Chapter 3 – Story 70: The Humiliation of Sunomuta 10 – Destroyed Wall

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What had rolled all the way to the feet of Hiakis’s horse was a big, round stone. It was somewhat bigger than a human head. That stone had an almost perfect, spherical shape――something that was impossible for natural stones――and going by the black-burnt weeds crushed underneath, Hiakis had no doubt that it must have been quite hot.

Looking down at that object, an old memory resurfaced in Hiakis’s mind. It was a scene where he was questioning someone in front of a small hill of stacked stones similar to the one in front of him right now.

I wonder, when did that happen? And where?

When he had asked the other person why they went out of their way to process stones into a round shape although it would have been just as fine to use some of the fieldstones lying around the area, he got following answer:

“If the stone is round, it won’t stop right away even after falling to the ground. It will roll and injure or kill nearby enemies. Also, you heat the stone for the sake of giving its fragments a lethal property if the stone should burst due to the impact of a fall.”

Who was the one giving me that answer?

In the next instant, a shock ran through Hiakis’s mind.

“That was…at the fortress of Loylops…wait, catapults!? I see! The captain who had worked the catapults!”

Hiakis lifted his face and stared at the fortress which served as his enemy’s headquarters.

“Don’t tell me, those guys…!?”

◆◇◆◇◆

Regimental Commander Gaius came to his senses after he had apparently lost his consciousness due to a sudden, intense impact. He quickly realized that he was lying on the ground while facing upwards.

Just how long have I been out of it? It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long though.

He felt the pressure of something heavy being mounted on his lower body half. When he looked downwards, he found the corpse of his own horse covering him. It had died with bloody froth around its muzzle. Seeing how its thick neck had been bent inwards quite drastically, he could easily guess that it must have taken quite a blow there

After somewhat slipping out from underneath the horse’s corpse, he tried to raise his body, but the instant he put some strength into his legs, he felt a stinging pain run through his lower body half. Apparently having hit his back when he fell off his horse, his lower half now didn’t move.

While bearing the pain, he somehow managed to lift his upper body and take a look around himself, just to see the soldiers under his command in utter chaos.

“What the hell happened!? Someone give me an update on the situation!”

Due to him yelling, a nearby soldier rushed over in a hurry. Gaius interrupted the man, who was worried about his health, and demanded a report on the current situation with a firm voice. In response, the soldier’s expression became desperate and he started to explain.

“Very like we were hit by a catapult attack!”

“Catapult, you say!?”

“Yes, Sir! The losses and injuries among our regiment are very high!”

Just as the soldier’s answer suggested, the regiment’s state couldn’t be any worse.

Even if the shields of the heavy spear infantry could weather through something like zoan stone throwing, they were still held by humans. It was unthinkable for such shields to fully block a catapult’s big stone that would have enough force to fly several hundred melt. The stones shattered the shields like thin ice and pulverized the bodies of the soldiers hidden behind those shields alongside their armor.

At this time, the number of catapults prepared by Souma amounted to more than fifty. But, even if they were unleashing those at a broad formation of 3,000 soldiers, Souma’s men had to carry this out without any prior test-firing. As a result, only around 60% of the catapults actually hit their target.

Even so, it proved fortunate for Souma’s side that the 「Black Wall」 had adopted a dense formation. As such every hit by the catapults landed in a crowded cluster of soldiers. A few of the soldiers, who were unlucky enough to get directly hit, died on the spot, but following that, several soldiers around them also got dragged into this, getting injured in the process.

Also, even the stones that didn’t hit any soldiers directly mostly fell down before they reached the dense formation. Many of those early droppers didn’t stop where they fell, but rolled on thanks to their inertia and round shape. Once those rolling stones penetrated the heavy spear infantry wall, they broke the legs of the soldiers as if pins were knocked over by a bowling ball.

Just one single salvo of the catapults produced more than two hundred casualties amidst the 「Black Wall」.

Gaius roared, “Why are you getting so panicked about something at the level of catapults!?!”

Among his comrades, Gaius was known as a man-eating ogre who would leap at any enemy he spotted, but it wasn’t as though one could become a regimental commander of the 「Black Wall」 based on recklessness alone. He quickly grasped the situation and started to hurl out the best orders under the current state of affairs.

