by M Sisa
“Lark, huh?” he mumbled. He placed the documents down on the table. “Lead him to the guest room on the second floor.”
All of his encounters with that noble had been profitable. Big Mona’s merchant’s intuition was telling him that it would benefit him greatly to meet the noble again this time.
After delegating the remaining tasks to his men, he went towards the room where Lark was waiting. Upon opening the door, he saw a familiar young man was sitting on the couch, his right hand holding a tea cup.
“It’s been a while.” Lark smiled and put down the tea cup. “I heard the news. The monsters reached even this place, huh?”
Big Mona sat on the couch, grabbed some biscuits and stuffed them into his mouth. Crumbs flew about as he said, “We’re not some small guild that’ll easily crumble because of mere monsters.” He scrutinized Lark from head to toe. “I didn’t expect you to be back this soon. How’s the Capital?”
“Uneventful,” said Lark. “More than that, let’s get straight to the point.”
Lark placed a wooden box on top of the table. “I’m here to make a deal with you.”
Big Mona stared at the box, then at Lark. He listened attentively.
“I’ll help you defend this city against those monsters.” Lark opened the box, revealing a metallic item resembling a miniature tower. “But in exchange, I want a few things.”
It took Big Mona quite some time before he processed the things Lark said to him. “Are you telling me that that thing can drive those damn monsters away?”
Lark tapped his finger twice against the table. “Yes and No.”
Big Mona furrowed his brows.
“This is simply a prototype. A design. The real thing is several times bigger than this.” Lark placed a small kalrane stone – fully charged by the sun – at the center of the metallic tower. “mana stones are ideal, but kalrane stones should be enough.”
Although he was no magician, Big Mona saw the item suck away the energy from the kalrane stone. It glowed, and the rod at its tip started crackling with lightning.
Big Mona’s eyes widened upon seeing this. He had seen something similar before at the City of Magic. The Wizzert tower. A device capable of harnessing mana and converting it into offensive magic.
Seeing Big Mona’s reaction, it was apparent that there was no need to explain everything to him.
Lark grinned, “It’s a mere prototype, but a complete device should be capable of detecting and striking monsters a kilometer away from here.”
In the Magic Empire, such towers did not need kalrane stones to operate. For profit’s sake, however, Lark purposely made this item dependent on kalrane stones for energy. This way, the bigwigs of Lion City would have no choice but to buy more kalrane stones from Blackstone Town.
Big Mona stared at the device. “How strong is it?”
Lark touched the device with his fingertips. “You don’t mind me destroying a portion of this room, right?”
Big Mona nodded, “Do it.”
Crackling sounds were heard and a bolt of lightning shot from the device and struck the wall. A hole the size of a human’s head was instantly created, its edges charred black.
“Kalrane stones can be recharged by exposing them to the sun,” said Lark. “Five stones should be enough to make one of these devices functional.”
Big Mona understood the significance of this statement. If they managed to build several dozens of these towers and installed them all throughout the walls, it would effectively block the monsters. If the devices ran out of energy, they could simply remove the kalrane stones, recharge them, then replace them with new ones.
If the prototype was this strong, then there was no need to question the strength of the real one.
“Is it true that it could detect the monsters from a kilometer away?”
Lark nodded, “That’s right.”
Big Mona fell into deep thought. This device was a lot similar to the towers protecting the City of Magic. But unlike this one, those towers from Wizzert were off-limits to other cities. Those damnable magicians from the Tower of Magic monopolized everything related to the tower.
Big Mona leaned on the couch. “We’ll be needing a lot of kalrane stones to drive back those monsters.”
“Just buy them then,” grinned Lark. “My Blackstone Town will willingly sell them to you at a fair price.”
The merchant knew he had no choice in this either way.
Big Mona wryly smiled, “You damn shrewd fox.”
He knew he would lose a lot more if he skimped on the defenses of this city. If only Lord Valcres was more competent, he —the Head of the Merchant Guild—wouldn’t be suffering like this. Once again, he cursed at the Lord of Lion City in his thoughts.
“What you said before..,” said Big Mona. “You said you want a few things in exchange for this.”
“Glad you remember,” said Lark. “But first, let’s make things clear. This is a loan.”
“A loan,” repeated Big Mona.
“That’s right. A loan.” Lark held out two fingers. “Twenty towers. I will build twenty towers for this city. All materials will be shouldered by me. But in exchange, you are required to pay me fifteen gold coins every month for every tower the city uses.”
After receiving four thousand gold coins, Lark had enough money to create cheap imitations of the magic towers used in the Magic Empire. Of course, the towers were not self-sustaining, unlike their predecessors. Otherwise, Lark wouldn’t profit from selling kalrane stones.
Selling them to Lion City would enable him to earn a large amount of money in an instant, but Lark deemed that lending them to the city would net him more income in the long run. Big Mona was aware of this scheme as he quickly asked Lark of how much the towers would cost if the City bought them instead.
“They’re not for sale,” Lark shot the question down quickly.
Big Mona was obviously unhappy with this trade. He snorted but conceded regardless.
“What are your conditions for lending us these things then?” Big Mona crossed his arms.
