Reincarnated in Another World as a P. 1000 Ratte

Age of Strife: The Veil Kingdom

The cracks of a stone block tell many tales; one of use, age, and resilience. Yet, the most prominent are ones of conflict, war, and survival. 

The oldest blocks may have been repaired through the layering of mortar, but there are some cracks that run too deep to fully seal. This is where the best stories are kept, where a single glance can tell more than enough. 

Behold Castle Mackery, a long standing fortress which has seen its walls repel siege after siege, and each time grow stronger. Its history is marred with inconsistencies and exaggerations, but most don't doubt its past as the castle is still here to tell its story. 

Its combatants will do anything to keep its walls from crumbling, whether it be by weathering through starvation or holding their positions to the last man. 

They had never expected however, to fight another castle. A moving one, at that. 

Alarm bells rang as the combatants within Mackery rushed to their battlements, peering out into the distance. Many of them dropped their weapons, in either surprise or horror as their supposed enemy crawled to meet them. 

Yes, crawled. 

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" asked one soldier, rapidly blinking. The behemoth in the field seemed to be undisturbed by the castle's sudden livelihood, casually trampling the crops growing outside. 

"It's a monster!" someone shrieked. "You! Help me load my spear into the ballista!" A group of soldiers swarmed around him, albeit a bit confused. Multiple hands cranked the ballista's winch as the spear was fumbled into place. 

"Hey wait!" someone else said. "Are you sure we're supposed to shoot this thing?" Multiple men glanced around nervously. 

"Of course!" came the reply. "Why else would the alarms go off?" The spear clicked into place as the ballista was pulled all the way back. The weapon creaked as it was adjusted. "Fire!"

*Thwoosh*

The tip of the spear gleamed in the sun as the weapon corkscrewed towards the monster. Flying through the air, it hit its target with spectacular accuracy, and not so spectacularly bounced off of the monster's head.  

The thing continued moving, and turned all 5 of its heads towards the castle. A deathly silence hung over the men as the spear was crushed beneath the monster. 

A silence that did not last long, as the soldiers were jolted back into action like dolls coming to life. More ballistas were rolled up to the embrasures as some soldiers scurried down the battlements to prepare catapults. 

"Shit! We just pissed it off!"

"Damn right you did!"

"What do you mean, 'I did'?! How's this my fault?!"

"You shot at it!"

"Cause we're supposed to!"

"Shut up, you goblins!" shouted a guy struggling to carry a spear bigger than him. "Load the damn weapons if you want to live!"

"Yes sir!"

*          *          *

The blue sky was as mesmerizing as the surface of the ocean, and had rocks falling from it, unlike the ocean. Boulders split into pieces as they bounced off his chassis, the sun's rays reflecting the scratch marks. 

All because he wanted to get a closer look at a town. 

Well, he thought that it was a town, but it turned out to be a full fledged fortress, and not the medieval kind of fortress, or the high medieval kind either. It was the almost-fantasy kind, with towers replaced by spires and walls almost a hundred feet tall.