The farmhouse living room had been converted into an engineering bay.
Valeria stood before a large chalkboard she had constructed from slate and soot-paint. On it, she had drawn a detailed schematic of a Scorpion Ballista—a torsion-powered siege weapon capable of punching through a stone wall at five hundred yards.
"The principle is torque," Valeria explained, pointing to the twisted rope bundles in the diagram. "We don't rely on the flexibility of the bow arms like a normal crossbow. We rely on the tension stored in these twisted skeins of hair or sinew. When the arms are pulled back, the rope twists tight. When released, it snaps forward with massive kinetic energy."
Ignis sat in the front row, staring at the diagram with an intensity that burned.
"Torsion," the Dragon muttered, his mind racing. "Standard siege engines use counterweights. This... this is compact. Mobile. And violent."
He looked up at her, his monocle glinting. "Where did you learn this? The Imperial Academy of Engineering doesn't teach this design."
"I read a lot of old books," Valeria said, tapping her temple. "Now, to build it, we need three things. High-tensile rope. Hardwood timber. And metal ratchets to crank it back."
She looked at Kael. "Can you forge gears?"
Kael was sitting on the floor, using a whetstone on his claws. "If you make a mold, I can melt the metal. I have plenty of spare axe-heads and scrap iron from the barn."
"Good," Valeria said. "We need two of these. One for the front gate. One for the rear."
"And the ammo?" Silas asked. The Wolf was currently cleaning his new crossbow - the Silent Killer they had looted. He treated it like a baby.
"Spears," Valeria said. "Iron-tipped heavy bolts. Lucian?"
The Phoenix looked up from a pile of feathers. "Yes?"
"You're in charge of fletching. The bolts need stability to fly straight. Use the stiffest feathers you can find."
"I'll use Stalker quills," Lucian decided. "They are rigid."
"Perfect. Let's get to work."
For the next three days, the estate rang with the sounds of a shipyard.
Kael built a forge in the yard using the leftover kiln bricks. He was a natural metallurgist. His Metal Attribute allowed him to sense the impurities in the iron, pulling them out with his mana as he hammered. The gears he produced were crude but incredibly durable.
Ignis and Valeria worked on the frame. They used the oak timber from the forest. Ignis's obsession with precision meant every joint was fitted to the millimeter.
"You're a perfectionist," Valeria noted as Ignis sanded a joint for the tenth time.
"In war, a millimeter is the difference between a hit and a miss," Ignis said without looking up. "And a miss means you die."
He paused, blowing sawdust off the wood.
"You act like a General," Ignis said quietly. "You delegate. You manage logistics. You maintain morale. But you are a noblewoman who never left the capital. Who taught you?"
Valeria hesitated. She couldn't say 'I was a project manager at a logistics firm on Earth.'
"Survival taught me," she said. "When you have nothing, you learn to use everything."
Ignis stopped sanding. He looked at her.
"I underestimated you," he admitted. "I thought you were just... lucky. A girl with a spatial artifact. But artifacts don't give you vision."
He stood up and gave her a stiff, formal nod.
[System Notification: Husband Affinity Updated.]
[Ignis: 35% (Intellectual Peer). Note: Subject respects your mind above your magic.]
"Let's finish the trigger mechanism," Valeria said, hiding her smile. "I want to test fire by sundown."
By late afternoon, the first Ballista was mounted on a swivel platform on the front wall.
It was an ugly, brutish machine. Dark oak, black iron, and thick ropes made from braided Stalker sinew (which turned out to be incredibly elastic).
"Load," Valeria ordered.
Kael hefted a four-foot-long iron-tipped bolt. He slotted it into the groove.
"Crank," Valeria said.
Silas and Caspian grabbed the winch handles. They turned.
Click. Click. Click.
The ratchets groaned. The massive arms of the ballista pulled back, the sinew ropes twisting tight with a sound like a dying tree. The tension was palpable.
"Hold," Valeria said.
She peered down the sights. She aimed at a dead pine tree about four hundred yards away, near the edge of the forest.
"Lucian, clear the range!"
Lucian, perched on the roof, gave a thumbs up. "Clear!"
Valeria grabbed the trigger lever.
"Fire in the hole!"
She yanked the lever.
THWUNG.
The sound was not a snap. It was a deep, resonant bass thrum that vibrated in their chests.
The bolt disappeared.
It moved too fast for the eye to track.
A split second later, the pine tree four hundred yards away exploded.
It didn't just get hit. The top half of the tree was sheared off as the bolt smashed through the trunk and continued flying into the forest.
"Holy..." Caspian whispered, his gills fluttering.
