Apinsig
patreon
Chapter 171 Homesteading in a fantasy world
🕑 Added 2023-02-22 19:38:49 +0000 UTCThe skill levels of the guards were either really good or really bad. In every watchtower, there was one person looking out and on the walls, there were people walking up and down so it wasn't easy to find an opportunity to move forward. Still, I was able to find caps where I was able to advance without anyone noticing. This time I wasn’t doing it to win a bet but to see what needed to be improved.
When I made it to the halfway mark, I was quite pleased. The only problems we had was that we didn’t have enough guards and that some of them didn't have enough training. Better weapons for a stronger show of force would also be nice but we now lived in a nation where sneaking up on a village was impossible.
We would know immediately if hostiles were in our nation making us safe from unknown forces. Would there be a possibility that someone could hide themselves, certainly, but I was quite certain no one could do that to an army.
At midnight I was finally underneath the wall and from now on it was just luck if I would be able to make it over without anyone noticing. I climbed quickly but still tried to stay as quiet as possible. Luck was on my side today and I was able to make it to the other side of the wall without anyone noticing, but my job wasn't done yet.
I slowly climbed one of the watchtowers and when I was almost at the top, I needed to stay still for quite a while as one of the wall guards spotted my irregular shadow, but it was too dark for him to make me out properly and he didn't decide to come closer.
I was finally able to pull myself up and join the guard that was looking beyond the wall trying to see if anyone was out there. I contemplated if I should grab his mouth and place a blade to his throat. Then he would know that a spy could have killed him, but I decided not to do that. If it was one of the older guards who had already done this job before I might have done it, but he was too green, and I didn’t want to scare him away from being a guard. I still had to cover his mouth as he almost screamed loud enough to wake up the entire village.
I was glad that I decided to isolate his sound otherwise it would have been troublesome. When I finally saw the recognition in his eyes I pulled my hand away. “Good evening. I have some bad news for you. Today I was able to approach the wall, get across it and climb this watchtower without anyone noticing.” I could now see the panic in his eyes but there was still a glimmer of hope which I quickly crushed. “And yes, I approach from your sector.” I could see cold sweat cover his face instantly.
“Not to worry you are not in too much trouble and this was done more for education purposes than anything else.” The guard almost collapsed from relief, but he was barely able to hold himself upright. “You actually didn’t make any mistakes but there are a few things you can do better. For one don’t be so predictable while looking from left to right sometimes snap your head back to the left. If you would have done that just once you would have most likely seen me moving towards the wall.”
I spent a few more minutes talking to him before I descend and started to inspect the walls. It didn't take long for the guards to notice me and report to their superior. The sergeant in charge of the night shift found me fast and then she joined me on my inspection.
While I had made all the guard's bows, they still required a lot more training before I would be willing to give them longbows. Currently, they were just using hunting bows which while good for killing weren’t meant for armoured targets or long distances.
Most of the guards were using swords and while they were a decent weapon for protection it wasn't perfect for every situation. Some spears would be good so when people would climb the walls you could attack them without them being able to retaliate.
That idea made me look at the wall again and I walked closer to touch the wood. It was made from thick timber and two sides were trimmed down a bit so they would fit together a bit better with each other.
People would certainly be able to climb it with simple tools for help or some low-level abilities. If we had enough people, we would still be able to protect against that but if they deployed ladders, it would be harder. For that, it would be good if our troops had some axes which they could use to destroy the upper part of the ladders so they wouldn’t be so useful.
I don’t think this place would need siege towers to be successfully conquered. You probably just need 500 silver-rank warriors, and this place would be overrun in half an hour. If they had any first-rank warriors, they could just kick down the wall.
I noticed that one of the guards patrolling the wall was walking above us and as I looked upwards, I saw that he was quite close to the inner edge which wasn't the best choice. Perhaps it’s time to teach another lesson.
I put some power behind my punch as I struck the wall which caused this area of the wall to shake quite violently. My punch also left behind a fist imprint but more importantly, the guard lost his footing and almost fell to the ground. He was able to hold on, but he was dangling off the side screaming for help. “Guard, stop that whining. Look down you are not that far off the ground just let go if you can’t pull yourself up.”
