Volume 5 Chapter 7 Part 2
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Translator: Kell | Editor: Ryunakama
SEE MAIN POST FOR IMPORTANT INFO.
Three days later. We were in position on the Miles Plains, waiting for the battle to begin.
“Cardinal Georgis Cardinal has informed us that the war will begin in thirty minutes!” a communications officer said.
“Got it,” I replied.
There were rules to war in this country. Among them were designating the war zone and the date of the battle. But the most important one was the requisites to victory. A war that lasted until the last soldier was killed would only cause severe damage to both sides. To avoid such unfortunate situations, wars often had win conditions set in place.
This war was no exception. The win conditions set in this case were the surrender, death, or escape of the enemy commander.
Under normal circumstances, the general would be a noble. It was natural for a nobleman under heavy guard in the main camp to be the commander. Cardinal Georgis, as expected, made himself one.
But we were different.
“If you lose, our army will be defeated,” the Count said. “Don’t die.”
“Of course,” I replied.
We didn’t have a noble as the commander. The name indicated on the letter we sent to the Cardinal was: Eld the Adventurer. In other words, me.
“But are you sure it’s okay for me to be the commander?” I asked. “If needed, I can fight in the front lines too.”
“It’s fine. I don’t think you’ll ever be in danger even if you go to the front lines. I think it’s even safer by your side than the main camp I’m in.”
“Okay. I understand.”
Well, I didn’t plan on dying anyway, so being a commander was no problem to me at all. If there was even a remote possibility that I could die, then we wouldn’t stand a chance in this war in the first place.
I turned to the Count’s army standing by on the plains. “Are you all ready?!” I shouted, my magic-amplified voice echoing in all directions.
“Yeah!” a spirited reply came from the army.
They weren’t that well-trained to begin with. Count Meigis had never fought in a war, so the army’s job was only to maintain security in the domain.
But they had been training hard for the past two weeks. It wasn’t a gut-wrenching, unreasonable special training, but rather a training to drill logical fighting tactics into them.
Their arrows didn’t hit as hard as the archers of the Cardinal’s army. Their swordsmanship was not as sharp as the swordsmen of the enemy, who clearly had more experience and training.
Still I was convinced they were stronger than the Cardinal’s army. An army’s total power is not derived by just adding each soldier’s strength.
“Onto your battle stations!” I roared.
“Understood!”
The army began to move. In about ten minutes, a circular formation was completed, the only formation used by the Count’s main troops, and the only one we could rely on in this case. I decided that it was better to let them focus on one formation than to have them learn several formations in a short amount of time.
I couldn’t see the enemy from where we were.
“Magic Search.”
But soon as I used magic, I located them immediately. The enemy had positioned themselves on the other side of the plains. As expected, they numbered around twenty thousand.
And half an hour later.
“It’s time for the war to begin,” the liaison officer said.
“All troops, advance!” I bellowed.
The army roared, then slowly began their march. With our army’s level of skill, it’s difficult to maintain the formation while running. That’s why we’re prioritizing maintaining the formation and moving at a slow speed.
“Magic Search.”
While watching my own troops, I periodically activated my Magic spell to observe the enemy’s movements. As I expected, their troops were moving fast. Perhaps they had enough training to maintain formation even while running.
I honestly believed that the enemy had way more experience. We would be wiped out in less than an hour in a battle with no Skills.
“I knew it would come to this,” I muttered to myself as I watched the enemy forces move.
The enemy army suddenly began to change their formation. Cardinal Georgis, a Sage who could use Magic Search just like me, was on the other side. In other words, we were both aware of each others’ movements.
Cardinal Georgis had only one action to take once he found out his enemy’s location. Surround and annihilate.
The Cardinal’s troops outnumbered the Count’s men twenty to one. Surrounding the Count’s army would be a walk in the park. There was no formation as favorable as an encirclement in war. After all, the side that was being surrounded would be attacked from all directions at the same time.
