Chapter 105: Celebration
That afternoon, the atmosphere in the castle courtyard was a stark contrast to the brutal, blood-stained reality of the night before.
The heavy gates of the castle were thrown wide open. The massive carcasses of two giant boars were suspended over roaring, open-air fire pits. The air was thick with the rich, mouth-watering scent of roasting meat, sizzling fat, and the spices Jack had bought.
Naturally, the villagers had efficiently butchered all sixty-seven beasts they had hauled inside the walls that morning. But with roughly a hundred mouths to feed in the valley, two massive boars were more than enough for a single feast. The remaining meat was immediately processed, and moved to the smoking sheds to be preserved and then to sold to the spring caravans.
The courtyard was bustling. The castle maids, their aprons dusted with flour, worked side-by-side with the village women, passing heavy wooden trenchers of carved meat, thick vegetable stews, and fresh bread. Laughter and warm chatter echoed off the stone walls, cutting through the biting winter chill.
Jack sat at a wooden table placed near the roaring fires, flanked by his silent, armored mages. Sitting directly across from him were Banty, Carla, James, and Nathen—the four Church mages.
Carla took a bite of the spiced boar meat, her eyes widening in surprise. “This is… incredible,” she mumbled, quickly wiping grease from her chin. “It is as good as those expensive restaurants.”
“Eat as much as you like,” Jack offered smoothly, taking a polite sip of hot broth. “My people fight hard, so they eat well.”
He looked around the packed courtyard. Why hold the feast out here in the freezing cold instead of the Great Hall? Jack mused internally. The answer was simple logistics. The Great Hall was spacious, yes, but it comfortably seated fifty, perhaps sixty people at most. Near a hundred villagers, guards, and servants packed into that room would be suffocating. Out here, with the massive bonfires keeping the frost at bay, it was efficient, spacious, and undeniably festive.
Besides, a celebration was a celebration, regardless of the ceiling.
Because the reality of their situation loomed just over the horizon, the feast was brief and purposeful. They didn’t have the luxury of drinking late into the evening or sleeping off heavy meals. Within a few short hours, the sun would set, the shadows would lengthen, and the village would transform back into an impenetrable fortress.
Once everyone had eaten their fill and rested their tired muscles, they offered their deep, respectful bows to Jack and made their way back down the hill to the village, their morale soaring.
Over the next week, the rhythm of the valley settled into a flawless, deadly routine.
Every night, or sometimes every other night, the beast tide crashed against the perimeter. And every night, the villagers broke them against the palisade walls without a single casualty. The heavy ballistas shattered the larger beasts, while the crossbowmen on the watchtowers rained relentless death upon the stragglers. The trench traps did exactly what Roland had engineered them to do, crippling the vanguard before they could even scratch the timber walls.
The following mornings were entirely devoted to logistics. Heavily armed retrieval teams marched out into the blood-stained snow, hooked the un-ruined corpses, and dragged them back inside the gates.
Jack monitored the surrounding woods meticulously using Grim, his skeletal Alpha winter wolf. Because Grim was completely devoid of life or warmth, he could lay buried in a snowdrift for days, providing Jack with a invisible scouting perimeter.
There was only one minor incident. One night, while Jack was fast asleep and had left Grim sitting idle as a lifeless pile of bones, a starving wild beast had stumbled upon the remains. Driven mad by hunger, the beast had gnawed heavily on Grim’s ribcage, completely crushing three of the skeletal ribs before realizing there was no marrow to eat and wandering off.
When Jack reconnected the next morning, he sighed at the damage. Still structurally sound, he noted. Losing a few ribs didn’t impede the undead wolf’s ability to run or see, so Jack kept him deployed.
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However, through Grim’s scouting, a deeply concerning trend began to emerge.
The sheer volume of beasts pouring out of the rift was staggering. The valley barely a week into the tide, yet the number of beasts they had slaughtered had already surpassed more than half of beasts that had attacked the valley during the entirety of last winter.
When the villagers had been preparing for the tide months ago, Jack had discreetly questioned the village elders about historical beast numbers, using the convenient excuse that he had been “just a sheltered child” during previous winters and hadn’t paid attention. Based on those historical averages, this year’s tide was shaping up to be an anomaly.
