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Matt tried to undersell the efficiency of his Concept as much as he could before triggering it for the first huddled group. There was a wave of relief-filled moans. As each healer felt their mana pools reach maximum, they uncoiled themselves from the circle to make room for someone new.
Half an hour later, the entire healing staff was back on their feet. Matt moved to the rack of healer’s crystals. He placed a hand into the bowl and dumped mana out. It would still need to be converted from his personal mana to un-aspected mana before it could be absorbed into the healer’s personal mana stones racks. So, he donated 10,000 mana over the next ten minutes. He could’ve done it in a little more than two minutes, but he purposefully drew the process out, and dramatically staggered out of the tent as if the ordeal had exhausted him.
He wanted to help, but he still wanted to conceal the true scale of his abilities. Besides, that 10,000 mana was already far more than an average person could have donated.
It also wasn’t a complete lie. He was dead tired from running, and his willpower was low. He didn’t have to fake the strain that part put on him.
Messaging the mage groups, he offered to help them recover their mana in another half hour.
In the meantime, he returned to his vantage point on the wall to keep tabs on the enemy forces as they reassembled and started repairs on their siege equipment.
Contemplating the descending sun, Matt let out a long-held sigh. This would be a long restless night.
Only the second of the siege so far.
Four days. They lasted four long days of bombardments and repeatedly repelled the attackers off their walls. The advances were blending together so much Matt wasn’t sure when one ended and the next began. Sometimes the queendom got a foothold, but they were always able to push them back. It just cost lives.
The defenders were all tired and wounded.
The queendom had attacked them twice daily, before trying a more subtle attack last night, when both sides usually settled down.
That hadn’t worked either. This morning, they had resorted to endlessly using their trebuchets to battering at the walls.
That would have been manageable on its own, but the queendom didn’t stop there. While the city’s teleporters were inoperable, the queendom had no such restrictions. Another million fresh troops arrived to reinforce the siege.
Their encampment was starting to look like its own city, only wrapped around the one that Matt and his team currently occupied. Tents were set in rows around the city that stretched beyond eyesight. The small forest that was nearby was clear cut and used to improvise rough housing for the multitudes arriving around the city.
The rest were used to make more trebuchets, which added to the number of projectiles slamming into their walls.
Right now, they had the earth mages trying to counteract the damage, but it was a losing proposition. Matt was drawing his Concept thin, trying to keep their mages and healers functional while also directing his section of the wall.
Sleep came only in bursts but not for him. Matt mostly relied on [Endurance] to keep him going. Others didn’t have that option and found sleep when and where they could. It had been a hectic few days, and now that the queendom had given up on taking the city cleanly. They wanted to end this siege soon and were willing to throw the necessary numbers at them to ensure it would.
With well over a million troops already encircling them, they received reports from outside the city that the queendom was preparing to send another million fighters to ensure the siege was broken soon. Apparently, they had intended to isolate the city early, before the prince could adequately reinforce the defenses. That plan had crumbled with the early and unexpected destruction of so many pylons from both Matt’s efforts and Albert. Rumor had it, Princess Sara was fuming at the failure.
It was now clear she’d intended to quickly take the city and from there immediately move to siege another city at a natural choke point deeper in kingdom territory. Now the additional queendom forces they would have teleported directly into this city for the next siege were being redirected to their city on foot. Matt felt proud at their stalwart defense, but seeing one and a half million people surrounding them put things into a new perspective for him.
Knowing that there were another million fresh opponents marching to them left everyone with a sinking feeling.
This would not end well.
A boulder slammed onto the city wall just to Matt’s right, and he winced. They had actually taken most of their defenders off the wall after a stray boulder clipped the top and eliminated a few dozen people. But the queendom was still trying to limit damage to the city and were being extra careful about hitting the expensive infrastructure inside.
The defending leaders were grateful for it, as they had little recourse if the queendom decided to launch rocks inside the walls and flatten the city. They would need to move the trebuchets closer, which would put them close enough to retaliate, but nowhere in the city would be safe for their troops anymore, who were packed in tight.
For now, they were okay with letting the queendom chip away at their walls.
A disheveled earth mage raced up to Matt, panting. “The structural support pillar is cracked. We don’t know how much longer we can hold it.”
Matt stuffed a bit of mana into the man with his Concept, and then reported to Juni, “One of our support pillars is cracked.”
“Wait? Only now?”
The man sounded astonished, so Matt asked, “Yeah. Why do you ask?”
“I just thought you weren’t reporting it. Everyone else already has cracks. More than one for most of us.”
Matt shook his head. “No, I’ve been using my Concept to keep the earth mages going.”
“f*****g damn it! By the Emperor’s balls, Matt, our speculation didn’t think you could put out near that much mana. You should have said something earlier! f**k!” Juni took a deep, audible breath. “That’s unfair of me. But I’ll be sending you more earth mages. Do what you can for them. Please. Even if the walls are doomed to fall, it’s better we drag it out as long as possible.”
Matt almost felt guilty, but it was his secret, and he’d honestly expected that Juni would have heard about it from the various groups he was keeping topped off. The kingdom having a limited idea of his capabilities wasn’t surprising. While he hadn’t advertised his Concept or Talent, there were clear anomalies in his team’s combat records for anyone looking to find.
Half an hour later, a stream of exhausted earth mages started huddling around Matt. They each lumbered away once they were full, and another would roll into their place. There were just so many of them. Too many. Finally, Matt had to start setting them aside and telling them to wait for his willpower to restore itself.
He was beyond spent and didn’t have time to sit and meditate. As always, he had situations to resolve and orders to give. It never stopped, not even for a moment.
They were currently demolishing all the buildings near the most probable breach points and setting up a series of fortified fall back positions. The queendom would break through the walls sometime soon, and they needed to be prepared.
Matt hadn’t seen his teammates in two days. Their AI readings showed that they were alive without serious injury at least. It wasn’t enough, he wanted to see them and spend time with them, but it was all that he had.
The city AI sent him a request for a scan of his area, which he completed, and then got directions for his building crews. The city AI had apparently lost many of its cameras during the bombardment of the walls. Why the surveillance system was connected to and ran information through the walls at all was a mystery to Matt. Seemed like an awful design flaw. From experience, he could confirm it was.
The city AI now needed personal AIs to feed it information about the situations near the walls. Also, his crew of workers needed to clear two more rows of buildings and create rubble barricades.
He highlighted the buildings in question and relayed the orders. He swore that he could hear their groans from atop the wall but was pretty sure it was just the wind. He knew that they were groaning at the additional work, he just doubted that he could hear it from up here.
His AI pinged him with a new idea. He reviewed it and then passed it up to Juni and the city AI coordinating the defender’s overall strategy.
He received half the answer he’d expected.
- Writer
