#1211 Humanity Steps Up 

The battle at Orkubo’s Castle kicks off. 
The first wave meets a swift and total wipeout. 

Most fighters fall at the first obstacle, swept aside like wheat before the scythe, and the few who stagger on are methodically crushed at the second obstacle.  
It’s a one-sided slaughter. 

Honestly, watching this is no fun at all. 

I can sympathize with the local organizers’ enthusiasm trying their best, but it’s heartbreaking to see all that effort go nowhere. 

Clearly, this calls for my big-league intervention. 

Rest easy, everyone, I came prepared for Orkubo’s Castle with my secret ace in the hole. 

All right, gather ’round! 
Pioneers of the Farm Kingdom!!! 

"YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”  

See that? 
They’re the pioneers from the Farm Kingdom (soon to be chartered)! 

Since it’s festival day, I’ve brought them in especially for this challenge.  
Now, you guys! 

Are any of you willing to take on Orkubo’s Castle?! 

“YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!”  

Perfect answer!  
You’re officially entered as the second wave! 

“Lord Saint… what’s going on?”  

Lord Dalkish, the head of operations, asks with wide eyes. 

Heh heh heh… Dalkish, my friend. 
These kids of ours are a different breed! 

And so, the second wave begins.  
Lately, turnout’s been so huge that we split the runs into multiple heats to keep things manageable. 

This is heat two. 
The late-morning round. 

With the authority of top-sponsor shareholder, I’ve squeezed our settlers right into this slot. 

These are hardworking folks who’ve spent their days carving out land; you can see it in their eyes. 

What happens when they clash with Orkubo's Castle?  
Well, you’ll just have to watch. 

Ready… set… go! 

“Yeahhhh! This time, we’ll flatten everyone at the first obstacle!!!” snarls the catapult crew, brimming with more vigor than necessary.  

If you kill everyone at the start, there’s no suspense! 

But they don’t get it; they shower the contestants with cushion-blasts like it’s a bullet-hell game. 

You’d need either a tunnel-vision miracle or to have eaten some kind of Devil Fruit that grants supernatural reflexes to duck that storm. 

But there’s another way… 

“If you can’t dodge it… then bounce it backkkkkkk!!!” shouts Corey, our most promising adventurer and de facto settlers’ leader. 

He strides out first onto the narrow beam spanning the moat as cushion-blasts rain down. 

He can’t possibly dodge all those! 
Or so I thought, but... 

“Aura Barrier! Take this!”  

Corey summons an invisible wall of mana-forged energy. 

Every cushion blast ricochets off the barrier and clatters harmlessly into the moat. 
Not a single one grazes the challengers. 

“Wh-What?!” 
“R-Ready the reloads...!” 

They fumble, unprepared for another volley that fast. 

With the path clear, our pioneers charge the beam like racing salmon, and eighty percent make it past the first obstacle.  
The rest just lose their balance and tumble off. 

Compared to the first wave’s total annihilation, this is a crushing victory. 
The ratio of survivors to casualties has completely flipped. 

“Argh… that barrier’s dirty tactics…!” 

Well, trapping them in a bullet-hell siege was pretty dirty, too. 

Dirty met with dirt, cheats met with cheats, and for human warriors enhanced by Sensei and Veil’s training, well, you bring out someone powered up by them, too. 

The farm pioneers have had plenty of encounters with Sensei and Veil over time that some of them can throw up a barrier or two themselves by now. 

That is Farm Kingdom quality right there!!! 

“What?! No way!” 

Yes, that is the true purpose behind calling these pioneers.  
We’re reversing the power balance with hyper-trained fighters, flipping the script entirely!!! 

Before long, it’s the second obstacle. 
The slope where giant boulders roll down in perfect alignment, leaving no gap to slip through. 

“Not an inch of space… there’s no way to dodge!”  

Corey analyzes from the front line. 

“But standing still means failure, and moving back means death. If left and right are blocked, only one path remains…!” 

Looks like he has an idea. 

“To the skyyyyyy!!!”  

With that, Corey makes a leap! 
He jumps over the rolling boulder! 
Like a high jumper—no, more like a cat! 
He soars well above his own height with an effortless, feline leap! 

Sure, above those rolling boulders os open sky that’s completely unguarded. 
You could even call it a safe zone. 

And yet it was Corey who spotted that hidden route and dove into it without hesitation. 

But just noticing it isn’t enough; pulling that off is another story. 
After all, ordinary people can’t leap over a giant boulder. Most can barely get ten centimeters off the ground. 

But Corey practically flew.  
You’d honestly mistake him for a cat. Clearly, all that training in the frontier settlement paid off. 

Spend your days in the settlement with Sensei and Viel, and before you know it… 
You’ll be pulling off sixteen-meter vertical jumps like it’s nothing. 

And right behind him, the other settlers begin to follow suit...  

“I see! If left and right are blocked, we go up!” 
“That’s why he’s our leader!” 
“I was totally inspired by that!” 
“Let’s follow him, guyssssss!!!” 

One by one, they spring over the boulders. 
They almost look like salmon leaping upstream. 

In that moment, Orkubo's Castle’s challenge evolves from a simple x-y puzzle into a full three-dimensional gauntlet. 
A revolutionary new concept. 

When both sides are both trained by Sensei and Veil, the battle hits a whole new level of intensity. 

Only the chosen few could pull off something like this, right? No way newcomers could keep up. It’d scare off fresh blood and the whole thing would eventually fizzle out… 

But then, from the crowd: 

“Whoooaaa! Orkubo's Castle is amazing this year!”  
“This is so exciting!!!”  
“I was worried when the organizers changed, but from a spectator’s point of view, this is the best it’s ever been!” 

…Well, yeah. That makes sense. 
Miracle plays flying left and right, stuff no normal person could ever pull off. Must be one heck of a show to watch. 

But could just anyone really do that? 

"Of course they can." 

Huh? 
Sensei has somehow appeared right beside me. 

"Veil’s ramen has now fully permeated the global population. With everyone’s physical base stats enhanced, all it takes is the right training, then anyone can pull this off." 

Wait, seriously? 
Humanity's been evolving behind my back. 

Which means... even if we’re not involved next year, Orkubo’s Castle will still have its thrills and surprises, and still draw in the crowds... 

The world really is moving forward, step by step, together. 

In the end, it was young Corey who made it to the castle keep in the second wave, saving us from the embarrassment of another complete wipeout. 

Afterward, we had a meeting with Dalkish to tweak the difficulty, leaving just enough openings for people to make progress. Thanks to that, the third wave onward managed to keep things at a more reasonable level. 

That said, nothing topped the hype of that second wave with Corey and the gang. 

Looks like we’ll be sticking around as supervisors for a while, guiding Orkubo’s Castle from behind the scenes, until the day it can fully stand on its own.