The goblin horde was finally beginning to break apart.
What had started as a terrifying wall of monsters had slowly turned into scattered pockets of resistance. Dead goblins and wolves covered the battlefield while guards and adventurers steadily pushed the survivors away from the defensive lines.
For a brief moment, Leon thought the battle was finally over.
Then the shouting started.
"Arrow supplies are running low!"
The voice echoed from one of the watchtowers.
Another guard immediately shouted back.
"How many bundles are left?"
"Not enough if another wave comes!"
Leon looked toward the walls and noticed several archers gathering spent arrows from nearby baskets. Some were checking shafts for cracks while others sorted broken arrows into separate piles.
A few minutes ago, they had been firing nonstop.
Now they looked worried.
The situation behind the lines wasn't much better.
Several mages had already sat down directly on the ground. Their robes were soaked with sweat and their faces looked pale from exhaustion.
One fire mage was breathing heavily while holding an empty mana potion bottle.
Another was arguing with a supply runner.
"What do you mean we're out?"
"We aren't out!"
"Then where are the recovery potions?"
"They're bringing more!"
"When?!"
The runner didn't have an answer.
The battlefield that had looked so organized earlier suddenly felt far more chaotic.
Guards moved between positions carrying reports.
Supply runners sprinted between groups.
Wounded soldiers were being escorted behind the walls.
Everyone seemed to be preparing for something.
Or perhaps bracing themselves for it.
Leon tightened his grip on his spear.
The veterans still looked calm compared to everyone else, but even he could tell the atmosphere had changed.
The confidence from earlier was gone.
People weren't celebrating.
Nobody was cheering.
The goblins might have been defeated, but the village had paid a price for that victory.
Then another howl echoed across the plains.
AWOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—
The sound seemed to freeze the entire battlefield.
Conversations stopped.
Guards looked toward the horizon.
Even the exhausted mages forced themselves back onto their feet.
Leon followed their gaze.
Far beyond the field of corpses and broken weapons, a massive cloud of dust continued rolling toward the village.
And this time, nobody looked relieved.
The uneasy silence lingering behind the defensive lines did not last long.
"Gayrum!"
Lambert's voice thundered across the battlefield.
Several trainees flinched instinctively.
A moment later, a familiar figure emerged from a group of adventurers helping move supplies toward the rear.
Gayrum casually raised a hand.
"What?"
"We may need to commit the reserve teams."
Gayrum followed Lambert's gaze toward the horizon.
The smile on his face faded slightly.
"...Yeah."
For the first time since Leon had met him, Gayrum looked completely serious.
The older adventurer quietly studied the approaching dust cloud before releasing a slow sigh.
Then he turned around.
His eyes immediately landed on the trainees.
More specifically—
On Leon.
Gayrum walked over casually before stopping beside him.
The older adventurer didn't immediately speak.
Instead, he simply stared toward the battlefield for a few moments.
The distant howls continued echoing across the plains.
The wounded were still being moved behind the walls.
Archers were counting arrows.
Mages were desperately trying to recover mana.
Everyone was preparing for what came next.
Then Gayrum gently tapped Leon's shoulder.
"See all that?"
Leon nodded.
"...Yeah."
"This is adventuring."
Leon blinked.
Gayrum leaned against his spear while keeping his eyes on the horizon.
"Most kids think adventurers spend their days exploring ruins, finding treasure, and becoming famous."
A bitter smile appeared on his face.
"Sure, those things happen."
His gaze drifted toward the exhausted guards standing on the frontline.
"But this is what most of it actually looks like."
The battlefield stretched before them.
Blood-soaked earth.
Broken weapons.
Exhausted fighters.
People desperately preparing for another battle before they've even recovered from the last one.
Gayrum crossed his arms.
"Fighting monsters is only a small part of the job."
Leon quietly listened.
"Anyone can swing a sword when things are going well."
Gayrum pointed toward the walls where archers were recovering arrows.
Then toward the mages struggling to regain mana.
Then toward the wounded being carried away.
"The hard part is what comes after."
Leon followed his gaze.
The battlefield suddenly looked different.
Not heroic.
Not glorious.
Just difficult.
Gayrum released a slow breath.
"Bad situations happen all the time."
"You run out of supplies."
"Your plans fail."
"People get hurt."
"The enemy is stronger than expected."
His expression remained calm, but there was something heavy behind his words.
"What matters is what you do after that."
Leon tightened his grip around his spear.
Gayrum lightly nudged his shoulder again.
"An adventurer isn't someone who wins because everything goes according to plan."
