Chapter 80: The Three Snake-Leaves
The king's chamberlain suddenly heard the king ask about Torre, and a faint smile immediately appeared on his face. "Thank you for your concern, Your Majesty. Torre is doing very well at the moment. His relationship with the princess has always been stable. The two of them are deeply in love."
"Oh, I heard…" the King of the Kingdom of Valeria said meaningfully, "that Torre once obtained a golden apple rarely seen in this world, and shared it with the princess. He truly must love her very much. If their relationship is stable, then that is good."
With that, he turned his head and continued feeding the pigeons.
"Thank you for your concern," the chamberlain replied.
The king said nothing more, merely nodding once.
(The setting of this fairy tale goes like this: in the story of The Three Snake Leaves, the king's son-in-law killed a snake inside the princess's tomb. Another snake then brought over the Three Snake Leaves and revived it before leaving together, leaving only the Three Snake Leaves behind. The king's son-in-law later used the Three Snake Leaves to resurrect the princess. Afterward, the princess conspired with a ship captain to murder the king's son-in-law, but his loyal servant saved him and brought him back to life. He then returned to the royal palace, and with the king's support, executed both the princess and the captain before becoming the new king himself.
But the story did not end there. The new king later went searching for those snakes, hoping to obtain more Snake Leaves. Instead, he accidentally discovered that snake meat allowed him to understand the voices of animals, thus beginning the story arc of The Three Snake-Leaves.
And the Three Snake Leaves are also connected to another Grimm fairy tale involving the Revival Herb. Can you guess which fairy tale that is?)
...
Hornreach.
Outside the Mist Swamp.
The kobold attacks still continued day and night without pause, as though some terrifying existence hidden deep within the forest was forcing them to flee outward in desperation.
These kobolds could not head toward the territory of Silverclaw Territory either, because between the two regions lay a quicksand swamp capable of swallowing even giant trees and massive beasts. The moment anything stepped onto it, it would rapidly sink. The more one struggled, the faster it was dragged down, making escape impossible.
If these kobolds wanted to reach the undefended lands of Silverclaw Territory, they would first have to pass through the depths of the Mist Swamp and circle around it.
But the terrifying aura deep within the swamp was growing denser and more oppressive by the day. How could these kobolds possibly dare approach it?
As a result, they could only throw themselves desperately against Levi's walls.
Yet these walls, constructed using modern cement and secretly reinforced by Levi with mysterious wizardry, had already reached a level of durability far beyond what most people could imagine.
The kobolds tried every method they could think of, yet none of them worked. Instead, the constant assaults gradually became routine for the soldiers defending the walls, conveniently helping Levi achieve his goal of training troops.
Levi expanded his reserve forces by another five hundred men, bringing his total military strength to one thousand.
He had the Sky Knight Rune train them while simultaneously sending them onto the battlefield for real combat experience. The results of the training had been fairly good.
At first, the territory's civilians had been extremely panicked by the overwhelming kobold assaults.
But now, after realizing that the kobolds were completely incapable of breaching the walls or threatening them, their mentality gradually stabilized.
Under the arrangements of Yalina and Jeff, construction work inside the walls also began moving forward.
In other words, while brutal fighting raged endlessly outside day and night, construction inside the walls never stopped either.
Levi believed that relying on a single emergency wall would inevitably leave hidden dangers.
In order to establish layered defensive depth for the territory, he immediately finalized a follow-up fortification plan: behind the existing first circular wall, a second core defensive ring wall would be constructed, creating a dual-ring defensive system similar to a walled killing zone, with dedicated combat and buffer space reserved between the two walls.
Even if the first wall were breached by the kobolds, the second wall would still remain standing. And with the enemy trapped between the two walls, defenders could attack them from both front and rear.
The moment Levi came up with the idea, he immediately put it into action. Together with Jeff, he combined battlefield observations, swamp terrain analysis, and defensive warfare requirements before ultimately settling on a forty-meter gap between the two circular walls.
This distance was the result of precise calculations and represented the optimal balance between defense, combat operations, and logistical needs. It was by no means chosen arbitrarily. Naturally, Detection had also contributed greatly to the process.
First, it allowed them to avoid swamp miasma and seepage threats.
The first wall stood close to the edge of the swamp and was constantly exposed to corrosive miasma and dampness. If the distance between the walls were too small, the second wall would inevitably suffer the same erosion.
A separation of roughly forty meters perfectly avoided the swamp's core moisture and underground seepage, ensuring the stability of the second wall's foundations and the long-term durability of the structure itself. At the same time, it also blocked the swamp's toxic miasma from spreading inward, protecting the inner districts and civilian population.
Second, it reserved space for layered defensive combat operations.
A distance of roughly forty meters was enough to allow defending forces to retreat, reposition, and reorganize formations without immediately exposing the inner city should the outer wall fall.
Within that space, they could also deploy secondary defensive fortifications such as chevaux-de-frise, pit traps, concealed stakes, and flaming oil trenches, forming an additional line of obstruction. The area could further serve as a maneuver corridor for cavalry and reserve troops. If the outer wall were breached, close-quarters interception forces could engage the enemy there and delay their advance.
Third, it perfectly suited overlapping long-range fire coverage.
That distance fell squarely within the effective mid-range of bows and crossbows. Archers stationed on both the inner and outer walls could form an interlocking crossfire network, striking enemies both at the base of the outer wall and within the space between the two walls from multiple directions without leaving any blind spots. It also prevented the defensive lines from being too far apart and suffering from delayed support or disconnected fire coverage.
