The Runesmith

‘The scale is different when you see it up close, I can’t imagine how this would look if the whole army from the kingdom went to battle…’

Roland was impressed by the sight of the wooden soldiers standing in formation. His side amounted to around twenty thousand while the opposition thirty. The enemy nation of the Woodlanders was slowly leaving a large forest area and gathering on a large plane where the final fight would be taking place.

Most of the soldiers were wearing full plate armor which hid their wooden parts from showing. The mounted units were the most armored and to the sides of the formation as he didn’t want to impede their mobility by sticking them into the middle of the formation. In the front was a regiment of archers that were behind a temporary barricade. This was assembled by a row of carriages that carried a lot of rubble and would protect them from being rushed by cavalry.

All the golems that he had created during this whole war were also here. This amounted to ten spider tanks and thirty smaller spider drones. While their numbers weren’t large, they could produce a lot of mayhem on an open field with so many enemy soldiers. Then besides these runic machines, some of the archers were equipped with portable cannons that were very similar to modern mortars.

‘How much time did I spend making the ammunition for those?’

His eyes twitched a little bit as he saw his soldiers bringing out the mortars. They used proper ammunition that consisted of either regular cannonballs or mostly hollow runic variants. The latter were the ones that he forced himself to produce whenever he had the chance to. While both sides had mages to assist in ranged warfare his side was somewhat more advanced.

When looking at the numbers the enemies seemed superior in many ways. The composition was similar and the formations they took were not that much different. What would normally be the deciding factor was the equipment or the strategy if there were no other advantages. Considering that they were going to battle out on an open field the other side was more likely to be victorious.

‘There wasn’t much time to prepare but we did manage to set a few surprises for them, but will they just take the bait?’

If there was an option he would have liked to have several days to plant explosives all over the place and then just have the enemies rush into them. This tactic had worked for him even back in the real world where he could trap thieves and even a powerful Lich. However, without being able to use the bunkering up method he needed to think of something else. For this, he decided to use more modern ways and use the ranged advantage along with his ace in the hole, the runic batteries.

‘It won’t be long, I should start moving too.’

While he was the commanding officer of this whole army it didn’t mean that he would be passive. Roland was the most important part of this whole plan as his job was to keep the enemy leader busy. His large form was coming into view and was it something that gave him the shivers. Even though this was his first time really seeing the Woodlander Lord Commander, the large mace he was holding had left an impact.

It was the last thing he remembered of the confrontation during his first trial attempt. The Lord Commander was still a wooden person but the large black armor that he was wearing made him look like the end boss from a video game. He strutted out behind a large regiment of mounted units that he towered over. His steed looked a lot bigger than the rest and was also wearing armor over its black wooden figure.

‘He must be at least as big as the Guild Master…’

The distance between the two was too great to do an identification check of his level. But considering that this was his last enemy it wouldn’t be strange if his level was over a hundred fifty. His body was covered from head to toe by that menacing-looking armor and his weapon of choice was a huge mace that would normally be used in two hands. On his left side, he also had a large tower shield that seemed to be engraved with some magical symbols.

‘I guess he also has some form of magical armor, I should expect him to have some protective spells that might be able to reflect my own spells, this probably won’t be easy.’

There were several things that he had to think about when facing this enemy leader. One was that in his previous attempt, he was able to defeat Roland already. It was probably not a fair duel but this wasn’t one either. If it was possible then it would be best to isolate the black knight away from his aids to take him out. His armor was a swiss army knife of magical weapons that could adapt to most situations. Even if something had magical protection, it was possible to use outside means that went around such defenses.

When looking at the form of his enemy he glanced at his own steed. For some reason, he was able to level up his own riding skill. At first, he wondered if he should design his own golem that he could ride but due to time constrictions he decided against it. Something like a bike or armored vehicle sounded nice but designing it and making it with his current skills would take multiple months of work.

Instead, he decided to just upgrade his horse's armoring into a runic one. While the horse was not capable of casting any spells, this didn’t matter. Roland had the required skills to use runic devices from a distance. He could command his golems and also activate the small turrets on the horse armor he made. They were powered by runic battery packs that made his horse into a moving cannon. Some of his cavalry commanders were in possession of similar armoring which could aim at its own as a golem could.

Just like with all of his creations, they were limited by his time here. Luckily in the ending stages of this trial, everything had become somewhat automated and he could focus on bolstering his runic war machines. If there was more time or some help from other runesmiths, he could see each and every soldier wearing armor with a runic battery and a shoulder-mounted cannon as a side weapon.

