Chapter 307: Tier 3 Trial Part 4?

Chapter 307: Tier 3 Trial Part 4?

Congratulations on your victory, the rewards will be presented to you now.

“Rewards?”

A pop-up message appeared before him out of nowhere. It looked similar to the usual world message but the usual white text over the black bar was changed to a green bar. The moment it appeared a strange occurrence took place. His opponent's body which had been turned into wood chippings, started to flicker before vanishing.

The ring of fire that had been around them was also gone and the enemy army which still had around fifty soldiers started to run away. Apparently, without an officer or leader-type unit they would lose all will to fight. In Roland’s mind, this was something that would only work in a small-scale battle like this. Probably if there was another unit like the Wooden Commander present, then it would have taken over.

‘Those tooltips did say something about the Wooden Captain being able to command a small force, perhaps there is a proper number for it, maybe fifty soldiers at most?’

He wasn’t sure but all of the wooden soldiers and their variants had some type of description. Roland needed to read between the lines in some cases as the trial wouldn’t offer him all the information outright. Perhaps if he wanted to send out his own troops he would need to split them out into smaller battalions. At least the Commander was able to lead a small army of troops of around two hundred and fifty.

“Hm... it dropped the armor and the halberd.”

While thinking about his future a strange occurrence was taking place. The leader unit that he had defeated in single combat or at least what was left of its mangled wooden body, started to flash. Within a few seconds, the flashing started to turn into a rapid flickering. Then in a flash, the body of the one he slew vanished and like in a game left some loot behind.

Roland picked up the large halberd and quickly noticed that it was made from a slightly better alloy than regular steel. The half-plate armor that the commander was wearing wasn’t much better than what he had on but when analyzing one of the parts with the help of this world’s system, he was given some more information.

Commander’s Half-Plate Chestpiece [Intermediate]

Grade: C

Bonuses:

Increases the number of units a leader can command into battle by fifty.

‘Interesting, that just confirms my previous guess and it actually gave me the whole number now.’

If he assumed that his captain could control around fifty units, this chest piece would double his ability to lead. The other pieces didn’t really have any bonuses and were all made from regular steel. The grade was at an intermediate level which was below something he could make by himself. Normally he would replace the breastplate he made himself but considering the bonuses, it would probably be better to give it to his captain unit.

‘I’m probably seen as a special unit by the system controlling this trial, wouldn’t be strange if I was only limited by the number of units my settlements can contain.’

Usually, in strategy games, each base had a limit of residents that it could contain. This was usually a limitation brought by the game’s system itself as there wouldn’t be enough computing power to manage thousands or hundreds of thousands of moving components on a screen. He wasn’t sure if the same thing could be said about this simulated world he was in now.

“My Lord, the enemy is retreating, should we pursue them?”

“No, we don’t have the manpower for that quite yet, just have them take the weapons of the ones we managed to defeat.”

“Of course my lord!”

In all honesty, Roland felt that he didn’t prepare for this trial but at the moment it didn’t feel like it would be a problem. The first enemy that he faced wasn’t all that strong and if he continued to outfit his small army with better weapons victory awaited him on the other side. It was always like that, quality won over quantity and one magical turret would be able to take out multiple enemies easily in a defensive battle.

‘Yeah, most of my designs are better at defensive battles or at complimenting my runic armor.’

His mind was made up, he would turn this into a base defense mission as the trial didn’t state that he had to actually attack anyone to win. The winning conditions had not been announced yet but after establishing an impenetrable fortress surrounded by magical defenses he expected to get an answer.

Days started flying by as he continued to establish his defensive measures. Soon the wooden walls turned to ones made from stone and large towers started to appear between them. From a motte and bailey fort it changed into a stone keep surrounded by higher walls, a deeper mote, and even long-ranged defenses that could be fired through slits in the walls.

Just as he expected, the enemy nation came back after around a month's time to attack him again. The army that consisted of a bit above two hundred wooden soldiers doubled in numbers. Their weapons had been enhanced and multiple commander units appeared as well.

