Chapter 678: The Wagon Breaker

Loccy hoisted two crates of forge billets onto her shoulder and trotted them down the freight platform’s ramp.

The Sixth’s departure yard smelled of axle grease and cold stone, and eight wagons waited nose to tail beside her.

Hajin stood by the lead wagon, reading the System’s rows aloud like a fishmonger shouting over a morning market.

"Two thousand billets, four hundred heat kits, and not one sparkly thing in the whole order!"

[ Earth lot | 2,000 forge billets | 100 credits each | 200,000 credits ]

[ Earth lot | 400 heat-treatment and protection kits | 500 credits each | 200,000 credits ]

[ Purchase confirmed | 400,000 credits deducted from spendable funds ]

[ Wallet total | 6,048,985 → 5,648,985 credits ]

[ Relief reserve | 5,000,000 unchanged | Spendable | 648,985 credits ]

"Four hundred thousand gone," he moaned, clutching his chest with both hands like a dying actor, "and my purse doesn’t even get a funeral."

"It’s not your purse," Ferra grunted, chalking a tally across the nearest crate, "and the kits go to my apprentices first."

The three apprentices lined up beside the ramp, and Loccy pressed a heat kit into each pair of waiting hands.

"Gloves, aprons, quench tongs, I know, I know!"

She set her crates down and pointed at a blue one strapped to the platform’s far corner.

"That one’s mine, so nobody stacks billets on it."

"What’s in it?" Hajin asked, peering over a wagon rail.

"Pots, a griddle, my good ladle, and the honey tin, which means it’s sacred road property."

"Fifty silver says Vella confiscates the tin before we pass the ford."

"No bet," she sniffed, ears tipping back, "she already tried twice and lost."

’Carry billets, guard the pots, and maybe steal one pastry before Ferra counts the crates again.’

---

A quarry horn blared from the road beyond the wall, then a second, frantic and far too close.

Drivers turned toward the gate just as a grey quarry tusker smashed through it, scattering splinters across the yard.

It ran low and wide, with a ridged skull and two blunt tusks built for rooting deep under quarry stone. It ignored the shouting people completely and swerved between the parked wagons, heading straight for the fully loaded freight platform.

"That’s the one from the cutting!" a driver howled, stumbling backward over a spilled sack of feed, "It tips carts for the grain!"

"Then it picked the wrong cart," Loccy muttered, already moving.

The tusker drove its skull under the wagon’s rear axle and heaved, and the whole frame lurched sideways.

She slammed into two loaders with both arms and threw them clear onto the gravel beside the ramp.

Hajin was already halfway over the rail with a blade in his fist, "Okay, my turn, move over—"

"Mine!" she snapped, planting her feet on the platform’s timbers, "Get everybody back, it’s going for the people behind the load!"

"Fine, but if it eats you, I’m bringing it up forever!"

He spun away and bellowed at the drivers, herding them behind the second wagon with his arms spread wide.

Loccy pressed both palms flat against the wagon frame where its iron straps locked it to the platform.

’One structure, both feet down, hands on, now don’t you dare let go.’

Worldbearer surged through her four Wings and spread into the platform, the chained frame and the packed earth beneath it. The tusker heaved again, but its lift ran through the whole connected load and sank uselessly into the yard’s gravel.

The wagon stayed put, and the tusker squealed in pure confusion.

"Ha, not today, piggy!" she cackled, flicking her ears upright as the frame steadied under her palms.

It wrenched its skull deeper and shoved with its hind legs, gouging trenches across the gravel behind it.

Ferra skidded around the crates with her hammer up, "The rear coupling’s forged iron, push the strain through that pin!"

"And then what, we stand here hugging until lunch?"

"Then it gives up, you stubborn little pest!"

’If it gives up, it runs into the drivers next, so no, it doesn’t get to give up.’

Loccy watched the thick grey neck stretch under the axle, straining toward the platform’s lifted corner.

She bared her teeth at the straining neck, "Let it have the corner!"

"Are you out of your mind?"

She released the hold all at once, and the tusker’s own lift flung the corner upward with a splintering crack. Crates slid, her kitchen crate tumbled off the side, and its neck lay fully bared beneath the raised timber edge.

Loccy kept her feet planted, caught the rising corner with both hands and drove it down with everything she owned.

The platform’s edge smashed across the tusker’s neck and pinned its head against the gravel with a wet crunch.

It thrashed once, its tusks raking toward the loaders cowering beyond the wheel.

She snatched her war mallet from the ramp, swung it overhead and brought it down onto the ridged skull.

The second blow ended it, and the tusker sagged beneath the platform without another sound.

Loccy stood over it with the mallet still raised, chest heaving, until her arms finally believed it was finished.

"Anyone hurt?" she croaked.

"Two scraped hands and one driver who wet himself," Hajin called back, "and he says that’s private."

He vaulted the rail and caught her wrist, turning her shoulder toward the light with surprising care.

"Shoulder?"

"Fine, it didn’t even twinge," she huffed, rolling it twice to prove the point, "so stop looking at me like Vella."

"Somebody has to, she’s not here."

---

Her kitchen crate lay split open beside the wheel, with her griddle bent and her good ladle snapped in half.

Loccy knelt and lifted the broken ladle with two fingers, ears drooping flat against her skull.

"Out of every crate in this yard, it picked my kitchen."

"It was going for food," Hajin pointed out, crouching beside her and fishing the honey tin from the straw.

"Then it should’ve picked the grain wagon, the idiot, and now I’m offended on behalf of my griddle."

She pulled the useful pieces free, the pots, two knives and the tin, which survived without a dent.

[ Loccy | EXP gained: 2,500,000 | 32,500,000 / 37,500,000 toward Wing Five ]

[ Shared host credit | 2,500,000 EXP | Host pool: 1,047,500,000 ]

"Five million left to her next Wing," he crowed, slapping the wagon rail hard enough to rattle it, "and she did it with a floor!"

[ IronVanguard: She body-slammed it with the loading platform, I need that replayed forever. ]

[ HearthKeeper: She saved the people first and the honey second, perfect priorities. ]

[ Seoul_Tactician: She let it lift on purpose to expose the neck, that was a real read. ]

[ TacticalNerd: Hare girl versus wagon pig, hare girl wins by flattening. ]

Ferra ignored all of it and crawled beneath the platform with a lamp, tapping every joint with her hammer’s tail.

"Iron straps held, coupling held, the corner peg cracked but didn’t shear," she muttered, crawling back out with straw in her hair.

"So it worked?" Loccy asked, brushing straw off the tin.

"It worked since everything you touched was fastened to everything else, every joint passing the load along."

She sat back on her heels and stared at the wagon like it owed her money.

"On the road, there won’t be a platform or a yard, just mud and whatever’s lying around," Ferra said slowly, "so we bring the joints ourselves."

"Bring what, exactly?"

"Pins, straps and locking brackets, forged from these billets, so any pile of wagons and beams becomes one structure for you."

Her whole face lit up so fast the straw flew, a slow, delighted smile spreading wide, "So I can hold anything we build out there?"

"Anything that’s pinned right, which means I’m making a lot of pins, damn it."

Loccy pried the honey tin open and bit into a pastry, then leaned her head against Hajin’s arm.

He stayed still and let her rest there, pretending the crumbs on his sleeve were somebody else’s problem.

’I saved the people, the tin, and half the kitchen, and Ferra’s already building me more floor.’