The map depicted the whole mountain, along with the square location the hidden village was in, and even the fake village, too. It also showcased the periter of trees surrounding it.
Lines and symbols marked routes Ludwig hadn’t seen, and the more he stared, the more he realized how deliberate the settlent’s layout was. The "fake village" wasn’t an accident. It was bait. The hidden village was a heart behind ribs. And the tree periter wasn’t just trees; it was infrastructure, a living wall designed to guide or misguide.
There were so symbols that Ludwig didn’t understand next to the tree periter. So he asked, "What are those?"
"Defense chanism, they’re disorienting and confusion wards, to chase away unwanted people. And invite those who co without hostility, been serving us for a while."
Damra traced the symbols with a thick finger as if following a spine. Ludwig’s eyes narrowed. Disorientation wards were common. What wasn’t common was an invitation function, sothing that decided who was "hostile" before they even arrived. That ant the ward wasn’t passive. It was reading intent, or at least reading behavior patterns and reacting.
"I see. But it’s quite awkward that you invite others into a place full of soothsayers," Ludwig said.
He rembered the laughter in the dark. The way corpses turned their heads. The blue fla reflecting eyes. Inviting anyone into that without warning sounded like madness or cruelty.
"Whenever the periter is breached, we get notified. I usually rush down to help those who wander in. The Soothsayers can be considered as another form of defense."
That explanation didn’t comfort Ludwig, but it clarified the system: lure them in, intercept them, drag them through the ripple gate before the mountain ate them. If you failed, you added another effigy to the slope. The mountain didn’t waste bodies.
Ludwig nodded as he stared at the periter so more, "Can the ward be changed?"
His mind was already moving ahead. If the ward could invite, it could also funnel. If it could confuse, it could trap. If it could notify, it could signal. A good ward wasn’t just defense; it was battlefield control.
"That’s where the logs co from," he pushed a small booklet toward Ludwig.
"The protective periter was built by one of ours, a long ti ago, before he disappeared. We don’t know if he climbed or if he returned to Earth. But he gave instructions on how to change the wards to a more offensive structure. Unfortunately, we Ogres aren’t very bright when it cos to magic."
The booklet looked handled often despite the admission, edges worn, ink faded in spots where fingers had traced the sa lines again and again, trying to make sense of them. Ludwig accepted it carefully, like taking a weapon you didn’t know how to wield yet.
"No need to worry, I have so knowledge about magic, let see," Ludwig said as he read through the logs.
He leaned over the table, letting bonfire light wash across the page. The letters were written with the blunt practicality of soone who didn’t care about style, only function, short instructions, diagrams, conditions, and warnings. Ludwig’s eyes moved fast, scanning patterns, translating the system into sothing usable.
There was a full description of how the wards worked and the thod to activate them. And even change them, after giving it more reading, Ludwig seed to realize sothing quite interesting.
It wasn’t just warding. It was a design philosophy. A network. A machine built out of trees and runes and intention. Ludwig’s heartbeat, still too alive in this orc body, picked up slightly as his brain recognized the elegance.
’This is... quite impressive," he muttered.
"Do you understand it?"
"Yes, I can even modify it; it’s very impressive. It doesn’t use mana normally; it doesn’t even need to be supplied with mana. It’s like an almost self-sustaining system that absorbs magic from those that it traps. Although it’s been weakened a lot..." Ludwig said.
The "self-sustaining" part mattered. In a siege, the mana supply beca a bottleneck. A ward that fed itself from intruders turned the enemy into fuel. That was the kind of cruelty Ludwig respected because it was effective.
"How co?" Damra asked.
"One of its main sources of magic is the people who wander around. Its goal is to absorb a portion of their mana without them knowing, and it uses it to further empower itself."
Ludwig tapped a section of the booklet where the diagram showed flow arrows, mana in, mana stored, mana redirected. He could almost see it operating: strangers feel a tug, a fog in the head, a step taken wrong, a loop walked twice, and all the while the ward quietly drinks.
"And has it stopped working?"
"Not completely. I didn’t sense it when I got here, but I think I understand why it isn’t functioning properly."
Damra’s expression tightened. If the ward was weakened, then the safe lands weren’t just threatened by the Red King’s army. They were threatened by their own failing shield.
"And what might be the case?" Damra asked.
"When did the revival of beings that died on the mountain stop?"
"Hmm, around when that naked Orc attacked us."
"No wonder," Ludwig said, "I think that he’s the reason for the effigies. That’s what’s weakening the barrier. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to get rid of them. Those vines that grow from the mountain..." Ludwig sighed.
The effigies weren’t just corpses. They were mana sinks. Or worse, mana anchors feeding sothing else. If the ward relied on wanderers to provide energy and the mountain was now keeping those wanderers in vine prisons instead of letting cycles reset them, then the ward’s ecosystem was broken.
A parasite had hijacked the system.
"Let’s focus on what we can do," Damra said.
He said it like a man cutting away panic before it spread. Worrying about things you couldn’t fix was luxury. They had one day.
"You’re right, and so far I see one way we can win this war," Ludwig said.
His finger hovered above the map without touching yet, tracing routes in the air, where an army would march, where it would bottleneck, where the fogline would eat it if forced to fight at night.
"And what might that be?" Damra asked.
Ludwig placed his finger on the map, "We’ll need to get this place under control first."
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