Night Game

The day of the full moon had arrived.

The full moon rising above the mountains was enormous, glowing an eerie red.

There were no clouds in the night sky, so visibility wasn’t too bad.

The soldiers had taken up positions atop the fortress walls, waiting for the monsters to attack.

I wouldn’t be much help in combat, but I stationed myself at the command post anyway.

This was part of my duty as Fortress Lord.

Besides, I was responsible for deciding when to turn on the lights.

I’d been working on them until just fifteen minutes earlier, so I hadn’t had a chance to test whether they would switch on properly.

We’d have to put them to the test in actual combat, but if everything worked as intended, they should give us a considerable advantage.

Rrrrring!

A soldier who answered an intercom call from the watchtower shouted at the top of his lungs.

“Enemy attaaaaaaaaaack!”

So they’d finally arrived.

The tension among the soldiers rose sharply, and I began to feel short of breath myself.

“Fortress Lord, you should take shelter inside.”

General Paimon offered me that advice, but I refused.

I might have been little more than a figurehead, but I was still the Fortress Lord.

If I ran away now, the people of this other world would never open their hearts to me.

“But your legs won’t stop trembling, will they? Would you like me to hold your hand?”

Aine was smiling despite the battle about to begin.

“Don’t embarrass me in front of everyone. More importantly, you and Setia should take shelter inside.”

“No, I would rather stay here and watch you tremble, Fortress Lord. Opportunities like this are exceedingly rare.”

She really was hopeless.

“What about you, Setia?”

“I-I’ll stay here too. You won’t die, Fortress Lord. I-I-I’ll protect you…”

“That’s enough idle chatter. Look, here they come.”

At Karan-san’s warning, I turned toward the wasteland and spotted dark shapes writhing along the distant horizon.

And that wasn’t all.

I could also make out monsters scattered across the night sky.

“Are… are all of those monsters…?”

They looked like an enormous swarm of ants crawling across the ground toward us.

The messenger’s voice rang out again.

“Enemy forces estimated at three thousand!”

That was more than seven times the entire student population of my high school!

Meanwhile, I heard that we had only a little over three hundred soldiers defending the fortress.

“Archers, prepare to fire! Target the flying monsters first! Not yet! Let them come closer!”

General Paimon bellowed her orders in a voice that seemed to reverberate through my stomach.

Amazing. So this was what a general sounded like…

“General, please tell me just before you order the archers to fire. I’ll illuminate the battlefield!”

“…Understood.”

The tense moments dragged on.

Every second felt like dozens of seconds.

Wasn’t it time yet?

Shouldn’t we be attacking already?

As a complete amateur, I waited impatiently for General Paimon’s command, growing more anxious by the moment.

“Fortress Lord, the lights! Now!”

I slammed the switch as though I’d been jolted into action.

The soldiers of the fortress later recalled that moment in these words.

“Night turned into day in an instant! You should’ve seen it! Scared the hell out of me!”

Another officer described it this way.

“I thought it was the legendary spell Ranalute. I’d always believed magic like that existed only in fairy tales… It certainly showed us the power of someone from another world. And in a way none of us could ever have imagined…”

That was just how powerful my lighting system had been.

An ordinary security light provided around 34 lux of illumination, but I’d installed special lights designed for stadiums.

They were the kind used for nighttime baseball and soccer games.

Their brightness? A whopping 26,000 lux!

That was 764 times brighter than an ordinary security light.

And I’d installed six hundred of them along the fortress walls.

Of course it was bright!

Seriously, it looked bright enough to hold a baseball game.

The moment the lights came on, both the humans and monsters had frozen in astonishment.

General Paimon was the first to recover her senses.

“So this is the lighting you were talking about, Fortress Lord…”

“General, the enemy has stopped moving! Now’s our chance!”

“Right! All troops, prepare to fire!”

The general’s voice snapped the soldiers back to their senses.

“With this much light, you should have no trouble aiming. Make every shot count… Fire!”

Countless arrows flew through the air, shooting the flying monsters out of the sky.

“Thanks to you, Fortress Lord, our accuracy has improved dramatically. You have my gratitude!”

The fortress soldiers were picking off their enemies one after another without wasting their arrows.

I see. I’d only been thinking about making the battlefield brighter, but maybe I’d chosen the perfect places to install the lights.

After all, the monsters were facing the powerful beams of light head-on.

The glare must have made it difficult for them to attack.

That probably slowed their movements, leaving them easy targets for our arrows.

And since Gaurea Fortress stood on a sheer cliff, the monsters on the ground couldn’t simply go around us.

From that point onward, the battle became a completely one-sided assault by the fortress defenders.

A soldier staring intently at a monitor shouted.

“Monsters have breached Area 16! Contact the Fourth Unit by intercom and have them respond!”

“Command Headquarters to Fourth Unit. Eliminate the monsters that have entered Area 16.”

“Intercom report from the Seventh Unit! They’re almost out of arrows!”

“Contact the Second Supply Unit and send them over!”

“Monsters are gathering in Area 32! Order the mages to concentrate their fire there!”

Good, good. It looked like every device I’d installed was working perfectly.

I’d heard that battles sometimes lasted several hours, but this one ended in less than an hour.

“Raise the victory cryyyyy!”

At General Paimon’s command, the soldiers atop the walls responded by clashing their weapons together.

“Thank you, Fortress Lord. Even in all my years of service, I’ve never experienced a victory like this. To think we didn’t lose a single soldier!”

“I’m glad I could help!”

There had been a few frightening moments, but we’d gotten through the battle with only injuries.

I was truly relieved that nobody had died.

“Your first battle must have been nerve-racking. Leave the cleanup to us, Fortress Lord. Return to your room and get some rest.”

“Thank you. I’ll gladly take you up on that. To tell you the truth, I’ve reached my limit from all the fear and tension.”

“Hahaha! That’s how everyone’s first battle goes. You did well, Takeru-dono.”

“Huh? Did you just call me by my name…?”

“Would you rather I didn’t? I consider us friends now that we’ve survived the same battlefield together.”

“Of course you can!”

“Then I’d like you to call me Elietta as well.”

“Understood, General Elietta.”

I was delighted to have earned the general’s recognition.

Maybe now I’d finally be able to grow closer to the people of Gaurea.

The soldiers still seemed frightened when I walked past them.

But I felt as though their expressions now held something that hadn’t been there before—a hint of gratitude.

That night, quite a few people smiled at me, even if they still looked a little nervous.

Report by Karan McWell

As detailed in the attached document, our recent defensive battle resulted in an overwhelming victory. Although the Construction Company Job does not contribute directly to combat, we can no longer deny its considerable usefulness.

Requests for the Fortress Lord’s return have been arriving from various quarters, but he himself has not yet expressed any desire to leave. As I have mentioned previously, the Fortress Lord is still in a period of personal development. With his future in mind, I believe the best course of action would be to allow him to continue his studies and gain experience at Gaurea Fortress for a little longer before returning to the royal capital. I respectfully ask that you give this proposal your consideration.