Chapter 84

To Stop the Fire

"Every hole led to another world, and every door to another cosmos; so vast, so innumerable, I counted stars like the grains of sand. And I was their Empress."

Fragments

Blue skies currently occupied the world above the Lumina Kingdom, a golden ring of light surging to its midway point. It was remarkably hot, especially so as the Autumn Season had already begun a few weeks ago. However, despite that, the days hardly grew colder, and weather tempestuous. If anything, it was the opposite, many realized. Temperatures climbed day after day, and the humid air of the season that they were expecting never came. Instead, the air itself seemed to be burning, and each time people would inhale, a part of that fire would strike at their lungs.

For many, it was almost becoming unbearable, and most cities and towns appeared ghastly and empty, their streets completely void of the living. At the very least, however, those within the cities and towns still had a place to hide – unlike the massive army camped outside the Brightfort. As the fort was surrounded on all ends by the endless plains, there weren't even any trees to hide beneath so, instead, people had come up with a rather ridiculous way of cooling down – jumping into Sumnner River.

For some unknown reason, despite the unbearable heat on the outside, the river’s water remained exceptionally cool and felt heavenly for the people compared to the outside. Though nobody dared do so during the nighttime, during the day, practically the entire bank facing the fort was filled with people jumping in and out of the water.

Currently, Noah was observing the phenomenon with a queer look in his eyes; this had toppled even the pictures he’d seen of crowded beaches back on Earth, as there were literally tens of thousands of people lining either the shore or the 'shallow' waters by it. It was like a swarm of locust had besieged the waters, a truly remarkable sight.

He himself, despite his experiences, still found it difficult to endure the heat, especially with the ridiculously thick robes he needed to wear at all times. Even he was tempted, more than once, by the river, but held back in the end. Luckily, the river was actually extremely fresh and the water drinkable, otherwise they would have run out of their packed resources weeks ago. Though Noah didn’t know why, as his knowledge of the mechanics behind rivers was at a child’s level, he attributed it to the rapid currents and the fact that, due to the terror, nobody dared dump any trash into it.

Wherever there are sufferers, however, there were the opposites; Noah glanced to the side and saw a peculiar figure standing indifferently, looking to the other side of the river. Though she wasn't wearing thick clothing and had her arms out in the open up to her shoulders, there wasn't even a drop of sweat anywhere on her. If anything, she appeared revitalized. He grumbled inwardly, mostly in envy, as he would have killed right now for that ability.

“… so? Did you figure anything out?” Asandra suddenly turned toward him and asked.

“If the river ever flooded,” Noah said, sighing. “Nobody dared write it down. Though there are a few texts implying it, I can’t say for certain.”

“…” Asandra’s expression dropped as well, causing her to sigh. “Let’s give it up, then. Besides, even if we did manage to cause flooding, would Sumnner just stand by and do nothing?”

“Who can say?” Noah shrugged. When he told Jovyer that he had his own ideas on how to handle the Kindled and that he would buy a few days, he was effectively lying. The reason for it was simple: judging by his behavior, the Lightbringer wasn’t someone who can be easily talked to. If he pressured him too much, he might lose his senses and just ensure she never shows her face until this whole thing blows over. At least, this way, there was still a chance.

A couple of days later, he came up with a rather wild idea: artificially flooding the river. However, he almost immediately slapped himself; he wouldn’t know how to flood a stream, let alone a river. His first thought was obviously a dam, but building one, even over a normal river, was not something that can be accomplished within a decade here, let alone a few weeks at most. Moreover, Sumnner River was a behemoth, so wide he even had some doubts about whether the top engineers from back on Earth would be able to build it. And then there was the phenomenon during the night time – even if they could build a dam that would hold the river back, they'd have to build it in a single day, otherwise, all their hard work would undoubtedly be destroyed by the torrent that it turned into at night.

That was also when he asked around to see whether the river flooded naturally before, but nobody could say either way. Even after going through numerous tomes, he couldn’t pick up on anything. He could ask Sumnner, but judging by its attitude during his last visit, the creature won’t bother helping them. Either because it didn’t want to, or because it couldn’t. It didn’t matter, however, as the end result was still the same. Looks like I’ll have to resort to some of the more simple and primitive methods… I seriously hope the size of their heads doesn’t reflect their actual intelligence…

Noah sighed once again. It wasn’t as though he really had no idea on how to at least slow their approach – he had hundreds. Problem is, he couldn’t be too overt, and he suspected that a lot of the simple ideas he had wouldn’t work on those gigantic bodies. Though he couldn’t cause the river to flood, he could still dig a few canals and ditches to act as a constant supply. No matter what, he refused to believe that their fire was strong enough to ignore water completely. Though he couldn’t build something like a hose to constantly shower them with water, building a random projectile device to chug water at them from time to time wasn’t impossible.

