The Runesmith

“Rewards?”

A pop-up message appeared before him out of nowhere. It looked similar to the usual world message but the usual white text over the black bar was changed to a green bar. The moment it appeared a strange occurrence took place. His opponent's body which had been turned into wood chippings, started to flicker before vanishing.

The ring of fire that had been around them was also gone and the enemy army which still had around fifty soldiers started to run away. Apparently, without an officer or leader-type unit they would lose all will to fight. In Roland’s mind, this was something that would only work in a small-scale battle like this. Probably if there was another unit like the Wooden Commander present, then it would have taken over.

‘Those tooltips did say something about the Wooden Captain being able to command a small force, perhaps there is a proper number for it, maybe fifty soldiers at most?’

He wasn’t sure but all of the wooden soldiers and their variants had some type of description. Roland needed to read between the lines in some cases as the trial wouldn’t offer him all the information outright. Perhaps if he wanted to send out his own troops he would need to split them out into smaller battalions. At least the Commander was able to lead a small army of troops of around two hundred and fifty.

“Hm… it dropped the armor and the halberd.”

While thinking about his future a strange occurrence was taking place. The leader unit that he had defeated in single combat or at least what was left of its mangled wooden body, started to flash. Within a few seconds, the flashing started to turn into a rapid flickering. Then in a flash, the body of the one he slew vanished and like in a game left some loot behind.

Roland picked up the large halberd and quickly noticed that it was made from a slightly better alloy than regular steel. The half-plate armor that the commander was wearing wasn’t much better than what he had on but when analyzing one of the parts with the help of this world’s system, he was given some more information.

‘Interesting, that just confirms my previous guess and it actually gave me the whole number now.’

If he assumed that his captain could control around fifty units, this chest piece would double his ability to lead. The other pieces didn’t really have any bonuses and were all made from regular steel. The grade was at an intermediate level which was below something he could make by himself. Normally he would replace the breastplate he made himself but considering the bonuses, it would probably be better to give it to his captain unit.

‘I’m probably seen as a special unit by the system controlling this trial, wouldn’t be strange if I was only limited by the number of units my settlements can contain.’

Usually, in strategy games, each base had a limit of residents that it could contain. This was usually a limitation brought by the game’s system itself as there wouldn’t be enough computing power to manage thousands or hundreds of thousands of moving components on a screen. He wasn’t sure if the same thing could be said about this simulated world he was in now.

“My Lord, the enemy is retreating, should we pursue them?”

“No, we don’t have the manpower for that quite yet, just have them take the weapons of the ones we managed to defeat.”

“Of course my lord!”

At first, it might have seemed that it would be a good thing to chase after them. They would not be able to gain that much from taking their equipment. After the battle was over the bodies of the defeated soldiers started flashing just like the commander did. They had already enough that dropped here there was no reason to endanger the troops or his encampment.

…

“Hm… this might be a lot more complicated than I assumed but I also still need more information, creating more scout units and establishing a proper army is my top priority now.”

After the battle was over Roland was sitting in his throne room which had slightly shifted to a more robust looking one. There was still no padding for his behind but at least there was some fuzzy hide for his back. Some time had passed since he won the duel with the enemy commander and received the rewards.

He continued expanding his economic empire as he realized that everything that he was making required resources. As he saw it there was probably a way to win this scenario by just outearning his opponents. If his army had enough time to grow and if he could equip it with the best gear around, then no one could destroy his fortress.

Since the small skirmish, his town center and the fort had been upgraded to the next level. After gathering enough stone resources and wood he was able to progress. It was quite a sight to behold when he clicked the button as the whole place went through a fast change. More flicking occurred and the buildings just changed shape and expanded in scope slightly.

The market building didn’t need upgrading, after the center leveled up the number of merchants was doubled and he was also able to buy more stock. Iron weapons decreased in cost and steel ones became more prevalent. Some deep steel ones even appear on the market which he was tempted to stock up on. These were the type that he had a lot of practice with and could potentially change into game-changing weapons with his runes.

