I leaned against the rough concrete battlement, just quietly watched the silent camp below.
After the public execution meant to keep everyone in line, the camp, which was originally chaotic, noisy, and on the verge of riot, became deathly quiet.
All workers returned to their posts. No one spoke, only the dull sound of hammers hitting stones and occasional suppressed coughs.
"I fixed the wall, but I broke their minds into autism." I muttered to myself.
As an architecture student, I was used to dealing with dead things. Rebar doesn't betray, concrete doesn't lie, and although gravity is a bastard, it follows rules. As long as the calculations are correct, the structure is eternal.
But people aren't.
People are full of variables. Fear, greed, faith, weakness... these are "structural defects" that cannot be plugged into a formula. Lucas's betrayal was like an air bubble in concrete—invisible normally, but exploding under stress, covering everyone in dust.
"What are you thinking?"
A voice interrupted my contemplation.
Zayla walked up. She had washed the blood off her face, but the tips of her silver hair were still wet, dripping pale red water droplets. She carried no blade, her hands crossed unnaturally over her chest.
"Thinking about problems engineering can't solve."
I didn't turn back. "Like how to make a bunch of terrified people believe we can win. Or, how to face Her Majesty after forcing her to sever the last tie she had to her past. In engineering, it's called structural triage. In reality, it just feels like having blood on my hands."
Zayla stood beside me, looking at the distant darkness.
"They aren't terrified. They just... lost a father." Zayla's voice was light, devoid of emotion, like stating a distant story.
I turned to look at her.
"Lucas wasn't just the Captain of the Guard." Zayla looked down at her hands—the hands that had just severed a relative's head. "The day my father and mother died in battle, he pulled me out from under a pile of corpses. He chewed the last piece of jerky to feed me, while he gnawed on tree bark."
"I know the fear is real. I really do." I said.
Zayla smiled bitterly, eyes red. "Yes. He was a coward; he didn't want to die. But to save me, he knelt before the Wolf Clan and begged, playing dead, to smuggle me out."
"So, he learned to kneel to keep you alive." I summarized.
"Yes." Zayla took a deep breath, voice trembling. "But today, I killed him. I killed the man who protected me like a father with my own hands. Alex... have I become a cold-blooded monster? Like Galza?"
I looked at her.
In this broken wasteland world, mercy is a luxury, weakness is an epitaph. To become a Queen, she had to excise this "necrotic tissue."
I sighed, reached out, and awkwardly placed my hand on her shoulder.
"In architecture, this is called Structural Pruning."
Zayla froze, tears hanging on her long silver lashes. "What?"
"Sometimes, to save the main load-bearing column, you must remove side beams that are rotten and might drag down the whole building."
My voice softened, carrying the clumsy gentleness specific to STEM students. "This isn't cold-blooded. This is Damage Control."
"Lucas chose his path—to live on his knees. And you chose yours—to lead everyone to live standing. When these two paths have a structural conflict, someone must give way."
I looked straight into her eyes.
"You did nothing wrong, Your Majesty. You are just reinforcing the fortress's Foundation. If the foundation is unstable, no matter how high the building is, it will collapse."
Zayla looked at me, the wavering in her eyes gradually calming.
This man's way of comfort was still full of that annoying "cement smell," but strangely, it felt more reassuring than any beautiful poetry.
"Structural Pruning..." Zayla repeated, the lines of her mouth hardening again. "Alright, Architect. Now that the foundation is clean, what do we do next?"
She looked up, eyes sharp again.
"Lucas is dead, but the mess he left remains. That map... the Wolf Clan must have a copy."
"Definitely." I withdrew my hand, eyes instantly reverting to the cold commander. "That Lurker squad came to silence us, meaning the map was sent out long ago. Now, that old dog Galza is probably drooling over our defense chart."
"Then we are doomed." Zayla's face paled. "Galza knows all our loopholes: the unfinished drainage outlet, the weak wall in Zone C, the blind spots in ventilation. Our fortress is transparent before it's even finished."
"Doomed?"
I pushed up my glasses, a cunning light flashing on the lenses, corners of my mouth curling into a smile that chilled Zayla's spine.
I pulled out the bloodstained parchment—the original retrieved from Lucas's corpse. I slapped it on the rough battlement, took the red marker, and drew a big circle around the highlighted "Zone C Drainage Outlet."
"This is bait."
"Since Galza thinks this is our death spot, thinks there is only a shaky thin wall here, he will definitely send his main force here. Because it's much easier than climbing an eight-meter wall. Who would refuse a shortcut?"
I turned to look at the pitch-black night sky in the north, as if I could already see the greedy green eyes of the Wolf army.
"Let him come."
"We won't patch these holes." My voice was bone-chillingly cold. "Instead, we'll open this hole a bit wider. Wide enough... to fit an entire Wolf vanguard unit."
Zayla frowned. "You mean... Empty Fort Strategy? Let them in for street fighting? Our casualties will be huge."
"No. It's killing jar."
I pointed to the narrow corridor structure in Zone C.
"I'll have Sarak reinforce the walls here, not for defense, but for sealing. Then, we'll prepare a little 'hot drink' for the guests in this corridor."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
"Hot drink?"