However, even if Roland’s army only consisted of a hundred soldiers they had something that the enemy didn’t have, runic magic. The turrets that he designed to protect his own home were able to rain down magical bolts on the approaching enemy. Even though the walls suffered some damage the siege failed again. This only boosted Roland’s faith in his current strategy, even without attacking other settlements or meeting armies out at the field he could win.

There was also a way to fast-forward through some of the events. His bedchamber was a bit unique as before going to bed he could put in a slumber period. It was possible to automate through a few events that would normally take days or weeks to be created. It was like hastening the speed in some games to have buildings be assembled faster and he sometimes used the option for buildings to be assembled. The blacksmiths could copy his designs faster but it also took some time and thanks to this option he could hasten the timeframe of this trial.

Nevertheless, as time continued to tick down and weeks turned into months he noticed that something was off. Even though his stone keeps turned into a concentric castle with two layers of defensive walls, there was no sign of the trial ending. The nation of Timberlings had actually fallen after a couple of months and was replaced by a stronger faction with actual siege weapons.

Defending against them had become a lot harder and even after assembling a full runic armor similar to his back home, he was starting to lose more. Usually, the weapons and armor that were gained from a victory could be sold on the market to gain better material. There was even an option to trade them out in bulk for something else, like deep steel or better materials to construct his defenses.

Even though his units had gained special skills in handling his runic devices similar to the ones Bernir used, they were not able to hold on. This was not something that he could predict as the trial didn’t seem to have an end. It was not that his defenses were bad or that he was managing his castle badly but due to it not being possible to complete this trial in this way.

The moment he made the decision to turn this into solely a defensive game was the moment he lost it. There was no end to the waves of invaders and he had quickly become surrounded by one large empire that conquered everything and everyone.

“So, this was not about defense but about defeating all of the other groups...”

Now that he was surrounded from all sides it didn’t really matter that his castle was an impervious fortress. He would not be able to continue this trial without defeating his opponent and as it stood his strategy wouldn’t allow his forces to win. They had access to all the resources now and would slowly whittle him down.

Even if he managed to continuously win over his enemies, without capturing all of their bases there was no end to this. With how he had focused on defense there was no room to switch. If he started assembling siege weapons he would not have enough resources to repair the damaged walls, turrets, and golems that he assembled. Yet he couldn’t just give up, it wasn’t over yet perhaps there was a way to victory?

“Shit... what’s that?”

The answer to his question came in the form of a massive army that was led by a strange-looking puppet. It was not made of wood though, it was fully composed of some sort of metal and looked more human than any of the others. It stood like a last boss on top of the hill while his castle was being bombarded by catapults from all sides. It didn’t offer him even an option of a duel as it charged together with a bunch of heavy armored mounted units towards the main gate.

...

“... I actually failed?”

Roland was jolted from the chair he sat on while remembering the metallic puppet’s weapon smashing his head. A familiar ceiling and tools greeted him as he was now in his workshop where he activated the class change crystal. The same crystal had now turned to powder right in his hand.

The time he spent in that trial was longer than back when he was getting his Engineering class but in the real world, only a few seconds had gone by. His mind was still foggy as the hit to the head that had delivered the killing blow felt quite real. The monster he needed to face was just too strong, it was even more troublesome than the Lich he had to face and there was nothing he could do during that last siege.

“Ah... I need to calm down...”

While he had failed this wasn’t over yet, there were more crystals to go through but even when he held a new one in his hand there was no way of activating it yet. There was also another big problem, considering that he failed a tier 3 trial the usual period of waiting for only one day would be increased by some number.

Then if he continued to fail his trial it would keep increasing even further. It was possible for a person to continue failing these tests continuously until the period became so large that they wouldn’t actually be able to retake the test ever again. To not allow something like this to happen again, Roland needed to decide on a new tactic and also put more thought into leading an army.