The Siege of Arconia Chapters 24-26

Alongside the two of us, some other Liberomancers who had effective spells over water also unleashed theirs.

While not all of the dryads died from this assault, they were scattered all over the place and their attempt to storm the city was thwarted.

A few stragglers did get past our offensive barrier, but they were so few in number and close to the fortifications by that point that they were easily shot down by archers or spearmen. No mana was wasted upon them.

“I though you were a fire elementalist,” I said, watching his whirlpool and my tornado disappear. I knew that Drake and Zeke had to have at least a few other cards up their sleeves that weren’t fire spells to deal with things in case fire didn’t work, but this was a water elemental spell. It was just that it was quite contradictory to the main element he specialized in.

“I am, but, when you grow up near the sea, it’s useful to have a thing or two to deal with threats like that,” Drake said. “I originally wanted to have it to deal with pirate ships if we ever came across any, thankfully no one’s been dumb enough to try in my lifetime.” Drake made it sound like Arconia was just so strong that no one would dare do something like that, but I had a more reasonable theory, that being that the oceans of this world might as well be cursed for how unsafe they were to travel on, so no one tried.

“How is your brother doing on the other side?” I asked Drake. It was hard to tell from this distance, but they didn’t have a combo like mine, so it was possible they were in hot water. From this distance, while I could see some signs of fighting near the other side shore, it didn’t look like any dryads had managed to get much closer to the city than on our side.

“I can’t tell from here, but if they needed help, they’d signal for it,” Drake said.

That was true - and even if the dryads got through the sea and approached the city from that side, they would run into our new fortifications and a line of draftsmen backed by Liberomancers.

That was all the excitement that the day held for us. After the failed seaside assault, no further groups of dryads approached the walls for the rest of the day, and loud cheering could be heard from nearly everywhere. Morale had greatly improved after today given that we had driven the enemy off with basically no casualties other than one person who had tripped and fallen off the wall, though he had been swiftly rescued and patched up with magic.

Unfortunately, my little combo had brought me quite a bit of fame and recognition. People were calling it ‘Stefan’s Spider Combo’ and talking about it all this side of the wall, and likely the story had spread to the other side as well. By tomorrow morning everyone in the city would’ve known about it.

The reason why I said ‘unfortunately’ was because this little action of mine, given it was so effective had lead to other people thinking that I was far more skilled that I actually was.

As such, they were treating me like I was some sort of military genius Hannibal or Caesar. Even Drake was taking my suggestions and thoughts more seriously - normally I would have been happy about that, but the issue was that they were asking for my advice on things like battle strategy which I was woefully ill-equipped to do.

And the last thing that I wanted to do was to hand out a suggestion which might end up backfiring horribly.

I had gotten lucky with that combo in how effective it was. I had no delusions about my own ability, however, I was not some sort of military genius. Not that anyone cared to listen when I told them that. No, I was the youngest Master Liberomancer in the history of the kingdom - and I was just being humble.

Still, it was good to see as the sun set upon the city that the wall still stood, and the dryads had failed in their first attack.

The mood improved considerably thereafter - and I realized what had been going on. It wasn’t just my small innovation which had perked the general mood throughout the city.

The dryads were an unknown unknown - a problem that many people did not have the slightest context for. For all the oridinary people knew, the dryads could break through the city wall easily with only their fists, were immune to magic, and could shoot laser beams out of their eyes. This was not a rational fear in hindsight, the Kingdom of Hitutsa would not have stood for so long if that were true.

But because they had no context for this problem, people magnified the severity of it in their minds. The long amount of time for the enemy to arrive had allowed for their worries to fester, though now reality had begun to set in.

The situation was dire, but far from unwinnable.

The fear regarding the dryads being this nigh-unbeatable force had been so great that it wasn’t until now that the higher-ups realized that there wasn’t a set night float system.

After all, now that it was clear that the siege was likely going to last several weeks, there needed to be some people to man the wall at all times, Liberomancers included. We needed to sleep though.

We drew lots for that purpose, and thankfully I wasn’t going to be starting tonight. I would’ve definitely fallen asleep while on watch given how tired I was.

“Excellent work,” Zeke said, approaching us as we were heading off the wall after the day shift was over. He was speaking to both Drake and I. Drake, for handling his section well, and me, for my little trick with the spider.

I looked up at the night sky. “Do you know if they dryads are less active at night? Is it possible they might launch a nighttime raid?”

