The Runesmith Chapter 305: Tier 3 Trial Part 2

“So, is this supposed to be the lord’s throne room or sothing?”

Roland spoke to himself while entering the shoddy-looking fort. It was on a motte which was a mound ford to house it. The elevation wasn’t that high up and the wooden walls consisted of the sa sharpened logs tied together by rope. These fortifications wouldn’t really stop anyone, perhaps people below level twenty-five would have to scamper around him but besides that, it would go down quickly.

It was not much of a fort as there weren’t any watchtowers outside and only one building directly in the middle. The size of this building was comparable to a small house but there was a lot of space around it. This wide open space gave him the impression that it was supposed to be filled out by sothing and the answers he found on the inside.

The inside of this almost hut was primarily empty. A long brown carpet made out of so sort of animal hide led up to a large chair which was probably supposed to be his throne room. The position of the throne was slightly elevated and on the sides there were several windows that let so sunlight in. Besides the large chair, there were also so torches that could probably be lit when the space needed to be used during the night.

When entering this place he had the Lord’s Aid puppet trailing behind him but the mont he entered this area the automaton stopped in place. It didn’t seem that it wasn’t able to enter the area by itself but waited to be allowed inside instead. It seed that the wooden people really saw him as their leader and would follow so rules concerning this role play here.

Roland decided to go around this place and after reaching the throne his gaze landed on it. The thing was made all out of wood and lacked any type of soft cushioning for his behind. Perhaps he would need to use it for sothing later but for now, he discovered a door to the side. When going through it he was taken to what looked to be the Lord’s bed chamber. A large bed with a mattress filled with sothing was there for his use. To the side, he also spotted a chair at a desk with so parchnts and notebooks.

“Nothing to actually read, just empty pages to write things in… how long do they expect to be in this trial?”

There was a quill along with so ink that he was very familiar with. It was just like the first one that he used when he went through his runic mana scribe faze. When looking at this place he had a premonition that it could take a few months before he gets out. The pages here were probably to take notes and maybe to plan things out for the future. His first task was to defend this place which he needed to prepare for.

“The fifty soldiers I have wouldn’t pose much of a threat to the current , the enemies are supposed to arrive in around a week's ti, what should I do in the anti? Is there anything in here that I can use?”

Roland had hoped to at least find a map of the area sowhere in here but it wasn’t there. Perhaps he would need to draw it up himself while exploring the areas around the castle. As it stood he had so ti to allocate to everything. The soldiers had their orders to train up as he had gone to the barracks but he had yet to decide on the resource allocation.

‘I just wanted to be a shop owner…’

This whole trial was making him want to cancel and go pick up the Master Runesmith pathway. While he was fine fighting monsters and crafting gear, leading troops wasn’t sothing he was familiar with. When going down into dungeons he was also a solo adventurer with only Agni being his only companion. When joining other groups he was never really part of them and never cared about working as a team player. Now he needed to sohow lead these puppets to victory.

‘Well, these automatons might be more like golems than people so it will make things a lot easier, they also don’t seem to question in any way.’

While contemplating his next step and gathering more information he finally decided to sit down on the throne made for him. It would be quite tireso to go around this place on foot as it wasn’t that small. Luckily to his surprise when he sat down another system panel popped out before him.

‘Wait… this looks similar to one of those gas…’

Roland ca from the modern world and had gone through all sorts of types of gas. Role-playing gas and strategy gas were so of the ones that he enjoyed. The interface before him was quite low on the graphical spectrum but it was similar to so of the strategy gas that he played.

In the upper right corner, he could see the sa gold icon that he witnessed when interacting with the rchant. To the right side of the icon was the number corresponding to his current gold level. When he tried tapping on the gold to get more information he saw the letter one with a plus sign next to it.

‘Huh… could this be how much gold I gain per day… or per hour?’

Everything started making more sense as this whole trial was shaping up to be so sort of ga. The plus one gold was probably how much of it he would gain per cycle but he would only know after so ti passed. At the mont he had exactly a hundred gold but it wasn’t the only resource that was there. After going through various other screens filled with pixel art he found that there was a lot more to this thing than t the eye.

