C32 Delay

Almost everyone in the room agreed with Adney. And why wouldn't they? Adney's suggestion was the most logical course of action.

If they recapture passes then they didn't need to worry about more soldiers coming from the other side.

However, Kipler wasn't fully satisfied with this kind of arrangement. He wanted to reduce the damage that his troops might suffer.

Direct confrontations were always risky, you didn't know when the tide of battle changed.

"What the Chief suggested is a good plan indeed. But we also need to consider that we might have to fight 12000 or more soldiers rather than just 5000 on this side."

"Because while we fight them, they could call for reinforcements, which would only take a few hours to arrive at the battlefield. We need to be prepared." Kipler added.

"Hmm, what chief Kipler says is also right. I think we should wait a month or two and then launch an attack." Eric nodded.

The officials and generals went into another round of intense debate over which plan is more viable.

Finally the meeting concluded, it was decided that Alvaton's forces would attack the Invaders within sixty days. As delaying more would give Dazarians time to build permanent fortifications.

… 

Eric followed Kipler to the military bow factory. The bow factory was situated in the middle of the reserve troops camp near the city exit.

It was newly built, perhaps built three or four years ago, he guessed. 

Eric entered and saw the factory was divided into two parts. one for making bolts for crossbows, which had nearly 150 workers concurrently working there. The other part was for making the crossbow. 

The retired bowyers readily moved forward to greet the high ranking officials of the Kingdom.

They were working here as the supervisors, guiding the bowyers to make crossbows.

General Jenkins slowly walked out of his cabin hearing the noise. He was pleasantly surprised to see Eric and Kipler.

"Hoho! Younger friends , how are you doing." He exclaimed.

"Commarder, good to see you back at work. Retirement really doesn't suit you, if you ever want to come back to the army, please let me know. You are always welcome there." Kipler offered.

Kipler was first assigned under Jenkins when he had joined the army. He had fought two small wars, with Jenkins as the lead commander, against the Belur Empire.

Obviously, at that time Dazar hadn't splitted into two and Belur wanted to control the Kingdom's mineral resources. Old king refused, and war began.

It had ended with Belur surrendering and a year after that old king died and then…

"Little kiddo, you want me to work under you. So that you can take revenge for the extreme training and exercises I made you do. I am not joining." Jenkins let out a hearty laugh making the environment of the entire factory jovial.

Eric and other workers were all smiles. It was a new experience for the workers, they had never seen or heard their strict overseer laugh in the factory.

"I wouldn't dare, Commander, not even in dreams. It was your strictness that made me what I am. I will always be indebted to you." Kipler replied and gave a polite bow to the General.

"I hope you reach the grandmaster level soon." Jenkins said.

Eric listening to the talk between the teacher and student, tried to recall, whether (previous) Eric had any such teacher or not.

Well, just as he had expected. He didn't have even a single memory of any teacher, except his mother and father teaching him some basic stuff.

No wonder, he couldn't reach the level of a trained soldier even after being in knight school for three years. He never paid any attention to teachers in the Academy.

He on Earth wasn't an exceptional student but had managed to get a job during his finals, this was his best achievement since his birth.

"Commander, I am here to request something of you." 

"Hmm, I am listening" General turned serious, his jovial self vanished.

"We need to increase the production of crossbows. Our territory had been invaded..." Kipler summed up everything till the meeting.

His purpose of coming here was to send a group of bowyers and a few trainers to northern borders to make his troops familiar with crossbows and be ready for the upcoming battle.

"Hmm, that's indeed a big problem. Your decision was right to be prepared for worst. In my view they planned this, sending only 5000 soldiers here to lure us and keeping 7000 as backup on other side." General said.

Jenkins led them to the storage of the factory, where the crossbows were kept.

Eric saw that the crossbows were kept there in three separate rows, he asked Jenkins.

"First heap is of newly built crossbows yet to be tested. Second one for the crossbows which passed the tests. And third one is of defective items, which would be checked by retired bowyers at the end of the day to see whether they are repairable or not." General replied.

In second row there were about hundred crossbows, and in first row around one and a half hundred crossbows. While the defective row had just nineteen crossbows.

It would be enough for training the soldiers, thought Eric. He asked, "General, how's the production rate, could we make enough for our troops within a month"

"first three days, um, only a few working crossbows could be made. 12 per day, I think. Then it rose to 28 next day… and now it had neared 80 crossbow per day. I estimate 150 units to be the maximum ammount that could be produced in a day." General explained.

Eric quickly calculated, it came out to be 4500 units per month. It wasn't a great number but enough for the Kingdom.

Kipler invited his old Commander to dinner. They both left the factory talking about some past events about which Eric had no knowledge.

Eric choose to stay behind and observe the workers of the factory. The retired bowyers had become experts in assembling the crossbow.

It took them only ten minutes to assemble scattered parts into a fully working crossbow...