Zeke shrugged. “Unfortunately I do not know about that - but that’s what the skeleton crew at night is for. Their eyes reportedly don’t work that well at night, however, so I doubt that they would do such a thing. Actually, I wished to ask you something - that creature you summoned - do you have a spare grimoire that gives that skill?”

I did as a matter of fact - I had been saving it to sell once I joined the merchant caravan, but I knew why he was asking. He wanted to buy it so that he could use it. I nodded.

“I would like to purchase it from you,” Zeke said, proving that my hunch was correct.

It did make sense to give it to him, he would be on the other end of the wall so both ends would be covered by that combo with the middle being covered by Lance. It was a good formation - it was just that, as childish as it may have sounded, this combo was ‘my thing’ and I was a bit hesitant to give it to someone else.

Yes, cooperation was necessary between Liberomancers - but there was also competition between them. The balance shifted as one went from Rank Two to Rank Three towards the competitive side, and was completely skewed in that direction for Rank Four Liberomancers.

Not to mention I had made it for the purpose of selling it later on once I joined the merchant caravan.

But, again, given the circumstances, I couldn’t think of a good reason to say ‘no.’ And it could very well be that having someone else who could use this combo could indeed turn the tide of battle in the future in our favor.

“Sure, but I would rather swap it for another Rank Three grimoire if possible, rather than taking the money,” I said. “I also unfortunately only have one copy right now, and I don’t think I’ll be able to make a second in time before the siege is over.”

The reason I said this was because I had a feeling that the two brothers, thanks to their connections, had access to certain grimoires that would otherwise be hard to find. In ordinary times they might not be willing to trade, but these were far from normal times.

“That’s fine, but in case you’re wondering- I think I said this, but I don’t have a grimoire that could help you fly,” Zeke said.

“No, I remember that - but do you have anything else that could be good?”

“Ah, let’s drop by my study - you’re coming over to the palace tonight, aren’t you anyway? We can go over what I have there,” Zeke said.

We all trotted off, with the streets far livelier now. As I got into my own carriage, people swarmed around me.

“Master Liberomancer, how did it go?”

“What is the state of the city?”

“Do you think we can win?”

Some of them were local passer-bys, others had been reduced to beggars due to the city’s current condition, but they all looked at me eagerly - hoping for some good news. Word had already spread throughout the city, but they wanted to hear it from me.

And well, it wasn’t a complete lie to tell them that for now, things were going well. So I did, much to their immense relief.

Others wanted to thank me for the work I’d done. Some of them simply wanted to get a glimpse of me like I was some kind of rock star. I tried to appease them for as long as I could but quickly discovered that if I stopped to chat for too long, it would only draw in a larger crowd.

“I’m sorry, but I really need to be off,” I finally said, exasperated, but the crowd didn’t seem to get the message until one of the guards in the carriage banged the butt of his spear on the ground loudly and repeated that line at four times the volume. The crowd backed off after that, making way for the carriage.

I was showered with thanks even as I hurriedly shut the door and the carriage sped off towards the governor’s palace.

“So, these are the ones I have,” Zeke said in his office when I dropped by. He didn’t have the actual grimoires with him, they were under lock and key, obviously, but it was a list on paper describing what they did. A list I couldn’t read - which he only seemed to realize after he handed me the list. “I’m sorry, I forgot about that - let me just read out what the Rank Three ones do.”

Some of them were stat-boosting ones, which I was not interested in at the moment. There was the Rank Three [Incinerate], but the thing was that I was already decked out pretty well when it came to offensive options. There were another two that were very good for fire elementalists, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go down that route as of now.

“Wait - what does that ability do?” I asked him. It was called [Ansoon’s Blessing] which I had not heard of before.

“It makes one completely invulnerable to not only damage, but any kind of negative effect for a minute,” Zeke explained. “It can be used once every twenty-four hours, but it can’t be used on anyone other than the caster, and will not do anything to any damage that has already been taken.”

That caught my attention - I had been looking for a defensive option and while not perfect, it was still very good at buying time. It not only protected from magic, but also physical attacks as well. “Alright, I think that’s good - but why that name? What is Ansoon?”

“Who is Ansoon,” Zeke corrected. “And you haven’t heard the epic of Lady Ansoon before? Or seen one of her statues on the square opposite the Liberomancer’s Guild?”

I shook my head. “Again, I’m not from around here,” I reminded him.

