“Common decency has taught people not to derive pleasure from another’s misfortune, but why is it that once war is declared, it suddenly becomes fine to take pleasure from the enemy’s misfortune? Such double standards are unfit for civilized society and should be discarded with haste!” - Melos Lysot, anti-war philosopher from the Fourth Elmaiyan Empire.

Reinhardt couldn’t help but to chuckle to himself, which must have been an odd sight to people who didn’t know that he was observing the enemy army from Hannah’s point of view. The way the Podovniy forces pushed their combat engineer forward on the very first day they ran into the prepared fields of traps thoroughly amused him, since he knew exactly what would happen as a result.

“The plan is working, I assume, Captain?” asked a middle-aged dwarf whose bushy beard had started to gray at the sides. Leonid Steinmauer was a retired combat engineer who served the late Empire for over two centuries of his life, but had since retired to open a relatively successful bakery in Levain city, until the civil war broke out.

Since then, he had offered his services to the city council and currently headed one of the three teams of dwarven combat engineers present in Levain. Reinhardt had taken two of those teams, one with his own group while he sent the other with Lars to the north. The last group remained in Levain in preparation of the work they will likely be needed for once the siege took place.

After all, combat engineers were not only skilled at breaking down walls, but also in repairing and reinforcing them.

“Yes, master Steinmauer,” replied Reinhardt with a satisfied nod. He had made the plan once he heard that Podovniy barely had any combat engineer teams amongst their troops. “The enemy are exhausting their combat engineers, right on the first day, so I’d say it is working even better than my most optimistic expectations so far.”

“You know, I’m still surprised you managed to set things up in such a way that it’d be a total pain in the rear to detect,” noted the dwarf as he looked over the trapped road in the distance. His combat engineers had been split into small teams of five and had been instrumental in helping the separate teams trap their section of the road exactly the way Reinhardt told them to.

Namely in a way that had the pitfalls distributed almost at random, with some hidden under areas where the ground had obviously been disturbed, while others hidden under areas made so smooth nobody would have thought the ground had been touched at all. The random intervals and directions, along with the narrow and deep nature of the pits, made them particularly difficult to discover using earth magic.

Reinhardt himself was of the earth affinity, and while he was no mage, he was familiar enough with how earth magic worked. Unlike wind magic, earth was far more dense, and it was tiresome and exhausting to check through every bit of soil in the vicinity in detail. As such, most earth mages detect traps by either sending a “pulse” of magic through the top layer of soil to detect disturbances in the ground or by sending out thin vectors at randomized directions to seek out larger obstructions or gaps underground.

The way Reinhardt had set the traps on the road made both methods nearly useless. The narrow and deep pits were difficult to find by the vector searching method, whereas they also made sure to keep the top layer of soil sturdy enough to fool the other detection method. That forced the enemy earth mages to scour the road the hard and exhausting way, which would tire them out quickly.

Tired people made mistakes, and when the time comes, Reinhardt would be there to reap the harvest.

“Let’s just say that I have some inspiration to pull from,” replied Reinhardt. Honestly, other than his own personal knowledge on earth affinity magic, the way Elfriede used her magic, how she could so easily detect every minute thing within her range, was his other major inspiration. Over the years Elfriede had told him a lot about her magic, and that included the sort of places that would be hardest for her to notice.

He simply applied that logic against the way he knew earth magic worked, and sure enough, the results showed themselves already. While it took his half of the company and thousands of volunteers a week to set up the “welcome” for the Podovniy forces throughout the road they would have to take to Levain, the results should be worth it.

Especially after he pounced upon those few combat engineers working for his enemy and removed them from the equation altogether.

He wondered how his enemies would react after he did that. Would they doggedly continue to advance, regardless of the losses they would take from the traps? Or would they start to have their soldiers sweep the road ahead clear of traps? If they forged ahead without regard, then they would take quite a few losses along the way and damage their own soldiers’ morale. On the other hand, sweeping the road ahead would be a time-consuming process, which would buy more time for Levain.

Either outcome was beneficial to Reinhardt, and he would adjust his own tactics based on the enemy’s reaction.

For the time being, the enemy was still two days’ march away from Aldenstadt, where he would discover whether his first prediction about the war would come true or not. Grünhildr, together with her platoon and volunteers from the Aldenstadt home guards had already set up bases within the old abandoned mines near the town, and would only make their move after the Podovniy main forces moved on.

Reinhardt himself had already gathered his mercenaries along with the volunteers that came with them. Most of them had already gathered at a location roughly half a day’s march to the west of Aldenstadt, where Reinhardt predicted the enemy forces would make camp on the day they left the city turned fortress.

Only time would tell whether he was right or wrong.