The tension was real! So real that my legs were trembling uncontrollably.
Terrified, I knelt on the dry, parched earth. The clashing of cold steel and frantic screams filled the air—in a language that, strangely, I could understand perfectly.
"Run! They're attacking from the west gate!"
I struggled to my feet. Before me, a village that looked like a relic from the Middle Ages stood on the brink of total destruction. Wooden houses with thatched roofs lay in ruins. The bandits—rough, brutal men in filthy leather armor—laughed as they swung their swords. This was no campus simulation. This wasn't a nightmare brought on by sleep deprivation.
Stay calm, Haruki. Think! My instincts as an engineering student took over.
"Hey, you! What are you doing?! Run, quickly!" a girl in tattered clothes screamed at me. Behind her, two bandits with sickening grins were closing in.
My hands shook. I had no sword. I had no magic. But through my eyes, I saw something they didn't.
"Run toward me!" I shouted at the girl.
I sprinted toward the hill where the village watchtower stood. It was the most pathetic structure I had ever seen; its support beams were decayed and tilting at roughly 15 degrees—a clear case of structural load failure on the left side.
However, in my eyes, this broken tower was the deadliest weapon available.
Beneath the tower lay a massive pile of timber logs, held in place only by a thin wooden peg and a frayed hemp rope. Technically speaking, that pile was potential energy just waiting to be unleashed.
"Hurry! Just a little further!" I yelled at her while grabbing a rusted crowbar lying near the pile of materials.
The girl leaped over a small trench just as I slammed the crowbar against the locking peg. I didn't need muscle power; I only needed the right pivot point.
CRACK!
The peg snapped. The gravitational load distribution, which had been held in check, shifted drastically. The pile of logs gave way, cascading down the slope following the exact path I had calculated in my head.
"What—?!" one of the bandits shrieked, but it was too late.
The logs, weighing hundreds of kilograms, slammed into the ground with a thunderous thud. I gasped for air, my heart pounding so hard my ears were ringing. In Tokyo, I only calculated structural loads to keep people safe. Here, I had just used those same calculations to kill.
"You... how did you do that?" The girl stared at me, her eyes wide, her face pale with shock.
I looked down at my hands, still shaking. "It was just... just basic laws of physics," I muttered in a hoarse voice.