“Right,” Zeke said. “Well, I don’t have time to recount the whole tale, but the short version is that there was a lady by the name of Ansoon who was ambushed by an enemy clan. Her brother was with her, and ended up sacrificing himself so that she could escape safely. He had been badly wounded, and Ansoon was unable to heal him. As she lay near a waterfall with her brother’s corpse beside her, a river spirit approached her and took pity upon seeing her weeping over his corpse. She taught her the grimoire that would prevent further deaths like that of her brother’s from happening, and in honor of her brother’s bravery, altered the water so that the waterfall would flow backwards from that moment onward.”

With a jolt I remembered the place I had visited with Granny Qi. She had not mentioned anything by that name - and it was unlikely there were two waterfalls in the area that did the same thing. Perhaps it was a legend only circulated amongst lizardmen - which is why she didn’t know? I think I had heard the name ‘Lady Ansoon’ before now that I listened to the full story, but if it was a lizardman story given the fact I tended to go to human pubs to hear stories and whatnot, I might’ve only heard of it in passing while working in the shop or something like that.

And even if I had seen the statue, it would not have been marked in any language that I could read in, so I’d have no context for it.

“Um, it is transaction still alright?” Zeke asked me as I had spaced out a bit.

“Right, yes, yes,” I said.

We still had to clear the transaction through the guild the next morning, though there was no rush. It would take time for both of us to read what we had swapped, because there was no way that I was putting so much effort into reading another Rank Three grimoire yet again after having done so recently.

It might even be possible that we wouldn’t finish reading each other grimoires until after the siege, but we would have no way of knowing that until after it was over. Using translation devices to read doubled the amount of mana consumed, and so would also halve the speed at which we could progress through a grimoire.

I had had a long day by that point and so turned in to go to sleep. My dreams were fractured bits and pieces of the fighting that had occurred that day - in the middle of the night, I woke up thinking that there was a Tyrant Arachnea in my room, though thankfully that was only my eyes playing tricks on me.

I didn’t know whether the dryads dreamt or not, but if they did, I hoped that my little tactic was causing those fiends to wake up in a cold state just remembering the terror they felt as the Tyrant Arachnea descended upon them.

Great Claw watched the city far off in the distance. Even with the darkness, its multitudes of lights contrasted against the dark countryside.

They had lost many of their forces today - those who returned said that they had been assaulted by fire-breathing dragons atop the walls.

Great Claw knew better though - these were the weapons of the humans and other two-legged creatures they had seen in this country. Even he was surprised by the ferocity of their fire, however. They had not encountered such great resistance until now.

They dryads spoke of another monster, one with eight large legs which spat fire. An entire tribe had collapsed in fear during the attack today due to its presence.

However, this day was not a complete waste, for they had collected many useful pieces of information.

Such as the fact that the great body of water that lay beyond, was not the kind that they could nourish themselves with. There was something in it which caused those among them who tried to drink it to become sick, and it was not the nourishing water of the great river.

Great Claw had not expected victory to come easily, so he was not disappointed by today’s result. He might need some time to convince the other dryad lords, but he was sure that given enough time they could break through. Although the exterior of the city was hard, like that of a snail’s shell, the inside was soft and would be delicious.

They just had to crack open that shell.

The next day, nothing of note happened. The dryads seemed to have wised up and realized that there was no point in sending small squads out to try to probe our defenses after yesterday’s failure.

And so, they remained a large blight upon the land in the distance, but unmoving.

Were they going to try to starve us out? That was fine with me, because eventually, an army would come from the capital, and were that to happen, the plan was to sally out and catch them in a pincer attack.

Until then, we would stay here, behind or atop the safety of the city walls, and they would stay outside, both of us watching the other intently.

I had kept observing them, and while I could see several of what I assumed were dryad lords, I still could not see any sort of central figure in their forces who might be an overall commander - a dryad king, if anything like that even existed at all.

That raised two possibilities. One was that there was no overall leader at all - which seemed to most likely be the case. Hard as it was to believe - after all humans, and lizardmen for that matter, were creatures who formed hierarchies at nearly all levels of organization, whether a king or just a shop owner. That the answer to ‘who is in charge of these hundred thousand or so individuals’ would be ‘no one’ was an idea counterintuitive to the human mind. Surely, someone had to, at the very least, be nominally in charge? And if there wasn’t someone in charge right now, someone would have to eventually emerge who was.

And yet, it seemed to be the truth that there was no such figure on the dryad side - merely a loose confederation of what we thought were tribes, though whether or not they even had that kind of basic level of organization was unclear.

