Last Gun Alchemist-Chapter 84: Fifth Trial—Tower Defense Part Eight

Morning light slowly slipped through the small gaps in the fabric of Ezra’s tent, thin golden lines passing through the tiny holes and landing directly on his face.

Ezra’s eyes opened once.

He didn’t move immediately.

Instead, he simply stared at the ceiling of the tent for a while, his gaze blank as his mind slowly caught up with the new day.

After a few seconds he covered his mouth and yawned quietly, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand before pushing himself up from the bed.

The cold air of the morning brushed against his skin as he stepped outside with a wooden cup filled with water.

Standing beside his tent, Ezra began brushing his teeth.

Even during a brutal trial like this one, Ezra never ignored hygiene.

In fact, it was one of the few things he refused to compromise on.

Sometimes he even felt annoyed when he remembered parts of the life that seemed to be his past life—especially the memories where his soldier self-had gone days during battlefields without proper hygiene.

The thought alone made him uncomfortable.

Of course, Ezra understood that there would be moments when bathing wasn’t possible.

But at the very least, he would still brush his teeth and clean his body whenever he could.

Just like he had done during the fourth trial.

After finishing, Ezra lifted his gaze toward the field outside the castle.

The grassland stretched quietly beneath the pale morning sky.

Not long ago that area had looked like a battlefield prepared for slaughter.

Ezra had filled it with holes, spikes, and traps, shaping the terrain into a defensive killing ground.

Now, however, it looked strangely normal again.

The traps were still there.

Hidden.

Carefully arranged.

The grass swayed gently as if nothing dangerous existed beneath it.

Perfectly set traps.

Ezra lowered his eyes slightly.

The massive body of the Morvarg still lay not far away, its enormous form poked by spikes.

"I should carry it and bring it to the others," Ezra muttered quietly.

"It might be useful."

Meanwhile the camp had already begun waking up.

One by one the candidates stepped out of their tents.

Some stretched their sore bodies.

Others quietly inspected their injuries.

Everyone shared the same concern.

The second wave.

No one knew if it would arrive today.

Many of them had not fully recovered from the injuries they suffered during the previous battle and their Cognis reserves were also far from fully restored.

A quiet tension hung over the camp.

Then...

"Guys!"

Veda suddenly climbed onto a long wooden bench.

He clapped his hands loudly to gather everyone’s attention.

The scattered voices slowly quieted.

"I had our beautiful-minded Ezra share his thoughts with me yesterday," Veda announced loudly.

"He gave his opinion on when the second wave might begin."

"What? Him again?" someone whispered.

"Why is Sir Veda talking about that arrogant boy this early in the morning?" another voice muttered.

A wave of murmurs spread through the crowd.

"Guys, guys, calm down," Veda said while lowering his hands.

"It’s important that everyone hears this."

Veda repeated the explanation Ezra had given him the night before, carefully describing how Ezra had analyzed the situation and what conclusions he had drawn from it. He explained how it was technically possible for the second wave to arrive today if the board wanted to push the trial harder, but how that outcome was unlikely because of the overall purpose of the Trial of Steel.

"The purpose of this trial," Veda said loudly while standing on the wooden bench so everyone could hear him clearly, "is to produce strong soldiers for the family. They are not trying to wipe everyone out just to leave a single survivor behind."

He paused and looked around at the faces gathered below him.

"So based on that reasoning," he continued, "it is very unlikely that the next wave will begin during this first week. If anything, the earliest it might happen would be near the end of the week. But the safest assumption would be sometime around the middle of the second week."

He clapped his hands together once.

"So, with that in mind," he said while raising his voice slightly, "we will continue focusing on recovering our strength and cleaning the bodies of the Silverback Dire Wolves. At the same time, we will keep watch on the surroundings in case there are any signs of the second wave arriving earlier than expected."

He lifted one finger.

"If today passes without another wave appearing, we will continue resting for the remainder of the week and only return to full alert on the fourth day of this week."

After hearing the explanation, most of the group nodded in agreement.

However, not everyone was satisfied.

Some people still didn’t like the fact that Veda was following a suggestion that originally came from Ezra.

