Liese Fortress

We'll pull the Sixth Knight Order back for now.

At Rays-sama's direction, we were assigned to keep watch over southwestern Ludeck for a while. It was only natural, really.

Franklurt's withdrawal meant we had won, but this had been a battle that could easily have turned into a major defeat if we had made one wrong move.

Wickhart-sama was also deeply depressed. Even to an amateur like me, it was obvious that maintaining morale would be extremely difficult.

This battle had also raised questions about Wickhart-sama's qualifications as a commander. Apparently, he might be forced to decide whether to remain in command when he returned to the royal capital.

Personally, I hoped the matter would be settled peacefully. After all, Laimar-san had risked his life to save him.

In any case, our Tenth Knight Order would take over the watch in the southwest for the time being. Rotating the knight orders would take at least two months, even if everything went quickly, and Liese Fortress would serve as our temporary home.

Liese Fortress lay southeast of the Haksha Plains, in a place where, depending on the wind, one could even feel the sea breeze.

It was a large fortress built to watch over the area around the Haksha Plains while also keeping watch for attacks from the coast. It was called a fortress, but it contained shops serving the soldiers and homes belonging to civilians who made their living there, so it was hardly different from a town.

No wonder it was called the key to southwestern Ludeck.

"Well? Having fun? It's been five days since we arrived, but you're acting like a child." Frain teased me as I looked around the fortress in wide-eyed curiosity.

Well, even so, ordinary people normally can't get into a place like this. I have to burn it into my memory.

"We're going to live here for two months, you know." Ryuzel cut in, sounding a little exasperated.

I had become very close to Ryuzel through this incident. Frain and Ryuzel had already gotten along fairly well, so lately the three of us often spent time together.

"That's true, but... Have you two been here many times?"

"Not that often, but whenever Golbel soldiers come around here, or when we attack from this direction, we usually stop by. It doesn't hold any special significance for us."

"Well, whether you like it or not, you'll be coming here often from now on." We continued talking as we entered the central part of the fortress.

The command room and the soldiers' quarters were concentrated in this area, and the Sixth Knight Order was currently in the middle of a massive cleanup.

I didn't know what duties the Sixth Knight Order would be assigned in the future, but they had spent a long time keeping watch toward the west from Liese Fortress. They must have accumulated a great deal of personal property.

Each knight order had a warehouse apart from its living quarters, but since there was no guarantee they would return, they couldn't simply leave everything behind.

As a result, the buildings were now in an uproar and utterly chaotic, all so the next knight order could move into the fortress smoothly.

We wanted to help, but the Sixth Knight Order had gently declined our offer.

They must have had many feelings about leaving the land they had protected for so long. We didn't insist, and after securing the minimum living space we needed, we left the rest to the Sixth Knight Order.

Besides, Golbel had only just retreated. It was unlikely they would immediately turn around and come back, so although we remained watchful, there was little tension.

In other words, we were bored. So, guided by Ryuzel and Frain, I toured the fortress to pass the time.

"Ah! Roa!" Amid the bustle of soldiers hurrying back and forth, someone called out to me from a distance. When I turned around, I saw a familiar soldier running toward me.

"Good, I found you. Rays-sama was looking for you!"

"Oh! All right. I'll go right away. Thanks for letting me know. Ryuzel, Frain, see you later!"

"Yeah, don't get lost," Frain called after me as I hurried toward the command room where Rays-sama was waiting.

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When I entered the command room, a large soldier was standing there looking awkward and out of place.

"Dick!" When I called out to him, his expression relaxed slightly. The only others present were Rays-sama, Granz-sama, and Lapiria-sama—the usual group.

"You came." Unlike Dick, Rays-sama looked relaxed as he turned toward me. I apologized for being late, then looked back at Dick.

Dick had not accompanied the main force when it arrived the other day. The fact that he was here now could only mean one thing.

"So... it's the bottled goods, isn't it?"

"That's right. As an experiment, we brought some bottled goods along with part of the food supply. Since we were worried about the Sixth Knight Order this time, the main force marched in a hurry. The baggage train finally arrived today."

"I see. Dick, good work."

As we exchanged words of appreciation, Lapiria-sama cut in:

"Enough of that. Let's go see the results!" she said. The corners of her mouth were slightly raised, probably because the jam might have arrived.

As it turned out, Lapiria-sama had prepared several batches of special jam exclusively for herself, calling it Lapiria Blend. She had shared a little with me, and it was an elaborate jam with a floral fragrance. Apparently, she enjoyed putting it in tea and other drinks.

She had said, "It was impossible to make it on the battlefield, so I'm glad we can bring it with us," and now Lapiria-sama had a shelf of her own firmly secured in the storage area.

So, naturally, we all went to check what had happened to the bottled goods.

The bottled goods had been quietly stored in wooden crates inside the Tenth Knight Order's warehouse, along with the other field rations we had brought.

The result was...

"They're broken... This one too... and this one... no good either..."

We had filled the boxes with plenty of sawdust to keep the bottles from striking one another, using it as cushioning, but even so, about a third of the bottles had been damaged.

The ones that had broken earliest had already begun to spoil, and their smell had seeped into the sawdust.

"The ones that aren't broken look fine at a glance." Rays-sama held the bottles up to the light to check their condition.

The storage itself had gone well, but the problem was transportation.

"So... the problem is the roads after all."

Rays-sama picked up on my mutter.

"After all? What do you mean by that? Do you have another interesting idea?"

"Not just in Ludeck—most roads are narrow and bumpy, aren't they? Thinking ahead, couldn't we make them wider and flatter?"

"What are you talking about? Wouldn't that make it easier for the enemy to invade?"

"No, we don't need to widen the roads near the border. If we built large, wide roads from the royal capital to the major cities, wouldn't reinforcements be able to arrive faster?"

In response to Lapiria-sama's question, I answered, "That's true, but..." She looked troubled.

There were also problems involving the budget and manpower, so it wasn't as simple as that.

"Between you and me, a plan to improve the roads has actually been proposed," Rays-sama said. Apparently, a civil official with a head for business had suggested diverting the manpower currently being used to reinforce the fortress toward road construction.

That official apparently wanted to begin by improving the road between Ludecktrad and the port of Gadeland. He was arguing that connecting the royal capital to the port would stimulate the economy even further.

The reason the plan wasn't moving forward was the question of whether it was worth diverting manpower from the military, along with the question of how to pay for it.

"As for preservation, bottled goods are beginning to show promise. Then, if we consider the profits from bottled goods against the cost of improving the roads..." Rays-sama sank completely into a sea of thought and muttered to himself.

Once he got like this, our voices wouldn't reach him for a while, so we each passed the time inspecting the bottled goods.

"I suppose we'll have to ask Drew after all."

"Ah, so the person you mentioned earlier was Drew?" He had mentioned a civil official with a head for business, so I had suspected as much.

"You know him?"

"We're not especially close, but he's famous among fellow civil officials. Drew the eccentric."

"You're eccentric enough yourself, reading about wars night after night," Lapiria-sama needled, but I ignored her. She kicked me in the thigh.

"I see. He certainly is unusual, but he has foresight. In any event, I'll need to consult the king about whether to tell Drew about the bottled goods. Naturally, we also need to think of a way to transport them without breakage, apart from improving the roads."

With Rays-sama's final remark, the problem of transporting the bottled goods became an assignment for each of us, and the day came to an end.