“I swear, you really do only start appreciating some things after they were taken away from you,” said Alissa with a sleepy voice when she ran into Nadine and Maribel shortly after she woke up that morning. She had the privilege to enjoy some proper sleep over the past couple of days, as the demon assaults had dwindled down to almost nothing thanks to the reinforcements the human side had gotten. “I used to take sleep for granted, but now I definitely cherish being able to sleep undisturbed for a good while.”
It had been five days since the human side’s reinforcements arrived at the location across the valley, where the demon encampment used to be. Construction of the new fortification was proceeding at a rapid pace, and the outermost layer of stone walls were already three-quarters of the way done. The engineers had prioritized safety over comfort, which was the main reason the walls were their first priority in the construction.
Everyone in the army, both the original members from Fort Ixlay and the reinforcements, mostly still slept in tents, with a few people privileged enough like Alissa’s party to sleep in the few wooden houses the demons had built prior to their eviction. The majority of the soldiers even slept on bed rolls out in the open, with no cover from the elements whatsoever.
It was a fortunate thing that they were in summertime and the weather had been good lately.
The additional reinforcements from the Kingdom included ten more fourth tier combatants. With their addition, it was possible to send out teams to scour the demon presence nearby while still maintaining a constant watch around the fort all day and all night. As a result, after a few days of such hunts, the demon presence dwindled as they likely retreated, and the past two days were particularly quiet, with no attacks happening at all.
Morale had definitely risen since the disturbances lessened. The sight of the solid stone wall – built by engineers with classes and skills that allowed them to create fortification-grade defenses at an absurdly rapid pace – also lightened the mood of the soldiers, as it gave them a sense of safety. The frayed nerves and frustration of the previous week were practically all but forgotten by then.
“You never had anything like this in your previous world, Alissa?” asked Maribel with some surprise. As far as Alissa knew, none of them – not even Joshua – had said much about their previous world to the locals, so their being unaware about how it was like there was understandable. After all, all the previous [Heroes] were summoned from different places and times compared to Alissa, Ethan, and Joshua, so the knowledge they brought to Ephemera differed greatly.
“They made us wake up really early in the morning during training camp, I guess,” replied Alissa as she referred to the training she underwent as part of her school’s track and field – and later basketball – team. “Even so, we had a full night’s rest every night during that, as we just tucked in earlier to make up for it instead.”
“I guess that sounds similar to our time back when we trained to join the Royal Guards,” noted Nadine with a somewhat nostalgic voice. “Similar stuff, lots of training, get up real early in the morning before the sun even rose,” she added. “That said, now that we’ve actually fought here in the frontlines, I see that they’ve coddled us way too much back then.”
“How so? I mean, in my case the training camp was just for sports, not for war, so it made sense that they didn’t push us too hard back there,” replied Alissa with a query of her own. She knew that Nadine and Maribel went through the Royal Guard training and joined together. In Nadine’s case it just made sense since as a fifth princess chances were that she’d be married off for some political advantage if she didn’t choose to make a living on her own some other way.
“Well, as you might have guessed by now, the only people who actually get to be a Royal Guard in this day and age are either people from families who had always been Royal Guards for many generations like Moira’s, or else they’re recommended by some noble,” explained Nadine. “Some are actual nobles as well, of course, like me and Osmond. It’s very common for third or later children who had a martial bent to look towards the Royal Guard as a path to take in their life since they’re usually neither the heir nor the spare.”
“Yeah, I gathered that part pretty early on myself,” replied Alissa with a nod. As early as the first time Nadine invited her to a meeting disguised as a tea party, she had noticed the lack of people who had no sponsors amongst the Royal Guards. Later meetings when Nadine introduced some old friends to her just further confirmed those facts. Every single Royal Guard had connections either from their family or with some noble.
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“Well, as you might expect considering the fact that every Royal Guard apprentice has all sorts of connections, many of which were still active and probably highly positioned in the organization itself, what mentors we got were often too scared of us to truly push us hard,” Nadine elaborated. “They were too afraid that someone would complain and get them relieved of their position.”
“Other than when we get people like Sir Henri Inolet, that is,” added Maribel with a smirk. “Old knights like him were pretty much out of the command chain and answers only to the king, and even then it was more like the king asks favors out of them rather than command them. Doubly so since in Sir Inolet’s case he is one of the strongest people in the Kingdom as a whole.”
