89. Ready to Take the Blow

"Oh, this..."

"Great Elder, many people have already been assigned to keep watch outside, and there are not enough hands left in the village. Go and organize them; they can do it too. In the past, they all came through like this."

"Very well, then I will spare the courtesy. There really are not enough hands in the village right now. Even the women and some of the children have gone to help. Should I call your warriors as well?"

"Of course. They will obey your orders. Just give them their tasks clearly."

By then the berserker cavalry had already come out. Rising early each day for training was something they had to do. Hearing Mo Fei's words, they all leaped down from their beast mounts, adjusted the giant battle axes and massive crossbows on their backs, and walked up to the four elders. Today, they would take lumbering as a form of training.

The four elders led them toward the forest not far from the village. With their help, the work would move much faster.

At that moment, Mo Fei activated the magic array again. Kane was still the first to run out, but following close behind was Elder Off, bringing a large group of dwarf craftsmen, each of them carrying a heavy bundle of supplies. It looked quite weighty.

"Elder, what is all this?" Mo Fei asked when he saw that the last dwarf out had even brought the oversized forging hammer used for making armor and equipment. "You brought your whole household with you, intending to...?"

"Your Maj—oh, young master." Elder Off nearly let the word slip. Mo Fei glared at him at once.

"Oh, young master, it's like this. I think there must be many mineral deposits and such over here as well. But there isn't anyone here who knows how to work them, so I figured they didn't have the things they needed. If we only went to our side to seize them, in truth things like iron ore can be found even in the sea, so there is no way they wouldn't have them here too. So I brought some people over. I refuse to believe we won't find what we need." In fact, Elder Off knew very well that underground deposits like these would eventually be mined dry one day. Since they were here now, they might as well search this side as well.

"Do as you please. What else can I say? Only, how much equipment did you bring this time? There are nearly three thousand grown bull-headed warriors here who need to be armed. Otherwise, when the next great battle comes, we'll suffer too many losses."

"Only three thousand?" Elder Off drew a long face. "I brought nearly six thousand sets of heavy armor and weapons. Besides, with so few people, bearfolk can muster armies of over a million. Young master, what exactly is this...?"

"Elder, look at this place. Could a million troops even be deployed here? It would already be very difficult to make use of even thirty or fifty thousand at once."

Elder Off looked around and relaxed a little. "A place of mountains and forests like this really is hard for large armies to deploy in. No wonder you only wanted two thousand cavalry and didn't ask for more... ah, cavalry? Are cavalry really useful in places like this? You ought to bring elven crossbowmen here instead. This kind of terrain is their world!"

At last, Elder Off understood the issue.

"Of course cavalry is useless," Mo Fei said bluntly.

"Then..."

"Use them as infantry. Our berserkers mount magical beasts and they become death cavalry; dismount them and they are still death infantry. I am not worried in the least about any change in their fighting power. As for the elven crossbowmen you mentioned, I did think about it, but I also feel that their elven kingdom has only just begun to recover. Bringing them all over at once would probably not be appropriate. Let's use our own people first and see how things go!"

"That is true." Elder Off also deeply admired the combat ability of these berserkers.

"And what about their beast mounts?" Elder Off asked again.

"Let them keep up when needed in battle. If we encounter plains or the like, then they can serve as cavalry. I simply don't believe this continent is all forest and mountains."

Mo Fei smiled. "I like mountains. That's where the things I want are."

Elder Off laughed heartily. "Young master, if you've summoned the death cavalry this time, does that mean you intend to make a grand move?"

"They've come to our side twice from the Demon Isle. This time it is our turn to give them a taste of their own medicine."

Mo Fei's words carried a murderous chill, a tyrannical aura like that of a king.

...

In truth, this continent was not an island, nor was it called the Demon Isle. It was called the Huron Continent. It was called the Demon Isle only because the people on that other continent had never once come here. In the great war a hundred years ago, the bearfolk had not yet fully evolved into human form. Most of them still bore short black fur on their faces, and they were ferocious beyond measure in battle. Having come across the sea aboard enormous ships, the ancestors of the people on Mo Fei's continent had called them demons, and named their homeland the Demon Isle.

Thinking back to how the Demon Isle had invaded his own side twice before, killing and burning with reckless delight, Mo Fei felt a surge of anger. He had missed the first time, but the second had nearly driven him mad. The empire had only just been founded, and there were expenses everywhere, yet once those Demon Isle bastards arrived, all of that money had been poured into the Flying Dragon Empire.

