Chapter 437 — Calibration

"Soon, soon, we're on the way. Miss Rebecca has already begun checking the magic circuits on this ship to prepare for firing," Byron waved his hand in the communicator's holographic projection; both his voice and image were somewhat distorted, because he was aboard a warship on the Whitewater River and the signal was transmitted entirely through magic-net relay towers along the riverbank—relay towers that had only just been set up and whose coverage was far from sufficient; in some sections the signal even dropped out entirely. "At Miss Tyrell's speed, we'll be there in a little over five hours..."

"I will conduct another bombardment at noon," Philip cut Byron off. "I think Boulder Fortress's magic barrier is very... valuable, and the mage-technicians with the army agree. I want to test the barrier's strength as much as possible with artillery and observe how it operates. Later, if Master Kamael and Miss Jenny crack the secret of this kind of giant shield, it might prove useful in our hands."

Byron looked at the earnest Phillips in surprise: "Since when did you become interested in magic?"

Phillips straightened up, his face solemn: "I am interested only in the interests of the domain and its people."

"Let me tell you something about your type—if you'd become a mercenary, you'd probably have been sold off to the gladiator arena on your first day, and you'd have felt full of glory about it too," Sir Byron wore a look that said "how awkward it is to work with a greenhorn like this," then squeezed out a strange smile. "But seriously, among you traditional knights, there really are people who fall for that sort of thing—Miss Margarita is right behind you."

Having said that, Byron swiftly ended the communication, and Philip, after a brief daze, turned around to see the lady knight Margarita from the Kant region standing behind him, looking at him with an expression of admiration.

"In this day and age, there are few left who still uphold the virtues of knighthood as you do," the lady knight said with utter sincerity.

"It is my duty, Miss Margarita," Philip said with a stern face, "Can the large accelerated cannons fire before noon?"

"You will hear their thunder on time."

...

At noon, when cooking smoke rose from the inner city district of Boulder Fortress, the Cecil army finally began its second round of bombardment.

Strange hums, piercing shrieks, thunderous explosions—these once again descended upon the defenders of Boulder Fortress. Yet compared with the panic and chaos of the sudden bombardment the day before, the confusion this time was markedly less. After their first instinctive tension, the noble soldiers in the fortress found that the powerful magic barrier still shrouded the entire city, and they settled down.

Some even dared to climb onto the outer walls and, facing the direction of the Cecil men, shout and jeer loudly.

The magic crystal shells burst against the magic barrier outside the city wall, their lethal explosive force wholly blocked, and even the deafening roar was much diminished by the barrier's interference. The boldest soldiers and knights had at first merely watched the spectacle from a comparatively safe distance, but soon, no one knew who started it, some actually ran onto the stretch of wall that faced the bombardment head-on, watching the explosions burst in midair at close range.

What astonished people was that most of those who did so were not the knights and soldiers of Boulder Fortress, but the southern nobles and their private troops, who had once been frightened out of their wits by the "Skyfire explosions," scurrying like stray dogs with no home to return to.

They seemed to be showing off their courage by this means—or rather, venting the terror of a month ago.

Ropeni Garland stood on a watchtower far from the city wall, watching with an indifferent expression the southern knights and soldiers making such grotesque spectacles of themselves atop the wall.

Compared with those allied soldiers whose wills had been utterly drained in the flight after battle, who had been taken captive by the Cecil men like walking corpses, the psychological wounds left on these remnants of the nobility who had fled early to Boulder Fortress seemed not yet severe enough...

But it did not matter. Their psychological wounds were about to arrive.

The viscountess raised her head and looked toward the southwest of the fortress.

The Whitewater River wound its way across the plain, and upon the river's surface, which mirrored the light of the sky, an unnatural wave was entering her field of vision.

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