A few new buildings appeared after the upgrade, including a chapel. It would allow him to train cleric units which informed him that he was getting more magic into the mix. There was no way to produce mages yet but it wouldn’t be strange if there was a way to get them later.

Then there was also an academy building that appeared. It was a research building focused on queuing in new technologies. At the moment it didn’t have much besides a few options, one of them was masonry while the other one was a guard tower. It didn’t show what this would produce after finishing but the name gave him an idea.

Masonry would probably allow him to change out the palisade walls made of tied-together logs into proper stone walls. Then the guard tower would probably be a palace to store his archers and give him a way to defend his fort even better.

With the dawn of the academy, he also realized that the blacksmith’s building served a similar purpose. It was actually a research building in disguise as creating better weapons and armor would boost his new units. The moment a new unit was built it would come equipped with some default gear and this would depend on the level of the smithy.

Previously the units he encountered only had thin leather or fur armor on. After being able to produce half-plate iron armor and even steel armor, the new recruits started coming out pre-equipped with metal armor parts. Archers that wore light armor came out with hide variants so it was enough to produce heavy armor to have the light and medium counterparts appear.

‘I guess to sum it up, I need regular houses for civilians to increase my population. I can then assign jobs to those people, either send them off to be regular workers or turn them into soldiers. I won’t be able to assign them to anything if there isn’t enough food being generated, the same goes for water…’

Roland had to keep tabs on a lot of things during this trial. The previous one where he just needed to focus on fighting and crafting seemed like a breeze compared to this one. The thing didn’t even start but he was already not sure what he should invest into. Building up stone walls and guard towers felt like the obvious thing to do but he could also spend the resources on other things.

‘Defending isn’t the only option…’

His scouting unit had gone around this whole area and discovered a few locations that were worth looking into. There were other settlements out there that didn’t belong to his current opponents, the Kindlings. They were similar forts comparable to the one he just started in but with fewer defenses. This gave him a choice to invade and take their resources.

These settlements all had town centers and markets that could store resources. They also had basic smithing buildings that could have some raw materials and weapons for him to take. This gave him the choice to focus on building a strong army before the fortifications were up. If they were successful in taking over those places and he gained all of their resources he would be profiting heavily.

Being the aggressor wasn’t really Roland’s style of strategy. Even back in his home, the way he won was by luring stronger opponents into traps or using his runic weapons at the right time. Here he would have to go a bit out of his comfort zone if he decided to become a warlord.

“Aid, is there anyone else trying to invade our lands?”

“Our scouts haven’t detected any movement from our enemies but we expect the Kindlings to return.”

“Hm… it might not be wise to focus on one strategy but…”

Roland's life success mostly came from his worth ethic and bunkering down. He did have some experience in managing things like his smithy and store but this didn’t necessarily translate well to this trial. A choice had to be made, would he go on the offensive and spread out his armies through these lands and perhaps even join them? Or was it better to do what he was good at, which was creating a fortress protected by mechanical golems and turrets?

‘It’s probably better to stick to my guns…’

Splitting his forces and resources was not the way to go. In his mind, he could already see this palace turning into a giant fortress that could not be captured by anything. With deep steel already at his disposal there wouldn’t be much trouble in creating actual turrets. After designing one working model the blacksmith could create it. He had all the schematics in his mind and another NPC appeared in the upgraded smithy which made things go even faster.

In all honesty, Roland felt that he didn’t prepare for this trial but at the moment it didn’t feel like it would be a problem. The first enemy that he faced wasn’t all that strong and if he continued to outfit his small army with better weapons victory awaited him on the other side. It was always like that, quality won over quantity and one magical turret would be able to take out multiple enemies easily in a defensive battle.

‘Yeah, most of my designs are better at defensive battles or at complimenting my runic armor.’

His mind was made up, he would turn this into a base defense mission as the trial didn’t state that he had to actually attack anyone to win. The winning conditions had not been announced yet but after establishing an impenetrable fortress surrounded by magical defenses he expected to get an answer.

Days started flying by as he continued to establish his defensive measures. Soon the wooden walls turned to ones made from stone and large towers started to appear between them. From a motte and bailey fort it changed into a stone keep surrounded by higher walls, a deeper mote, and even long-ranged defenses that could be fired through slits in the walls.