‘It is a Runesmith-related trial so it’s normal for it to have all those various materials.’

The screen gave him a very intricate list of materials which were also separated by quality. There were tals like iron, bronze, and mythril. So of them ca in ingot form while others in raw ore form. They had quantity numbers assigned to them but as it stood now he only had simple tals at his disposal.

‘There is an actual map… but most of it is covered by dark fog… this is really just like a strategy ga map. Does this an I have to send a scout out to look for other resources?’

It didn’t take him that long to grasp the situation here and the controls were easy to understand. The trials were said to be created to suit the people taking them and also adapt to their life experiences. In his previous life, Roland spent countless hours playing gas that shaped this test that could create a whole world within itself. Probably if a denizen of this world took the sa trial the paraters would change to suit their understanding of things around them.

He wasn’t quite sure if this was a blessing or a curse just yet. Thanks to this system within a system it was possible for him to automate a lot of things and quickly order his troops around. However, if the trial wanted to remain fair it would need to turn up the difficulty of it all. It wouldn’t be strange if the added information would cause the opponents to beco stronger, either by the size of their troops increasing or their tactics becoming more intricate.

“Okay… first I need to send soone out to scout for more resources, this small encampnt is generating one gold but everything costs at least one gold…”

This throne room allowed so conveniences as he didn’t need to directly go to the barracks to assign the training regint to the soldiers. The one Wooden Warrior that he didn’t give a new class was also there, now that he was here he began thinking about the future. All of the lower-level soldiers had numbers attached to them that corresponded to their levels but also how much they leveled up from training.

Roland needed to wait for a day until he calculated all the numbers but perhaps before the enemies arrived in a week's ti he could advance every one of his wooden n to another class. When thinking of this and the mapping problem he realized that he could assign a Wooden Scout class. Each of the classes had a small description to go along with it which made the choice a lot easier.

Wooden Scout

This unit has gained skills in discovery, it can see farther than other classes and discover hidden treasures or enemies.

‘It’s even showing so of its stats and also the weapons it can use.’

Strength

E

Agility

D -

Dexterity

D -

Vitality

E

Endurance

E

Intelligence

F

Willpower

F

The scout was a light unit and couldn’t wear heavy armor. It was good at handling short swords, daggers, and bows. It also got a skill in horse riding which would allow it to scout out the areas around his fort a lot faster. It was not much of a question, he needed at least one scouting unit to see what was around him. After clicking the option he was given a loading screen that slowly started to fill up.

‘At this rate, it seems that it will take a day to upgrade a unit to the second tier 1 class, it wouldn’t be strange if it took longer when going to tier 2.’

“Aid, co here.”

“Yes, My Lord! How could I be of service!”

“Tell about our enemies, where is their headquarters located and where will they be coming from, do you have any information about their numbers, don’t leave anything out!”

“Yes, My Lord. The Kindlings will arrive here in a week! They hail from the northern stronghold…”

“Wait, they are called the Kindlings?”

”Yes, My Lord, truly a despicable na, isn't it?”

“Despicable… uh, how are our people called?”

“Why, we are the great Timberlings!”

‘What is it with these nas, why is it all about wood?’

Roland started wondering if he had so kind of fascination with wood in the past that could have brought this type of setting. Maybe after seeing Bernir perform so nice carpentry he wanted to beco one himself but was already locked into the Runesmith class?

“Ah yes, continue…”

The wooden aid started speaking and giving him so basic information about the whole situation. While there he also was able to look through available structures that he could build, one of them was a stable that would allow him to give his scout a mount. It didn’t cost that much and more information about the location was sothing that he needed to gain as fast as possible.

If this worked like a strategy ga then there were probably all sorts of resources scattered across the region he was in. Usually, in those gas, a person would begin close to so kind of resource-generating mine but he didn’t have anything like that here. If there were so iron ore mines close he could start producing steel and have better weapons to et his enemies.