The second explanation was that there was someone like that, but they were hiding themselves. If it was the latter, then I had to admit that they were much smarter than we gave them credit for. If we were able to eventually find a leader like that, it would well be worth it for Lance to fly out and then kill them with a single [Inferno].

That wouldn’t necessarily end the fighting - this wasn’t a game of chess after all where capturing the enemy king meant victory, but it would greatly demoralize the enemy and a good portion of them might disperse.

These thoughts and several others occupied my mind throughout the day - because there was little else to do.

In order to work on reading the grimoire I had gotten from Zeke this morning, I decided that I would spend no more than twenty percent of my mana at a time. Once I had done so, I would wait for my mana to recover, and then start reading again. The purpose was to not leave myself defenseless (or rather useless given I would still have people to defend me in that scenario, I just wouldn’t be able to do much myself) if they attacked and I didn’t have enough mana because I was reading.

This meant of course that I wasn’t really making that much progress reading the grimoire, but it was the best I could do in these circumstances.

To speed things up I could’ve spent more time at night reading, but I had already been doing so for several nights in a row to get [Grand Fireball] and I didn’t have it in me to keep doing it, otherwise I knew I’d eventually collapse from exhaustion.

The smallest silver lining to current events was that the lizardmen and humans really did seem to be getting along again making my job as mediator almost (but not quite entirely) redundant - it was just a shame that it had taken a bloodthirsty army at the gates for this to happen.

For the next four days, there were a few skirmishes involving a few hundred dryads, but nothing truly battleworthy happened. The dryads seemed to be in no hurry to leave or to advance forward.

During these rather (thankfully) boring times, I found a rather odd companion to while the time away with - Drake.

I hadn’t really liked the lizardman when I first met him, and even before the siege began I still had a rather low opinion of him due to his past misdeeds. I was sure that the feeling was mutual even if he didn’t overtly let it on.

However, we ended up spending quite some time together simply by the nature of having to work together. It started with swapping reports and possible battle tactics, but given the stretches of time that we had free, other topics as well.

I began to understand him a bit more, and truth be told, he was easier to speak to than his brother.

Zeke was the ideal politician’s son - he was obedient, did what he was told, and shrewd enough to get around most situations without offending anyone. He was a natural born heir to the family’s legacy, though I had a feeling that the fact that he was the eldest son also formed much of his current character, not just how he had been born as.

Drake on the other hand, was much more like a normal person - though he had just so happened to have been born the governor’s son. A role that he didn’t seem to particularly relish, but didn’t overtly resent either.

He was more open to talking about things, and unlike speaking with Zeke, it didn’t feel like it was all politispeak.

It also helped that we could more easily talk to one another freely than most other people could. I was a Master Liberomancer, and though he did give the respect that was due, he was not overly subservient or awestruck like most other people when meeting me. My rank and the fact that I really didn’t care much for the current hierarchy in this kingdom given I was planning on leaving also meant that I didn’t care much for his position as governor’s son as I guess other people did.

We ended up eating most of our meals together - this was initially just because it was a convenient way to save time on his end. I had to inform him of going-ons as mediator, and he would usually want to pick my brains regarding decisions he had to make, likely because of the reputation I had developed which I did not really deserve.

But, this turned from a business lunch to something the two of us began to enjoy after a while.

I guess the biggest catalyst to the two of us becoming friends so quickly was just the constant danger that the dryads posed. I had heard that it was in the fire and brimstone of war that true bonds were forged. We had only had one major fight up until this point, but knowing that we had to rely on each other to survive no doubt removed many of the initial inhibitions I’m guessing both of us had in talking to each other.

“A quick question, if you don’t mind me asking,” Drake said one day.

We were fed three full meals every day, and while taking bites of mine I couldn’t help but still feel slightly guilty.

Maybe I shouldn’t have for all the reasons that Drake had reminded me of earlier - but the thing was that I just couldn’t get those initial days I had spent in Arconia out of my mind.

It had only been a short period of my life for sure, even when you consider just the time I had been in Libraria it was barely a drop in a bucket.

But, I don’t think I’d ever forget how it felt on those days when I’d had to go hungry. It wasn’t just the cold and the empty feeling in my stomach which had bothered me, but the outright despair at the situation I had been forced into.

I got out of that state rather quickly, but that was also why it was hard to ignore others who were in the same boat I had been.

“Um?” Drake asked when I still hadn’t answered.

“Right, sorry, my mind was just elsewhere,” I said.

“Do you… not enjoy the company of people?” he asked.

