The heavy, oppressive silence in the Prince's parlor was broken only by the rhythmic crackling of pine logs in the massive stone fireplace and the dry, rasping sound of ancient parchment being unfurled. Barov, the administrative director, stood before Roland's desk clutching a thick financial ledger as if it were a shield against a coming storm. His face was a mask of pure, bureaucratic dejection, the lines around his eyes deepened by a night of frantic calculations that refused to balance.
— "Sit down, Barov," Roland said. His voice didn't carry the pampered arrogance of a Prince, but the sharp, practical urgency of a project manager facing a deadline. — "Give it to me straight. No flowery court language."
— "Your Highness... the figures are not merely grim; they are pathetic," Barov started, his voice trembling slightly. He spread a series of reports across the oak table, their ink faded and smudged. — "Border Town is a fiscal black hole. We have no reserves, our infrastructure is crumbling, and the harvest was a disaster. Tradition and common sense dictate a total evacuation to Longsong Stronghold before the first blizzard. To stay is to invite a massacre by starvation or tooth and claw."
Roland didn't look at the papers. Instead, he looked at Arthur and William, who were standing near the window. — "Before I sign any decree of retreat, I want to hear what our 'scholars' have to see about the map in front of us. Arthur, you've been studying the geography. What's your take on our 'fiscal black hole'?"
Arthur approached the table, his eyes scanning the crude markings of the North Slope Mine and the winding, silver thread of the Redwater River. His 14 Intelligence—supercharged by his prior knowledge of the story's "meta-lore"—allowed him to see the gears of a hidden machine beneath the rudimentary drawings.
— "The problem with Border Town isn't a lack of resources, Your Highness. It's that the town has been systematically, economically strangled for decades," Arthur began, his voice calm and clinical. — "Currently, Border Town is a closed loop designed to fail. Our only exports are raw iron and copper ore, while nearly one hundred percent of our imports consist of basic sustenance—wheat, salted meat, and dried vegetables. Every single calorie that enters this town passes through the gates of Longsong Stronghold or comes down the river from Willowleaf Town. We are a colony with no autonomy."
William looked at Arthur, a flicker of genuine, wide-eyed respect crossing his face. — "Damn, man... did you actually memorize the entire trade deficit section of the novel? That's some next-level nerd energy."
Arthur ignored the jab, his finger tracing the jagged outline of the North Slope Mine on the map. — "This mine is a geological anomaly, Roland. According to what Anna described during her 'work sessions,' the tunnels are a subterranean labyrinth with no proven bottom. But it's the variety that defies logic: iron, copper, sulfur, and even rock crystal are all found in the same geological strata. In our world—pardon me, in the lands we come from—that would be impossible. Here, it's a goldmine that we're treating like a gravel pit."
Barov let out a heavy, weary sigh. — "And what good is a goldmine if Duke Osmond Ryan of Longsong dictates the price of every ounce of ore?"
— "Exactly, Barov. You've hit the nail on the head," Arthur nodded, looking the minister in the eye. — "The current agreement isn't a trade deal; it's a trap. The Duke doesn't pay for our gems and ores with royal gold coins; he pays with 'food rations.' He has structured the economy so that the mine's annual production is precisely enough to sustain the town's two thousand people—no more, no less. There is no surplus. No accumulation of capital. To the Duke, Border Town isn't a part of the kingdom; it's a disposable warning outpost against monsters, kept on the brink of collapse so it never gains the strength to rebel."
Roland leaned forward, his chin resting on his interlaced fingers, his grey eyes sparking with the light of a man who had just found the missing variable in an equation. — "And what about the hunting? The pelts?"
— "Another massive leakage of potential revenue," Arthur responded promptly. — "The local hunters take their high-quality pelts west, selling them directly in the markets of Longsong or Willowleaf. Since those transactions happen outside your jurisdiction, there's no paper trail. No taxes are collected. Border Town is a resource-rich environment managed like a refugee camp."
Arthur straightened his back, his expression turning grave. — "This cycle ends now. We can no longer afford to pay for iron with bread. The Redwater River is a continental highway, and as of now, the traffic isn't blocked. If we stop being the Duke's lapdog, we can open new channels. We sell the gems for gold, and we use that gold to buy grain from the merchant fleets of the south. We bypass the Stronghold entirely."
— "But there's a catch," William intervened, crossing his broad arms and leaning over the map. — "To get those merchants to stop their ships here instead of sailing past to the Duke's docks, we have to prove this town isn't a ghost ship waiting to sink. We have to prove we can survive the winter."
