Ch.147Fortress Wall

As time flowed on, around when the harvesting of grains and autumn crops was mostly complete.

“Over here, over here!”

“Move it quickly! We don’t have time!”

In our village, taking advantage of having 73 workers for once, we’re conducting civil engineering work to repair the previously quite flimsy palisade.

The word “palisade” in its pure meaning refers to a fence made of wood, but in the common language of the Western Continent, the term is sometimes used more broadly.

This is because it refers to all wall-like structures made using wood as a material, including wooden fences.

And the palisade we’re currently repairing in our territory would originally have meant the former—that is, a low fence made of wood, but…

The fundamental purpose of our palisade repair this time was to transform the wooden fence into proper wooden fortress walls.

Or rather, to be precise, we’re making preliminary preparations to expand the size of this pioneer village.

Currently, our village’s palisade, though low and humble, is designed to enclose quite a large area. This is because from the beginning, this pioneer village was intended to eventually serve as a potential “city.”

According to what Father later informed me by letter, this village is positioned to become a major base for the eastern pioneering project—essentially, it could become the core city of Baron Colland’s territory.

The existing city, while quite large in scale, is strongly influenced by external forces (the Adventurers’ Guild), so he intends to reorganize Baron Colland’s territory with this village as its center.

Indeed, according to Corin, who has visited that city (tentatively called Colland) several times, the largest city in Baron Colland’s territory is chaotic in many ways.

They brought in the Adventurers’ Guild to reduce the burden of pioneering, but the Guild worked too diligently, and at some point, the balance of power reversed.

Although they still obey Father, Baron Colland, since they’re within his territory, about half the domain operates independently, making reorganization necessary at some point.

But currently in Colland, local administrators frequently become subordinate to the Adventurers’ Guild, and there are many adventurers within—a force that the territory cannot firmly control—creating a special situation.

Therefore, there’s concern that mishandling this beehive-like territory could backfire unpredictably, so Father devised a plan to establish a new city to control Baron Colland’s territory…

‘…Come to think of it, he did say he’d help me easily integrate into the water transportation network.’

This pioneer village, ostensibly established for training my social abilities and governance skills, was actually a strategic first step in Father’s grand plan.

In short, the existing palisade area was made larger for the village’s major expansion, but even that isn’t enough—the additional wooden walls need to be even wider.

While wooden fences are relatively easy to tear down, move, or reinstall, it’s a different story when it comes to wooden walls with log pillars and spaces to climb up.

These “walls”—tall, thick, and deeply embedded in the ground—not only require considerable resources and labor to build, but once constructed, it’s usually more cost-effective to maintain them rather than demolish them.

Therefore, if we were going to build walls in the first place, we would have preferred sturdier, longer-lasting stone or brick walls, but…

Thinking about it, would we really use these walls for even 10 years?

To be frank, in a world filled with superhumans dealing with all sorts of supernatural phenomena, whether stone, brick, or wood—they’re all materials that would shatter with one swing of a blunt weapon wielded by an Orc.

That’s why proper walls typically have mages cast spells on them to imbue them with “power,” reinforcing their durability so that even mid-level beings cannot easily destroy them.

But considering that these wooden walls will eventually need to be rebuilt as the village grows into a city, wouldn’t it be a tremendous waste to cast spells on walls that will need to be replaced within 10 years anyway?

Therefore, I decided to build minimally adequate walls, using the workforce available until the end of this winter to begin construction, and…

Naturally, this could not be called an easy task by any measure.

※ ※ ※

The walls I planned were 2 meters high and 1.5 meters wide—a bit precarious, but sufficient to respond to external threats if we dug a moat.

Of course, that 1.5 meters refers to the upper platform. While the front would be built solidly, the back would have sturdy supports instead of walls to minimize wood consumption.

But… even with all these measures, the possibility of completing the walls with these 73 people by the end of winter was extremely low.

The planned length of the wall was very long, and everything from manpower to resources was lacking.

Even with werewolves who could do the work of 10 people or those serving 2-day labor sentences, time, resources—everything was insufficient… building sturdy 2-meter walls enclosing this vast land remained incredibly difficult.

Why else would the village boundary I’ve been concerned about be separated by such flimsy wooden fences?

I’d prefer to live within magnificent walls too, but circumstances being what they are, we’ve erected palisades just sufficient to keep out wild dogs or goblins.

And even now, not much has changed—under normal circumstances, expanding buildings would be impossible, but…

What if we borrowed the power of “magic”? What if we added the strength of those with superhuman powers?

“Huff!”

—Crack!

First, Corin, Droop, and Lucius Wolfblood, who was finishing his rehabilitation, were cutting and moving suitable trees from the forest allocated for timber supply.

When Droop felled a large tree with a logging axe in one stroke, waiting lumberjacks and carpenters would process it, then Corin and Lucius would quickly transport the finished logs.

The land clearing in the forest, which needed to be pushed back to expand the village’s farmland, was proceeding so rapidly that at this rate, they could cut down an entire small forest in just a few days.

The logs transported to the construction site were then fixed to the ground by Lord Malakai Falten, who had been idle recently, using his magic.

‘Material Metallization.’ Using this metal magic, which varies tremendously depending on the user’s level, he solidified the transported logs with the ground into permanent metal, creating metal pillars.

Conserving magical power for various uses, the quality of these pillars was merely common iron, but metal is still metal—even poor-quality iron is better than plain wood.

With these metal pillars serving as beams, people built up the walls, and then Gretel stepped in.

[Grow!]

The Witch School magic, ‘Binding Vines.’ By infusing witch’s mystery into seed-like objects underground, she created thorny vines that penetrated and firmly secured the wooden walls.

But while these vines were better than ordinary ones, they still weren’t particularly hard, and the witch’s influence had significantly shortened their lifespan.

Therefore, to solve this problem, I applied a special method to these vines…

[Harden!]

—Crack!!

I used the petrification evil eye, which I had recently revealed, to petrify the thorny vines and fix them in place.

Unlike ordinary stone, the rock created by the petrification evil eye is imbued with mystery, making it tougher and more durable. As long as its form is maintained, this enhanced durability persists without fear of breaking.

Additionally, the limitation that the evil eye only affects living beings is not particularly useful against my evil eye, so these characteristics became important elements in reinforcing the durability of these log walls.

The petrified vines serve as nails, ropes, and barbed wire to secure the walls.

They not only block access and secure the walls but also emit a mystical poison that has little to no effect on humans while repelling insects and small animals.

Moreover, the 3-meter-high watchtowers installed throughout the walls are not simply towers but turrets equipped with large crossbows—essentially ballista turrets.

Therefore, I could assert with confidence:

If we could dig an adequate moat in front of the walls and station sufficient crossbowmen throughout the walls and watchtowers…

This village, gradually expanding in scale and becoming a city, would be able to easily repel any ordinary enemy with its own strength.