“The creation of siege engines was one of the things that revolutionized warfare at the time. Prior to these contraptions, an army would often just walk away from a siege if they did not possess a cabal of competent siege mages in their ranks.

If anything, the profession of siege mages themselves saw a decline after the creation of siege engines, though their numbers rose back up after a couple generations. While siege engines had its own benefits, having capabilities similar to theirs in a compact, man-size package that could operate autonomously was a benefit that none of the engines could match in the end.” - Excerpt from “The Evolution of Warfare” by Tomas Lancaster, military historian from Levain, circa 592 FP.

“They’re building up the siege engines right outside their camp,” noted Alycea.

It was already the morning of the next day. Both Reinhart and Alycea had returned to their tall perch the night before to observe the going-ons of the battle from a safe distance once more. Reinhardt’s enchanted eyepiece was excellent for supervising the overall situation, but it was less suited for a detailed inspection. Good old regular spyglasses from a high vantage point would have to do for that instead.

“I noticed. Looks like a mix of ballista and trebuchets, huh? Do you see any other types mixed in with those?” confirmed Reinhardt who checked through his eyepiece. “Harder to see the details from directly above.”

“I think most of them are those types… Oh, I see a couple battering rams being constructed, near the northern end of their camp, do you see them, dad?” said Alycea after another check through the spyglass. “Also… that one on the north-west end looks a bit weird. I thought it was the base of a trebuchet at first, but now they seem to be attaching… wheels to it?”

“Hannah, dive in a little lower over the north-north-west area of their camp, don’t go into arrow range,” commanded Reinhardt through his artifact. A moment later, he peered through the eyepiece in concentration before he turned to Alycea with a nod. “Good catch, I confirm the battering rams, and that one you spotted with the wheels seems to be the base for a siege tower. Surprised they bothered with those, honestly.”

“I mean, they probably planned to have to deal with seven layers of walls, so it might prove worthwhile over time?” suggested Alycea. The general consensus about siege towers was that they were effective siege engines, but at the same time, a large investment in time and money which happened to be fragile and have to be close to the enemy to be of use.

“Maybe, or maybe they have other ideas on how to use it, who knows?” said Reinhardt with a shake of his head. “Have your observations written down within the hour once we return to base. Hannah will pass it over to old Miriel inside the city once she returns. Now let’s go back as well.”

“Understood, dad,” replied Alycea as she kept the spyglass inside her storage artifact. Reinhardt already climbed down ahead of her, making use of his claws and agility to scale down the tree rapidly. Alycea naturally couldn’t do that, but she made do. The tree’s bark was rough and knotted all over, which made for a multitude of easy handholds and footholds for her to use as she carefully climbed the twenty meters or so to the ground.

They soon reached the mercenary’s camp built deep inside the forest where they split up. Alycea went to pen down her observations on a piece of parchment, whereas Reinhardt gave orders to others to keep up the watch. A few platoons were ordered to prepare for deployment closer to the forest’s edge, but most of them were told to rest for the day.

Clearly Reinhardt hadn’t expected for their enemies to show an opening so soon after the last lesson the mercenaries gave them. Alycea’s platoon were amongst the ones who were told to rest and gather their strength, so she went over to check her people after she finished writing down her observations and leaving it in her father’s tent as instructed.

She found her platoon in the midst of strength training, though the form of the training was for the group’s shieldbearers – at the core of which were Kev, Skuljd, as well as Irma and Macen, two of Niko and Yuri’s adopted children – holding their ground while around half of the platoon tried to push against them. It was a surprisingly even match, despite the number disparity.

Then again, that was why it made for good training to begin with.

Like in the strike platoons, most of the larger-bodied members of Alycea’s platoon were part of the shieldbearers, with a few exceptions like Larissa and Boris. The main difference between an all-rounded platoon like hers and Erycea’s compared to a strike platoon was that they were more flexible and could handle more tasks than the blunt force instrument that a strike platoon tended to serve as.

Not that Alycea had anything against that blunt instrument approach. All too often trouble in the battlefield did manifest as a nail that needed a blunt instrument to hammer down. It was one reason why her platoon as well as her sister’s were both trained to be able to mimic a strike platoon’s function, if to a lesser degree.

With nothing better to do at the moment, and having already did part of her morning training with all the trekking through the forest and tree climbing, Alycea walked over to where the twins were simmering something in a large cauldron over a small fire. One of the things the mercenaries love to do on days where they were told to rest up was to cook some good food and enjoy them. Ciel and Leece were the ones in Aly’s platoon who particularly love to cook something up on such days since they were the ones who were the best at cooking amongst them.

So Alycea walked over to help them out. If that ended up with her getting an extra portion of whatever was being cooked up later, all the better.