Kael stared at the decimated tree. "That hits harder than me."
"It's a tank killer," Ignis said, looking at the weapon with something akin to love. "With this, we don't need to fight the Guild on the ground. We can skewer them before they even knock on the door."
"Reload," Valeria said, her adrenaline spiking. "Let's calibrate the second one."
That night, the mood in the farmhouse was triumphant.
They had walls. They had artillery. They had food growing in the greenhouse.
Valeria sat by the fire, sewing a button onto Kael's new shirt (Lucian was busy fletching, so she pitched in).
Silas was sitting at her feet, cleaning the crossbow. Kael was sharpening the spare bolts. Caspian was soaking in his trough.
It felt... domestic. Weirdly, violently domestic.
Ignis walked over to her. He held a piece of paper.
"The forgery is done," Ignis said. "The letter from the dead Handler to the Guild, claiming the Duke is hiding the Wolf."
Valeria took it. The handwriting was jagged, hasty—exactly like a man writing in the field.
"It's perfect," Valeria said.
"I took the liberty of adding a detail," Ignis said. "I mentioned that the Duke has hired 'mercenaries using forbidden alchemy'. This will explain why the Handler's squad disappeared."
"Smart," Valeria nodded. "Covering our tracks."
"How do we send it?" Ignis asked. "We can't use the hawk again. It's too suspicious if a bird delivers internal Guild correspondence."
"We don't send it," Valeria said. "We let them find it."
She looked at Kael.
"The Handler had a drop box," Valeria said. "The system log from the Monocle mentioned it. A hollow tree near the crossroads. He leaves reports there for the couriers."
"You want me to put it there?" Kael asked.
"Yes. Tonight. Before the snow covers his tracks completely."
Kael stood up. "Consider it done."
He took the letter and vanished out the door into the night.
Valeria watched him go. She felt a pang of worry, but she squashed it. Kael was a Tier 2 Hybrid now. He could handle a courier.
She turned back to her sewing.
"Caspian," she called.
"Yes, heavy-wife?" Caspian called from the kitchen.
Valeria sighed at the nickname (Shark logic: she fed them, therefore she provided 'weight', therefore she was a heavy-wife. It was apparently a compliment in shark culture).
"How is the water level?"
"Rising," Caspian said. "The aquifer is pushing hard. I think the greenhouse tree is pulling it up."
"The tree..." Valeria frowned.
She stood up and walked to the kitchen window that overlooked the greenhouse.
The glass structure was glowing.
Not the faint, silver light from before. It was pulsating. A rhythmic, deep green thrumming light.
"That's not normal," Valeria whispered.
"Mana spike," Ignis said, appearing beside her. "Large scale."
Suddenly, a notification chime rang in Valeria's head. But it wasn't the usual blue system box. It was Gold.
[World Event Triggered.]
[The World Tree Sapling has reached Stage 1: Rooting.]
[Effect: The land within 1 mile is now designated "Sacred Ground".]
[Consequence: Neutral Spirit Beasts will be attracted. Malignant Corruption will be repelled.]
"Sacred Ground?" Valeria muttered.
As they watched, something emerged from the snow near the greenhouse.
It wasn't a monster.
It was a deer. But it was translucent, made of soft, white light. It walked through the wall as if it wasn't there. It lowered its head and began to graze on the snow—or rather, on the mana leaking from the greenhouse.
Then another appeared. A spectral rabbit. A glowing owl.
"Spirits," Ignis whispered, awestruck. "Nature Spirits. They haven't been seen in the Mortal Realm for centuries. The pollution of the magi-tech cities drove them away."
"They're eating the mana," Valeria observed.
"They are blessing the land," Ignis corrected. "Where Spirits graze, crops grow instantly. Disease vanishes. The soil becomes eternal."
He looked at Valeria.
"You haven't just built a farm, Valeria. You've resurrected a myth."
Valeria stared at the ghostly menagerie.
"Great," she said dryly. "More shiny things to attract attention. Can we eat them?"
Ignis choked. "No! You cannot eat a Spirit! It's bad luck! And they are incorporeal!"
"Just checking," Valeria shrugged. "We have mouths to feed."
She watched the peaceful scene.
"Sacred Ground," she repeated.
It sounded nice. But in a villainess novel, 'Sacred' usually meant 'Target for every Dark Lord within a thousand miles'.
"Lucian," she called out.
"Yes?"
"Keep the ballista loaded."
"Always, Commander."
Valeria turned away from the window. The farm was evolving. The husbands were evolving. The land was evolving.
She just hoped she could evolve fast enough to keep them all alive.