jostling with one another on top of the pile trying to get into the castle, so there weren’t that many near the wall.

With a running start, I jumped off the rampart holding my rope. I could feel the air blowing in my face as I swung to my probable doom. At the low point of the swing, I let go of the rope and let Jesus physics take the wheel. My rope was only 3 meters long, so my 5 meter freefall would’ve killed me had I not cast <<Updraft>> at the last second. I landed on the ground, with thousands of mana-beasts within 10 meters of me. I broke into a dead sprint toward a “crevice” between 2 dead champion bear mana-beasts the size of school buses. By then, the mana-beasts noticed my presence, and began to jostle with one another to be the one to tear me a new asshole.

I dove into the crevice headfirst. A boar tried to gash me with its tusks, but the crevice was too narrow for it. It ended up clumsily burying its tusk deep into the butt of the dead champion bear. Taking advantage, I shoved my short spear right between the eyes and cast <<Torch>> to finish it off.

Wasting no time, I began to silently cast <<Sap>> on the ground next to the 2 dead bodies, near the edge of the pile. The ground beneath began to get softer and softer. Soon, the quicksand-like ground began to swallow the champion bear corpses ass-first. Meanwhile, the other mana-beasts (mostly boars and bears) hadn’t forgotten about me and were still trying to claw their way into this crevice and turn me into their lunch. Too bad for them. Without the champion bear bodies holding things up, the right side of the pile started to tilt outwards and eventually slid down, resulting in an avalanche of dead bodies (and live wolves) crashing right on top of the boars and bears.

**BOOM!**

Meanwhile, I retreated further inside and continued to <<Sap>> the ground. As the entire right side of the pile began to collapse as a result, I dug myself a shallow foxhole using <<Sap>>. Using the last of my mana, I strengthened the roof of the foxhole with <<Reinforce>>. Now all that was left to do is to enjoy the collapse and to let the other Rangers clean this up while I relax. The best part was, nobody could accuse me of deserting the field of battle because I was technically still in the field of battle.

After 15 more minutes of clashing (with only half the number of wolves pouring in, it should be easy to clean up), I heard a stampede going away from the castle and loud celebratory cheers. Well, time for me to climb out the pile. If I were buried in a pile of wolves, I’d be pretty screwed. But in a pile of bears, boars, and wolves of various sizes, crevices were everywhere. After strenuously pushing one more dead boar out of my way, I was out at last.

Wow, the mountain-like pile that once reached 6 meters high had collapsed into a plateau-like pile of 3-4 meters high. Guess the collapse on the right also triggered the fall of the left side. Looked like my crazy plan worked! I didn’t have enough mana to cast <<Updraft>> now, so I had to wait for somebody to lower a rope or open the gate. I looked up and saw Roshan fiddling with the rope I tied to the merlon. He then dropped it, but with his own rope tied in. Wow! Glad Roshan uncharacteristically used his ingenuity and initiative for this moment. Well, 6 meters of rope should do it. Now this kid’s body was not that tall (about 1.6 meter now) even after filling up, but clearing 2 meters was very doable if I jumped with a running start.

As I began to run, I felt a weird ominous sixth sense. I immediately turned back and saw a figure right around the treeline some 100 meters out. I used <<Farsight>> to zoom in on this figure and everything made sense.

An Elf. A very angry Elf with black vertical stripes painted on his very angry forehead.

I mean, I get it; the raid on Aurelia’s village certainly deserved a retaliation. It was just funny how the people truly responsible for the raid, namely the Witches and that fucking jackass of an Emperor, weren’t even here. Once again, poor schmucks like us were the ones left holding the bag when it came time to settle up.

I could certainly pontificate more on how bullshit this whole thing is, but that very angry Elf had just nocked an arrow and he was aiming straight at me. So maybe later. I tried to dive diagonally to the left towards the wall, but it was too late. I felt a searing pain on my right shoulder blade and tumbled to the ground.

“CONTACT!!! TREELINE!” I screamed on top of my lungs, trying to warn my comrades (and more importantly, Roshan) of the impending danger. I hoped against hope that they’d heard me in the chaos of the battle.

Shit, I was laying on the ground like a sitting duck. Most archers couldn’t reliably hit a target laying on the ground from 100 meters out. But after witnessing that raid a month ago, I knew that an Elven archer very much could. So I summoned what little strength I had left to crawl away.

Fortunately, the Rangers on the rampart heard or saw me. They began to return fire in earnest. Sadly, their inaccurate volley did not stop the Elf.

*Ack!*

I grunted painfully. I felt a searing pain on my left ankle. Fuck! That bastard got me good. I was pretty much immobilized after that hit.

More arrows rained down near the treeline. The Elf, probably assuming I was a dead man walking (or crawling), didn’t finish me off. Instead, he launched a flurry into the Rangers shooting at him.

Oh shit! “GET DOWN, ROSHAN!” I screamed again.

I hear 2 or 3 grunts on the rampart. Not good. One of them fell off the rampart and landed 3 meters from me.

**THUD**

Even in death, Roshan smiled at me. His serene expression betrayed the fact that he just got shot straight through the heart and landed 8 meters down. All that pain and suffering didn’t matter to him simply because he was helping out his friend. In the end, he was truly too pure for this bullshit world.

More archers arrived at the scene and returned fire. After a tense minute of quiet, I didn’t hear any more shooting or shouting. That guy must’ve retreated.

FUCK! When I get a rifle capable of shooting 100 meters out, that Elf fucker will get his. Magic was fun and all, but it was better suited for support and defense. Thinking that my above-average mana talent has enough juice to power all of my offense, defense, and support spells was simply foolish.

I needed a gun.

That was the last conscious thought I had before the blood loss knocked me out.