SLV Chapter 18: The Source Energy Bow!
April 12
It glowed, and it could attack?
That sounded a great deal like an arrow tower.
Could it be some kind of source energy device?
And yet it possessed devastating destructive power.
Lin En looked down at the crater in the sand nearby and began pulling at everything he knew.
A source energy device that combined portability and destructive capability was something he had never heard of in his life.
Small portable source energy devices did exist.
Lin En didn't have any, but they weren't particularly rare. They were generally controlled by inner city workshop slaveowners.
This group of inner city workshop slaveowners had no oases. What they produced wasn't grain but various kinds of tools and manufactured goods.
Though they lived in the inner city, their standing was only marginally above freemen, far below genuine oasis slaveowners.
With the exception, of course, of those who controlled noble workshops. For them, the title of noble mattered far more than that of slaveowner.
As for source energy devices with destructive capability, Lin En did have one, the source energy obelisks inside his sand spirit arrow towers but they could not be placed anywhere outside the oasis. They had to remain within the range of the heart well, as though some force worked in concert with the source stones to allow them to function properly.
A source energy device that was both portable and lethal was something Lin En had genuinely never encountered, even in rumor.
In a certain sense, the very existence of such a device meant that any confrontation in the open desert was no longer purely a matter of flesh and blood and its destructive power was on par with a full arrow tower.
Area damage, on top of that.
Against a siege by a skeleton tide, area damage was clearly the more effective approach.
Lin En looked toward the skeleton archer, feeling not only curiosity but a sharp, intense desire.
If it was truly what he suspected, the value of that thing was extraordinary then, another point of light appeared, growing from small to large. The skeleton archer had attacked again but Lin En made no move to dodge, because he could see clearly that this arrow wasn't aimed at him at all.
It landed squarely among the glowing skeleton tide itself.
A thunderous boom, and the skeletons' bleached thighs, ribcages, and skulls all went flying.
Now Lin En had a full picture of the situation.
There was clearly no spy on his side.
It was perfectly obvious. This skeleton archer was the skeleton horde's own friendly-fire problem.
It simply couldn't aim.
The three shots that followed landed nowhere near Lin En either.
One hit empty ground and blew another huge crater in the sand.
The other two again caused extensive damage to its own side.
Under the combined fire of the mechanism tower, the skeleton tide surrounding the oasis had even been pushed back a small distance.
"Wait, that's not right!"
The tension in Lin En's chest had barely begun to ease when he immediately spotted a problem that was going to make his life miserable.
The skeleton archer's stray attacks had indeed done no apparent harm to his side but the skeletons blown apart by the skeleton archer's fire had left him no source stones at all.
What was this?
Stealing his kills? Taking his drops?
The skeleton archer kept firing without pause, one shot after another, with some of them landing among the skeleton tide at irregular intervals.
Lin En looked at the glowing skeleton tide, which was now fully suppressed and even being gradually pushed back with the skeleton archer's unwitting assistance.
He felt a deep, stabbing pain in his chest.
Each of those hits was wiping out ten or twenty skeletons at a time.
That was easily one or two source stones per strike.
Those are my source stones!
Damned skeleton archer, wasting all of them.
Calculating at this rate, by the time dawn came, the skeleton archer would blow apart the skeleton tide another dozen or more times.
It would certainly finish off the horde earlier, but what he needed right now was for these skeletons to keep producing source stones for him.
Running the numbers, he stood to lose somewhere around thirty to forty source stones because of this.
Lin En narrowed his eyes and looked again at the skeleton archer standing far out in the wilderness beside a distant boulder and at the source energy bow in its hands, radiating that deep blue light.
The distance was far beyond the range of both the mechanism tower and the regular arrow towers.
Lin En tried taking control of the mechanism tower and attempted a lofted shot.
The sand arrow formed and flew, then simply vanished into the night sky beneath the blood moon.
That had already been a forty-five degree arc, theoretically the maximum range. It wasn't enough.
Unless...
The second upgrade path for the sand spirit arrow tower.
The Sand Spirit Sniper Tower!
The sniper tower's range would certainly be enough to reach the skeleton archer and bring it down, while leaving that glowing source energy bow behind but he had no spare source energy obelisks at all. An emergency upgrade right now would require 50 source stones and a camel-load of mountain copper, plus another 20 source stones for the rebuild.
He had taken two extra camel-loads of mountain copper from Medya's supply, so that was not a problem.
Source stones, on the other hand...
Lin En looked at the glowing skeleton tide being steadily pushed back, ebbing like a retreating wave.
All along the oasis's edge, source stones in the scattered remains were already flickering with that deep blue light.
Those were all source stones!
Combined with what was still loaded in the feeder, keeping five aside for safety, he had nearly twenty available.