"The twelve barrels of 'Black Fire Oil' we stole from the Wolf supply wagons." I pushed up my glasses. "And the 'Accelerant' that crazy old man Kaelas just refined."
"Kaelas said if you mix these two, add a thickener, you can make a fluid fire that sticks to the body, can't be put out by water, and burns bones to ash."
I looked at Zayla, eyes shining with the light of a mad scientist.
"Since the structure can't stop them, we'll use chemistry to teach them a lesson."
"This plan is called The Murder Corridor."
"Turn that 'weakness' into a one-way street to hell."
Zayla looked at the red circle on the map, then at me. She suddenly felt that compared to the ferocious Wolf King Galza, this human with glasses and a refined look might be the scarier monster.
But in this damn world, having such a monster on her side was a blessing.
"Good." Zayla clenched her fist. "I'll arrange the manpower."
Zayla nodded, turning to leave. But before she could take a step, a sharp, confused shout erupted from the muddy excavation pit nearby.
“Boss! Hey, Boss! You gotta see this!”
It was Sarak. The Goblin Chief Engineer was standing chest-deep in a newly dug trench in Zone C, holding something up against the dim light of the work lamps. Her voice lacked its usual grumpy arrogance; instead, it carried a rare note of bewilderment.
“What is it? Did you hit a water main?” I frowned, walking over, my boots squelching in the mud.
“Worse. Or... weirder.”
Sarak climbed out, wiping her greasy hands on her apron before handing me the object. “We hit the bedrock layer. That soil down there is ancient—at least two thousand years old compacted sediment. But we found this stuck in it.”
It was a metal shard, roughly the size of a palm.
It wasn't the rusted iron or crude bronze typical of this wasteland. It was a silver-grey alloy, incredibly light yet terrifyingly rigid. Even covered in millennia of grime, I could see the edge wasn't forged by a hammer.
It was smooth. Mirror-smooth.
"Look at the fracture line," Sarak tapped the metal with her wrench, producing a clear, high-pitched ting. "That's industrial stamping. High-pressure die-casting. Boss, the precision on this scrap is higher than my favorite wrench. How can something this advanced be buried under the ancient rock layer?"
I took the shard. It felt cold, colder than the winter wind.
I pulled a rag from my pocket and wiped away the encrusted mud on the corner.
In that instant, my pupils constricted violently.
Revealed beneath the dirt were symbols. But they weren't the swirling, chaotic mana-runes of the Elves, nor the jagged, hand-carved totems of the Beastmen.
They were geometric.
Perfectly spaced. Uniform height. Sans-serif strokes.
To Sarak, these were just bizarre, incomprehensible square runes. But to me, a man from Earth, a student of engineering, the familiarity hit me like a physical blow.
It was a Serial Number.
[ ...PROJ: E.D.E.N - Sec.04 ... ]
My breath hitched.
The letters were standardized Latin script. The font looked like Helvetica.
BZZZT—
A harsh static noise exploded in my brain. The blue System interface, usually so stable, suddenly convulsed with glitches I had never seen before. Text scrambled and reformed into jagged red warnings:
The shard burned in my hand like a piece of dry ice.
“What is it?” Zayla noticed my stiffness. She walked back, her hand instinctively resting on her hilt. “Is it cursed? A Wolf totem?”
“No.”
I clenched my fist abruptly, hiding the English text within my palm. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird, but I forced my face to remain an expressionless mask.
“Nothing. Just a piece of useless scrap metal.”
I shoved the shard deep into the inner pocket of my tactical vest, close to my chest. “Probably just some weird ore vein. Sarak, fill the hole. And dig deeper. We need those oil barrels buried deep enough to blow the Wolves to hell.”
“Uh... sure, Boss. Whatever you say.” Sarak looked suspicious but shrugged, turning back to yell at her apprentices.
I stood there for a moment longer, slowly raising my head to look at the fragmented sky above. The shattered planetary ring hung there, glowing with its sickly purple light.
For the first time since arriving here, a chill deeper than the fear of the Wolf Army crawled up my spine.
English text buried under ancient strata. A System that warned me not to look.
What is this place? I thought the cold wind was biting at my face. Is this really another world? Or is it... a grave?
I turned around, suppressing the terrifying thought. Now was not the time for archaeology. Now was the time for war.
But the weight of that small metal shard in my pocket felt heavier than the entire fortress wall.
Alex is about to cook. Literally.
Question of the Day: What is the best way to use a trap?
(Click to set the trigger)
?? A) Hide it.
Result: The Hunter's Way. Classic. Camouflage. Spikes. Effective for catching one idiot, but too slow for an army. Alex needs higher throughput.
?? B) Put a "Free Loot" sign on it.
Result: The Psychological Play. The "Leaked Map" is the sign. Greed is predictable. If you tell them exactly where to go, they won't look at their feet. Tactics: 200 IQ.
?? C) Fill it with Napalm.
Result: The Chef's Kiss. Why choose? Bait them in (Option B), then light the match. We are having Wolf Barbecue tonight. Damage: AOE Critical.
Follow and Rate. The barbecue is about to start.