At the same time, there were also those who had begun supporting Ezra’s ideas, especially after noticing that his earlier predictions regarding the point reward system had been accurate.

Many of those who supported him were lowlines, people who had slowly begun to see Ezra in a different light.

The highlines, on the other hand, still held their distance.

Most of them didn’t like Ezra.

The only one whose attitude had softened slightly was Nickolas. He still didn’t like Ezra very much, but the hostility he once carried toward him had clearly faded.

Just then, Ezra stepped down from the tower stairs and glanced briefly at the crowd as it began to disperse.

"Hey, Veda," he said while walking over.

"I need some help moving Morvarg’s body. It might be useful to us later."

"Yeah," Veda replied immediately. "We already have some ideas about how we might use the wolves’ bodies."

He let out a small sigh.

"I just wish we had time yesterday to preserve the meat properly. That would have made a really good food supply for the coming weeks."

Then he pointed toward six nearby members.

"You six, go help Ezra move the Morvarg."

The six people immediately followed Ezra without hesitation after hearing Veda’s order.

Meanwhile Nickolas stepped closer.

"Veda, we should go spend our points now," he said.

"Okay."

The two boys walked past several members who were already beginning their work for the day and headed toward the tower.

They climbed the stairs to the upper room.

"Good morning, Sir Veda. Nickolas," the girl assigned to guard the tower greeted them politely.

"I’m sorry, Mariam," Veda said while lowering his head slightly in apology. "You’ve been staying here watching the flag and crystal while the others are outside with their friends."

"No, Sir Veda!" Mariam quickly waved her hands in embarrassment.

"I was the one who chose to stay here and watch the crystal!"

Her face turned slightly pink as she spoke, clearly flustered by Veda’s polite tone and gentle smile.

Nickolas glanced at her reaction with a dry expression.

"Smooth, Veda," he said sarcastically.

"What?" Veda looked at him in confusion.

"Let’s just get to business," Nickolas said while turning away with a slightly irritated expression.

Veda scratched the back of his head.

What got him annoyed all of a sudden?

"Okay."

He placed his palm against the crystal.

Immediately the holographic interface appeared again.

Veda scrolled down until the weapon market section appeared.

***

Weapons Points (Veda Group: 25,000pts)

Catapults -----------------------------------------------------(1000pts)

Machine gun--------------------------------------------------(15,000pts)

Canons---------------------------------------------------------(200,000pts).

***

"So," Nickolas said while stroking his chin, his eyes moving across the list of weapons. "Have you thought about which one we should go for?"

"We only have twenty-five thousand points," Veda replied while also rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "So, we need to spend them carefully."

"I would personally prefer the cannons," Mariam said with a small sigh.

"Don’t worry," Veda replied confidently while raising his thumb toward her. "We’ll earn more points this time. With better preparation and planning, we definitely will."

After staring at the list for another moment, Veda finally made his decision. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

He selected Machine Gun.

The section of the crystal he touched rippled like water.

The crystal began glowing with a stronger blue light, and a scanning beam formed in the center before a scroll slowly materialized in the air.

Veda caught it before it could fall to the floor.

"So, this is a scroll-alchemy for the machine gun," Veda said while examining it carefully. "It even already contains a certain amount of Cognis."

He frowned slightly.

"This must have cost a lot to create. They really are depending on this trial to help the family rise."

He handed the scroll to Nickolas.

Then he selected Catapult five times.

The same glowing process repeated itself.

Five scrolls appeared one after another, and Veda caught them all.

Their remaining points dropped to 5,000.

"This should be enough for now," Veda said.

"The only problem left is that we need ammunition for the machine gun and large rocks for the catapults."

"For the machine gun," Mariam said while stepping forward.

She pressed and held the Machine Gun option on the crystal.

A new page opened immediately, displaying a list of ammunition boxes containing 600 to 1000 rounds each.

The information beside it displayed the weapon details.

The machine gun was a GPMG — General Purpose Machine Gun.

Its caliber was 22.86 × 153 mm.

Its effective range was between 2,400 and 3,600 meters.

It used a belt-fed feeding system, allowing it to fire belts containing 50 to 200 rounds.

Its firing rate ranged between 600 and 1000 rounds per minute.