He looked toward the horizon where the gnolls continued advancing.
"An adventurer is someone who keeps moving when things stop going according to plan."
For a few moments, neither of them spoke.
The distant howls continued.
The battlefield remained tense.
And yet somehow, Leon felt a little calmer.
Not because the situation had improved.
But because everyone around him was still moving forward despite it.
Then Gayrum suddenly grinned.
"Besides."
Leon looked up.
"If things were easy, old men like me would've retired years ago."
A few nearby trainees laughed nervously.
Even Leon found himself smiling slightly.
Then Lambert's voice echoed across the battlefield once again.
"Positions!"
The brief moment of calm immediately vanished.
The second battle was about to begin.
Gayrum quietly stepped away from the trainees and made his way toward the frontline.
The joking adventurer from earlier was nowhere to be seen.
His posture had straightened.
His expression had hardened.
And with every step he took, the atmosphere around him seemed to change.
Leon watched as Gayrum stopped beside Lambert at the center of the formation.
The two veterans stood shoulder to shoulder while staring toward the approaching gnolls.
The dust cloud continued rolling across the plains.
The distant howls grew louder.
The frontline tightened their grip on their shields.
Then Lambert spoke.
"Gayrum."
That was all.
No explanation.
No discussion.
No detailed plan.
Just a name.
Gayrum snorted.
"About time."
The older adventurer stepped forward.
Several guards immediately moved aside to give him space.
Leon frowned.
At first, nothing happened.
Then Gayrum slowly raised his staff.
The mana in the surroundings suddenly became heavier.
Even the trainees could feel it.
The air itself seemed to vibrate.
A faint golden glow began spreading across the runes engraved along the length of his staff.
Several nearby mages immediately looked toward him.
One of them whistled softly.
"He's actually using it."
Another swallowed.
"That's a Tier Five spell."
The ground beneath Gayrum's feet started trembling.
At first it was subtle.
Then the shaking intensified.
Small stones began bouncing across the dirt.
Loose weapons rattled against the ground.
The vibration spread farther and farther across the battlefield.
Leon felt the earth beneath his boots trembling.
Then Gayrum slammed the base of his staff into the ground.
"Stone Bastion."
BOOOOOOM!
The earth exploded upward.
The battlefield shook violently.
Several trainees nearly lost their footing.
Massive walls of stone erupted from beneath the plains.
Not one.
Two.
The walls rose at sharp angles from both sides of the defensive line, stretching outward across the battlefield before converging toward the approaching gnolls.
From above, the structure would resemble a gigantic V.
Stone continued surging upward as if the earth itself had awakened.
Chunks of rock fused together.
Layers of packed soil compressed into solid barriers.
Within seconds, two towering stone walls stood across the battlefield.
The advancing gnolls immediately reacted.
Several attempted to shift toward the sides.
Only to discover that the walls extended far beyond their formation.
The path around them had suddenly become much longer.
Much slower.
And far more exposed.
Leon's eyes widened as he finally understood.
The walls weren't meant to stop the gnolls.
They were meant to control them.
The V-shaped structure narrowed toward the village defenses, creating a massive funnel that directed the enemy toward a single point.
Toward the shield wall.
Toward the spears.
Toward the waiting guards.
The gnolls would no longer be able to spread across the battlefield and attack from multiple directions.
They would be forced into the narrow killing zone directly in front of the formation.
Lambert looked over the battlefield and gave a satisfied nod.
"Good."
Gayrum lowered his staff.
His face had become noticeably paler.
Sweat dripped from his forehead.
Even for an experienced adventurer, a Tier Five spell clearly wasn't something he could cast casually.
Still, a grin slowly appeared on his face.
"That should make things a little more fair."
Lambert snorted.
"Fair?"
The veteran pointed toward the hundreds of gnolls charging across the plains.
"We stopped caring about fair a long time ago."
Around them, the guards tightened their formation once more.
The stone walls now stood like giant arms embracing the battlefield, forcing every approaching monster into the waiting frontline.
And as the first gnolls entered the funnel, Leon finally understood why veterans like Lambert and Gayrum were feared throughout the region.
They weren't simply strong.
They knew how to shape the battlefield itself.
Fidly watched the stone walls finish rising before immediately turning away from the frontline.
Unlike Lambert and Gayrum, he wasn't looking at the approaching gnolls.
He was looking at everyone behind them.
The reserves.
The wounded.
The trainees.
The people that would determine whether the line held or collapsed.
"Reserve units, move!"
His voice cut through the chaos.
The adult trainees immediately straightened.