The thought only deepened the fire in Mo Fei's chest. If he did not crush these people into bankruptcy and send them begging across the continent, then nothing about this would make sense.

Still, Mo Fei also understood that destroying such a vast race outright was impossible. The only way was to slowly wear down their strength and hinder their development. In that way, when the bearfolk wished to sail out again in the future, they would have to think much more carefully about whether their own nest was still safe.

What needed to be done now was to find a secure place for these bull-headed people, and for those who would join them in the future. Yet building a castle here was not likely. This place had mountains and sea everywhere. It seemed he would need Elder Off to take a look. Somehow, they had to devise a way to build a fortress easy to defend and hard to assault.

Without further thought, Mo Fei sent for Off. As soon as they met, he said, "Elder, no matter what method you use, you must build this place up. Best if it can become a military stronghold as easy to defend and hard to attack as the City of Death. I am troubling you with this, Elder."

As soon as he finished speaking, before Elder Off could react, Mo Fei hurried out of the cottage, circled behind it, and disappeared from sight.

It took Elder Off quite a while to recover. Seeing that Mo Fei had vanished, he sighed inwardly. Alas, what sort of master had he ended up with? If it wasn't mountains, it was forest. And the bull-headed people he'd just seen were pitifully few. Even if they built a fortress like the City of Death, there would be no one to guard it. Sigh. He had come here to suffer, and now he was to labor like a beast of burden again.

Sighing and complaining, Elder Off left Mo Fei's little cottage. As he walked toward the mountain, deep in thought, he meant to study the terrain before deciding how to develop this place.

Hidden behind the cottage, Mo Fei watched Elder Off head up the mountain, then ran back to his own cabin. Sigh. Was he, the city lord and emperor, being a little too much?

"Brother, Elder Off looked so pitiful just now!" Ai Lin and the others had been in the house the whole time. When Mo Fei had slipped out, they had watched as the dazed Elder Off failed to notice their presence and walked away.

"I've also looked around this mountain. In fact, making it a place easy to defend and hard to attack is not impossible. As long as more huge boulders are set up at the main mountain road entrance, just a hundred or so people could hold it easily. There's no need to make such a fuss."

"Vivian, you mean the other places can't get in here?" Mo Fei had been busy organizing people as soon as he arrived. Vivian and Ai Lin, meanwhile, had already gone everywhere to play as soon as they came. He had only seen the stretch near the mountain road entrance himself.

"The past few days you've been so busy that you had no time to accompany us, so we went wandering on our own. We had never seen mountains this tall on our own continent. The mountain was great fun. Looking from high up, everything looked different, and the sea from the summit was truly magnificent!"

After catching her breath, Vivian continued, "We've gone almost everywhere around this village. The only place we haven't been is the forest, because people are always there cutting wood. In fact, the village can only be entered by that one narrow path into the mountains. Everywhere else is cliffs, and there are many magical beasts. I don't think the bearfolk could possibly come in from those places."

While the two were speaking, a bull-headed warrior rushed in from outside. "Young master, something's wrong!"

Am I not already in the middle of things? Mo Fei thought irritably. Out loud he said, "Young master will be fine. Tell me what happened slowly; don't be anxious."

"They've come... many of them."

Many people had come, and Mo Fei grew tense at once. There were only those three thousand people on the mountain. If they did not fight and hold the line, Mo Fei was not afraid anything would happen. What he feared was that these bull-headed people might act on impulse and throw everything into a reckless charge.

"Where are your men?" Mo Fei asked urgently.

"They're still guarding the mountain, young master. You said last time that without your orders, no one was allowed to go out, only to hold the line to the death. So none of them dared to attack. They're still up on the mountain."

Mo Fei did not remember when he had said that. Perhaps he had spoken offhandedly at the time. "Have the bearfolk begun assaulting the mountain?"

"No."

"No?" Mo Fei was troubled. "If they haven't, then what are you telling me for?"

"They came with many, many people, so..."

"Many, many people? How many exactly? Have you checked?" Mo Fei grew even more vexed. If anyone had reported to him like this on his own continent, he would have beaten them senseless.

"The young master said not to attack, so..."

Not to launch a premature assault, because he feared these bull-headed people would fall into the bearfolk's trap in their haste. What the bullfolk needed now was to build up strength, not waste it. But what Mo Fei had not expected was that these people could not even manage the most basic scouting. Sigh.