Fourth, it also allowed logistics and supply transportation to be taken into account.
A width of roughly forty meters was enough to establish temporary logistical corridors, allowing defensive supplies such as grain, arrows, rolling stones, and flaming oil to be rapidly transported to the front lines while also ensuring wounded soldiers could be evacuated in time. During wartime, both ends of the passage could be sealed off, turning the area into an independent enclosed defensive buffer zone. In peacetime, it could instead serve as storage space or military training grounds, achieving a combination of wartime and peacetime functionality.
The construction of this second wall could be said to offer countless advantages.
Of course, Levi had not forgotten that throughout history, no matter how impregnable a fortress appeared, city walls were always breached from within.
But that was a problem for the future.
And who cared about the future right now?
Levi still attached great importance to the construction of this second wall.
Compared to the first emergency outer wall, the second core wall would be built far wider and sturdier. Its height would be increased to roughly ten meters, while the wall's foundation would be widened to approximately seven meters. Complete defensive structures would also be added, including bastions, corner towers, hidden troop chambers, and firing ports specifically designed for gunner units. Combined with the dual-ring inner and outer layout, the entire system would become a truly impregnable fortress.
Moreover, unlike the desperate rush involved in constructing the first wall—which had only allowed ten days of work—the construction of the second wall was no longer under such extreme time pressure.
And Levi now had both the time and energy to secretly assist using wizardry behind the scenes.
Both Gathering Technique and Synthesis were tremendously helpful in the wall's construction.
In addition, Levi was not merely building a city wall. His ambitions stretched even further—he intended to construct an entirely new city along with it.
Under his direction, the entire territory, numbering over ten thousand people, joined this massive urban construction effort.
Naturally, not everyone was assigned to build houses and walls. Farming, fishing, and other essential labor still needed people to handle them.
The entirety of Hornreach became busier than ever. Aside from the elderly and young children who genuinely could not work, nearly everyone else had been mobilized by Levi, and almost every person now had something to do.
More factories and more specialized labor teams were established one after another.
Though the civilians were exhausted, smiles filled every face, because working for the lord not only guaranteed food—and fairly good food at that—but also paid generous wages.
The Third-Ring Wizard Lord Levi simply did not care much about such amounts of money.
If Levi truly wanted to, he could actually synthesize gold coins.
Massive quantities of gold coins.
There simply was no need for it, however, because enormous amounts of gold still remained unused inside the castle vaults.
That wealth had come from selling whale brain oil.
Now, Levi distributed it to the civilians through a daily wage system.
And once the civilians had money in hand, they gained purchasing power and the confidence to buy slightly more luxurious goods.
The leaders of the two merchant guilds immediately saw business opportunities and became even more proactive in importing goods from outside the territory.
Though the territory had not yet become prosperous, it had undeniably grown far livelier and more vibrant.
At the same time, the civilians' enthusiasm for work continued to rise steadily. Everyone competed eagerly to take on jobs. Compared to the work ethic of civilians in other territories, the difference was practically on an entirely different level.
Although the kobold disaster erupting from the Mist Swamp had restricted clay mining and consequently affected the brick factory's production—
—it did not affect the construction of the walls.
Because Hornreach still possessed several stone mountains.
Levi arranged for even more workers to mine stone, using modern cement to bind the stone blocks together in the construction of the second wall.
This type of wall was even sturdier, and the enclosed area was much larger as well, fully encompassing the original Coldwind Keep Town.
Originally, Levi had not planned to do this. His initial intention had been to construct a new district outside the old Coldwind Keep Town and gradually attract the town's residents to relocate there.
But now, there was no need to go through so much trouble.
Levi possessed extraordinarily high prestige throughout the territory, and the civilians obeyed him completely. Demolishing and relocating the town required little more than a single sentence from him, because the civilians trusted him wholeheartedly.
Thus, under those circumstances, the original Coldwind Keep Town was gradually dismantled, while the outline of a far larger city slowly began to emerge.
At that moment, Yalina stood quietly beside the stone window of the temporary castle, her fingertips lightly resting against the cool edge of the windowsill as her gaze slowly stretched outward—
Below her, the urban district remained a blazing construction site filled with frantic activity. Across the uneven ground, refugees moved back and forth in endless streams. The flames of the cement kilns dyed half the night sky red, while the rhythmic work chants of the civilians intertwined with the distant sounds of battle. Dust and gunpowder smoke tangled together in the air, chaotic yet brimming with vigorous vitality, like a rough but magnificent painting still being furiously drawn.
Her gaze crossed the construction grounds and landed directly on the distant circular wall gleaming with cold light.
Atop the wall, the gunner units' alchemical firearms spewed blazing tongues of fire. The orange-red flashes were especially glaring beneath the night sky as thick smoke curled upward.
Archers drew their bows and released volley after volley, arrows cascading downward like streams of fireflies, tracing countless silver arcs through the darkness.
The spearmen stood in disciplined ranks, their long spears forming a dense forest as they viciously thrust downward through the gaps in the battlements, cold flashes of steel glittering continuously.
And beneath the walls, the kobolds surged like a black tidal wave, shrieking and charging madly. Countless gray-green figures packed tightly together. The screeching sound of claws scraping against stone, the wails of the dying, the thunderous roar of firearms, and the battle cries of soldiers intertwined into a chaotic yet stirring war anthem.
This sharply divided scene gave Yalina an overwhelming sense of unreality.
She suddenly turned her head and looked toward Levi, who sat atop the high-backed chair with his eyes closed in meditation.
Levi's brows were slightly furrowed, as though some problem was troubling him.
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