Chapter 21: The Wood Family Castle

From Wendeng Port all the way to the Wood family's territory, if the weather is good, riding a horse takes only six or seven days.

However, reality always deviates a bit from theory; spending the night in the wild is not merely unpleasant, it is also unsafe. This is why both chose to depart in the morning, aiming to reach as far a village as possible before nightfall, then setting out again the next morning.

Some sections of the road remained muddy after the snow melted; only after two days of travel did they regain firmer ground, a thin shell of mud having formed on the outer sides of their cloaks. After another six days of stopping and starting among the villages along the way, they returned to Wood Town on the evening of the ninth day.

Like most settlements, Wood Town was built near a water source, situated in a river valley flanked by low hills, backed by mountains and facing the water, with a relatively narrow and elongated terrain. The river is roughly ten meters wide—not particularly wide, yet difficult to cross.

When Old Wood was young, the town developed only on one side of the river; crossing required a long detour upstream where the water was shallow, or choosing between swimming and taking a boat.

Old Wood, who deeply detested this, in order to make full use of the land on the opposite bank, while constructing the castle, used the remaining stone to build a stone bridge across the river—a truly convenient public work.

Now, Ryan and Kraft are crossing this very stone bridge; they must pass through the town to reach the castle atop the small hill behind it.

The castle's location is extremely comfortable. The low hill behind the town presents a gentle slope on the side facing Wood Town and the river, while the rear is a steep cliff; during defense, one only needs to face enemies climbing upward from the front, greatly reducing the earthwork required at the back.

At the same time, this modest slope creates an extremely uncomfortable experience for attackers, draining their stamina while ruling out any possibility of a charge uphill; conversely, defenders can, when the situation reverses, descend with the momentum, accumulating enough force over a short distance to knock people flying.

Over thirty years, Old Wood first cleared the trees from the hilltop, used the timber to erect a wooden wall as a temporary barrier, built a sturdy tower as the castle's main structure against the cliff, and constructed removable wooden buildings around the tower, including stables, workshops, and kitchens.

This phase lasted more than ten years, accounting for half of the entire project; until around the time Kraft was born, the outer perimeter of the Wood family castle still used wooden walls.

The lengthy construction period was mainly due to economic considerations and practicality. Although the territory theoretically included Wood Town and several surrounding small villages, and the economy was considered decent among minor nobles, a newly established family had more than just this one expense; Old Wood also had to provide estates for the old comrades who returned with him, and their descendants would continue to serve the Wood family.

Wood Town was no strategic military site; a family castle could indeed effectively guard against various risks, but only if such risks actually arose to test it. Even if war were to break out one day, no one would bother dispatching an army to attack here; sending an envoy to symbolically accept the lord's surrender would be sufficient.

Only when the time was ripe, or rather when Old Wood felt the family's financial situation had improved, did the Wood family begin dismantling the wooden palisade to replace it with a proper stone curtain wall.

The smaller scale of work allowed Old Wood to stubbornly raise the curtain wall to over three meters in height; combined with the battlements' crenellations, it would prove very useful once the Kraft family could accumulate enough crossbows and bows.

Meanwhile, the auxiliary buildings, patched up over more than a decade, were replaced by an expanded tower, gradually merging into a sturdy fortress with a single tower. By then, the entire castle had fully matured, becoming a disgusting thing that was hard to attack yet unnecessary to attack, perfectly suited as a family's hereditary stronghold.

As time passed and Kraft grew to adulthood, in recent years the road from the castle gate to the town had been paved with gravel, eliminating many problems of horses and carts slipping.

Kraft and Ryan followed this zigzagging path upward; the sunset slowly sank behind the castle, casting the building's elongated shadow onto the sparsely wooded gentle slope. Its future enemies would be covered by its shadow every evening, preparing their cumbersome siege engines on the slope, guarding against heavy rolling stones descending with the terrain.

Even a soul from another world cannot help but marvel at the power of such a structure in the age of cold weapons; with sufficient water and food supplies, it would require several times the manpower to besiege such a stone complex.

Forget about moving large siege engines here; during wartime, destroying the stone bridge over the river below would make it troublesome even for people to cross. Siege engines built from locally felled timber would be incredibly difficult to push up the slope. Then, after all that hardship, arriving before the castle to face a group of militia led by professional armed men would be the ultimate torment.

That's right; prudent in peace, the Wood family still maintained a standing armed force. Although indeed not many, only ten or twenty people, mainly composed of old comrades and veterans who retired with Old Wood.

When Old Wood prospered, they too were allocated surrounding estates; and like Old Wood, they were people who loved training their juniors from a young age, forming a tradition of professional soldiers within the family.

The group of "personal guards" that Kraft's father took to the battlefield as attendants, supplemented by some temporarily armed militia to fill the ranks, constituted a small army. The final tragic misfortune was purely bad luck, not a failure of skill among these men trained since childhood.

In Kraft's generation, there were also young peers training within the castle, though most of these people would spend their lives guarding the castle, with no opportunity to seek fortune on the battlefield.

In the dim twilight, flickering firelight could be seen at the castle gate; these were the torches held by the guards on night watch. Faintly, the clanging sound of metal could also be heard.

"John? Or George? Don't close the gate yet!" Kraft shouted loudly. "No, I don't want to wait outside while you fiddle with that damn winch."

"Ah ha, our little Baron is back!" Laughter came from the other side of the gate; the clanging of metal ceased immediately. A young face holding a torch peered over the wall. "Come in."

"I warn you one last time, George, there is only one person here who can be called Baron!" Kraft had a good relationship with these young men; after all, they had been trained together by Old Wood, and country nobles did not observe so many formalities. "Do I not have a name?"

Ryan and Kraft took their horses to the stable, then found Old Wood and Anderson in the dining hall, enjoying dinner. By candlelight, a long table was set with bread, thick soup, and sausages made within the castle. A gray-haired old man and a somewhat balding middle-aged man sat at the table; the atmosphere resembled a public service advertisement about caring for empty-nest elderly people on television.

"My dear Kraft, you have finally returned; Anderson and I were just talking about you." The burly old man put down the bread in his hand and warmly welcomed his grandson. "And Ryan, come sit down quickly; you must be hungry by now."

"So in the end, you still did not meet that person?" After the two had eaten and drunk their fill, Ryan remembered to bring out the stone hand, and only then did Old Wood suddenly recall what else Kraft had gone out to do.

The round trip had taken nearly a month; from the snowfall to the melting snow, it felt as though half the winter had passed. Had Ryan not brought back a gift, perhaps everyone would have already forgotten.

"Indeed, just an unskilled charlatan; he burned his own hand and died before we even reached Wendeng Port." Kraft crossed his arms, expressing helplessness. "It's not as interesting as what Cousin Ryan bought; at least this hand won't burn itself."

"Haha, indeed." Anderson took the hand from Old Wood, flipped it over, but could discern nothing of significance. "However, it does look quite interesting. Did the seller say where it came from?"

"He didn't say, but I don't think it's something from within the North Realm." Ryan's expression remained unchanged. "If we're talking about interesting things, you should look at Kraft; you absolutely cannot guess what happened." He played coy, though the smile on his face was impossible to hide.

"It couldn't possibly be that Kraft was admitted to Wendeng Port Academy, could it?" Old Wood guessed in the most unlikely direction as usual; this absurd speculation made Anderson laugh.

"..."

"..."

"What's wrong? Why are you all silent? What interesting thing is so mysterious?" The sudden silence made Anderson stop laughing; he thought perhaps his laughter had been inappropriate.