“First, you are not allowed to purchase kalranes for the towers from other cities.”
Big Mona creased his brows. “You’re telling us to buy the kalrane stones from Blackstone Town alone?”
“Exactly,” Lark smiled, as though he was being benevolent in this exchange.
“You’re being too greedy, aren’t you?”
“Thank you,” chuckled Lark. “I seldom hear that.”
Big Mona sighed, “But what if Blackstone Town is unable to provide us with enough kalranes for the towers?”
“Then this part of the deal is void. You’ll be allowed to buy the deficits from the other cities.”
It sounded like a fair deal. Big Mona conceded, “Fine. Is that all?”
“Of course not,” said Lark. “Second, I want full monopoly of all monster corpses.”
This statement took Big Mona by surprise. Although those monsters were strong, none of them held mana stones. Furthermore, their hides lose its strength once the monster was dead. Making decent items out of the corpses was out of the question.
Big Mona could not see the merit in hoarding all the corpses.
“Full monopoly of the monster corpses,” Big Mona’s voice trailed off. “Could you tell me the reason why?”
Lark did not reply.
Momentary silence befell them. Big Mona sighed, “Alright. If it’s just corpses, I’m sure that stupid Valcres will be fine with that. It’s not like we have a use for those things after all.”
Lark was satisfied with the merchant’s answer. “And finally, the last one.” He paused, then added, “Iron ingots. Three thousand of them. I want you to sell them to me at the cheapest price.”
“W-Wait, three thousand ingots?”
Lark nodded, “Yes.” He raised a brow. “It shouldn’t be too hard with the help of the Merchants Guild.”
Normally this was true, but with the current state of the Merchant
s Guild, gathering such amount would be a hard task. A hundred or two iron ingots should be easy, but gathering three thousand would take quite some time. They would need to coordinate with the other cities.
“Here.” Lark placed several large pouches on the table. “A thousand gold coins for the ingots.”
Big Mona did not know how Lark got a hold of such money, but a thousand gold coins was definitely more than enough to buy what Lark wanted. Eventually, Big Mona took the pouches. He could not say no in front of money.
“When do you need them?”
“As soon as possible. I know that it’ll be hard to procure such amount in a short amount of time, so it’s fine if you deliver them by the hundreds to Blackstone Town.”
Lark planned to use this chance to create more soldiers for his town. According to the information he received, the Lake of the Full Moon was home to tens of thousands of monsters. After obtaining their corpses, Lark planned on extracting their souls and using them to create more soldiers – a hundred living armors to protect his domain.
If this succeeded, he would no longer have to worry even if another beastmen legion invaded the Kingdom again.
Lark licked his lips. He could not wait for the monsters to attack Lion City once again. He was determined to get those corpses no matter what.
Chapter Seventeen
With the full support of the Merchants Guild, Lark started gathering the materials needed to build magic towers for the city. All available Masons in Lion City were mobilized. Hundreds of workers gathered near the western gate, the place the monsters frequently targeted first.
“On my signal! One, two, three, pull!”
“Harder! It’s going to fall!”
“Put more strength to it! One, two, three, pull!”
Dozens of burly men pulled the hemp ropes tied to a stone obelisk. Using a pulley, the workers slowly lifted the obelisk off the ground, erecting it next to three others. The four obelisks erected surrounded a magic circle engraved on the ground. Inside the magic circle were several kalrane stones – the magic tower’s source of power.
After four days, they finally managed to finish one tower.
“Sir, are you sure this tower’s going to protect us?” one of the workers asked.
“Who knows?” the Head Mason shrugged. He looked up and stared at the tip of the obelisks. Aside from the weird golden symbols engraved on the obelisks’ bodies, it looked nothing but simple slabs of stone.
“Good work.” Lark approached the group. “The other towers?”
The Mason bowed. Lark had been given full authority over all the workers gathered here. Right now, Lark was their employer.
“Using this tower as the basis, my men started working on the other obelisks. We’ll be able to produce towers at a faster rate. Maybe three days at most, two days at the earliest.”
Currently, several teams were working on numerous obelisks at the same time. Their goal was to erect as much towers as possible at least three days before the next full moon comes. Based on their experience, three days before the next full moon, the monsters would come out of the lake and strike the city.
The Mason gazed at Lark. He had been expecting the noble to be condescending and arrogant, but reality gave a different picture. This noble, who was even younger than his son, treated the Mason and his men kindly.
“Three days, huh?” Lark stared at the first completed tower. It stood over ten meters tall, the same height as the walls of Lion City.
“Yes, three days,” the Mason nodded. “As you’ve instructed, we merely chiseled the symbols on the tower but didn’t touch it after that.”
The symbols on the obelisks needed a special engraving technique. They could copy the outer appearance of the tower itself, but without the proper technique, the runes and symbols wouldn’t work. That was why Lark told the team leaders of this project to leave the symbols for him to complete. The same went for the magic circle on the ground.
After inspecting the other sites where the towers were being constructed, Lark called out his disciples.
“George, how’s the progress of your training?”
George scratched his cheeks. “I’m still stuck at drawing the last layer of the magic circle.”