“Attack the enemy headquarters at once! If they’re using catapults, we just need to get in range to destroy them!”

He didn’t even take retreat into consideration. The back row was behind them. If they tried to fall back now, they’d bump into the soldiers following them and would end up stuck instead. Besides, the catapults, which were common in this era, usually tossed their load in a high-angled curve. Because of that, it’d be safer to get close than to retreat.

“You don’t need to keep ranks! Or rather, scattering will lower the damage done by the catapult stones! Either way, have the soldiers advance and take control of the fortress!”

After hearing those instructions, the soldier tried to run away in order to pass on the orders to the disorderly regiment, but his feet stopped then and there.

“R-Regimental Commander! Those are…!”

The soldier’s trembling finger pointed at the enemy fortress. Gaius couldn’t move his lower half as the horse’s corpse was still lying on top of it, but he managed to somehow look that way by twisting his upper body.

“W-Whaaat…!?”

While Gaius was watching, the fortress’s wall, which had been erected by stabbing pointed logs into the ground, slowly collapsed. Probably because he was watching from a distance or maybe because of his extremely high tension, it looked as if the wall was falling in slow motion.

But, once the wall had fully collapsed, he knew that this wasn’t an illusion induced by stress or a trick on his eyes. After all, the wall came apart as soon as it hit the ground. Looking at its pieces, what seemed to have been a log wall was actually no more than thin boards with only its exterior mounting hollow log halves. The reason for its slow fall could be found in its low weight in proportion to its surface area which allowed the wind resistance to play a bigger role than it would with massive weights.

And then Gaius became speechless when he saw the exposed interior of the fortress. A long row of catapults was lined up in there. Those catapults were categorized as onagers. Onagers were catapults that shot stones from one crossarm while using the recoil of twisted ropes, made and tied together with animal tendons and fur, coming undone. Those onagers filled the fortress’s inner site so densely that it looked like the fortress had been crammed with them. On top of that, several wooden stands, which had been previously hidden behind the wall, had been erected inside the fortress. Crowds of onagers were also installed on top of those stands.

Moreover, in front of all that lined up several dozen cows. Those cows had been used for transporting provisions and materials alongside the big dragons. However, they now had sharp, wooden stakes tied all over their bodies while carrying piles of firewood on their buttocks.

“No way! Those shitty…!”

As if answering Gaius’ worst prediction, dwarves and humans with torches appeared and ignited the firewood of one cow after the other.

Usually cows were walking so slowly that you could compare their pace with that of snails, but now that their butts were literally on fire, things were completely different. The cows mooed in a way that could only be interpreted as scream and started to run while violently shaking their heads, causing their drool to fly off in all directions.

Furthermore, the cows weren’t the only ones charging. Ropes tied to the cows were connected to something with simple wheels and a pointed log. Those wagons were heading straight for Gaius and his men while clattering loudly as they were pulled along by the wild cows.

“Those are…battering rams…!?”

Just as Gaius had muttered, those were battering rams, a type of siege weapon, which were used to pulverize the walls of fortresses or open up holes for soldiers. The rams plunged into the 「Black Wall」.

The berserk cows thrust away the heavy spear infantrymen with their horns, kicked them with their hooves, and pushed them down with their big frames. And as if to make doubly sure, the battering rams followed right after the cows, plunging straight into the cow-induced chaos and blowing away many more soldiers.

Gaius was exasperated by what was taking place in front of his eyes.

“Catapults and battering rams!? D-Don’t fuck with me!”

At that moment, one of the cows, which had been dashing his way, tripped and toppled over. However, the ram pulled by that cow didn’t lose any of its momentum. It tore off the rope connecting it to the cow and continued to clatter straight towards Gaius. As if being drawn toward him.

“You’re saying they used siege weapons to demolish a wall because we’re the 『Black Wall』!? Our 『Black Wall』 is to fall to…a method that’s based on a silly sophism!?” Gaius shouted while scowling at the approaching battering ram.

“Don’t fucking mess with me!!!!”

As he yelled this, his body was sent flying by the ram, whirling high up into the air.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Our casualties are tremendous due to the enemy catapult and battering ram attacks!”