There were many ways of integrating his magical weapons into an army and if he reached tier 3 and was capable of miniaturizing the batteries, then he could see it as a change in magical warfare. As it stood now there was no true renewable energy source and using mana fluid out in the field wasn’t that safe. Just like he once tried with his golem the fluid or its crystallized form could get overloaded and explode. His batteries could be created in metallic form and depended more on the quality of the runes with no danger of an explosion happening even if they were struck during combat.

‘I guess I’ll think about that stuff when this is over.’

“My Lord, the enemy is on the move!”

“I can see that, they won’t even try to talk this through, seems like they were really designed to just be a force of nature…”

Roland spoke out while one of his commanders informed him about the enemy moving forward. His allied commanders came from the Kindling faction that he conquered and the Foresters nodded at his words before moving to their own forces. Everything had been discussed beforehand within a lot of meetings and it was up to him to decide on the right tactic. The trial didn’t really force him to come up with his own but instead gave him the power to decide on the right one for the occasion. Now it was up to his decision to decide the fate of all these soldiers and if he would be victorious.

“Wait for them to get in range of the cannons!... Fire!”

He watched as the battle played out and it was quite a sight to behold. First of all, the war mages were assembled in a standard military battle formation. They were constantly casting spells to produce protective veils of magic around their soldiers. This somewhat protected them from the magical blasts produced by his runic spider tanks, mortars, and battle mages.

Yet, these spells weren’t meant to last for long. They were good at blocking simple arrows but not large cannon blasts. Soon Roland was able to see some of the wooden men explode into large chunks and smaller splinters. If they were actual human beings made of flesh and bones the sight would probably be something that would haunt him for the coming nights. This was true war, it wasn’t pretty and these wooden men were quite vocal about it.

‘They aren’t real, it’s just a test made by magic, nothing more than an illusion…’

This fake representation of war felt quite real, some of the enemy combatants were quite loud in their moments of demise. Even though they were getting blasted they continued to pour into the range of the archers and even the few explosive traps that his army managed to place around this open space.

The battle was unfolding before him but it was not yet time for him to get involved. As the strongest unit on the battlefield, he needed to wait for his true opponent to make his move. If the enemy Lord Commander decided to run away then this whole move would have been for naught.

‘Just as expected, he is going in… the rumors were true, he is supposed to be a battle maniac type.’

Before this whole scenario was played out he made sure to analyze what he was going up against. The enemy leader was hyper-aggressive and always surrounded himself with many powerful units. He also seemed to love getting involved in the fights he always steamrolled his opponents. Judging by his bulky size it was obvious that he was some kind of special unit that was good at close-ranged combat.

For someone like Roland that preferred his magical attacks to do most of the work, this was a troublesome opponent. If he managed to get in range, then he would be putting himself at a disadvantage. However, he had his own advantage over this brutish knight that was at this moment swatting soldiers away like flies with that big mace of his.

‘Well then, here goes nothing… Let's end all of this…’

His army charged to meet the enemies and he was right behind them. Roland wasn’t sure why but he didn’t feel as much fear as he expected. The scenes of the soldiers battling for their lives just to carry out his orders were quite vivid. Perhaps he had gotten used to all of this after regularly going from one battlefield to another or perhaps it was all due to his brain interpreting everything as an illusion.

The reason didn’t really matter but without fear, his actions would not be impeded and he would be able to focus on the large black knight charging toward his location. To both his sides, two enemy wooden men with hook-like weapons attempted to forcefully dismount him from his horse. Yet before they were able to get in range they were blasted away by the small runic turrets attached to his horse’s barding.

Even the ones that were able to deflect these blasts were pushed away by the thick magical shield that surrounded his entire body. The thick barding that covered the wooden horse was able to enhance its stats just like Roland’s armor. While his speed advantage was apparent this was not a race, with so many bodies lying around and wooden soldiers in combat it was hard to maneuver around the place.

Some of the spider drones surrounded him as a layer of defense. Their magical cannons rained down at anyone stupid enough to get too close to the Lord Commander. Yet even with this much support soon enough he was swinging his pole weapon around to knock some of them away. The whole field had devolved into a massive melee with the ranged troops having to hold back their bombardment in fear of hitting their own side. Their main goal thus became to keep the magical troops busy.