His screaming stopped immediately as he looked downwards but he still hesitated and tried to pull himself up which he was unable to do most likely because of the heavy armour he was wearing. “A question guard. If you had to jump off the wall because of a fireball that was about to hit it, would you choose to die or would you jump off the wall so you could continue fighting.” My voice was not kind, but I also didn't yell at the man.
He finally let go and fell quite heavily but he didn't hurt himself. Well, perhaps a few bruises. I was at least glad to see that he got himself back onto his feet and give a salute in a reasonable time. “Now guard let me paint you a picture. The village is being attacked by a horde of monsters. You are up on the wall throwing spears into the horde protecting us all. But the horde finally reaches our wall and rams into it. You lose your footing and fell over the wall to be trampled by the monsters. Tell me guard why did you do that?”
There was silence. He was sweating and panic coloured his face. It was enjoyable to see, but I could also understand that he knew that this was a rhetorical question, but I waited and the silence continued to stretch until he started to doubt his first instinct.
He cracked sooner than I would have liked and before he could get out a syllable, I talked over him. “It was because you don’t know how to walk without a little vibration causing you to lose your footing. I hope that you will fix that as soon as possible.” This time I got the “yes sir,” instantly.
I dismissed him and he quickly went to the nearest ladder and climbed back onto the wall to continue his patrol. “Still a lot of training left to do I see,” I told the sergeant to which she wholeheartedly agreed with.
We continued to walk along the wall, and I was at least glad that it all seemed sturdy enough. Although I noticed that on the backside, we were a little bit too close to a small hill which could be used to out-range our own ranged weapons. I was not happy to see that.
Finally, we ended up in front of the gate. Just looking at it makes me ill. It was a shit design never meant for battle. I’m pretty sure that a skinnier person could actually fit underneath the gate. I didn’t want to think about a scenario where some sort of explosive was thrown underneath it to kill all the defenders behind the gate.
Then there was the fact that it was made from quite thin lumber and even silver ranks could hack through it with an axe quite fast. Honestly, this gate didn’t even need any siege equipment to be taken down. Even a log with some rope would be too much. Five guys with axes and it would be down in half a minute.
The third problem which made this already useless gate even more limiting was that there was no way to get to the other side of the wall without climbing down and then climbing back up. Otherwise, the wall's walkway was continuous except for this part which was arguably the most important part to have this capability.
This thing would need a complete redesign. Perhaps even a two-gate system with murder holes on the top and a place for a ballista so you could take down any ram meant to take down the stronger gate.
I was walking from one side of the gate to the other side and even having them open the gate up so I could look at it from all sides and I didn’t like any of it. I discussed it a bit with the sergeant but she at first didn’t think it was too bad. When I started to explain she quickly understood how dire the situation was. I was on the left side of the gate just underneath the wall when I looked up and noticed someone familiar. A small smile crossed my face and I hit the wall again with a decent amount of power.
The shaking caused a commotion on top of the wall and the person fell to his knees, but he was able to get up quickly. I walked a little bit away from the wall so everyone on top could see me. One of the guards up there was the same person that had fallen the last time. “Better,” I said but I couldn’t keep the amusement out of my voice. I ordered them to close the gate back up as I was done with my inspection.
The results weren't good with the current defence force excluding me they would only need five strong fighters to keep the Knights busy and another 200 silvers to take the walls quickly. If they were willing to lose people, I would guess that only 75 would get the job done but we would be putting up decent defence then. If the gate was better, we could push those numbers up quite a lot close to 400 to 500.
I am guessing that any decent force that wanted to conquer or raid this village would have a few mages with them if they don't our mages can most likely defend against almost 1000 silver warriors but I don’t think anyone would be so stupid to not have any mages. Of course, those numbers could swing wildly but that would all depend on the abilities and equipment of the attackers.
I decided to climb on top of the village hall as it was the tallest point in the village so I could get a good overview of the village and its surroundings. Goose joined me landing on my shoulder. I fed him a piece of jerky while scratching him.
I fell into my mind trying to think up scenarios of different battles that might happen here. I did not enjoy the number of failures I was facing. I continued like that until morning came and one thing was certain. I wouldn’t want to fight a battle here. We would lose too much.
Comments
Apinsig
keep up the hill is a bad idea if you lose it you are fucked
Tiresome
Sounds like they should rebuild the door and then make a keep up in the hill