However, if this was doable in a week was questionable but it would only take a day for the stables to be built. The sa was the case for so other buildings like the mill and lumber camp, they all only took one day to assemble. This was one of the decisions he needed to make. Was it better to quickly expand the range of his base camp or bunker himself up and wait for his enemies to co?

Ti was also a resource and this was a sort of ga. Even wasting one day could be disastrous; it could snowball into him not being able to gain enough resources in ti for another problem that arose. Roland was also not sure if this was only a defensive trial, there were far too many red flags pointing to another option.

‘An Overlord seems like soone that wouldn’t shy away from battle or conquering others.’

This throne allowed him to monitor his entire base of operations. With it, he could probably also manage other territories that he conquered. It wouldn’t be strange that he had so wiggle room in this scenario. There was always more than one way of getting through these. He might be able to create a massive bastion that couldn’t be captured by anything here or spread out his armies to conquer the other denizens of this world before they beco an obstacle.

‘I need to know what my footing is before attempting to blitz everyone around . I don’t even know who my enemies are, maybe diplomacy is also an option?.’

Roland gave out a sigh while thinking about this troubleso test he was in. There were just too many factors for him to account for. This was probably why this class was a prestigious one, he would really need to work for it this ti. When thinking back to his old Runemsith Lord class, the test then felt quite trivial. Here he would probably have to strain both his brain and muscles.

After being filled in on the situation around him he began drawing up a plan. The notebooks ca in handy as he wrote in the most important parts like the enemy ‘kingdoms’. In this case, it seed that they weren’t much bigger than the little city fort that he found himself in but even having an idea where they were coming from made things easier.

While his scout unit and stables that cost twenty-five gold units were being assembled he decided to visit the city blacksmith. It was clear to him that his troops needed better weapons and better armor. There was no use for the city lord to run around outside to endanger his life while scouting for things, instead he would spend his ti here while using the limited troops he was given.

For a skilled craftsman like him, it was child's play to assemble an iron sword of the highest rank. It was the sa thing for the iron spears and iron arrows which he decided to augnt with so runes. While a weapon made from iron was abysmal for holding runic charges and would actually lt the weapon after a few uses, they were fine on arrows. When the tip connected with sothing it would just explode and didn’t need to do much more than that.

It was quite a busy day for him, besides all the crafting he began exploring the surroundings. There were a lot of empty spots to place buildings in and he took so ti to draw up a plan of the whole wooden fortress that looked more like a village surrounded by wooden logs. Roland needed to decide on the structure placent as his current funds allowed him to start generating so resources.

First of all, it looked like he needed to build a mill and a farm to produce crops. With farms up there he would be given so villagers that would actually generate more gold and the surplus of the produce they generated could be sold for profit or maybe even traded for sothing else.

After going through all the various panels Roland figured out the gaplay loop this place had. First of all, he needed to generate resources that could be used for various things which culminated in upgrading the Town Center and his fort. The first upgrade required a set number of lumber and stones that he could gain by creating buildings like a quarry and lumber mill.

There was a large forest right next to his fort which would make it easy to generate lumber and a good location was soon discovered by his scout not far from the forest. The nearby mountain area had a lot of stone and also iron ore that could be mined. Creating a mining camp would take care of both of those resources but there was another loop to create workers.

First, he needed to create so residential buildings for people to live in. Then he needed to assign jobs to them and also have enough food to keep them fed through their working days. Luckily the croplands that were created by the farms produced wheat and then bread with the help of the mills rather quickly. All the components were there but the trial world took so liberties with how things worked to hasten so of the activities that didn’t seem to matter as much.

Soon he had sothing that looked like an actual proper town as the week winded down. However, this was only the beginning as the people from the opposing faction finally appeared the way they looked was a bit surprising but after getting used to his own citizens that were made of wood, the sight of wooden n with burning heads didn’t move him anymore.

“My Lord, the enemies are here, we must defend the fort!”

A horn sounded to signal the appearance of an enemy faction that was dead set on taking over their lands and taking all of their resources.