Thus the time for the final confrontation was also upon him. A group of armored wooden soldiers flew to the sides as the enemy commander finally appeared close to him. Roland instantly activated both of his shoulder-mounted cannons to shoot fire-type spells at his foe. To his dismay the large wooden man clad in dark armor didn’t react as he didn’t have to. The fire arrow spells that collided with his armor were absorbed by something without producing damage.

‘Mana dispersing shield? Isn’t that a borderline tier 3 spell?’

There were several types of elemental shield spells. They had their strong and weak points which forced their users to adapt during combat. With his custom Runic Armor Roland was able to quickly switch between shielding effects depending on the situation. However, there existed a higher-tier spell that did all of that on its own. The mana-dispersing shield spell was able to break down the attack at its core. It was a universal shield that worked well against all elemental types.

‘None of the spies reported on something like this, did he upgrade into a better armor before this fight, or was he hiding it for this occasion? Maybe my presence was a trigger for it to appear?'

Roland did his best at handling the intelligence unit of his army but even it wasn’t perfect. It was possible for his enemy to have gained this special armor before this battle or that the trial decided to throw a monkey wrench before the test ended. Nevertheless, he had to win it at all costs and the shield was still beatable just like all the other spells, it would run out of mana to sustain it.

‘If there is something I’m good at, then it's not running out of mana easily…’

First of all, came a bunch of marbles. One of his oldest classes, the Runic Mana Scribe, came to the forefront. In each of the round orbs, there was a small parchment with an exploding rune in it. While it might have seemed cowardly from the outside, he didn’t see himself winning an upfront fight with the monster he was fighting. As he examined his level he made sure to toss a handful of these exploding marbles at him while also barely evading the large mace he was swinging around.

Name:

Wooden Lord Commander L 200

Classes

Wooden Warrior L 25

Wooden Soldier L 25

Wooden Soldier Captain L50

Wooden Lord Commander L 100

At first it looked like some kind of bug. The Lord commander from the Woodlanders had a hundred levels in a tier 2 class which allowed him to reach a level that was above Rolands. Something like that would not have been possible in the real world or not even sought after. Yet his opponent was just created to be the last stepping stone for his trial. His stats were above Rolands and a direct approach was not possible but with the help of his various weapons, he would be victorious.

Thus the cat-and-mouse game between the two lord commanders had started. Which one was the cat and which one was the mouse was unclear but no one from the soldiers could really be of much help. Wherever the two ran to, magical explosions and destruction followed suit. Roland’s magic created small craters while the giant mace from the Woodlander Commander tore into anyone that was stupid enough to get in his way. Soon enough the two had pushed through their forces to the side where there was no ongoing carnage.

“Shit…”

Roland had exhausted his explosives and even had to abandon his mount. The moment he broke through the active battlefield to one side a large mace came flying. It connected with the wooden horse and created a massive dent in the metallic armor it was wearing. The wooden creature was dead on the spot as various wooden parts of it just fell down to the ground along with its now motionless body.

Luckily his enemy wasn’t doing much better. The dark knight's own mount was not protected by the same mana-dispersing shield. It had also drawn its last breath and collapsed right as its master had thrown the mace forward. To Roland’s surprise, this weapon wasn’t a simple battle implement. The moment the enemy commander raised his hand it was drawn to it. As if a big magnet was sucking it in, the mace flew back into his hand.

With a stomp of his feet, he produced a spike of earth that shot toward his approaching enemy. Yet with one swing of that giant mace, he was able to crush the hard magical rock that he produced. Various other spells were activated but the brute continued to take all of them without even flinching, the magical shield seemed to be still working which gave Roland quite the scare.

‘Hm?’

Suddenly when the distance between them was less than ten meters he noticed something. His mana sense picked up on it the moment he saw some of the magical flames connecting with the dark metal the wooden soldier was encased in.

“Took long enough.”

He shouted out while seeing that his chance had finally come. The game around the battlefield was in place to slowly whittle down those magical defenses. Even the best magical gear had some type of limiting factor. Even his own runic equipment would burn through the metal or not work if his mana reserves ran out. His keen eye of the runesmith identified the material it was made of and by his calculations, the charges for the defensive shields were now at critical levels.

“I’m glad that you aren’t the smart type, otherwise luring you over here would have been impossible.”

After shouting out those words he pointed out with his hand towards the large armored enemy who was already charging at his location. The mace was close to turning his head into meat paste just like before. Yet before it could reach it once more a plethora of metallic cables shot out from the ground to entangle each and every limb along with the one holding on to the weapon that once killed him…