Chương 129: The Siege That Ended Too Quickly

Sieghart returned to his room after finishing breakfast and began packing everything he had accumulated during the assignment, which had somehow become considerably more than one week of clothing and guild paperwork. His new runic engraver received the most careful treatment. He wrapped the tool in spare cloth, placed it between two books, and checked three times that nothing heavy could damage its focusing crystal. The lamp, canteen, and cold-resistant coat he had created followed afterward.

Vessa had allowed him to keep the beginner projects, probably because selling equipment marked by an apprentice would require explanations nobody wanted. Finally, Sieghart divided his payment between several smaller pouches and hid them throughout his luggage. Carrying every coin together would make theft easier and turn the bag into an inconvenient metal club. When he returned downstairs, Vessa was inspecting a repaired spear while Orin adjusted the focusing rings on another engraver.

Both looked up the instant they noticed his packed bag.

"You can still change your mind." Sieghart stopped near the counter and adjusted the bag on his shoulder, already recognizing the recruitment attempt hidden behind her overly casual tone.

"About leaving?"

"About becoming our apprentice." Orin nodded with exaggerated seriousness, though the soot remaining across one cheek weakened the dignity of his expression and made the offer seem less professional.

"We have room." Sieghart looked toward the damaged ceiling, the crowded worktables, and the narrow aisles that had nearly killed him several times without assistance from an enemy army.

"You have space in theory." Vessa ignored that answer and placed the spear aside. She reminded him that the workshop always needed reliable hands, particularly someone capable of engraving steadily after everyone else exhausted their mana. Sieghart appreciated the offer more than he intended to admit. Working there had given him practical knowledge, useful equipment, another magical branch, and several ideas that could occupy years of experimentation.

Still, remaining permanently would mean abandoning Lunar Arc, Mira's library, his investigation, and the hidden network protecting him from the people responsible for his grandparents' deaths.

"I'll come back eventually." Vessa narrowed her eyes and rested both hands against the counter, apparently treating his vague promise as another problem requiring immediate technical correction.

"When?"

"When I have time." Orin folded his arms and leaned against the nearest worktable, wearing the patient expression of someone who had already heard that excuse from unreliable apprentices.

"That means never."

"It means when I have time and when this town becomes safer." Both craftsmen exchanged amused looks, as though Sieghart had chosen the one condition they considered easiest to satisfy after the army's sudden retreat. Vessa explained that orc invasions rarely resumed quickly after a king died. Their tribes usually turned against one another before the ruler's body had even become cold. Without overwhelming strength forcing cooperation, challengers fought for territory, warriors, resources, and legitimacy.

The violence continued until one contender defeated enough rivals to claim the title.

"That usually takes years." Sieghart adjusted one strap on his bag while considering the explanation. A long internal conflict would certainly reduce the chance of another organized army appearing outside these walls soon. However, the numbers still bothered him. A society constantly losing warriors through succession struggles had somehow gathered thousands of soldiers for an invasion without visibly exhausting its population.

Perhaps the tribes reproduced quickly, controlled enormous territories, absorbed defeated groups, or simply possessed far more people than human histories bothered recording accurately. Whatever the explanation, Sieghart doubted a culture built around repeatedly murdering its strongest leaders could be described as stable, even by this world's extremely generous standards.

"That sounds reassuring."

"It should." Vessa stepped around the counter and checked the straps on his luggage without asking, tightening one buckle before declaring that children had no idea how to pack equipment properly. Sieghart almost reminded her that he had survived reincarnation, noble politics, magical warfare, dungeon creatures, and an Orc King. He decided the argument would reveal more than it accomplished.

Orin offered him several spare engraving tips and a small container of conductive paste, claiming they were leftovers too cheap to include in professional work. Sieghart accepted without exposing that the supposedly cheap supplies would have cost a beginner enough money to delay practicing for several weeks.

"Thanks."

"Come back before you forget everything."

"I won't."

"That confidence is why your workshop will explode." Sieghart looked toward the ceiling again, where a repaired scorch mark remained visible above the worktable as permanent testimony against their professional judgment.

"I still don't want to hear that from either of you." Vessa laughed, while Orin raised both hands in surrender. The familiar exchange made leaving feel stranger than Sieghart expected after spending only a little more than one week beside them. He had arrived assuming they were careless craftsmen operating inside a collapsing shop. They remained careless craftsmen, but their knowledge, generosity, and willingness to arm defenders had earned his respect.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. Sieghart carried his bag toward the entrance, then stopped beneath the faded sign and looked back at the workshop one final time.

"Goodbye."

"Not goodbye." Vessa pointed the repaired spear toward him with enough seriousness that Sieghart briefly wondered whether refusing the wording would somehow restart the apprenticeship argument.

"Until next time." Sieghart considered correcting her, then decided the distinction cost nothing and might prevent another ten minutes of increasingly creative recruitment arguments.

"Fine. Until next time." Orin waved from behind the workbench while holding a half-assembled engraver, already looking more comfortable once the conversation moved away from permanent apprenticeship. Sieghart left before the conversation became another investigation. Cold morning air met him outside, carrying the ordinary sounds of commerce instead of warning horns and distant battle. The town had changed overnight.

Soldiers still occupied the walls, but merchants reopened their shops, workers cleared damaged streets, and civilians spoke without constantly glancing northward. Several buildings near the fortifications had lost windows or sections of roofing. Repair crews already surrounded them, treating siege damage like another unpleasant task requiring tools and patience. Sieghart moved through the commercial district while keeping his dark-haired disguise active.

