V3: Chapter 14:

…

Interlude: Rita:

The mission had been simple.

Ascertain the backline of the Academy, as they engaged the Scholars in a bid to take their Citadel.

I went forth with a simple plan. Create a network of informants, determine the number of logistical key points that the Academy had, and make plans to create dilemmas. The Academy shouldn't win too quickly against the Scholars, and neither should the Scholars be victorious against the Academy. The goal was to have both sides fight one another until they were so weak that they could be overtaken with ease by a third faction.

And, so, I went forth with every intention to succeed at the simple mission.

Instead, I looked upon the heartland of the continent, from which the majority of its resources came, aflame in a blazing inferno.

Clad in a disguise, in a town just outside of the Academy's capital, I yelled into the streets.

"Onto the wagons! Get onto the wagons now!" The fields were aflame, and the firebreaks were barely holding back the inferno from the town. The thickets we'd doused with water were already overcome. The wind was turning against us and smoke was starting to fill the town and embers were starting to float through the air. The summer heat was rapidly increasing as moisture was robbed from the air and the heat began to intensify. "Move! There is no more time! Save your lives!"

I had seized control of the town and taken its garrison under my command when the mayor had been gripped by panic when the flaming projectiles fell from the sky. When he regained his senses, he became my lieutenant and organized the rapid evacuation with all the ability he could muster. Even now, in the distance, I saw him lifting children onto wagons. Wagons filled with water, food, and with one of the few mages in the town who could ward off the smoke and heat.

A good man.

There was a constant rush of footfalls, the creaking of wood, and the panicked breathing of horses, but the most deafening sound was the roar of the inferno surrounding the town and the chorus it created. I heard the wind crackle and pop in every direction, the braying and squealing of animals that were trapped by flame, and if I listened hard the pleading of people trapped in smoke that stopped mere moments after.

Not everyone could be saved.

Not from the attack made by the Scholars.

They had been silent at the declaration of war made against them, they had withdrawn their forces to their Citadel, and when Academy troops marched, they found many villages and outposts in construction abandoned. Many believed that the Scholars would put up a token battle to retain their honor and become absorbed by the Academy. If such were the case, my purpose here was to disrupt the Academy enough so that the Scholars would choose to try for victory by repelling the Academy.

We were wrong.

And, as that thought screamed across my mind, I saw something massive break through the clouds.

A flying city. One of the last. Weaponized… and now falling from the skies.

The Academy had launched their own attack against the massive structure. Pegasus riders, Mages, Sorcerers, and even Wyverns. They copied our king's creation and created vessels to fly troops onto the city and laid siege to it as it flew into the clouds. That all began four days ago and the skies had rained corpses, broken bodies, and burnt wooden frames for three days.

Today the battle was decided.

Once again, the Scholars made a decision that only they could, as cornered and lacking in any allies as they were.

The massive burning city was set to crash upon the Academy's capital. Spires of knowledge and temples of study, reinforced to act as makeshift military buildings, were in ruins and blazing. The massive hull of the flying city was also aflame, and the ancient engines that powered it were propelling all of its mass downward. A city that once housed almost a million people surged from the skies onto the Academy capital as the Academy's entire land burned around it. Idly, in the back of my mind, I recalled stories of the giant creatures in the sea that dwarfed ships. The flying city looked like that, but composed of metal and with a city on its back.

And, it was crashing into the capital in the distance.

The great prow of the massive construct crashed into the capital and the whole skyline changed in an instant. The impact alone blew apart many towering structures and a great gush of earth and stone surged into the air. The flying construct broke apart at impact, crumpling against the earth and against the Academy's capital, and great hunks of it fell upon the city. The 'wings' that it used fell like guillotines upon the city, shattering and cutting through whole city blocks, while the main body shed building-sized chunks that broke through building after building.

Then, suddenly, the ancient engines at the back of flying city, still held aloft, suddenly flared a bright, white light.

"Take cover!"

Somebody yelled, or so I thought, until I realized it was my own voice.

I ran and took all whom I could with me. My magic carried me quickly and swiftly and I dragged as many as I could to the nearest, solid structure.

Then, there was a noise like thunder amplified a thousand-fold, a great wind that drowned even the noise of the raging inferno, and then impossible amounts of force and heat.

All I could do was protect myself with my power, and when I opened my eyes after it all, nothing was left around me.

Not the people I tried to save in the last moment.

Nor those who were in the wagons protected by the few mages present.

It was all gone… and in the distance there was where the Academy's capital once stood was a flaming inferno of death and despair.

As I looked upon it all, I came to a simple realization: this was what awaited us all, this madness, this despair, and this destruction, if this continent was not ruled by our lord.

…

I've seen plenty of battles in this world.

Hell, I was there was the Children of the Elm fought for their Citadel from start to finish.

However, that wasn't all.

I also ventured with a warband for most of my childhood, and I went to watch the battles, while everyone else stayed behind. Some soldiers offered to teach me how to fight when I got stronger, but I hadn't gone there because of some hyper-masculine urge to defeat my enemies and hear the lamentations of their women. I was set to be scrawny from the get-go, even before the malnutrition kicked in, so I went to study, to learn, and to understand a bit more of the world that I found myself in through the violence that they inflicted on one another.

This is the part where I should say that I have modern techniques, knowledge, and out-of-the-box thinking that they don't.

But that's not the truth in the slightest.