My response was to simply let ourselves be surrounded.
“We’re being surrounded!” I said. “Brace yourselves!”
“Understood!”
As I watched them, I entered the center of the formation.
“Magic Defense, activate!”
“Yes, sir!”
In preparation for being surrounded, the Count army’s Mage-type classes began casting defensive magic. They were not skilled, yet they did not falter. We had already rehearsed this part over and over again during training.
In the meantime Cardinal Georgis’ army had completely surrounded us. There were only enemies all around, no matter where I looked. If an army of a thousand troops and twenty thousand were to clash in an open field, anyone would have seen this coming.
“There’s no escape now,” Sachylis said.
“Yeah,” I replied. “For now, that is.”
It looked like a desperate situation, but we didn’t panic. We already expected this to happen.
However, there was still tension in the air. If the strategy I devised didn’t work, the only thing waiting for us was annihilation.
“They’re not coming.”
“Just wait.”
I kept my eyes fixed on the enemy troops. They were preparing their spells and nocking arrows so they could attack us at any time. It would be a simultaneous volley, no doubt about it.
That’s a lot of long-range job classes. Out of his twenty-thousand-strong army, the Cardinal probably selected those who specialized in long-range attacks. In the case of encirclement and annihilation, the more people capable of attacking from a distance, the more pressure they could put on the enemy. His men’s offensive capability right now was probably no different than actually having thirty thousand troops.
“All troops, fire!”
Cardinal Georgis’ magic-amplified voice echoed in the wide plains, and the enemy troops began a simultaneous attack.
“Kill those inferior scum!”
“A tiny army like that amounts to nothing!”
Arrows, spells, catapults. All sorts of long-range attacks rained down on the Count’s army.
The Count’s army of less than a thousand men had barely any experience. The Cardinal probably thought there was no way it could survive unharmed under a simultaneous attack by nearly twenty thousand troops.
“H-How?!”
I could hear the enemy officers shouting, sounding confused. The reason was obvious.
The simultaneous attack by twenty thousand troops hadn’t done much damage to the Count’s army at all.
“Damage report!” I ordered.
“Southern side, no casualties!”
“Northern side, no casualties!”
“Western side, no casualties!”
“Eastern side, no casualties!”
The commanders of each area reported back. The result: no casualties—as expected.
Count Meigis’ army had cast defensive magic against the simultaneous attack of Cardinal Georgis’ army. The magic they used itself was basic, but the support behind it was different.
Among the inferior classes was a class called Bard. They didn’t have any combat abilities and their basic Skills were awful. In this world, they were seen as a terrible class, second only to Novice.
In fact, Bards who could only use basic Skills were trash even in my eyes. But their rating turned a hundred and eighty degrees as soon as they learned advanced Skills.
For example, there is a Skill called ‘Aura of Protection’. It’s a Skill that boosts the effectiveness of defensive magic used in the surrounding area by three times.
As long as you are within range, this Skill will work on anyone. Everyone’s defensive magic spell will be equally strengthened, even if there were hundreds of them. You could almost call this tactic cheating in a group battle.
It is not only Bards that have this kind of Skill either. For a Spirit Archer, there’s Spirit Blessing. For Grapplers, there’s King of War’s Roar: Vajra. Although they were not as powerful as the Aura of Protection, they were AoE Skills that boosted defensive magic.
Thanks to the stacking of these Skills, Count of Meigis’s army’s defensive might was enhanced tens of times, way higher than during times of peace.
Normally, defensive magic that would just barely stop an arrow would become an iron wall. With this power, the Count of Meigis’ army was able to withstand the enemy’s attacks with zero damage.
This was exactly the strategy I had planned. If we were fighting on the plains, we would inevitably be surrounded. In that case, we just had to make sure that we didn’t get crushed.
“All troops, prepare to counterattack!” I declared as the pressure of the enemy’s attack weakened.
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