Well, I have to admit that I am quite groggy at this moment. The last couple of days have been draining to say the least. Part of it is due to the fact that I am having to work overtime. I am trying to inscribe two spells in the formation in the time that it takes to inscribe a single spell.

That is beginning to show its strain. I am sure that I will be able to complete it but it is going to leave behind side effects, I am sure. on top of that both of these spells are conjuration spells with magical effects.

Conjuration spells are already very hard to inscribe. These spells have to be inscribed very precisely. If the runes are imprecise, then it can even cause the spells to backfire as well. On top of that, the conjured items are supposed to have runes of their own.

You should try to paint a rune within a rune. It will give you a very strong understanding of just how annoying magic tends to be. Regardless, I guess I should also explain about the two runes that I am inscribing into the formation.

The first is actually a pretty common formation at least among the druids. They call it as the "standard ballista model type: strength". They have an entire series of these spells each crafting different types of ballistas. The model that I have chosen strengthen the force with which the spear will be leaving my ballista.

It is a pretty standard formation so I have started my work first on this. I should be able to get this spell inscribed pretty easily. The problem with this spell is that it doesn't create a string for the balista. It only provides a body for the balista. as you can guess, I had no idea that I would be creating a new class eight formation here. Even if I did, how could I know that I would be creating this exact formation here.

Regardless, I am doing exactly what the druids used to do to manage this situation. They would usually inscribe in another spell known as “string of water”. The spell manifests a string of water mana that can be used to launch the water spears. It will also provide a decent speed boost to a water spear that is launched from it.

It is also very hard to craft. Much harder than the body of the spear if I am to be frank. I guess that it is stupidity that I am trying something like this. Technically speaking, I have another trick up my sleeve. One that would just require me to inscribe a single spell into the core. The only problem is that I am saving it for the day that a snowlord might end up attacking us. The damn bastards can look through the eyes of their underlings.

That means that I will not be talking about this nasty surprise. All I can do is just focus on the task at hand and make sure that I do not end up screwing this up.

I guess that I do not need to hurry this much, but I have a feeling that things are going to go much harder than I am expecting it to occur. The hunt is going to end in the next week. Once that occurs, a majority of the nobles in the frozen peak are going to be returning to their homes.

That is the interesting thing about the hunt. It has been created mainly due to the nobles. You see at the beginning of winter, the nobles like to send their children to the frozen peak to hunt the ice beasts and their troops. It helps them reduce a kind of pest that might end up ruining their land while training their kids at the same time. They naturally would not want their kids to remain for the actually dangerous parts, which comes later in the winter it seems.

The hunt attracts quite a bit of the youngsters of the nobles. It is supposed to be something of a competition to them. To see who will be able to hunt the most number of ice beasts. Without them, the frozen peaks simply won't have enough people to send out to hunt them in such a grand scale.

Once the hunt ends, the more permanent soldiers are all going to retreat to the frozen peak and the region surrounding. The frozen peak will then act like a plug, blocking the ice beasts and their troops from leaking too much into empire land. Sadly, we are at what can be considered to be the outskirts of this safe zone. The frozen peak will be able to send us reinforcements but it will be too late for it to be actually worth anything.

If the fort was just a bit further, I would be able to simply refuse going here. I do have certain privileges as a representative of the black mountain. The commander has chosen this fort of his very wisely. There was no loophole to exploit with it. Regardless, my point is that I need to have something to handle any of my enemies surprises. they are going to pull of something crazier if they were already ready to commit so much forces against me during the hunts.

They are going to have much more freedom to act already with the hunt stopping. I would not be surprised if they are going to send five or six troops here. Well, I would be surprised but these were the exact words of shamon. The man is more workaholic than me at this moment.

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He has been like a ghost possessed the way that he has been directing his soldiers. Their major work for now has been to break that ice spike and repairing damage to the walls. It has been quite hard to get rid of it. If we had a fire mage it would have been easier but the soldiers have to satisfy themselves with shattering it piece by piece.