Just as he expected, the enemy nation came back after around a month's time to attack him again. The army that consisted of a bit above two hundred wooden soldiers doubled in numbers. Their weapons had been enhanced and multiple commander units appeared as well.

However, even if Roland’s army only consisted of a hundred soldiers they had something that the enemy didn’t have, runic magic. The turrets that he designed to protect his own home were able to rain down magical bolts on the approaching enemy. Even though the walls suffered some damage the siege failed again. This only boosted Roland’s faith in his current strategy, even without attacking other settlements or meeting armies out at the field he could win.

There was also a way to fast-forward through some of the events. His bedchamber was a bit unique as before going to bed he could put in a slumber period. It was possible to automate through a few events that would normally take days or weeks to be created. It was like hastening the speed in some games to have buildings be assembled faster and he sometimes used the option for buildings to be assembled. The blacksmiths could copy his designs faster but it also took some time and thanks to this option he could hasten the timeframe of this trial.

Nevertheless, as time continued to tick down and weeks turned into months he noticed that something was off. Even though his stone keeps turned into a concentric castle with two layers of defensive walls, there was no sign of the trial ending. The nation of Timberlings had actually fallen after a couple of months and was replaced by a stronger faction with actual siege weapons.

Defending against them had become a lot harder and even after assembling a full runic armor similar to his back home, he was starting to lose more. Usually, the weapons and armor that were gained from a victory could be sold on the market to gain better material. There was even an option to trade them out in bulk for something else, like deep steel or better materials to construct his defenses.

Even though his units had gained special skills in handling his runic devices similar to the ones Bernir used, they were not able to hold on. This was not something that he could predict as the trial didn’t seem to have an end. It was not that his defenses were bad or that he was managing his castle badly but due to it not being possible to complete this trial in this way.

The moment he made the decision to turn this into solely a defensive game was the moment he lost it. There was no end to the waves of invaders and he had quickly become surrounded by one large empire that conquered everything and everyone.

“So, this was not about defense but about defeating all of the other groups…”

Now that he was surrounded from all sides it didn’t really matter that his castle was an impervious fortress. He would not be able to continue this trial without defeating his opponent and as it stood his strategy wouldn’t allow his forces to win. They had access to all the resources now and would slowly whittle him down.

Even if he managed to continuously win over his enemies, without capturing all of their bases there was no end to this. With how he had focused on defense there was no room to switch. If he started assembling siege weapons he would not have enough resources to repair the damaged walls, turrets, and golems that he assembled. Yet he couldn’t just give up, it wasn’t over yet perhaps there was a way to victory?

“Shit… what’s that?”

The answer to his question came in the form of a massive army that was led by a strange-looking puppet. It was not made of wood though, it was fully composed of some sort of metal and looked more human than any of the others. It stood like a last boss on top of the hill while his castle was being bombarded by catapults from all sides. It didn’t offer him even an option of a duel as it charged together with a bunch of heavy armored mounted units towards the main gate.

…

“... I actually failed?”

Roland was jolted from the chair he sat on while remembering the metallic puppet’s weapon smashing his head. A familiar ceiling and tools greeted him as he was now in his workshop where he activated the class change crystal. The same crystal had now turned to powder right in his hand.

The time he spent in that trial was longer than back when he was getting his Engineering class but in the real world, only a few seconds had gone by. His mind was still foggy as the hit to the head that had delivered the killing blow felt quite real. The monster he needed to face was just too strong, it was even more troublesome than the Lich he had to face and there was nothing he could do during that last siege.

“Ah… I need to calm down…”

While he had failed this wasn’t over yet, there were more crystals to go through but even when he held a new one in his hand there was no way of activating it yet. There was also another big problem, considering that he failed a tier 3 trial the usual period of waiting for only one day would be increased by some number.

Then if he continued to fail his trial it would keep increasing even further. It was possible for a person to continue failing these tests continuously until the period became so large that they wouldn’t actually be able to retake the test ever again. To not allow something like this to happen again, Roland needed to decide on a new tactic and also put more thought into leading an army.