Mobile Fortress Vimana.
The massive fortress our unit uses as Primary Base.
It wasn’t just about having a huge, tall curtain wall.
The real core was the variety of facilities you could construct inside.
“Dishes made in the [Dining Hall] carry a massive bonus compared to food cooked in the field.”
Not only that.
Production classes continuously turned out gear near the [Production District], where production buildings were clustered.
Combat classes, for their part, honed their skills at places like the [Training Ground].
After we installed every buildable facility in the fortress and leveled them up,
the unit’s combat power and growth rate had become incomparable to before.
On top of that, thanks to combat installations like the [Barracks] and [Gun Battery],
we’d even gained overwhelming defensive power to the point the fortress could go unmanned for stretches.
Conversely,
if someone told our unit to lay siege to this fortress?
Well.
“That’s... probably impossible?”
That’s the first kind of thought you’d have.
“If we had to pick the most broken item in our unit’s possession, everyone would point at this fortress.”
And yet—
even Vimana had one thing
you could call a complaint... or rather,
one thing every soldier found puzzling.
“It is definitely labeled a mobile fortress.”
“So... what part is ‘mobile’?”
The name “mobile fortress,”
itself—
“for a thing with that name... it hasn’t shown the slightest sign of moving.”
Of course, whether it moves or not,
it’s still an absurdly powerful stronghold.
So it only felt a little odd; we didn’t have the leisure to feel dissatisfied.
But right now,
[Reward upon completion]
[1. Mobile Fortress Vimana Lv.3]
[2. Facility — Activate Mobility Device]
“...Huh.”
we’d just been handed a lead that could solve that ‘mobility’ part—
only now.
****
“G—gaaah...!”
“The bridges we worked so hard to build...!”
“Our time and effort... breaking to pieces...!”
When we headed for Vimana’s perimeter,
sure enough, we could hear the engineers screaming from a distance.
At first, they had built them just sturdy enough to cross.
Later the engineers went in in earnest
and built solid, proper bridges stout enough for tanks to pass.
“Mm. It is a mess.”
When Vimana expanded on reaching Level 2,
those bridges were smashed to ruin.
“Well, what can you do.”
“Sir? Sergeant Shin, what do you mean.”
It’s a shame the bridges broke,
but clinging to already-broken bridges isn’t right either.
“You can rebuild them, can’t you?”
“...”
So rebuild them.
“And make them tougher than last time. So they’ll hold even if the fortress suddenly grows.”
“Bridges that can withstand the fortress getting bigger...”
“How do we even make that?”
“Huh? That’s for you to figure out.”
“...”
They stared at my face, at a loss for words.
But—
“Phew, let’s go work...”
“Corporal Lee Gongu, you’re not even sad?”
“Engineer life is about gutting it out on grit and spite...!”
Whatever they gripe,
those soldiers are overflowing with ability.
“They don’t show off in battle, but if it’s capability, they leave most combat classes in the dust.”
They’re one of the core pillars of our unit’s combat power.
They’d rack their brains, as engineers do,
and build bridges that could endure even if it happened again.
“Anyway—”
I stepped up onto the curtain wall and looked down.
The fortress had grown immense.
Building bridges to reach land was a massive engineering project.
That’s how far the gap was between the ground and the fortress.
In the end, what we could do was pick the points with the closest span to shore
and throw up a couple of bridges there.
“It’s so much closer now.”
The fortress sat in the space between the city and the river islands.
When the fortress suddenly swelled,
the distance to shore also grew much shorter.
If it leveled again and got bigger,
it might practically collide with those islands.
“No wonder it felt a little smaller than what I saw inside the [Shadow Veil].”
When we first entered the fortress,
I remembered thinking it seemed a little smaller than what I’d seen inside the [Shadow Veil].
“So its size scales with level.”
If Level 2 is this big, how big does it get at 3?
Hard to imagine.
“In any case...”
the important thing was this:
now that Vimana had reached Level 2,
a lot had changed.
First—
[Dining Hall]
[Lv.5/Lv.10]
“Facility level caps have increased to 10.”
I had assumed the max level for every facility was 5.
Now there was room to advance further.
“So those facilities’ performance... can still get even better?”
That was a major change.
For the [Barracks], the facility that summons troops, the max summon count is set by level:
[Barracks Lv.5]
[Troops: 250/250]
From a level 5 Barracks, the number of troops you can summon is 250.
Max summons increase by 50 per level.
It was the same for other facilities.
Dining Hall, Blacksmithy, and so on—
if the levels of strong facilities go up, it means the Legion gets much stronger.
“Ridiculous brokenness...”
Upgrading would cost time and points,
but even so it was huge.
“If facilities grow stronger with each fortress level... hm.”
Our Legion depends heavily on those facilities.