“The heavy spear infantry regiment has fallen into chaos! I also got a report that a catapult stone landed at the place where Regimental Commander Gaius had been!”

“The enemy battering rams have toppled over and turned into obstacles! We cannot advance as we want as the path has been blocked!”

Hiakis widened his eyes in shock due to the incoming stream of messages arriving at his place. From his current location Hiakis couldn’t see the details of the fortress that was filled with onagers, but even so he could tell that an attack over such a wide range couldn’t be carried out by one or two of such weapons.

However, what he didn’t understand was just where the enemy got this many onagers from. Ever since the enemy had built the fortress in a single night, scouts had continuously kept an eye on this place from a distance. If the enemy had brought in so many siege weapons during their cautious watch, the scouts would have noticed it, whether the enemy liked it or not. Yet, Hiakis hadn’t received a single report about a bigger number of siege weapons being transferred into the fortress.

How did they bring so many siege weapons into the fortress despite that?

After thinking up to that point, Hiakis realized a certain possibility.

They didn’t bring them in, but built them inside the fortress instead?

But, that immediately led to new questions.

A fairly big amount of materials would be necessary to build so many siege weapons. If they had carried that much material inside the fortress, the scouts would have immediately considered it as odd.

However, Hiakis immediately denied his own line of thinking.

Wrong! Didn’t those guys boldly carry the materials into the fortress right in front of our nose!? We just didn’t regard them as materials that would be used for siege weapons.

Right. Those assholes brought in lots of materials such as lumber and stones, didn’t they? A large amount, supposedly used for the sake of building the fortress!

Since when have we been convinced that they’re building a fortress over there? Why did we end up assuming that!?

He overused his brain to the extent of overheating it as he carefully examined the information he had acquired so far, and finally he remembered.

Oh, yes! We heard about it from the peddlers who used the bridge. They said that the enemy was building a genuine fortress because the one they made in one night was a fake. And that’s why we have been under the impression that the large amount of materials would be used to construct the fortress.

But, who told this to the peddlers?

At that point, Hiakis lifted his face in surprise.

“The ones bragging about them being in the midst of building a real fortress after duping us with a fake were the enemy soldiers…!” Hiakis bloodshot eyes widened to the limit. “So we got deceived by gossip the enemy deliberately spread!?”

I believed that the enemy soldiers’ bragging was no more than a ruse to provoke King Warius. No, provocation might have been its second aim. But, it wasn’t the main objective.

“Their real aim was…!”

◆◇◆◇◆

“Hurry! Has the exterior still not come off!?” Souma raised his voice inside the fortress, which now had no walls.

His words were directed at the dwarves. They had frantically continued to work around the fortress made out of thin boards that were covered by sand, which had been affixed to the wood with glue so as to make the boards look like rocks from a distance.

Norðri received some sort of report from one of them, before turning to Souma with relief coloring his face, shouting, “Sorry! The ropes got entangled! Right now we’re cutting them!”

Hearing that, Souma also felt relief spread in his chest. However, he had no time to calm down. At once he ordered Norðri, “Hurry! As soon as the exterior is released, we’re going to attack!”

“Aye! ――Hurry up and cut all the ropes! We gotta remove the exterior!”

Following Norðri’s order, the dwarves simultaneously cut all ropes.

◆◇◆◇◆

Hiakis witnessed that event with his own two eyes. The fortress’s inner walls completely crumbled apart. The walls, which he had considered to be made out of rock so far, turned into thin wood boards and loudly fell to the ground in pieces.

While staring at that, Hiakis couldn’t help but curse with a voice full of resentment, “Those bastards! That bloody bastard! Damn you, 『Divine Son of Destruction』! You had never intended to build a fortress, did you!?”

What appeared beyond the last layers of wall after they were stripped off were three huge objects.

“Your goal wasn’t to build a bloody fortress! Your real aim was――”

Those three objects were counterweight catapults. And all three had their big weights high up in the air, ready to fire their projectiles at any moment.

“――to build siege weapons in order to smash us!!!”

As if to reply to Hiakis’s roar, the weights of the counterweight catapults dropped with a loud whirring.

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