"Half of you are supporting the rear of the shield wall!"
Several men exchanged nervous looks.
"You're not there to fight!"
Fidly pointed toward the frontline.
"You're there to keep the line standing!"
The adults quickly moved into position.
Leon watched as they lined up behind the third rank of guards.
Some looked disappointed.
Others looked relieved.
Fidly didn't care.
"If the frontline gets pushed back, you push them forward."
"If someone loses their footing, you stabilize them."
"If a shield breaks, you pass another one."
His eyes swept across them.
"You are the shock absorber."
The adults immediately nodded.
Meanwhile, Fidly turned toward the younger trainees.
The children.
Including Leon.
The veteran ranger pointed toward the battlefield beyond the walls.
"Kids, you're on arrow recovery."
Several faces immediately turned pale.
"Outside the walls?" one of them asked nervously.
"No."
Fidly pointed toward the piles of corpses already accumulating near the defensive line.
"You'll stay behind the walls."
Only then did some of the children relax slightly.
Then Fidly continued.
"But every usable arrow you find comes back here."
The brief relief immediately vanished.
Leon followed Fidly's gaze.
For the first time, he really looked at the battlefield up close.
Not the fighting.
The aftermath.
The corpses.
Dozens of goblins lay scattered across the ground.
Many had arrows sticking out of their bodies.
Some had three.
Others had five.
A few looked more like pincushions than living creatures.
Several wolves lay twisted against the shield wall with arrows protruding from their ribs and necks.
The smell reached them even from behind the defenses.
Blood.
Burned flesh.
Waste.
Smoke.
Leon's stomach immediately tightened.
Fidly's expression remained cold.
"Move in pairs."
"No one works alone."
"If you feel sick, throw up and keep working."
Several children visibly swallowed.
Nobody laughed.
Nobody complained.
The battlefield was far too real for that.
A few moments later, the first group climbed down from the wall.
Leon followed behind them.
The closer they got to the corpses, the worse it became.
The smell hit first.
Then the sight.
A goblin corpse lay directly in front of Leon.
One of its eyes was missing.
An arrow had entered through its cheek and exited through the back of its skull.
Its mouth remained frozen open.
Almost like it had died screaming.
Leon felt his hands begin trembling.
Beside him, another trainee suddenly turned away.
The boy dropped to his knees.
Then vomited.
Nobody mocked him.
Several looked like they were about to do the same.
"Pull the arrows."
The guard supervising them spoke calmly.
The children hesitated.
Then one finally stepped forward.
His hands shook as he grabbed the shaft protruding from a goblin's chest.
He pulled.
Nothing happened.
The arrow had lodged deep into bone.
The child pulled harder.
CRACK.
The shaft suddenly came loose.
Blood immediately followed.
The boy recoiled and nearly dropped the arrow.
Nearby, another trainee was trying to recover arrows from a dead wolf.
Each time she pulled one free, wet blood followed the shaft.
Her face became paler with every arrow.
Leon slowly approached his own target.
A goblin.
Dead.
Definitely dead.
He knew that.
Yet his body still refused to believe it.
His hands slowly reached toward the arrow sticking out of its shoulder.
The flesh felt cold.
The realization made his stomach churn again.
This wasn't a training dummy.
This wasn't a target.
It had been alive not long ago.
Leon closed his eyes for a moment.
Then pulled.
The arrow came free with a sickening sound.
For a moment, nobody spoke.
Only the sounds of children working.
The sounds of arrows being pulled from flesh.
The sounds of distant fighting preparations.
The sounds of occasional vomiting.
And above all of it—
The approaching howls of the gnolls.
Back at the frontline, the formation continued changing.
Shield-bearing adventurers moved into the first ranks.
Davion stepped into position near the center, his shield resting against the ground while he studied the approaching enemy.
Alongside him, several veteran polearm users joined the formation.
Long spears.
Halberds.
Glaives.
Weapons designed specifically for stopping charges.
The shield wall thickened.
The spear line deepened.
Every veteran that could still fight moved toward the funnel created by Gayrum's Stone Bastion.
Nobody spoke much.
There was no need.
The veterans had already understood what was coming.
Behind them, children desperately recovered arrows from corpses while trying not to look at the dead faces staring back at them.
Ahead of them, hundreds of gnolls continued advancing through the narrowing stone corridor.
And somewhere in between those two worlds stood the guards and adventurers.
Preparing to stop the next wave.
The gnolls finally began their charge.
Leon noticed it immediately, not because he could see them, but because the atmosphere around him changed.