Nobody connected the quiet boy carrying luggage with any rumor involving firestorms, poison clouds, or a dead king. That suited him perfectly. Fame attracted questions, questions exposed patterns, and exposed patterns eventually reached people powerful enough to transform curiosity into plans. The coach station operated from a broad yard near the southern gate. Drivers inspected wheels, merchants loaded crates, and travelers argued over limited seats on the first departing wagons.

Sieghart joined the line without complaint. After surviving the Orc King, waiting beside irritated merchants felt almost relaxing, even when someone attempted to charge triple the usual fare. Behind him, Vessa remained near the workshop entrance until Sieghart disappeared around the corner. Only then did she lower the spear and look toward Orin.

"He was useful." Orin stared at her with theatrical disbelief, then glanced toward the empty street where Sieghart had already vanished among merchants and departing travelers.

"That might be the weakest compliment you've ever given anyone." Vessa returned inside and placed the repaired spear beside the completed orders. Orin followed, though neither immediately resumed working after the door closed. The empty workbench near the warehouse entrance looked strange without Sieghart sitting there, silently charging equipment while reading three books at once between completed pieces.

"He charged dozens every day."

"While pretending it was difficult." Vessa glanced toward Orin, her expression sharpening as she realized the question had been bothering him throughout most of the previous week.

"You noticed that too?" Orin nodded slowly. Ordinary Restorers required breaks, meditation, meals, and careful scheduling, yet Sieghart had maintained nearly identical output from morning until evening. The boy had claimed he started with plenty of mana, which was technically an explanation. It simply failed to explain why his reserves never appeared meaningfully lower afterward.

"He learned the engraver quickly."

"Too quickly." Vessa remembered his first illumination rune, the water-purification circuit, and the heated coat. His lines had lacked experience, but his hands had adjusted after remarkably few corrections. Sieghart had also understood diagrams without requiring every symbol explained repeatedly. Once shown a principle, he applied it elsewhere and occasionally identified connections neither craftsman expected him to notice.

"Maybe Lunar Arc trains them better."

"He said he wasn't a member."

"He lives there."

"That somehow makes it weirder." Orin picked up the half-finished engraver but did not activate it. His attention remained on the empty doorway, as though Sieghart might return after forgetting another suspicious detail. Then there was the siege. The boy had watched soldiers retreat, heard that the walls might fall, and responded by calmly asking how many weapons still required enchantments. He had shown no panic when the first attack began.

Even the following morning, after supposedly sleeping badly, Sieghart had returned to work without asking whether escape remained possible.

"Children get scared."

"Adults get scared."

"He didn't." Vessa frowned at the circuit plan beneath her hand. Sieghart had complained about losing sleep, explosions, bad organization, and dangerous prototypes, yet never about dying behind the walls. That could have been ignorance, but Sieghart never behaved like someone incapable of understanding danger. He identified risks faster than most apprentices twice his apparent age. The timeline bothered Orin even more.

The northern field army had fought for days before collapsing, despite holding prepared positions and receiving equipment from every surrounding settlement. Then the orcs reached the town, attacked for only two nights, and disappeared before dawn without breaching a single major section of wall.

"Nothing about that makes sense."

"The King might have died."

"Kings don't usually die for no reason." Vessa remembered the rumors describing falling suns, poisonous rain, and a hidden mage attacking from somewhere above the battlefield during the first night. The second night had produced fewer visible spells, but distant impacts had shaken the northern forest while witnesses reported strange flashes beyond the enemy camp. Nobody had found the Orc King's corpse. Nobody had identified the mysterious mage, and no human strike force claimed responsibility for entering the camp.

Orin slowly turned toward the stairs leading to the rooms above the workshop, remembering how little either of them had actually observed during the nighttime attacks.

"The boy said the battle kept him awake." Vessa followed his gaze toward the upper hallway, where Sieghart's temporary room remained quiet and the window stood slightly open.

"He was in his room."

"Did either of us check?" Neither answered. They had slept through the first assault, and exhaustion had left them unconscious for most of the second night as well. Vessa remembered finding Sieghart's window open that morning, though she had assumed he wanted fresh air after spending hours inside a room smelling faintly of healing magic. Orin remembered the blood beneath one corner of the upstairs washbasin, which Sieghart could easily have blamed on another failed sensory experiment.

Both details had innocent explanations. Together with the impossible output, strange behavior, and sudden ending of the siege, they became noticeably less innocent.

"You don't think…" Orin left the sentence unfinished. Vessa stared toward the empty workbench while several pieces seemed to approach one another inside her thoughts. A quiet child arrived from Lunar Arc carrying more mana than ordinary Restorers. A hidden mage appeared, defeated an army's morale, and vanished before anyone could identify him.

The same child learned Poison Magic immediately before the battlefield became covered in foul-smelling poison, then slept poorly during the nights when mysterious attacks occurred. Vessa slowly opened her mouth, but the thought still had not become reasonable enough for her to speak aloud without sounding completely insane. A customer struck the front door hard enough to make both craftsmen jump, then shouted that three damaged shields needed repairs before the next northern patrol departed.

The unfinished conclusion shattered beneath ordinary work. Vessa sighed, collected the circuit plans, and walked toward the entrance while Orin returned to his engraver. Whatever possibility they had nearly reached sounded ridiculous anyway. Sieghart was a strange, talented boy, while the hidden mage had fought an army and apparently killed an Orc King. Those facts could not reasonably describe the same person, especially when one was a disguised child and the other had apparently defeated an entire army. Probably.

Vessa opened the door, accepted the damaged shields, and immediately began arguing about the repair price while Orin activated his engraver behind her. Within minutes, the workshop returned to its familiar rhythm of humming crystals, carved metal, scattered tools, and unfinished orders demanding attention. Neither mentioned Sieghart again that morning, though both occasionally glanced toward the empty workbench whenever something exploded loudly enough to remind them of him.