We’ll need to raise the fortress level as fast as possible.
And the method is—
[A Perk Quest is granted!]
[Perk Quest: Grow the Fortress!]
[Reward upon completion]
[1. Mobile Fortress Vimana Lv.3]
[2. Facility — Activate Mobility Device]
already on the table.
“So the idea is: just clear this quest.”
The fortunate point:
about half the conditions didn’t look hard.
No—more than not hard—
[Condition 1 — All facilities in Vimana reach Level 10. (0/1)]
[Condition 2 — The ruling faction of Vimana possesses sufficient fame and influence. (16,842,583/10,000,000) (Complete)]
[Condition 3 — Activate Vimana’s operational AI. (0/1)]
[Condition 4 — Supply Vimana’s operational mana. (3/10,000,000)]
“One’s already complete.”
Sufficient fame and influence—
a requirement to secure ten million of it.
That condition was already satisfied.
...Hm.
How to put it.
“This... doesn’t feel like a number you’re supposed to clear this easily.”
As a rule, when a game gives you a quest like this,
[reputation farming] is the most annoying piece.
Other conditions are one-and-done once you achieve them.
But those fame-influence conditions usually demand brutal grinding.
They’re the main reason quest clears get delayed.
So why was that condition already complete—,
and not just complete,
but sitting at an absurd 1.6× the target?
I had a guess.
“Because of the radio broadcast.”
Lately we’ve scraped together multilingual soldiers,
and we’re broadcasting in English, Japanese, and Chinese.
It might be hard for it to spread overseas,
but we’re sending it in multiple languages for foreign nationals in-country.
At least within Korea, most survivors will know of the radio,
and they’ll know of our Legion.
“And that came back as massive fame and influence.”
A condition that should’ve been painfully finicky
got resolved in one shot.
I clenched a fist and muttered,
“Nice, Minjae...!”
An idea I’d never have come up with alone,
and it was thanks to Minjae for proposing it.
“Pretty sure Minjae’s weak for coffee, right.”
I’ll cook him a special treat later.
“Condition 1... we can clear that with enough time.”
Constructing and leveling facilities—
we still have plenty of occupation points, so no problem.
As levels go up, upgrade times increase, which is why everything only hit 5 now.
If this were an old mobile game and we could pay to speed up upgrades, we’d have finished ages ago.
“At our current pace... we could probably finish by the end of winter.”
The problem:
Conditions 3 and 4.
“Activate the AI... and supply mana.”
I couldn’t even guess the how.
[Fortress Management Menu]
I opened the management menu,
and while checking what had changed bit by bit—
“Oh.”
[Facilities]
[Artificial Spirit — Vimana]
there it was.
A way to solve it.
*****
When Vimana leveled up,
space expanded rapidly.
And in that expanded area,
[Empty Lot]
[Please select the facility you want to build.]
spots appeared where we could build new facilities—
empty lots.
“When the level went up, it also unlocked buildable facilities.”
And the places to put them came with it.
“Plenty of the new buildings look useful,”
but the thing tugging at me right now
wasn’t those.
[Facilities]
[Artificial Spirit — Vimana]
“Hm.”
A facility named Artificial Spirit.
Unlike other buildings, its placement wasn’t on an empty lot.
It was to be installed in the fortress’s very core: the inner keep that stood tall at the center of # Nоvеlight # Vimana,
at its summit,
inside the command-and-control room.
“‘Artificial Spirit,’ huh.”
If others heard it, they’d have no idea what that was,
but I had a hunch.
Back in the fight with Ariella—
when this Vimana was first summoned inside her shadow shroud,
a voice had spoken there:
[Entering the fortress’s autonomous situational assessment.]
When I was in danger,
the fortress not only initiated that ‘autonomous situational assessment,’
but when I asked for the Dining Hall’s location in what looked like a hopeless situation,
it kindly told me where it was like a navigation system.
By contrast,
the current Vimana has none of that.
“Outside the facilities’ broken performance, it feels like an ordinary citadel.”
Honestly,
I’d wondered about the reason for a while.
“This might be the culprit.”
If the AI that makes autonomous judgments
simply hasn’t been created yet,
it would make sense.
Anyway—
it’s in the quest conditions too,
and the more facilities the better.
[Construct Artificial Spirit — Vimana.]
Without hesitation,
I ordered construction of the Artificial Spirit.
[Assign workers.]
[Spirit User x2 — (0/2)]
[Insert materials.]
[Spirit Gem x1 — (0/1)]
“...Eh?”
But
the message that popped up was a little different than usual.
“Normally it would just say one engineer has been deployed and that’s that.”
Reading the contents,
unlike other buildings, it demanded specific personnel and an item.
Ah, this.
A situation you see often in games:
“a high-grade building.”
