The first sign of the new threat came, as they often do, from a distance. It was Kael, his eyes now as accustomed to scanning the horizon as they were to searching for tubers, who spotted them. A thin, wavering pillar of smoke, rising from the foothills to the south, a place where no smoke should be. It was not the smoke of a cooking fire. It was the smoke of a signal.
I stood beside him on the partially rebuilt city wall, my hand shielding my eyes against the glare. The system was silent. This was not a geological or agricultural phenomenon to be analyzed. This was a human equation.
"Raiders," Borin growled, appearing at my other side. His hand rested instinctively on the hilt of a crude but effective sword he had forged for himself. "Or starving nomads. In this land, there is little difference."
His assessment was stark and accurate. Our success was a beacon. The vast, impossible patch of green that was our farm would be visible for miles from the surrounding hills. To anyone who had spent their life scraping a miserable existence from the unforgiving desert, it would be a vision of paradise, a treasure to be seized. Our grain, now ripening into golden stalks heavy with seed, was the greatest treasure in this part of the world.
A new kind of fear rippled through the city. It was different from the terror of the sandstorm or the creeping dread of starvation. It was a sharp, angry, and protective fear. They had bled for those fields. They had poured their sweat and their hope into that soil. The thought of another group of people simply walking in and taking it was an intolerable violation. The exiles and criminals of Oakhaven, who had nothing to lose, now had everything to lose.
I felt a cold knot tighten in my stomach. All my knowledge, all my power, was geared towards creation, not destruction. Agronomy. Engineering. Geology. I knew how to build a well, not a barricade. I knew how to cultivate a field, not a kill zone. The system, for all its omniscience, had molded me into a shepherd, and now the wolves were coming.
I retreated to the solitude of the manor, the shouts of Borin organizing a preliminary watch echoing from the walls. I needed the system. I needed a new kind of knowledge.
Menu, I thought, my mind racing. I navigated to the [TECHNOLOGY] tab. It was still sparsely populated, a testament to how much I still had to learn. My gaze scanned past the familiar icons for engineering and agronomy. And then I saw it. A new category, one that had not been there before. Perhaps it was unlocked by the severity of the new threat, the system adapting to my needs.
Under the [CIVIC & MILITARY DOCTRINES] tab, a new packet glowed, its prerequisite of 'Established Foreign Contact' having been met.
[BASIC DEFENSIVE FORTIFICATIONS & MILITIA TACTICS - KNOWLEDGE PACKET] [Cost: 1 System Point.] [Description: Provides foundational knowledge of simple defensive structures (ditches, palisades, choke points), militia organization, basic unit formations (shield line, skirmish screen), and psychological warfare against undisciplined foes.]
I checked my status. I had one System Point, the reward for our first successful germination. It was a pittance, but it was enough.
Purchase, I commanded, a grim resolve settling over me.
[CONFIRM PURCHASE OF BASIC DEFENSIVE FORTIFICATIONS & MILITIA TACTICS FOR 1 SP?]
Confirm.
The influx of information was radically different from the previous ones. The knowledge of engineering and agronomy had felt clean, logical, creative. This new knowledge was brutal, cold, and pragmatic. It was a torrent of geometric kill-zones, the cold calculus of attrition, the grim art of turning earth and wood into instruments of death. I saw diagrams of sharpened stakes set in hidden pits. I understood the principles of enfilading fire. I learned how to use the terrain, the very land I had so carefully nurtured, as a weapon.
The knowledge was horrifying. And it was exactly what I needed.
I emerged from the manor a changed man. The shepherd was gone, replaced by a grim-faced commander. I found Borin in the square, attempting to drill our men into something resembling a fighting force. It was a pathetic sight. They were laborers, not soldiers. They held their spears and pickaxes awkwardly, their movements clumsy and uncoordinated.
"This is wrong," I said, my voice cutting through the chaotic scene. Borin turned, surprised by the new, hard edge in my tone.
"I am teaching them to fight," he grunted defensively.
"You are teaching them to die," I corrected him. "We are not an army. We cannot meet them in open battle. We are farmers defending our land. We will not win by being stronger. We will win by being smarter. We will make them bleed for every single step they take towards our grain."
I gathered the elders and work crews. Using my new, brutal knowledge, I laid out a plan of defense. We would not merely hide behind our walls. We would turn the entire approach to Oakhaven into a layered deathtrap.
Our beautiful, life-giving irrigation canals became our first line of defense. "We will deepen and widen the main canal," I commanded, "turning it into a proper moat. We will flood it completely, making it impossible to cross easily."
Outside the moat, I had them dig a series of deep, concealed pits, filled with sharpened stakes carved from the quarry's leftover timber. The earth excavated from the pits was used to build a series of low ramparts, providing cover for our defenders.
The city walls themselves were our final bastion. I had the women and children haul stones to the top, creating piles of crude but effective projectiles. We fashioned makeshift shields from wood and leather hides. The blacksmith, under my direction, began turning every spare piece of metal—broken tools, old pots, metal bands from barrels—into cruel, barbed arrowheads.
The city transformed into an armed camp. The cheerful sounds of work were replaced by the sharp clang of hammer on steel and the grim thud of earth being moved for war. I was no longer a teacher of life, but a professor of death. The change in me was not lost on my people. They saw the cold fire in my eyes, the ruthless efficiency of my commands, and they did not question it. They embraced it. Their builder had become their shield, and their faith in me was absolute.
As the sun set on the third day of our frantic preparations, a scout returned from the hills, his face pale with fear.
"They are coming," he gasped. "At least a hundred of them. Maybe more. They will be here by dawn."
A grim silence fell over the city. A hundred men. We had perhaps thirty men capable of fighting. The odds were suicidal.
I climbed to the top of our main gate, Borin at my side. We looked out over our handiwork: the gleaming moat, the hidden pits, the low earthen walls. Beyond it, our fields of golden wheat swayed gently in the evening breeze, a treasure worth dying for.
"It is a good fortress, Castian," Borin said, his voice a low rumble.
"A fortress is only as strong as the will of those who defend it," I replied, my gaze fixed on the southern horizon.
The system was silent. All the knowledge had been given. The plans were laid. Now, it came down to the blood and courage of a handful of farmers against a horde of desperate killers. As the last light of day faded, leaving Oakhaven shrouded in a tense, watchful darkness, I knew that the harvest we were about to reap would be measured not in grain, but in lives.