Chapter 139: The Advantage is Ours
The Ruins of Shreme. Built right in the middle of a plain devoid of forests or hills, this fortress was one of the ancient defensive strongholds. Designed to keep the monsters pouring out of the great hole of the Dungeon far away from the cities and villages located behind it, it had once stood as a sturdy bulwark. Before the construction of the massive city walls and Babel Tower—which acted as a literal lid—many such fortresses had been erected near the Labyrinth City.
Although nearly all of these fortresses had been reduced to rubble by now, only the Ruins of Shreme retained a fully functional core, such as its walls, because the Kingdom of Rakia, which flourished until a century ago, had continued to use it as a strategic choke point. Thus, despite its desolate and lonely atmosphere, it remained standing.
This particular War Game had selected this exact location as the battlefield.
Several towers with signs of crumbling were attached to the fortress walls. Even a rough estimate put the stone walls at over ten meters high, and their thickness was impeccable. To breach this outer wall—at least without deploying large-scale magic—even high-class adventurers wouldn't be able to easily cross its threshold. The fact that this castle, situated on a plain highly vulnerable to attack, had managed to retain its original shape to this day was largely due to this impregnable wall.
"Move the supplies over there! Patch up the areas that can be repaired as much as possible!"
In the dead of night, with the moon hanging high, the Apollo Familia was executing their final pre-battle preparations within the ancient castle for tomorrow's War Game. They had arrived on-site three days prior with a total force of roughly one hundred and ten people, which accounted for nearly every single combat member affiliated with their faction. Under the direction of the squad leaders, the members busied themselves with repairing the walls or making final arrangements for the storage and deployment of spare weapons, items, and rations.
"Hmph, incredibly boring... doing all this is utterly meaningless."
Inside the throne room of the most prominent tower of the fortress, the handsome human youth who served as the Captain—Hyakinthos—sat lazily upon a temporarily relocated throne, letting out a cold snort. He gazed out the window with profound boredom at the members bustling about the castle.
The war adopted a Castle Siege format, and the engagement period was set for three days. The victory conditions were simple: as long as Hyakinthos, the commanding general, survived the three days, or if the enemy general, Aiden, was rendered unable to fight, the Apollo Familia would win.
Given their position of defending the castle, they had made comprehensive preparations for a siege. But in Hyakinthos's eyes, they would inevitably win even without doing any of this.
The Focalors Familia? He'd heard they just added a rookie. But even with that newcomer, there were only a measly five of them. No matter how you looked at it, that tiny number couldn't possibly stand against a military force of a hundred holed up in a fortress.
"Why did Lord Apollo have to adopt this... entirely superfluous Castle Siege format?" Hyakinthos felt somewhat indignant. Even without such an advantageous condition that bordered on cheating, he had absolute confidence in scoring a total victory. Does Lord Apollo not trust us?
Ignoring the members scurrying around him, the dissatisfied Captain sprawled aggressively on the throne at the back of the room. Hanging on the wall behind the throne was the Familia emblem featuring a bow and the sun. Because of his innate neat-freak tendencies, he had ordered the members to scrub the room spotless and hang the banner beautifully the moment they moved in.
"Captain, are you troubled by something?" A fawning voice chimed in from the side. It was one of Hyakinthos's lieutenants, a Level 2 adventurer named Cassius.
"Troubled? No." Hyakinthos glanced at him, the corners of his mouth curling into a disdainful smirk. "I just find it boring. Setting up such a grand stage for five measly rats is simply using a sledgehammer to crack a nut."
"You are absolutely right," Cassius immediately agreed. "We have over a hundred people guarding this impenetrable ancient castle, and the opponent only has five. This situation... the advantage is entirely ours! I can't even fathom how we could possibly lose. This is a match we could win in our sleep."
"My only worry," drawled another member named Lykos as he lazily wiped down his longsword, "is whether they'll be too terrified to even show up, hiding outside and crying their eyes out. That would be far too disappointing. Lord Apollo is looking forward to a splendid game, after all."
"Hahaha!" The few people in the hall instantly erupted into laughter.
Hyakinthos savored the atmosphere. He extended a finger, lightly flicking an invisible speck of dust off the armrest of the throne, and said slowly, "It's fine if he doesn't show up. That will just let Lord Apollo see his despicable and ugly nature clearly. I am the only one qualified to stand by Lord Apollo's side."
Then, his gaze turned cold and ruthless. "Of course, if he does come, I will personally 'discipline' him, and show him what true power and beauty look like."
Hyakinthos stood up from the throne and walked over to the window, looking down at the moonlit fortress with the joyful expression of someone who already held victory in his hands. "Pass down the order: tonight, everyone can relax a bit and have a few drinks. After all, tomorrow will be nothing more than a relaxing sideshow for us."
He spread his arms wide, as if embracing his impending triumph. "Three days? That's far too long. In a single day, I will have the Focalors Familia completely erased from Orario."
Sitting back down haughtily on the throne, Hyakinthos snorted again. "A boring game..."
.....
"—I bet Hyakinthos is definitely saying something exactly like that right now..."
Standing atop the sturdy fortress wall, staring up at that ostentatious throne tower, the short-haired female executive—Daphne Lauros—muttered to herself.
The structure of this fortress, which had been remodeled and reinforced by the kingdom, was genuinely bizarre. Perhaps acting on the orders of their vain and luxury-loving patron deity, the exceptionally thick tower housing the throne had been built right in the dead center of the fortress like a gaudy display, forcibly injecting an air of royal splendor into what should have been a rugged, spartan bastion.
Seeing their faction's flag snapping in the night wind at the top of the tower, she almost couldn't hold back a scoff. This flamboyant style was truly just like Lord Apollo.
Despite constantly sighing internally, Daphne still made sure to complete her assigned tasks. She patrolled the area, urging the members—who shared their Captain's dismissive attitude toward the Focalors Familia and blindly believed "the advantage is ours"—to hurry up and patch the outer walls. Even with over a hundred members, fully repairing such a massive castle would still take a considerable amount of effort.
As a side note, in order to fulfill the gods' unreasonable demand of "do not damage the castle lest it ruin the viewing experience of the War Game," the elites of the Ganesha Familia—who had arrived a step ahead to subjugate the bandits—had come up with an almost brutally simple solution. They directly dug a tunnel through the ground, bypassing all the defensive fortifications entirely, and suppressed the castle from the inside in just a single day, capturing all the bandits in one fell swoop.
Naturally, Daphne and the others had already asked them to fill in all the tunnels, just in case that Focalors Familia crew tried to exploit them.
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