Chapter 127

Now that it was over, it felt very short indeed.
The enemy had absolutely no will to fight.

Just as I was going to fight the boss, it ended.
That’s how it felt. Like I had just gotten a small taste.

“Call Rig and the others.”
I said to the closest Ogre. And then I headed in the direction of the other corps.

They had also finished fighting, and seemed to be in the middle of getting control over the situation.

“I’m Golan. I was put in charge of these men. Who’s the commanding officer here?”
I called out, and a man with a skull head and a black cape came out from the back.

Only his face was a skull. The rest of his body was flesh and blood. He wasn’t a Skeleton.
They were called Skull Shamans, and were experts with magic.

“I’m the Commander. Innihi.”
The black cape and the twisted staff made me think of a cartoon character I had seen as a child.

(Wasn’t there an anti-here like this…the one who laughed a lot. What was his name?)

As I thought about this, Innihi bowed his head.

“Golan. You have my thanks. We were struggling due to our inferior numbers, and I was really starting to worry.”

“Hmm. Will you tell me what is going on? We were on our way to General Farneze’s town.”

“How much do you know?”
“That the two countries invaded at the same time. And that General Dardaroth split his army in half in order to stop them.”

“I see… Currently, this entire region has turned into a battlefield in order to stop Rous’s invasion. It will be difficult to block all of the routes, but we can’t give them a clear path to the royal castle.”

“I understand.”

“And so I was sent to block this route. But we are just one corps against three. With such a discrepancy, we were mostly just buying time.”

There were no Corps Commanders on this route. However, there were three Commanders.
The enemy had sent out one of its corps, which was the one that Innihi was fighting.

“Just one? They could have sent all of them and quickly wiped you out.”
Why didn’t they do that?

“Aye. But we built strong defenses first. I believe they wanted to avoid taking any heavy losses.”

At first, Innihi and his men had stayed in their defensive position and refused to move.
Even if all three corps attacked at onces, it would still be difficult to break their tight defenses. Besides, the path was narrow, meaning not all of them would be able to fight.

And considering the battle ahead, they would want to save their fighting force.
That had likely been their reasoning.

And so the enemy had an idea. They merely needed to draw Innihi’s men out.

They would not come out of their defenses if three corps attacked them at once.
But what if it was just one corps?

If the two corps just stayed here, waiting and glaring at each other, the other two enemy corps would be able to pass through without taking any damage.

Innihi would then have to come out in order to avoid this.

“I see. And then you could go back to defending when the enemy got reinforcements.”

Both sides had different requirements for victory.
And then we came in and joined the fight.

We charged into the two corps in the back and killed two Commanders.
While they were being attacked and pushed into a dangerous position, Innihi had stood firm, knowing that this was the critical moment. And in the end they had succeeded in defeating a Commander, even while taking losses.

And now that the enemy had lost the will to fight, our victory had been decided.

“We would have only gotten weaker if you didn’t come. You really saved us.”
While they were only being attacked by one corps, the enemy could send their men in rotation.

If Innihi had to defend against non-stop attacks without reinforcements, it would only be a matter of time before they were crushed.

“I’m glad that we could be of use. We’ll be moving on now. I hope you will be able to manage without us?”
“Aye. You’re marching at a time like this. It must be very important, eh?”

“Yes. It might affect the fate of this country.”
“Then you should go. We’ll handle things from here.”

The enemy soldiers already had their weapons confiscated, so it was very unlikely that they would cause any trouble.
“Alright. We’ll be going on ahead then.”

We reunited with Rig and the others, and returned to our road.

“Hey, Golan? Is it really over?”
“Yeah! There are still more enemies left!”

“Shut up, you two. We accomplished our goal. That’s enough.”
“What? Isn’t it war until we defeat all of them?”
“It’s war until we return home!”

“Where the hell did you learn that?”
What was wrong with these people?
And he even stole my prey…

This time, the enemy had split up their men, and there weren’t any Corps Commanders. Otherwise, things might have ended very differently.

“Still… They’ve gotten in quite deep into this country.”
We really needed to hurry now.

It wasn’t good for so much of the burden to be put on General Dardaroth’s army.

And so we rushed down the road.
After that, we were able to reach General Farneze’s town without further trouble.

Because we had set out early, and ran on the way, we were able to arrive four days ahead of schedule.
These four days would change the fate of this country.

“…Well, at least, that’s what I hope.”

Next Chapter

Makai Hongi