A weapon ranked at the Meister Rank.

"I wonder what grade this one is," Nickolas said while staring at the scroll.

"I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s only a Second-Grade weapon," Veda replied.

"Alright, Mariam," Veda said while stepping away from the crystal.

"I’ll come back later to buy the ammunition for it. For now, we’ll head down."

They waved goodbye.

"Bye, Sir Veda!" Mariam called out with a bright smile as she waved her hand energetically.

"At least say goodbye to me too," Nickolas muttered with a small pout, clearly dissatisfied that he had been ignored.

Neither of them waited long before turning away from the crystal room and heading downstairs.

When the two boys reached the lower level of the tower and stepped out onto the castle’s upper floor, they immediately saw that several members of the group had already started working.

Outside the castle, some of them were busy carefully removing the thick, silver-grey fur from the bodies of the fallen Silverback Dire Wolves, laying the skins flat on the stone ground to dry under the morning sun. Others had taken shovels and were digging large burial pits nearby, pushing the remaining wolf carcasses into the holes before covering them with soil.

The air smelled faintly of blood, earth, and animal fur.

"You guys are back!"

Linda suddenly ran toward them from across the wall, her boots tapping quickly against the stone floor.

She immediately looked down at Veda’s and Nickolas’ hands, her eyes searching eagerly.

"So?" she asked with excitement. "What did you buy with the points?"

Her eyes sparkled with curiosity as she waited for the answer.

"We got five catapults and a GPMG," Veda replied with a small smirk.

"Wow!"

Linda’s mouth opened in excitement.

Her reaction was so loud that several people nearby turned their heads.

"Tracy!"

Linda suddenly ran to the far edge of the castle wall and leaned over the barricade, looking down toward the field outside.

Tracy was there, standing beside a huge pit where several people were burying piles of wolf corpses.

"Yes?" Tracy replied, looking up while wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand.

"We got a GPMG!" Linda shouted while waving her arms.

Tracy’s normally serious expression immediately changed.

"Really?!" she shouted back.

She raised the shovel in her hand high into the air.

"Yeee!"

For the first time since the previous night’s brutal fight, a genuine smile appeared on her face.

The others working beside her also paused their digging.

Their tired expressions slowly turned into smiles.

"With a GPMG, the tide of fighting the next monster wave will change," one of the boys said while tightening his grip on his shovel.

"Very true," another replied with a nod.

Meanwhile, not far away from them...

Ezra continued digging a burial pit on the other side of the castle wall.

Several wolf bodies had already been piled beside him.

He briefly glanced toward the excited crowd celebrating the new weapon before returning his focus to the shovel in his hands.

A GPMG will definitely help them deal with the next waves more effectively.

And knowing Veda...

He probably bought catapults too.

Ezra pushed the shovel into the soil again, lifting another heavy scoop of dirt before tossing it aside.

Meanwhile...

"About the catapults," Veda said while turning toward Linda.

"We need to mobilize the scout team and a few strong members to search for boulders we can use as ammunition."

He tilted his head slightly.

"But finding good ones nearby might be difficult."

Linda crossed her arms for a moment while thinking.

"Actually, when we visited Sir Henry’s base earlier, we passed by a mountain slope that had quite a few large boulders lying around."

Veda’s eyes lit up.

"That explains it!"

He snapped his fingers suddenly.

"That must be why they were building a catapult there."

"Yes, I think so," Linda replied with a small nod.

"But honestly..."

She giggled.

"I bet Sir Henry must feel a bit awkward now. They spent all that effort building a catapult when it turns out the weapon market could just provide one."

Veda rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Still, we’ll probably need to negotiate with them if we want to take some of those boulders."

He turned toward Linda.

"Can you handle that?"

"Trust me," Linda replied with a confident nod.

Then Veda walked toward the castle barricade and looked across the courtyard.

"Ezra!" he called out loudly.

Ezra stopped digging and lifted his head slightly.

"I need your help with something!" Veda shouted.

Ezra stared at him for a brief moment.

Looks like he already has some ideas for fortifying the castle.

Without saying anything, Ezra pushed the shovel into the ground, removed the gloves he had been using, brushed the dirt from his hands, and calmly walked toward Veda.