Chapter 92 Dungeon Core: “The Eternal Training Ground”

POV General H

I had just finished my cup of tea when the tent flaps were opened, and my right-hand man walked in. It was refreshing to be properly in charge of the whole army and not have to share leadership with other nations' generals. "Sir, we were just informed that around 8000 adventurers from the dungeon joined the Defense Force of the city last night. It was as you expected."

A smile came to my face. Ace was 200 years too young to play these kinds of games. Preparing extra food and weapons, having places set out for a lot more soldiers than he had, not accepting the full support of the adventurers right away, trying to make it seem that he has a lot fewer soldiers than he actually had access to. On paper, the plan was good, and I admire that he tried, but I have already planned for everything.

It was tough to get the other generals to leave me enough men, but I was almost able to get two times the number of men I needed to take the city. Now, with the extra amount of defenders, I am still in an expected numbers advantage, although I cannot make any blunders.

Fortunately, the few spies and the commander who weren’t loyal enough were eliminated. It was a good thing that testing the walls was a common practice, although as soon as I heard the names of the defensive generals and architects who built the wall, I knew there weren’t going to be any easy solutions to crack this city. But it was an acceptable loss of men to get rid of those troublemakers.

"Call an emergency meeting now," I said to my second in command. After he left, I got my servants to help me put on my armour, and then I left for the command tent. I saw some nervous faces on some of the commanders who were already there.

I remembered those faces and names; they seemed to know how to get information that should not be available to their station. For me, this war, more particularly this siege, will be just another mark on my record, but the reason I accepted this was to find new talents to join me, and it seems like this war was doing exactly what I wanted it to do.

I needed to wait as not everyone had made it here. That was by design. The encirclement of the city was large, and it would take time for people to get here from the other side and a few who were scouting the outer perimeters.

I looked at the map on the table as we waited. The area around us was actually quite perfect for a siege; there wasn’t much meat to be had in this forest, but the industry inside the city needed a lot of berries, so the forest was full of them. While we did have rations, fresh food was always preferred over the rations.

We needed to wait another 10 minutes, but only in 10 minutes, I was able to understand a lot about the commanders underneath me. This was technically the first crisis, and from this, I could see the truly worried commanders and others who were just here because of their noble titles.

I could just feel the indifference coming off them, and some even seemed to purposely not make it here as soon as possible, knowing that they had time because some others were further away. Now, I couldn’t touch these people, although I did want some of them to die, but they would do their job decently enough, and I couldn’t just kill every commander I disliked.

I was pleased to see the last commanders had rushed here and were looking quite tired. Good, they truly tried to arrive as fast as possible. “The situation has changed; we first planned on a full-on assault today, but those plans are now scrapped. They finally saw reason and allowed any adventurer who wanted to join them, and this dungeon does have a lot of them.”

“What changes is the time frame, but not the result. We will start a bombardment, but breaching the walls will be something we don’t have time for. They’re simply too well made and protected by mages.”

“We will still make it look like we are attacking the walls, but our main goal is the buildings behind the walls, as they are the places the soldiers rest and they have their supplies. Unfortunately, this dungeon makes starving the city impossible, and we are ordered not to interrupt the airship port activities.”

"Our second goal is to destroy the siege equipment on the walls. Only when a large portion of them is destroyed will we truly start an assault. Set up for a long siege. I have also messaged the other armies and asked them to slow things down.”

“Now, I do not know the exact plan this city's Lord Ace has, but I am guessing that he wants to drag this out until other kingdoms start putting pressure on us to lift the siege. This cannot happen, so I want everyone to do their jobs to the best of their ability and also start training your troops so they will actually know how to take walls."

There were a few questions, but they were all standard. I left with everyone else and walked towards the city to look at it. I was glad about the efficiency I saw. In half an hour, catapults were moved into place, and we started the bombardment.

I looked at my timepiece and saw that it only took them a minute and a half to start firing back. That was extremely good for them. It was almost a shame that those good soldiers would probably be dead in a few months.

Like always during a siege, time moved interestingly. Once, I even hired a time mage to make sure that it was just my imagination, which unfortunately it was. Time still moved without changing, but I could swear that sometimes days went by in a snap while other times they just didn't end.

This was the same here; we continued the bombardment, and like I expected, we were able to barely damage the walls. The rest of the city and their siege equipment didn't fare so well. If things continued like that, from the two-month siege, we only had two months left to go before we could assault the city successfully.

What I was worried about was how good the defending soldiers seemed. I hadn’t even seen or heard about any morale troubles, but my spies seem to think that it's because of the dungeon itself. It seems to be a bit different, and people who come out of it seem a lot more competent than they should. They were still losing soldiers; however, it was hard to tell how many, but I’m pretty sure the ratio is in our favour.

The last two months, the average for us had been fifty soldiers lost every day, which is not a good or a bad number. This daily bleeding is a lot worse for them because they have fewer soldiers.

The defending army always had the advantage thanks to their defensive structures. That was also why it was important to get rid of their siege equipment, as currently, we had a 1/3 ratio, and while this should mean victory for us, it was not guaranteed, as I have seen what proper defensive weapons could be.

It only took another month and a half before I could feel it. The city was ready to crack, and I was going to be the wedge that made it happen. I could still see the smoke coming off the embers of the burnt-down part of the city.

Four days ago, we were finally successful in getting a large portion of the city to be engulfed in flames. They were eventually able to contain the blaze, but it took them three days and a lot of manpower. It would have been a perfect time to attack, but then the city would have burned down, and it was uncomfortably close to breaking the rules of war.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case after they had contained the fire. During this time, we didn't let up in our bombardment, and we were able to destroy a lot more siege equipment than I had ever hoped.

The air was still filled with the smell of smoke, but it somehow felt correct that this day would be this city's last. I looked towards the left and right to see all the soldiers ready for the assault. They had been doing that for two months now, every morning fully preparing to assault but never doing so. Today would be different.

"Order a full assault," I said to my second in command, who looked at me in surprise but quickly nodded. He ran off, and it didn't take long for horns to be heard. I could see the shock on the soldiers' faces, but it quickly changed into determination.

It took the defenders a little longer to sound their own horns, and that was a good sign. The bombardment still happened even when the soldiers started to move forward. The bombardment will only stop when the soldiers get close enough to the walls so we will not kill our own soldiers.

Everything was going as expected, and I could see the worry on the soldiers' faces who were defending the walls. Then, all of a sudden, a tremendous amount of mana and presence burst out of the ground, and as quickly as it came, it left.

"What was that?" I asked my second in command, but he was as clueless as me. My only guess was the dungeon, but never had I known a dungeon to retract its presence. Should I call off this assault?

No, we had already gotten the Kingdom to the talking table, and they will be surrendering any day now. If the Kingdom surrenders, this city will declare its independence, and that would be troublesome. Plus, it will leave an unpleasant mark on my record.