The soldiers have also been taking in the corpses of the ice beasts that they have killed. Their major focus have been to convert all of their meat into jerky as soon as possible. Well, they have been cutting up the beasts quite clinically. I am sure that they have left nothing to waste. The claws are now nails. their hides have become clothes and their flesh has become food.

Looking at the intensity of their preparations though, it almost feels like they are preparing for something bad, something really bad. We have enough reserves to survive a few weeks at the very least without any problems. I mean, we are a bit far away from the peak, but it is not so far away that we won't be having supplies. It is a bit too cautious in my opinion.

Well this is better than the soldiers losing their mind because they have nothing to do I guess. This fort has been a pretty oppressive place.

Finally, I guess that I should talk about our enemy. Things have been very quiet on that front. The reason for that is the two injured troop leaders. You see, every troop leader is able to control eighty beasts and they have to always keep them in control. With two beast leaders injured, the remaining leaders have to control the troop of the injured leaders.

That means that at the moment the troop leaders are barely able to make their troops move in a straight line. This is supposed to be the reason that they are being so passive right now. The troop leaders will only be able to direct these creatures in hordes.

They are certainly not going to be able to show any of their fine strategy that they have showed till now. If that does actually occur, it will make things easier and tougher for my soldiers. The soldiers will be able to hold of the creatures at the wall if they do end up attacking in a horde like this.

The only problem will then be the fact that our casualties are not going to be particularly little with a horde. We are going to be losing a majority of our soldiers. Shamon expects to lose at least thirty soldiers if a full assault does happen. It is going to bring our numbers to a little more than half of our original numbers. That actually brings out another issue.

According to shamon, it would be a fools hope to expect any reinforcement from the frozen peak. The reason for that is quite simple. There are two major factions in the frozen peak, the nobles, who have no interest in helping us out in any shape or form. Any reinforcement they send is essentially going to be to take over this fort and to bring it under their control.

If that happens, my work at the very least will be over as the nobles will then have to figure all of this mess out if they want to keep the fort but that won't be happening unless the commander is ready to give it to the nobles. Before that any reinforcement sent to the fort will be considered to be “rude”. I am sure that the commander has many ways of playing with his “rude” nobles.

So the nobles won't be helping us at all. As for the commoner faction, they are even less likely to help us out. It is through no fault of theirs though. They are at the moment quite busy managing the hunt. The commoner soldiers are considered to be the backbone of the hunt.

They don't participate in it themselves, but work in the background, collecting the hunted corpses from the nobles, maintaining the ranking for the nobles in the hunt. (There is no official ranking in place, but without somebody neutral counting how many creatures were killed by the nobles this entire hunt would never work out.), transporting these corpses to the frozen peak and processing them to get what they need.

Clearly put, the hunt would not exist without the work of these soldiers even if they are not actively participating in the battlefield. Even if that was not the case there is simply no possibility of them coming. Once the hunt ends, they are going to be even more busy as they will have to maintain constant patrols to ensure that not too many troops end up passing through the defensive line.

That means that we are going to have to figure out our own reinforcements. On that front at least we have good news. You see, we are not the only temporary fort in the area. Shamon has already initiated communication with them, hoping to bargain with them for their soldiers. The fact that so many enemy troops were concentrated here means that the other forts have had to face much lesser numbers of them. That means they have had much less losses as well.

There are a total of seven forts this year, including ours. if we were to get even five soldiers from each fort we would manage to recoup our losses too. I think it might even end up being better for the simple fact that shamon thinks in terms of the worst case.

If the man says we might lose thirty, he usually means that we might end up losing twenty. On this front also, I can't help this man. This type of bargaining requires a kind of personal touch with the leaders of those forts. Naturally I won't be able to provide that. All I can do is leave it to shamon for now.

If I was a noble, things would have been quite easy for shamon. After all no commoner likes to be near the place where a noble has died. The backlash of a nobles death is enough to destroy every single soldier here and it might end up implicating their villages too.

If I were a noble, I am sure all the troops of the seven forts would be here. The punishment for failing their defense might be better than facing the wrath of a noble. This is also an example of just how wide the gap between noble and commoner has grown in this empire.