Which meant that if he could pick up seventy more from the field, he would have exactly enough to upgrade one sand spirit arrow tower into a sand spirit sniper tower but absolutely not now.
The night was barely half over, and the glowing blood moon skeletons were still pouring out without end.
He thought back to earlier, when the mechanism tower had briefly gone dark as its source stone ran dry.
The terrifying surge of the counterattack that had followed in just those few seconds was still fresh in his mind.
He would have to wait until the first light of dawn appeared at the edge of the sky, the boundary between dark and day, when no more skeletons could claw their way out of the wilderness.
The remaining glowing skeleton tide would begin to scatter on its own.
At that moment, and only then, could he immediately upgrade one of the towers. That was the only way to guarantee everything went smoothly and there was no need to worry about the sniper tower's weakness in clearing ordinary skeleton foot soldiers. Its high output and extreme range more than made up for the slower fire rate when what mattered was bringing down a single target.
He looked toward the distance. Another arrow came, falling again among the skeleton tide, carrying off another one or two source stones that should have been his.
Fine. Fine. You came, so you might as well stay and leave that bow here for me when you go.
Consider it compensation for the thirty or forty source stones you've cost me.
Lin En's mind was made up but who would go and get it?
Going outside to collect the source stones now was still dangerous. The skeleton tide was still too close.
He certainly couldn't risk it himself. Milya was obviously out of the question too.
Which seemed to leave only...
Lin En turned his head toward Fortune, ears up and alert in the corner.
Fortune seemed to feel Lin En's gaze.
Her previously drooping tail lifted and gave two small wags, but she appeared to sense something unsettling in his expression and quickly let it drop again.
…
The battered wooden door swung open with a creak.
Lin En pointed outside and addressed Fortune, who was looking rather blank.
"Come on, Fortune. Look. Those source stones. Pick them up. Bring them to me."
He gestured and mimed with some enthusiasm toward the lame she-wolf.
Fortune's ears drooped. She had clearly understood then came a low, mournful sound.
"Awoo... awoo..."
Lin En felt in an instant that Fortune's expression was deeply peculiar.
He read something in it that could only be described as quiet, heartbroken resentment.
Like a young bride who had just discovered the true nature of the man she had married and was drowning in regret at having given her heart to the wrong person.
"Awoo!"
Fortune turned in place, looking in terror at the world outside, then back at Lin En with an expression that had shifted entirely to pleading.
"Not willing to go? Well, a wolf this perceptive, this clever, it's only natural she'd know enough to be afraid."
Lin En looked at her and felt a genuine pang of regret.
He should have put more effort into training Fortune ahead of time.
If she truly didn't want to go, throwing her out there would accomplish nothing.
"Master... Milya can go."
Just as he was turning the problem over in his head, Milya's voice came quietly from the corner where she had been sitting all this time.
He looked at her. Her face was pale, and the small hand still held in his grip was ice cold.
She had clearly been terrified through this entire blood moon night and now she was volunteering to go out to the edge of the skeleton tide to pick up source stones?
"Master, Milya is a slave. And Master has been so kind to Milya."
Tears surfaced in Milya's eyes, and her voice trembled as she spoke.
"But Milya has done nothing. Milya hasn't tilled the land for Master, and hasn't... served Master in bed..."
"Milya is sorry to Master..."
Looking at the guilt written all over Milya's face, Lin En finally understood why she had so often seemed to feel she owed him something.
She thought she had done nothing.
She had no idea how much she had actually helped.
Without her, where would all those source stones have come from? Certainly not enough to upgrade an arrow tower but the Slaveowner's Manual in his mind was something he could never tell anyone about.
Which meant... Milya would just have to keep carrying this sense of debt for the time being.
Looking at her like this made Lin En feel genuinely uncomfortable.
He supposed that someday, when he no longer needed the roughly 20-point bonus that the Chaste trait provided in practice, he would simply have to put himself through the hardship of letting Milya serve in that capacity as well.
It would at least put her troubled heart to rest.
He looked at Milya's small frame, light enough that he was sure he could lift her without effort, and held the thought quietly.
Of course, sending Milya outside to collect source stones was absolutely out of the question.
"Master... Milya is sorry to Master."
The moment Lin En put an arm around her, he felt something warm and wet against his chest.
"What am I going to do. Does it really come to giving up on the idea entirely?"
He held Milya as she quietly sobbed, and felt a helpless resignation settle over him.
"Awooo!"
And then, at that moment, Fortune suddenly let out a sharp bark.
It was loud and abrupt, as though she were rallying herself.
Lin En turned. Fortune's three legs drove forward in a sudden lunge toward the door, but she pulled back the moment she reached the threshold, retreating with a look of pure fear on her face.
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