The people of this world have been fighting for hundreds of years against one another in order to live, triumph, and find glory. This continent wasn't filled with kingdoms who've been at peace for centuries and never wanted for anything, therefore they only had force to get the resources that they needed. They fought, they died, they killed, they learned, they adapted, they changed, they innovated, they implemented, they passed down their techniques, and they became strong.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The battles that I watched by warbands were brutal. They fought over the right to control swathes of territory for protection money. There was no dance of tactics between mercenary groups hired by nations who just wanted a quick buck. The fights were to the death, with no quarter given, while men ran around covered in blood, either theirs or the enemies, and beat each other to death in formations while crows circled overhead and waited. While kids like me waited to see what loot the soldiers would leave behind, after they won, and the warlord took another town or three in exchange for a few hundred lives.

They flanked their enemies, they used skirmishers to disrupt formations, they staggered their lines and created concaves. Mages scooted and shot. Archer formations took hills and rained death. If there was time, engineers would build siege weapons onsite and deploy them into battle. Cavalry would be used to either ambush or as shock troops. Small squads were sent in the backline to try and gut logistics or cause dilemmas that the enemy had to find answers to.

People in this world fought to the best of their ability, using every unfair advantage that they could, therefore I only had one real advantage in this world: information.

Knowing what's ahead.

Knowing what's possible.

Knowing how to use a situation to my advantage.

In the end, though, I realized that I barely even had that.

…

In-game, cities start to spread over tiles the more population and improvements you make on it. Districts fill out, factories enlarge, and tile improvements are subsumed and mixed into the singular city. If you went tall, not investing into villages besides what's needed to exploit their tiles, you end up with a massive, sprawling city surrounding your Citadel. The largest I've 'seen' was around twenty-four tiles in every direction.

Right now, it would take two days for an infantry-based army to march through my city from one end to another, without any improvements, and it was nigh impossible to siege with a single army. The city was a centralization of power, wealth, production, education. Medicine and care were both freely available, and anyone who could work and was willing could make money, so it was only natural that the region around the Citadel would become a metropolis. A center of the arts, of education, of industry, and innovation, which would take the world around it and exploit every inch within its reach.

The population was booming, they were happy, and I needed to keep it that way.

It was proving harder than expected, since the Scholars decided to throw a wrench into everyone's plans.

Mine included.

My office was turned into a makeshift command center to handle the sudden crisis that arose, which came in the form of a massive deluge of refugees coming towards both Talon Hills and the Children of the Elm's former lands. The Scholars saw what was coming for them, saw that they'd fail if they took any logical moves, and upended the board. They didn't just surprise everyone else, but also me, because even from my perspective what the did what impossible. But, in reality, it was possible and the results of it were staring me in the face in the horizon still filled with a dull orange glow and dark clouds.

The Scholars turned their flying city into a weapon of war and set the Academy's lands alight, before crashing it into the Academy's capital, after deciding to entrench themselves in their Citadel.

I mean, it made sense. They just moved all their important stuff into the massive, indestructible building, and use the old thing like a massive weapon.

Why not?

In reality, it should've been obvious.

In game, it would've been abused, so it wasn't available.

I only had myself to blame for not expecting anyone else to think outside the box and do something crazy when cornered.

"The new estimates are in, my Lord." Ayah, thankfully, was handling the new issues with effortless grace. Once again, we were getting stalled from preparing food and rations for an expedition with our armies, but the coming tide of refugees wasn't a dilemma because of that food. Instead, it was proving to be an opportunity. "The processing camps that you've suggested are working extremely well."

"Good." I went ahead an industrialized the refugee processing. Now, I had to take cues from the plans of a certain, funny Austrian, but just barely. It was for the sake of national security, and the processing didn't involve any killing. Just lots and lots of guards, clerks, temporary housing, and giving people numbers instead of names for easier processing. My military was being employed to keep things in order and get people where they needed to be. They weren't trained to find people and make sure they're clothed, fed, and find their way to the right place, but they were trained to follow orders, so they did it just fine. "What's the estimates?"

"As you instructed, they have all been stratified into levels of desirable skills. Manual laborers, professionals, and those with talent. A point system has been made and costs of the camp have been lowered by using those points as a temporary currency that can be used for items and faster exit." I'd read this technique in a zombie apocalypse book. Certain place, I couldn't recall exactly, found itself with loads of people stuck doing nothing despite being secure. People were classified, looked through for worthwhile skills and talent, and everyone else went to go retrained, do manual labor, or hold a gun. Perfect for my situation. "We will have schoolhouses in every village and town at our disposal. We won't be wanting for any glassmakers, blacksmiths, and textile workers, either. The issue lies with the manual laborers…"

"Some used to be nobility, and expect to be nobility, even though they have nothing." The Academy had been the dominant hegemon of the continent before the Citadels arose. It was only natural they'd have a lot of stuck up pricks with lots of money over there. Now, those people didn't have money, but they were still vipers. They've trained their whole lives to lie, cheat, steal, and use other people. Not only that, but they were surrounded by their own countrymen. If nothing was done about them, I could see some people interfering with my society just to get what they wanted. Some would want money and their former lives, but some would want a seat at the table. Yeah. That wasn't happening. "Find the reasonable ones. We need people who can read, write, and tend to our smaller towns and villages… but it's more important to not have any rebels or opportunities. Do what needs to be done to keep stability."

"Yes, my Lord." Ayah bowed at my words, while I turned my attention back to my office. More tables had been shuffled in. Whole carts of papers of reports were streaming in. I had to scavenge some of the upper classes of my university to get enough people to just read through and summarize the reports. The longer I looked, the more I realized that there was another part of the game that had slipped me by: all the information that I wanted to act upon was beyond my ability to manage.

I had lot to delegate.

And, I had a lot of well-read, educated people on my doorstep.

Well... neat.