From a purely corporate standpoint, this is fantastic, Jack analyzed, sitting in his warm study. More beasts mean more meat, more high quality pelts. Our profit margins for the spring caravan will be astronomical.
But there was a glaring bottleneck in his supply chain.
The village’s defensive infrastructure was calibrated for a normal beast tide. While the heavy ballistas and the trench traps could endure the increased numbers, their ammunition could not. Crossbow bolts and ballista spears shattered against bone, got lost in the deep snow, or simply splintered beyond repair after repeated use. Even with the villagers diligently recovering every usable arrow each morning, the attrition rate was climbing.
If this unprecedented volume continued, they would completely run out of wooden shafts in a matter of weeks.
I’ll give it one more week to see if the numbers stabilize, Jack decided, tapping his fingers on his desk. If they don’t, I will have no choice but to authorize daylight logging operations. I’ll send Giles’ men out into the woods with a heavy guard escort. If need be, I’ll even force the Church mages to act as bodyguards to ensure zero casualties while we fell more timber.
Ammunition aside, Jack was currently facing a much more infuriating, deeply personal problem.
His progression had flatlined.
For the past week, Jack had been using the nightly beast attacks as a training ground. He covertly reanimated the freshly killed beasts in the dark, commanding them to turn and tear into their living pack members. But to push his limits, Jack had attempted to micro-manage tens of these wild, undead beasts simultaneously.
Unlike the skeleton of Grim in his crypt, which were ancient, docile, and perfectly bound to his will, these freshly killed beasts possessed lingering, violent wild souls. They resisted his commands with feral ferocity. Forcing his will over dozens of them at once pushed Jack’s mental endurance to the absolute breaking point. It felt like trying to physically hold a dozen rabid dogs on separate leashes.
It was agonizing work. Yet, despite the extreme mental friction, Jack hadn’t felt even a microscopic spark of progression toward Layer 3 of the Iron Core.
A complete waste of energy.
The frustration was mounting. If raw, overwhelming mental strain wasn’t the trigger for advancing past the second layer, then what was? Was there a specific magical catalyst he needed? A ritual?
Jack had absolutely no idea, and that lack of data was driving him insane.
His overarching plan to unravel the mysteries of this world—and the truth of his own transmigration—relied entirely on unlocking the sealed memories of the original John Frost Grip. But those memories were gated behind his core progression. If he was permanently stalled at Layer 2, he was essentially operating completely blind in a highly lethal world.
A surge of deep annoyance directed itself at the original John Frost Grip’s grandfather.
You pass down a forbidden, heretical Necromancy lineage, knowing it could get your descendants burned at the stake, and you don’t even leave any useful instructions? Jack thought bitterly. Just a vague warning. What a coward.
Despite his private frustrations, Jack didn’t let it interfere with his duties. The top priority remained surviving the beast tide with zero casualties and maximizing their economic yield.
To maintain total oversight, Jack required Giles to submit highly detailed daily reports. Every afternoon, Giles handed over the ledgers detailing exactly how many arrows were fired, how many were recovered, the total count of beast corpses secured, the weight of the butchered meat, the number of pelts stretched in the curing sheds, and the current coal consumption.
Reviewing the data, Jack’s annoyance slowly faded into quiet satisfaction.
The system he had designed was holding flawlessly. The numbers were entirely in the green.
Later that night, Jack stood on the high stone balcony connected to his bedchambers. The biting wind whipped at his heavy wool coat. Down below, the village was a brilliant ring of torchlight against the dark, snowy valley.
Swoosh! Swoosh!
The faint, rhythmic sound of dozens of crossbows firing in unison drifted up the hill, followed closely by the distant, pained howls of the dying beasts. The villagers were operating like a well-oiled machine.
Jack gripped the freezing stone railing, his eyes narrowing as he looked past the slaughter, gazing toward the southern pass buried in the dark.
“Everything is running perfectly,” Jack murmured to himself. “We will have more than enough wealth to cover the Church’s interest and for the further works.”
He let out a slow sigh. “Now… I just have to figure out how to deal with the Regional Tax Assembly in the spring without getting this valley bled dry.”