Micky looked around at his fortified TEMPORARY camp. He buried his face into his desk and nearly cried. Sure, the one thing he had was a wall. But for some incredibly genius, in spite of the plans being laid out in front of the woman, the reason the woman had decided to build the granary first before the defensive enchantment circle for the siege rituals to be performed. The fortified camp didn’t even have plans for a granary. It was unnecessary as the camp was yet another fall back point. It was why he sent Prin and a few others forward on the retreat path to make sure that plans were followed, with force.

Luckily it seemed that only this man was being a true idiot. Oh, there was some embezzlement here and there and a few lazy arseholes that hadn’t even bothered with ‘unimportant’ things despite their proximity to the front. But they weren’t majoly at fault, at least enough that he decided to execute them anyway. So Micky took his cut, sending it ahead as ‘military surplus’ while simultaneously confiscating most of the goods and a bit of their own savings as ‘recompense’ and called it a day.

It didn’t stop the fools though. And oh were the real fools oh so foolish. The man wasn’t even the first idiot to think this assignment was more permanent than it had any right to be. One of the supply majors built a statue of themselves out of pure raw jade. Now the jade could be ground up into powder for enchantment, but a block like that could have been made into an intricate integral, consumable part in an enchnament to make it run for a time without needing massive investments. It’s why that particular jade, and the damages were so valuable. Micky made him watch his statue be ground up as he was whipped and his hands were cut off for stealing. The man would be a beggar for the rest of his likely short life.

There were others that thought the assignment would be a long one. But many of those were also reasonable or realistic. Digging in further or liberties that would normally not be taken so close to the front.

Micky took it all in as his face lay on the hot desk. The inside of the office was baking even though the outside was fairly pleasant. Getting up and rubbing his face, though he probably had ink stains on it, he smacked his face and got ready. He had to put his game face on. It was obvious that this camp was more temporary than he thought it was. He wouldn’t be able to hold a battle here. That made it another sacrificial camp. The next camp was the original battlefield, and beyond that was the territory he planned to build the true fort on.

Had the positions for the temporary forts been contested hotly the true forts commanding officer position was a whole nother level of [Fireball]. From Micky’s understanding, before he put his foot down, there were already several assassination attempts. But Micky made it clear he would only alow his stringent supporters to be there along with the architects. In the end it was one of the young nobles he rescued that won the bid and was now collecting the materials to build the fort.

For better or worse, as if the nobles went back without support they would probably be murdered outright. They may have casus belli against those that are oppressing them, however they have no backing, or lost it all. You could say that Micky was making a crap shoot by freeing them. The adventurers that he had freed had more clout than they did. But while some of them may end up [Dead] if they don’t work hard, all of them would be dead without him. So they knew they owed him heavily. A debt they were likely not going to be able to repay without going into further debt with him.

This was fine with Micky, but it did make his life easier. Even if they betrayed him somewhat, they could not go too far with it. At best they could move out and distance themselves with his camp. Something he expected at some point as he wasn’t in a good position himself.

But that was neither here nor there. The place the fort was supposed to be built wasn’t even scouted yet. And there was likely hard fighting ahead as the enemy was never going to let them set up a foothold so close to the passageway.

That was when the enemy arrived. The first thing they saw was hanging soldiers. But their armor was not their own. No, these were Aene soldiers. It was fairly intimidating to the young fresh meat. Afterall, if this is what the commander does to their own, what would they do to them. The answer was something the vets knew all too well, not much. The commander would just simply kill them, it meant somebody screwed up royally which was good for them. But it was only if they would be able to capitalize on the screw up over the intimidation factor.

Micky didn’t actually care. Yes he was down a few commanding soldiers, but it wasn’t as horrible as it looked. The major problem was that this camp was supposed to be defensible enough to last a few days and it wasn’t. He would have to make the old battleground last much longer.

What most didn’t expect was for Micky to lead his forces on a charge the moment the enemy kingdom tried to set up their own fortifications. With their pants around their ankles, in some cases literally, the enemy was tripping over themselves. It was highly effective. But this just made them more aggressive now, and nastier.

The enemy was employing hit and run tactics that annoyed and destroyed moral. But the overall situation hadn’t actually changed much. If anything Aene was winning the war of attrition after the tactic had been used before. It didn’t stop the retreat, or the use of the tactical class magic [Pestilence].

Now, anything in this area would find itself exposed to rot magic. Nasty stuff, food people, and heavens forbid you got a wound. Any wound caused, cleaned, nearly healed, or otherwise would immediately be contaminated with the [Diseased] debuff. It was catastrophic, for the enemy. Micky’s troops were all out of there beforehand, and all well aware. Any they could not, ended their own lives before they had to suffer. It was a bit cruel to those that were left behind, but they were admittedly few since Aene knew this was coming.

It was in the middle of the retreat that Micky heard the news. He couldn’t keep the expression off his face. The soldiers made their opinions known.

The two dungeons that had made contact with Micky previously were at war. And this war was directly across the path leading to the enemy kingdom. Micky was ecstatic. Now the enemy had to run their supplies through rampaging monster armies as they marched upon each others dungeons.

This however, made the enemy desperate. They were not going to let this go without a fight. It did change Micky’s plans however. He found himself in the middle of the plains that were where the first battle and the first fireball was launched.

He was melancholic. This was where it started. Now he was going to finish his career here as he fought the last stand. After this he would probably be discharged to go back and pick up the kids before heading to the Aene city, the capital of the Aene empire.

First he had to focus though, and watching a giant fireball coming towards him that was larger than the house his family had back in that dinky little village as it traveled towards his face was a hell of a drug. He was certainly focused on it. But he had to ignore it. Now was not the time, he had to trust the shield, as he had before, and will again. Right now he had to move the soldiers around to fortify the location while the shield was still up. Soon they would have to protect themselves against the siege spells coming in and launch counter spells of their own.