Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

[Morning]

[Kingsfort Wall]

"A stone, if thrown with enough force, can topple an enemy."

Jansen Cornelius stood on the battlements of Kingsfort, bent over to pick up a stone placed behind the parapet, used for smashing people, and said without looking back:

"However, no matter how strong a person is, if you ask him to keep throwing stones non-stop, there will be a time when he can't lift his arm. Twenty stones, thirty stones, if using a stone sling, a hundred stones, but no matter what, human strength is limited.

"Even if you give him some time to rest, he will be energetic again, but in most cases, battles will end within an hour or even a few minutes."

"You may have read records of battles lasting several days, but if you extract the actual combat time from the entire battle, you'll find that even battles lasting several days have actual combat parts that are, again, counted in minutes and hours.

"Because once a battle enters the critical stage, victory or defeat will soon be determined."

Cornelius turned to look at his entourage and said earnestly: "So when you find the battle getting intense, what you must do is to keep persisting."

...

A small group of people followed closely around the Southern Front Army Commander.

The ages of this group varied, the oldest at least forty years old, the youngest barely in their twenties.

Their common trait was that each wore brand-new officer uniforms, yet showed none of the demeanor of soldiers.

But this couldn't entirely be blamed on them, because in a strict sense, they were "new recruits."

Among them, some bought their way into the army after the blood-soaked night of Kingsfort, some were temporarily recruited after the disaster at River Valley Village, and others were enlisted urgently after the Southern Front Army landed;

Some were originally sheriffs, some were potters, some were still studying...

Yet these "new" officer recruits were tasked with the significant duty of commanding the local militia forces of Kingsfort.

Because aside from "having never received formal military training and education," they had another common trait — all had deep ties with Grof Magnus.

In other words, these commissioned officers were the most reliable people the honorable Grand Speaker could find.

In the current situation, nothing was more important to the Grand Speaker than reliability.

...

Hearing the commander's words, a timid voice softly emerged from the troop of commissioned officers: "Excuse me, sir, when does the battle become critical?"

The group of commissioned officers collectively turned their gaze to a young man at the back of the group, making him wish he could find a hole to hide in within the wall.

Cornelius lightly tapped the parapet with the stone in his hand, causing the commissioned officers to immediately focus back on the commander.

"When you want to run away," Cornelius said calmly, "is when the battle becomes critical."

The accompanying commissioned officers let out a dry laugh, but seeing the commander's expression, it seemed he wasn't joking, so the laughter abruptly stopped.

"Your question was good," Cornelius gave a simple compliment, then placed the stone on the parapet, "returning to the stones, even without throwing force, merely dropping them from the wall, if lucky, can also topple an enemy.

"And dropping stones from the wall, even women and children can do continuously for several hours."

Cornelius gently nodded, "Gentlemen, please imagine the actual battlefield situation: smoke billowing, guns roaring, chaos all around, accurately throwing a stone to kill an enemy is exceedingly difficult. Comparatively, dropping stones from the wall is so easy it's laughable."

"The same stone, the same stone-throwing to kill enemies," Cornelius asked the commissioned officers, "what's the difference between the two methods? Why is one difficult and the other easy?"

The commissioned officers looked at each other, not because the question was hard, but because it was too simple.

"One is throwing from flat ground?" emboldened perhaps by the earlier encouragement, the timid voice tentatively answered again, "and the other is dropping from a high place?"

Hearing this seemingly obvious answer, the commissioned officers found themselves surprised.

The commander, however, followed up seriously, "Why can stones be dropped from a high place?"

"Because..." the timid voice's owner was once again the focus of attention, sweating profusely as he forged on with an answer, "because someone moved stones to the high place."

Among the commissioned officers, someone laughed out loud.

But Cornelius scrutinized the young man for a moment, then suddenly clapped lightly, "Gentlemen, this young gentleman has just revealed the core principle of all fortress defense tactics — moving stones to high places in advance, please give him applause."

The commissioned officers confusedly began to applaud.

"What is your name?" Cornelius asked.

"Misha," the young man replied quietly, "Groni Misha."

"Mr. Groni," Cornelius nodded slightly, "I will remember your name."

The commissioned officers applauded again, though none envied young Misha; after all, being remembered by the commander at this time wasn't necessarily a good thing.

"'Move stones to high places in advance,' remember, gentlemen, this is the key to siege defense," Cornelius explained as simply as possible, "throwing stones down from the walls is easy because when you moved them up the wall, you already exerted the effort beforehand.