The guards along the defensive lines suddenly became quieter. Conversations stopped. Orders became shorter. Even the exhausted mages who had been sitting on the ground moments ago slowly pushed themselves back onto their feet.
Something was coming.
Something that had every veteran on the battlefield paying attention.
Leon tightened his grip around the bundle of recovered arrows in his hands and glanced toward the Stone Bastion. The massive walls Gayrum had raised still blocked most of the battlefield from view, leaving only the distant sounds of the approaching horde reaching the recovery teams behind the lines.
The ground trembled.
Not violently.
Just enough for him to feel it beneath his boots.
The vibration continued for several seconds before gradually becoming stronger.
Around him, the other children had noticed it as well.
Some stopped working.
Others looked nervously toward the wall.
Nobody spoke.
The distant pounding of countless feet slowly grew louder.
Leon swallowed.
The goblins had charged while screaming.
The wolves had howled.
The gnolls did neither.
They simply ran.
And somehow, that made them feel even more dangerous.
A nearby guard adjusted his grip on his spear while staring toward the battlefield beyond the wall.
Another shield-bearer moved closer to the defensive line without being told.
Neither looked frightened.
But they certainly didn't look relaxed.
Leon forced himself to continue working.
The village still needed arrows.
That was his job.
Not fighting.
Not standing on the walls.
Not joining the frontline.
Just gathering arrows.
So he crouched beside another goblin corpse and reached for the shaft protruding from its chest.
His fingers hesitated.
The creature's dead eyes stared back at him.
Leon looked away and grabbed the arrow instead.
The shaft slid free with resistance.
A wet sound followed.
His stomach immediately twisted.
A few steps away, another trainee turned pale and vomited into the dirt.
Nobody mocked him.
Nobody even reacted.
Most of them looked just as miserable.
The smell of blood had become overwhelming.
Burned flesh mixed with dirt and sweat.
Corpses lay scattered everywhere.
Some twisted into unnatural positions.
Others looked almost peaceful until Leon noticed the arrows sticking out of their skulls.
This wasn't the glorious adventure he had imagined growing up.
This was war.
A sudden shout broke his concentration.
Leon looked up.
Several guards near the Stone Bastion were staring toward the wall.
At first, he thought they had spotted the gnolls reaching the funnel.
Then he noticed their expressions.
Confusion.
One of the guards stepped closer to the wall.
Another narrowed his eyes.
"What are they doing?" someone muttered.
The question spread through the nearby soldiers.
Leon frowned.
He couldn't see what they were looking at.
The wall blocked everything.
Then he heard it.
A faint scraping sound.
At first, it blended into the distant rumble of the approaching horde.
But once he noticed it, he couldn't ignore it.
The sound came again.
Long.
Rough.
Like claws dragging across stone.
Several nearby children slowly turned toward the wall.
The scraping continued.
And with each passing second, it seemed to be getting closer.
Small pebbles suddenly rolled down the side of the Stone Bastion.
Then came a shower of dirt.
The guards immediately stepped forward.
"Back away from the wall!"
The children didn't need to be told twice.
Leon quickly retreated several steps while keeping his eyes fixed on the towering stone barrier.
The scratching grew louder.
Closer.
Then a claw appeared over the edge.
Several children gasped.
Another claw followed.
Then a furry arm.
The creature hauled itself upward with surprising speed.
A gnoll.
Its head emerged first.
Then its shoulders.
Then its entire body climbed onto the top of the wall.
For a brief moment, it stood there silhouetted against the evening sky.
The monster looked nothing like the goblins.
It was taller than a man.
Lean, muscular, and built like a hunting beast.
Dust covered its fur while its chest rose and fell rapidly.
Its yellow eyes scanned the area below.
Then it spotted the recovery teams.
Leon felt his heart stop.
The gnoll's gaze locked onto him.
Not the guards.
Not the adventurers.
Him.
For a split second, neither moved.
Then the monster jumped.
Several children screamed.
The gnoll crashed into the ground barely a few meters away from Leon.
The impact sent dirt and loose stones flying in every direction.
Leon stumbled backward and fell onto the ground.
The recovered arrows scattered from his hands.
The gnoll landed on all fours before immediately rising to its full height.
Up close, it looked even larger.
Its claws were longer than knives.
Its jaws were filled with yellow fangs stained with blood.
A low growl rumbled from its throat.
Leon froze.
The battlefield suddenly felt very far away.
The guards.
The walls.
The adventurers.
Everything disappeared.
All he could see was the monster standing between him and the nearest line of defenders.
And then, from above the wall, another shower of dirt began falling.