Unlike ordinary buildings,
it’s a high-grade facility with special requirements.
“Usually, the harder such facilities are to make, the better they perform.”
And for this Artificial Spirit,
the requirements were:
two Spirit Users and one Spirit Gem.
“Hah.”
Seeing those conditions,
I let out a disbelieving laugh.
“Why is this so stiff a requirement?”
Two Spirit Users?
To begin with, Spirit User is an extremely rare job.
By our intel, there’s only one human with that job in this area.
“And a Spirit Gem, at that.”
As rare as spirits are, anything to do with spirits is rare in this world.
And it demands such a special item?
“Any ordinary faction would bleed themselves dry to clear just this one.”
But—
there was one bit of luck.
Not to brag,
“our guild isn’t exactly ordinary.”
A short while later—
“Y-you said my benefactor summoned me!”
Making a fuss,
a woman threw open the command room door.
—Grk. Do the natives have no concept of respecting elders? To make me climb this tall tower...
And behind her,
a monster trudged in.
As for the required material—
[We have fetched it.]
“Good.”
From within the shadow,
a vampire’s hand emerged holding one item.
[Ingredient Appraisal (Enhanced)]
[High-Grade Ingredient — Spirit Gem]
Back when we first defeated a spirit of darkness,
we’d received this as a reward for that Achievement.
“Alright, then. We’ve got our supplies.”
I looked at the two Spirit Users, who were puzzled why I’d called them.
“Let’s work.”
“Huh?”
—Krk?
[Construction of Artificial Spirit — Vimanar begins!]
****
[Construction of Artificial Spirit — Vimanar begins!]
“Uh... there’s some weird information in my head.”
The moment the system message appeared,
both Spirit Users reacted.
—Grrk... most unpleasant. So we follow these commands burrowing into my mind?
“Do that.”
—The natives use grotesque sorcery. Hmph. If it’s for the tribe, I have no choice.
The old shaman,
Borjin, headed for the middle of the command room,
sat down on the floor, and started drawing something.
“I’ll help.”
—You, native—handle the part that blocks interference from the spirit world over there.
“Okay.”
It seemed Jung Sua was the junior in Spirit User experience,
so the construction proceeded under Borjin’s lead.
Our unit is plenty busy these days,
but I had nothing urgent right now,
so I decided to watch.
And then—
“Mm. What is this supposed to be?”
—Grotesque. Grotesque...
Jung Sua murmured, fascinated,
while Borjin frowned as if more disgusted than intrigued.
“What’s up?”
“Ah. It’s just...”
When I got closer,
the two of them were drawing some kind of circular diagram on the floor.
—This is a seal that guides a contract with a spirit.
“Oh...”
Like a magic circle?
A contract with a spirit—
“That’s cool.”
My job’s a cook,
so unlike awakened of the mage line, I know next to nothing in that field.
I was a little intrigued.
“So what’s strange about it?”
—Mm, the content is a bit... that.
“What content?”
—...Normally, these contract circles connect spirit and shaman and let them commune. A few corrupt shamans try to dominate spirits, but that’s rare. And this...
Borjin scowled as if he didn’t even want to keep talking.
Jung Sua picked up the explanation for him.
“It’s neither communion nor domination.”
“Huh?”
“This spirit circle...”
Unlike Borjin,
Jung Sua stared at the diagram they were drawing with eyes full of wonder.
“it’s for making a spirit from scratch.”
Making one?
“...Is that possible?”
“I’ve been awakened as a Spirit User for a while, but this method is amazing. I never imagined this was possible.”
—Krk! Making a spirit is originally impossible. Spirits simply exist!
Borjin, I recall, was the older one.
Unlike the more conservative Borjin in how he treated spirits,
Jung Sua felt more flexible about accepting something different.
—How you treat that spirit is what makes your bent as a Spirit User!
“But this runs on different rails than the spirit arts we know. It’s creating the spirit from the beginning.”
—Normally this would be impossible. I too have never imagined such a method. The very idea is great discourtesy to spirits. However...
“If you do it like this, it works.”
I don’t know the details,
but the veteran shaman Borjin, with his long years,
and Jung Sua, who’s a fairly high-level Spirit User, both reacted the same way.
“Not only is it no easy task to create a spirit, but it fixes the spirit’s role, its personality and abilities, restrictions that it cannot leave the fortress and cannot resist the fortress lord...”
Cold sweat ran down their faces
as they were shaken by the information pouring into their heads.
“I wondered from the first time I saw this, but... Benefactor.”
“Yeah?”
Still drawing the circle, Jung Sua
murmured while looking out the window.
“Who made this fortress... exactly who were they?”
Just how incredible did they have to be
to arrive at the notion of creating and binding a spirit.
The two Spirit Users
couldn’t hide their shock.