“What makes you think that?”

“I… well, I spoke with Lauren and she mentioned that at your old job, you would barely talk to anyone unless they talked to you first. I thought that might be because you didn’t like talking to lizardmen, but you don’t have any family in the city, and it doesn’t look like you have many, if any, human friends,” Drake said.

I shrugged. “It’s hard meeting people here and connecting with them as a foreigner.” It wasn’t like I was averse to speaking or bonding with people - it was just that I knew I couldn’t take it too far without exposing myself, at which point they’d likely think that I was crazy. Barring that, there was very little other than Liberomancy I could talk to anyone about anyway. That, and it didn’t matter whether I made deep connections here in Libraria or not, I’d have to abandon them upon going home anyway, so I didn’t see much point in trying.

Not to mention what I did - writing grimoires, involved sitting in a room by myself and that this took up most of my time leaving very little for socializing.

Drake nodded. “I was just curious as to whether you hated other people’s company or there was some other reason behind it.”

Up till now we had been talking about lighter topics, though there seemed to be something… deeper behind his line of questioning here.

“It’s just that - you’ve been here, what one year? Without any family, it would be hard to live without any friends either. You’re not the only foreigner in the city though - did you reach out to anyone else? Or perhaps you could’ve found someone from your old country who you could share things with?” Drake prodded.

“Um…” I began. Things had been a bit better in that regard when the merchant caravan was in town, that was for sure. “It was a bit easier to blend in when there was the Book Fair you know, but…” Did I end up making any friends at that time? I had been so busy making grimoires before it had started and the first few days I was dead tired because of that. The next few days had been spent wrapped up in the tournament - oh right! There had been that girl, Stella. “...they left once it was over.”

I thought about things a bit more. “Oh, and there was that guy who I ran into - but it turned out he was a demonic Liberomancer.” I frowned. “Did we ever figure out how he got into the city in the first place?”

Drake seemed a bit taken aback by the question, or maybe by my sudden attempt to change the topic. “Well, no. We think he might have snuck aboard a boat somehow - but whether some dock workers were in on the whole thing or it was something else - I think we’ll never know as we’ve halted the investigation given this blasted invasion.” He paused. “I was actually wondering - how did your conversation with him go again?”

“I don’t remember most of it right now,” I said. “It’s been a while, but he was looking for someone - and so when he went around asking for someone from another country, they thought it was me…” I chuckled. “Yeah, and then it became obvious he wasn’t looking for me but someone else. He was acting rather shady too… which is why it felt odd after meeting with him.”

The incident felt like it had taken place forever ago - as it was that meeting had only been for a few minutes. Of course, there was the shock of finding out later what he had really been - and that if he had wanted to kill me in that moment he probably could’ve with childish ease. [Crimson Lance] was quite a powerful spell when used on people. “Before you ask,” I added. “No, I haven’t had a chance to use [Crimson Lance] yet.” People oftentimes asked me about the spell. Information about demonic spells was rather limited- so it was only sort of natural that people were curious, I guess. If you knew a spell or skill, you knew its functions and powers instinctively, and most real demonic Liberomancers were not exactly very talkative to other people.

I was considering erasing the spell from my roster - now that I was Rank Three while it might still be somewhat useful in certain circumstances, it was also a massive headache to have around. I was going to be traveling a lot, and whenever I passed through a checkpoint I’d have to explain how I got it. That was fine while I was in Chipker or its neighboring countries, but would become difficult as we moved further away from this kingdom.

“Is there a reason for this line of questioning?” I asked Drake. His manner had shifted somewhat, and to me, it was like he was trying to find out something but trying his best to ask about it in a roundabout way.

The issue was that he was not very good at hiding it. I was sure that if it was Zeke instead of him, I wouldn’t have even become borderline suspicious.

But, that was also why I felt like I could be more relaxed around Drake in the first place - I could probably take him for what he said at face value.

Zeke was definitely the better candidate to become governor, but that was because he was better at subterfuge as well! I had initially liked him better because he treated me nicer, though with time as I began to realize that was more of a mask than anything else and I was clueless as to how he really felt about me. As I got to understand Drake, this changed and now I’d much rather have a conversation with Drake than with Zeke. Oh, if it was actually something important Zeke was no doubt the one to turn to, but if if was just shooting the breeze after work, it would be Drake. “No, no,” Drake said. “Just wanted to get to know you better!”

This was such a blatant lie I didn’t even bother calling it out and our conversation shifted to more mundane topics.