— "Precisely," Arthur concluded. — "The economic theory only holds if you, Your Highness, make the ultimate gamble. You must stay. You must block the demonic beasts. If a wall is built and the monsters are contained, Border Town ceases to be a 'disposable shield' and becomes a sovereign industrial hub."
Roland stood up, the chair scraping loudly against the stone floor. The confusion of his first few days was gone, replaced by a cold, technical determination. Arthur's analysis had confirmed the engineering reality: for a machine to run, it needed to be independent of its competitors.
— "Barov, did you hear the man?" Roland said, pointing toward Arthur. — "Start drafting the edicts. We are not evacuating. We are not running. We are building."
Barov turned a ghostly shade of pale, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. But before he could stammer out a protest about the impossibility of fighting the demonic plague, Roland signaled for the meeting to end. The Prince had a different kind of briefing to attend to—one that involved blood rather than ink.
The next morning, the air in Border Town was sharper, carrying the metallic tang of the first true frost. The grey sky seemed to hang lower over the castle, heavy with the promise of the white hell that would soon descend from the North.
In the castle's main hall, the drafty space felt smaller today. Roland waited near the hearth, with Arthur and William flanking him like two shadows of a different world. The heavy iron-studded doors creaked open, and Carter Lannis entered, leading three men who looked like they had been forged in the very forest they were hired to protect. They brought with them the scent of pine resin, dried blood, and the deep, hollow exhaustion of men who had seen things that didn't belong in the light of day.
Among them were two local guards—one of them being the burly, wide-eyed Brian—and an imposing figure with bronzed, weather-beaten skin and an aura of absolute, lethal discipline. This was Iron Axe.
Roland, acting with the unyielding pragmatism of Cheng Yan, went straight to the heart of the matter. — "I called you three because you are the ones who have lived on the edge of the Impassable Mountain Range for years. You've seen the face of the enemy. I need to know exactly what is coming when the miasma begins to settle."
Brian, shifting uncomfortably in his leather armor, was the first to speak. — "Your Highness... the common ones, the beasts, they look like wolves or foxes. But their eyes... they glow with a sickly, bloodshot light. They don't hunt because they're hungry. They don't eat the livestock. They attack to destroy. They are driven by a madness that isn't of this world."
Iron Axe stepped forward, his movements precise and controlled, his posture that of a professional soldier rather than a simple woodsman. His presence immediately caught William's eye—the gaze of one warrior recognizing another.
— "The real threat, Your Highness, are the hybrids," Iron Axe said, his voice as deep and steady as a mountain drum. — "I have seen things that haunt my sleep. Wolves with the calcified shells of turtles that common arrows simply shatter against. Boars with the height of an elephant and tusks made of jagged bone. They emerge when the miasma's corruption reaches its peak, fusing different species into nightmares of flesh and armor."
— "And the blood? The legends say it's black," Arthur asked, leaning in. — "Does it have a specific odor? Is it viscous?"
Iron Axe nodded slowly. — "It is thick, like tar, and smells of rot and sulfur. It burns the earth where it falls."
— "That suggests a profound cellular mutation," Arthur murmured to himself, his mind racing through biological theories. — "It's not just a physical change; it's a high-energy magical saturation caused by the winter cycle. If we can map the attack patterns of these hybrids, we can use concentrated artillery to target the weak points in their shells. We don't need to be stronger than them; we just need to be more precise."
William, watching Iron Axe with the keen eye of a Krav Maga fighter, approached the hunter. He noticed the way the man balanced his weight, the way his hand never strayed far from the hilt of his hatchet.
— "You don't move like a common hunter, Iron Axe," William noted, a challenging, respectful glint in his eyes. — "You have the discipline of the Sand People's elite. In the militia the Prince is forming, we're going to need more than just men who can pull a trigger. We'll need someone who can keep a line from breaking when a seven-meter hybrid starts charging. How about we head to the training yard? I'd like to see how the Sandworld deals with predators."
— "If the Prince commands it, I will show your men how my people survived the desert wastes," Iron Axe replied, his eyes meeting William's with a silent, iron-clad resolve.
Roland nodded, a sense of grim satisfaction settling over him as he watched the pieces of his "machine" come together. — "Arthur and I will ensure you have the technology to pierce any hide, no matter how thick. William, you are in charge of the militia's physical conditioning. Make them as hard as the stones of the wall."
As the men filed out of the hall, Arthur looked back at the map of the wall that would soon be raised from the mud using the first batches of cement. He knew that the economic theories they had discussed yesterday were nothing more than ink on paper. From this moment on, the survival of the revolution depended on two things: the cold science of gunpowder and the raw, unyielding strength of the men standing between the town and the dark.