Furthermore, as the land was so close to the river, it was extremely easy to dig. Considering their manpower, it wasn't impossible to dig out ditches and labyrinths, but the problem was that he didn't know just how smart the Kindled were. If they were like animals and had only the most basic cognitive abilities, it wouldn't be difficult to guide them into the canals and ditches that they could then flood with water. However, even if they were as clever as a normal human child, that wouldn't work. If they were to dig pitfalls, they may as well shoot themselves; considering the insane height of those things, they'd at least have to dig three times that height into the earth, which was simply a waste of time. Nobody would even notice their numbers dwindling even if they dug the entire plains on the other side of the river full of holes.

If anything, Noah regretted that he was by the river and instead wished he was next to a desert. Not only would sand be easier to handle, but it might also be even more effective at snuffing out their flames. There was no point in dreaming, however, and he had to work with what he had. The problem was… this wasn't his area of expertise.

Noah never, ever worked alone back on Earth – though he might have been the head of the snake, that snake was about a million miles long and had so many limbs it was practically innumerable. No one man can topple a nation, no matter how clever or resourceful they were. He had experts of all sorts on his side, from the ordinary guns-for-hire to an army of engineers working in secret to construct and make things that could help them. Right now, however, who did he have? He had a few slaves with barely any knowledge, a Princess full of dreams but so inexperienced it was pitiful, and, at best, a slightly clever brute who could hardly think of anything.

It wasn’t as though he’d been too lax in trying to find people, but he couldn’t just put out signs for hire. Hiring ordinary ones, like they planned to do with the materials, wouldn’t do for him. What they knew, so did he. He needed people who specialized in their fields and, far more importantly, could think outside the box and come up with their own ideas. Right now, he was even in charge of the finances, and he had begun having nightmares with numbers in them. He’d grown to hate ‘0’ so much he nearly gaged any time he saw something that remotely resembled its shape.

To him, it didn’t matter that the technological prowess of this world was so far behind’s Earth it was not even comparable; people from Earth weren't smarter than those here, just a few centuries ahead. For that reason, however, he needed to find the absolute best ones in each and every field, as he would be throwing some really ridiculous ideas at them from their perspective, and they had to be able to turn them into reality. Though Noah could somewhat easily explain how a machine-gun worked, or at least the general principles behind it, he'd be dead ten times over before he could even think of a way to build it. The same went with virtually every other item he could really use just about now.

Parachutes, for instance, were essentially just cloth bent and sewn in specific ways. However, there was no way he could build one. Perhaps if he experimented and risked his life for a few years, he might achieve it, but that was not the kind of time he had. On the other hand, what if he had ten or twenty tailors and other sorts working day after day and using pigs as literal guinea pigs? Perhaps they wouldn’t figure it out in a week, but within half a year this world would have parachutes. That went for countless other things.

In the end, however, Noah was just not comfortable outside his own sphere of knowledge; if somebody needed him to interrogate a person, no matter who that was, Noah would get any answer he needed. However, if someone asked him to build a prison for that person, he may as well dump him into the sewers to the rats as they had a better chance of keeping him locked than Noah's prison.

“… did they start sending materials?” he asked Asandra with faint hope.

“Hm,” she nodded. “A few crates of weapons and ammunition had arrived yesterday, as well as some luxury items. However, they are still docked and I was planning on sorting them out tonight.”

“… go through them carefully,” Noah said. “If you find any, and I mean literally any exceptionally well-crafted items, report to me.”

“… you really are at the end of your wits?” she asked, feeling perturbed.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Noah shrugged. “I may be clever with tongues, but not with tongs.”

“…” she blankly stared at him for a moment before a look of disdain showed in her eyes. “You really… ah…” she gave up, however, when she saw a look of pride in his eyes. At least, he didn’t look too dispirited, meaning that he still had some confidence. Where that confidence came from, however, Asandra couldn’t tell.

For some reason, however, she wasn’t afraid. Not of the high temperatures, not of the lack of water, or of the upcoming battle. If anything, her heart had awoken to a strange sensation that she never felt before. She could hear it thumping loudly, turning her blood into gushing rivers. She was expectant. Though the feeling caused a smidge of dread in her, she welcomed it. In her bones, she somehow knew, her world was about to change. She just didn’t know how.