“Yeah, Old Henri would always put us through hell and high water without giving any damn. Anyone who tries to mouth off with him would just get extra training until they collapse,” said Nadine with a nostalgic smirk on her face. “Back then we all cursed him behind his back, but now, after fighting in the actual war, I wish we had gotten more lessons from people like him instead of the wusses we usually get.”
“Harsh teachers like Sir Inolet prepare you better for the hardships, yeah,” noted Alissa in agreement. Given how quickly the old knight managed to forge warriors out of her and Ethan despite them just being regular high schoolers months ago, he definitely had the knack for teaching people. “At least things are winding down a bit though, since the demons seemed to have backed off.”
“We can’t be too sure about that, actually,” replied Nadine with a slight frown. “They might have retreated for the time being, but demons are nothing if not persistent. They probably only retreated so they can get some reinforcements to come at us once more, more likely than not. Though we’ve been hearing of mysterious attacks in the demon territory by unknown parties, so that might have played a role as well.”
“I guess we better chip in and help with the walls after our shift’s done today then? The sooner that wall gets finished, the safer we are in case the demons come back,” suggested Alissa. The first few days after the arrival of the reinforcements had mostly been used by the army already present at the former demon encampment to catch up on proper rest. Alissa and her party had done the same.
At the moment the situation seemed to be more stable, however. After a few days of rest the party also felt rested enough, so it wouldn’t be any trouble for them to help the engineers build the wall that would keep them all safe in their spare time. Nadine and Maribel nodded in agreement at Alissa's suggestion before the three walked together to fetch some breakfast.
One side benefit of the reinforcement’s arrival was that they also brought some good food instead of just the usual rations, meant to lift the spirit of the soldiers in the front line and to allow them to celebrate the victory. Most of the fresh food had been consumed over the first few days, but some of the preserved stuff was still available, incorporated into the soldiers’ daily meal.
Naturally, given the status Alissa’s group has as the [Heroes]’ party, they were not missed, and nobody would complain about getting an extra link of good sausage along with the usual breakfast porridge. Or that more butter than usual had been mixed into the porridge to make it taste better than normal. It wasn’t special treatment for just them anyway, as everybody got to enjoy a share of the bounty.
Good food always did wonders to morale.
Their shift at the palisades went uneventfully that day, and after it was finished, the three of them went over to help the engineers with building the wall. Alissa, Nadine, and Maribel might have no classes or skills suitable for such work, but their pure Body stat was far higher than most people in the camp, and they could easily do physical work that would have required either many people working together or something like the heavy machinery from Alissa’s previous world all on their own.
It still boggled Alissa’s mind at times that she could now lift a wooden log as thick around as her body with just one arm holding it over her shoulder, while carrying a second log of the same size under her other arm. She could even jog and climb up stairs while holding them without too much difficulty. It was the sort of physical prowess that she had never even imagined back in her previous life.
A whimsical thought crossed her mind while she worked, a thought about how if she managed to return home while keeping even a fraction of the power she had gained in this world, she would probably end up being one of the best athletes the world had ever seen. All that without any sort of the doping or drugs that kept causing scandals amongst the sports world of her previous life, at that.
Alissa was not much into whimsy, but thinking happy thoughts while working definitely helped let the time pass faster. Not that she didn’t feel any fulfillment from helping the engineers do their work, of course. By the evening she must have lifted a few tons of rocks in large chunks from the quarry to the fort, then up and down the stairs, work that was usually done by teams of people either pushing the large rocks on rolling logs or pulling the rocks up by way of rudimentary cranes.
Nadine and Maribel also pulled their weight while helping with the construction, and that day's construction progress was visibly faster than the previous five days’. At that pace, another day or two and the fortification’s wall should be finished in its entirety, at which point the engineers would begin work on the housing and citadel within the fort itself.
While Ephemera lacked heavy machinery, magic more than made up for it in some ways. The engineers had not brought any of the stones they used to build the fortification with them. Instead, several engineers with specialized classes directly carved them out from the mountainside. There was a large supply of good stone on the mountains, after all.
That said, while those engineers could carve out the rocks with their skills and even render it down to neat blocks, they lacked the strength to move those rocks themselves, which was where the soldiers came into play as labor. Even a second tier soldier was a good bit stronger than the average adult in Alissa’s former world, after all.
She herself had physical stats equivalent to many fourth tier combatants, and it was only while helping the engineers work that she realized what exactly that meant. Apparently it meant that she could lift a large slab of stone that must have weighed hundreds of pounds all by herself and carry it while walking to the fort with only some effort.