Chapter 435 — Firemonth 57: Auspicious for Bombarding a Fortress

Faced with the female knight's question, Philip concealed nothing and answered frankly, "I understand all the reasoning. It is only that Cecilians have never fought that way—not even before the lord returned to this world."

"Oh?" Margarita's eyes widened. "How do Cecilians fight, then?"

Philip answered calmly, "Head-on assault. Unless it is necessary, avoid being besieged in a castle and falling into passive defense. After all, once you have killed every enemy on the battlefield, the castle is safe of itself."

"That..." The female knight was dumbstruck. "Truly a martial spirit..."

"It is not because of martial spirit, but because there is no choice," Philip said, spreading his hands. "If Cecil were besieged, no one would come to our aid. Once we are bottled up in a castle, that is the end of us."

The atmosphere turned a little awkward for a moment, but it did not last long. Philip soon took the initiative to change the subject: "According to the plan, we conduct the first trial firing before dusk—to add some cheer to Boulder Fortress's dinner."

The female knight saluted at once. "Yes, sir!"

...

The Giant Sun moved slowly across the sky and at last drew near the mountains to the west.

On High Ground No. 1, the technical troops were completing the assembly and calibration of the last "Justice-I" rail accelerator.

"Technical troops" were soldiers born alongside the steady emergence of all manner of magitech armaments; they were also called "cannon scholars" or "battlefield mechanical scholars." They were themselves well-trained soldiers, but at the same time possessed mechanical knowledge and magitech expertise beyond the ordinary soldier. These battlefield mechanical scholars were equipped with specially made magitech terminals, with whose aid they could cast simple spells such as weight-reduction and traction, and use the engineering components within the terminals for assembling, welding, adjusting, and repairing weapons and equipment. Their appearance symbolized the ceaseless professionalization of Cecil's magitech armaments.

When the last "Justice-I" rail accelerator completed its calibration, fifteen minutes remained until firing.

The Giant Sun was sinking toward the mountains to the west; the bright daylight gradually dimmed and turned orange-red, and the steel beasts crouching in their gun emplacements were slowly gilded with a glow of gold and crimson.

Sir Wald Peric, a man past middle age—one might even call him elderly—stood on a rocky platform beside the bombardment position, pressing a monocular telescope to his eye and watching for movement in distant Boulder Fortress.

A mid-rank knight possessed excellent eyesight of his own, but it could not compare with spells like the mage's eye. With the aid of the "telescope," however, he could see as far as those mages did.

He could see several knights pacing back and forth atop the walls of Boulder Fortress, many soldiers defending the battlements, and those pacing knights, who could evidently make out a little of what was happening on this side, occasionally pausing to point and gesture toward them, talking among themselves.

They were plainly so far away, yet through the telescope they looked as close as if right before his eyes—a sensation that "superhuman eyesight" could never provide.

Sir Wald Peric did not know what those men walking on the distant walls were discussing, and he did not care.

The appointed time had come.

The old knight lowered his telescope and, for the first time, personally commanded those immensely powerful "magitech weapons" to open fire.

Just as he had told Margarita the last time, the knights of the Kant territory had proven useful after all.

The rune triggers were hauled down hard, and immense energy surged in an instant into the mountings of the great cannons one after another; the magical energy relayed through the obelisk and drawn from the Karol territory's magic net drove these dreadful weapons to roar to life, and amid bursts of shrill keening, the heavy magicrystal shells, wrapped in billowing clouds of pale cyan mist, burst from the acceleration rails and hurtled toward distant Boulder Fortress.

To the Southern nobles within the fortress, the long-missed, familiar sound had come at last.

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