Lark held out a sigh from coming out. George clearly had no talent in this field. Still, it was not enough reason for Lark to give up on him. He knew that as long as George persevered, he would eventually grasp these things.
“Keep practicing,” said Lark. “Austen.”
“Sir!” Austen’s response was a lot more cheerful than his brother’s. He grinned, showing an incomplete set of teeth. “I’ve reached the middle layer of the magic circle! Give me two more weeks! No, maybe ten days! And I’ll be able to reach the inner layer!”
Lark nodded in approval upon hearing this.
“The reason I called all of you here is simple.” Lark took out two cotton shirts and tossed them to the brothers. “Starting today, the two of you – Austen and George – will train your physical bodies.”
Austen and George stared at the cotton shirts. They were soft, like those garments used by nobles.
“Physical body training in the morning, magic training in the evening. Wear those shirts and run around the City several times.”
Although it would be grueling, running a few times around the City should be feasible for the two brothers. They grew up in this city, and they knew the roads like the palm of their hands. But they soon realized they were wrong.
“Try them. Put them on.”
Austen and George did as they were instructed. To their surprise, the moment they wore the clothes over their tunics, they felt the fierce pull of gravity. The seemingly harmless clothes handed to them by Lark now felt as heavy as a plate armor.
The two quivered upon recalling what the Young Master had just told them. They were supposed to run around while wearing this?
“Anandra.”
“Young Lord.”
“Make sure these guys stick to the training schedule. Make sure they run around the entire City. Five times.”
“F-Five times?!” George screamed. “But, Young Master! Isn’t that too much—”
“—Six times.”
“—But, Sir!”
“—Seven.”
George and Austen shut their mouths. They were afraid that Lark would increase the number of laps. They looked at their senior disciple, Anandra. This monster could surely finish this task without any difficulties. He could probably finish twenty laps if he wanted to. But the same could not be said for George and Austen. They were afraid that after this physical training, they would collapse. Maybe, this was the reason why the Young Master moved the schedule of magic training to evening?
The brothers were silent right now, but Lark was sure they had several questions in their minds.
“I hope you don’t misunderstand,” said Lark. “Just because I’m training you to become magicians, it doesn’t mean you’re going to neglect training your physical body. You can think of your mana pool as a small lake, and your bodies as the tube where water passes. With such a massive mana pool, the tube will eventually form cracks and collapse after repeated use. We call this Magic Rupture. Although it is reversible, it takes a really long time before the body could heal itself, and during the healing process, you are not allowed to use even the most basic of magic.”
The analogy was really simple that all of them understood what Lark was trying to imply.
“Ah, also Magic Rupture is excruciating,” Lark nonchalantly added, as though his next words were trivial. “I experienced it before myself. The sensation of being cut a hundred times each day, for several weeks. Although Magic Rupture itself isn’t fatal, the pain one experiences could make one suicidal.”
Austen and George shivered upon hearing this. They heard from the Young Master that the two of them had unusually large mana pools. Therefore, it was easy to see that they would suffer from Magic Rupture more easily if their bodies were not train
ed properly.
Lark clapped his hands once. “Begin.”
Under the watch of Anandra, the brothers starting running around the City, repeatedly spitting out curses every now and then.
***
The days quickly passed by. Although Lark could have gone back to Blackstone Town for a day or two, he decided to stay in Lion City for now. He did not want to risk the slim chance that the City will be attacked while he was gone.
Today was the fateful day. It was three days before the next full moon, and judging by the pattern of previous attacks, the monsters would come today in hordes.
Thousands of soldiers moved about the city as the civilians shut themselves indoors. These days, it was not unusual to see doors barricaded by wooden planks, some even reinforced by iron bars. Those who lived near the walls took refuge in the middle part of the city, hoping that the fangs of the beasts would not reach them there.
“Shit, I can’t stop shaking.”
A trainee soldier who joined the military just three months ago quivered as he held his spear. The frequent monster attacks took the lives of hundreds of soldiers, resulting in the lack of personnel. Even greenhorns like him were mandated to stand at the front lines.
“Be sure to maintain your formations. Don’t let the heat of the battle consume you,” an officer reminded him.
The trainee gulped down. “Y-Yes, sir!”
When the sun rose directly above the City, the sound of gongs resounded throughout the entire area. Metals clanked as more soldiers gathered near the western gate. Beyond the walls, the soldiers could hear the familiar screeching and growling of monsters.
“T-They’re here! The monsters are here!” the soldier on top of the watchtower shouted.
“T-Two thousand! There’s over two thousand of them this time!”
Everyone turned grim upon hearing this. The largest horde before amounted to only a thousand. But now, the approaching monsters have doubled in number. Usually, three soldiers would have to go against one monster. Now it would need at least six, and the soldiers gathered at the gate were only a mere four thousand.
Commander Daltos gnashed his teeth. He roared, “Do not falter! Do not be afraid! Although the number of enemies are beyond what we expected, they cannot come here all at once! Focus on protecting the walls! Do not let them pass through! The monsters who manage to enter the city – slaughter them all!”
