Chapter 304 – Tier 3 Trial Part 1

“My liege, you have finally arrived! Thank the gods, you are our only hope!”

Roland was still processing the thing that he was seeing. He had found himself in some kind of wooden fort. He came out on a slightly elevated spot and was surrounded by a wooden wall. From here he could see down towards a bailey. It seemed he was in some kind of old Fort on top of a motte. It was an outdated design even in this world and would usually be used only in some villages that didn’t have enough money to create stone walls.

This was not the only problem as the strange three puppets that were coming his way were a lot more eye-catching. First of all the one that was shouting was dressed in a nice tunic and actually had a whole wooden face. The mouth could only move up and down like on ventriloquist puppets but its eyes and eyebrows were shifting around as well.

Then there were two larger ones behind it that were wearing old decrepit armor. In their hands, they were holding wooden spears with iron tips, just like the ones he found in the room he appeared in. Besides that, the lack of any moving facial features was apparent. All they had was a drawn-in face that made it look very uncanny. Quite similar to a nutcracker wooden doll that Roland was familiar with. When using his identification skill on the puppets he was actually able to gain some information about them.

This was sort of strange, as these puppets were clearly not real people. Instead of getting their levels and classes, he should have gotten the materials they were made from. These should be more similar to golems which didn’t possess any classes when made by him. Monster golems on the other hand were identified with levels for some reason. This didn’t mean that all constructs made by craftsmen weren’t assigned levels.

It was possible to create a golem with a level assigned to it, similar to a monster construct. Roland didn’t know the process behind this and was hoping to learn it when getting through this tier 3. This was the moment craftsmen were rumored to be able to create these more advanced variants that were accepted by this world’s leveling system.

He theorized that it had probably something to do with the golem core and how it was created. Perhaps he needed to make his own from scratch without using monster cores that he erased. It could also require more intricate artificial intelligence to be made as the monster versions tended to be a bit more advanced than the spider drones that could only carry out simple tasks.

“My Lord, there is no time to waste, we must prepare!”

“Prepare? Prepare for what exactly?”

After seeing the puppets coming his way and identifying their levels he started relaxing. At this point in time, a slap from him would turn them into splinters, there was no danger in interacting with them. The moment they arrived at his side the two wooden soldiers went down to their knees while the Lord’s Aid just gave him a bow. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that they were part of the new trial and this aid here would probably explain everything to him.

‘I heard that tier 3 trials could be quite complicated and sometimes take place at huge locations, this is probably similar…’

Before attempting this tier 3 trial he had read up on other high-tier trials like this one. There were many rumors and hearsays but the more information he gained the better of an idea he could form. Most of the time these tests wouldn’t be that complex, for instance, a Shieldmaster class would need to fend off monsters while protecting something inside their trial space. Most of the time they seemed to have to defend a passage but sometimes it became more detailed.

A Guardian was a tier 3 class that required a person to possess similar classes to that of a Shieldmaster but also have a Knight Class. One recorded trial had the future Guardian protect a group of NPCs that acted like people. It was recorded that they repeated a few sentences and reacted to some prompts and orders. The person needed to protect this group through a dangerous path that went through a dark forest, then a narrow bridge at a chasm, then through a mountain range, and finally arrive at a safe spot at the end.

It wasn’t said that the whole illusory world was real, perhaps straying from the path would take them to an invisible wall just like in the fake apartment complex his trials started at. Other records were similar, one particular assassination class had its test taker sneak around a whole small city and a castle. They needed to sneak into the sleeping chambers of the city lord and perform an assassination while evading the guards. It was possible to create various scenarios in these places and pit people against intelligent beings and not only mindless enraged monsters.

Even when it came to crafting classes, he had read up on tournaments inside the trial grounds. They were placed against NPC competition that they could even sabotage if they were able to get away with it. It gave people a lot of wiggle room to be creative in passing and underhanded methods were allowed. There were no morals in these fake words, if a person could achieve victory they would pass.

‘If these worlds can create human-like NPCs with intelligence… why do I get wooden puppets?’

Roland wasn’t sure why the wooden people had appeared again. The one that was the Lord’s Aid was a lot more animated and thanks to the moving eyebrows it was easy to understand what emotions he was going through. Perhaps his own understanding of the human mind was so rudimentary that the trial that was rumored to be a reflection of his own being had trouble creating real people?

Nevertheless, this was not time to think about his own disinterest in understanding others, he needed to get some information about this place. It was clear that he needed to prepare for something and this wooden puppet would need to fill him in on the details.

“My Lord, did you already forget? The enemy stronghold has declared war on us, we need to fortify our fortress to defend our people!”

“Defend our fortress, huh?”

Roland almost made a snarky remark about the claim that this was a fortress after not seeing much more than two meters of wooden walls. This place didn’t look great and these wooden soldiers were certainly not strong. It seemed that he would need to defend this area from these attackers. He needed more information that probably this Lord’s Aid puppet was here to give him.

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“Tell me, who is attacking us, how many soldiers do they have, how many soldiers does our… ‘Fortress’ have, don’t leave out any details about their equipment either, tell me everything you know.”

“As you wish My Lord! Do you wish to have the soldiers gather for an inspection?”

“Gather? Yes, have them assembled and ready for battle.”

“You heard the Lord, carry out the order!”

One of the wooden soldiers saluted by hitting his chest with his fist on the spot where a human’s heart would be before storming away. Roland wanted to actually see his whole army together if he was to command it. It was better to investigate their weapons and gear to then come up with some kind of plan. The scenario seemed to be pushing toward a defensive battle but this didn’t mean that it would end at it nor if only one wave of enemies would arrive.

Thanks to his noble heritage and not much to do in his younger life, he went through various books related to strategy. He was the sole lord of this place so it would make it easier to command the troops. There were ways of defending a castle or a fortress that he was knowledgeable about. First, he needed to learn about the topography of this location. If this fortress was built into a mountain it would have made defending it a lot easier for him.

‘This isn’t that good… there are multiple places that we can get attacked from…’

The wooden puppet stuck close to him while he went around the whole compound. Everything looked like this place was stuck in the iron era of metallurgy. All that they had to work with was pig-iron which was used for tools and regular iron they outfitted their army with. Though Roland wasn’t sure if he could call the wooden puppets he had an army yet.