kscans

Chapter 40 - If You Have Too Many Enemies, Just Make Them Go Home

◆ The Lord's Son ◆

"A village was attacked by undead?!"

The report from my vassal was so unbelievable I nearly slid right out of my chair.

"Undead? You mean the ones from the allied army Father left to subjugate?!"

Did they get angry that Father attacked them and decide to come after us?! Does that mean Father lost?!

"No, I highly doubt that."

It was Bastian, the house steward, who refuted my panicked thoughts.

"How can you be so sure?"

"It has not been long since His Lordship departed. At this point, he has likely just crossed the border into the neighboring country, if that. Commencing an attack from there would require meticulous coordination among the participating nations, so I imagine the actual assault is still several days away."

He was right. Even if this legendary Vampire was going to attack, it wouldn't be in retaliation for something that hadn't even happened yet. In that sense, I was relieved we weren't being attacked by a scion of some mythical vampire.

"So this is just a complete coincidence, unrelated to the Vampire in question?"

"Most likely. The only confirmed sightings were of the lowest-class Ghouls. Besides, if they were to attack, they would surely target more valuable land closer to the border."

"Tch, I guess so."

I didn't like hearing it, but he was right. Our territory has no special products to speak of, and it's far from any major trade routes. To be blunt, it's a backwater fiefdom with nothing to offer. There's no point in going out of your way to attack a place like this. Ugh, just saying it myself is depressing.

"If only I could have joined the war. I could've been out there, mowing down undead and proving my worth."

Father said I was still too green, that I had no real combat experience, and refused to let me join the army. Instead, I was stuck with the tedious job of acting lord. It's pathetic that the heir to the lordship is fighting not monsters, but a mountain of boring paperwork.

"It cannot be helped, Young Master. You are the next lord. His Lordship surely felt it was too much to ask you to face a foe as dangerous as a Vampire. Furthermore, proving yourself a capable acting lord now is far more beneficial for your future. Now then, how shall we deal with these undead?"

In the end, he managed to talk his way around the issue. But fine. A perfect outlet for my stress just fell into my lap.

"We will annihilate them, of course. It may be a small village, but it is still my precious territory. Form a company to exterminate these undead."

"As you wish. Then I shall appoint Tashiba as commander…"

"No. I will lead."

"...Pardon?"

For once, Bastian's eyes went wide as he asked me to repeat myself.

"I said, I will go as the commander."

"W-wait, Young Master. You have your duties as acting lord—"

"Exactly. And as acting lord, I must exterminate the insolent corpses that dare to attack my domain. We move out at once! The standard tactic for undead subjugation is a swift annihilation during the day, is it not? Otherwise, the number of victims will just keep growing until they're impossible to handle."

Without waiting for an argument, I left the office and called out to the few professional soldiers in my domain.

"Men, we're hunting undead! We'll settle this in one fell swoop during the day!"

"Undead? You mean the ones His Lordship went to fight?"

"No, this is a separate matter. But they're undead all the same. We'll crush them in a flash and show Father and his men they made a mistake leaving us behind!"

""""Yeah!""""

Most of the soldiers here were the ones who hadn't been chosen for Father's undead subjugation force. The reason was the same as mine: we were deemed too inexperienced.

"Heh, I'm itching for a fight!"

"Yeah, undead are nothing but sitting ducks if you attack 'em during the day!"

The men's morale was high. Of course it was; they'd all been left behind and were simmering with frustration. Besides, these guys were my childhood friends. If I let them make a name for themselves here and get their fathers to recognize them as true soldiers, it would smooth the way for them to take over as my senior officers when I inherit the domain.

"Hah, very well. But you must listen carefully to Tashiba and the others' instructions as you fight."

Giving up on changing my mind, Bastian instead told me to obey the veteran soldiers who remained in the territory.

Heh, I can just ignore those old geezers and the whiners left behind due to injuries. My leadership will inspire the men to crush the undead more efficiently than they ever could!

◆

"H-Hieee!"

It was supposed to be a piece of cake.

"Gyaaaah!"

It was supposed to be a simple hunt for small-fry undead.

"I-It hurts! It hurts so much!"

So why…

"Why are there other monsters besides the undead?!"

We'd made minimal preparations and headed for the village to hunt the undead. We had to attack before nightfall. The thorough preparations could be left to the old-timer veterans coming later on foot.

"All right, the undead hunt begins! Don't let any of them jump out and get you!"

"Hahaha, none of us are that clumsy, Young Master."

"""Hahahaha!""""

Their manner of speaking to their lord left something to be desired, but they were country soldiers, so it couldn't be helped. If anything, it was reassuring.

Working in pairs, my men began searching for undead hiding in the darkness of the houses. The only places they could hide were indoors or in the shadows of the forest. That meant the sunlit areas were safe from attack. It was supposed to be that easy.

Or so I thought.

"Gyaah!"

A scream echoed through the deserted, silent village.

"What was that?!"

I turned toward the voice and saw one of my men with an arrow sticking out of his body.

"An arrow? Bandits?!"

No, it could also be an armed undead soldier.

"Be on your guard! They might be armed!"

I urged my men to be cautious and we resumed the search, completely oblivious to the fatal mistake of not checking which direction the arrow had come from.

"Gyaah!"

"Agh!"

Without a moment's delay, more of my men were struck by arrows.

"You idiots! I told you to be careful!"

"N-no, it's not—it's different!"

"The… the arrow came from the side…"

"The side?"

But to their side was nothing but forest and fields. Which means…

"There are undead hiding in the forest! Rip the doors off the houses and use them as shields! Make them waste all their arrows!"

With the intelligence of a Ghoul, they would instinctively keep shooting even if their target was hiding behind a shield, making it easy to block. Once they ran out of arrows, we could wipe them out. They wouldn't have the sense to resupply their equipment.

"The rest of you, continue searching indoors!"

"Sir!"

And so we continued our search for the undead, but…

"Nothing, sir. The houses are empty."

"So they must be in the forest."

"The men who went into the forest haven't returned."

Now that he mentioned it, they hadn't. Were they chasing after fleeing undead? I couldn't imagine they'd lost.

"Very well. If they're not in the village, we search the forest. Be careful!"

""""Sir!""""

The men headed into the forest to search. But that's when another problem arose.

""""Hee-heeeen!""""

Suddenly, we heard the whinnying of the horses we'd left waiting outside the village. A bad feeling washed over me, and we rushed to the horses, only to find the mangled corpses of the stable hands.

"What?! But the undead can't come out here!"

Could it be other monsters?!

"If so, we've been far too careless!"

Worse, in the chaos, not a single horse remained.

"Young Master, at this rate, we won't be able to escape when night falls. We should retreat and rendezvous with old man Tashiba's unit!"

"Don't be a fool! If we do that, they'll just laugh at us and say we're as inexperienced as they thought! Besides, we still have soldiers searching the forest! Once they return, it won't matter how many undead there are! From what we heard, there aren't that many to begin with. Considering it's daytime, they might have already wiped them all out!"

"Y-you're right."

But I hadn't noticed. The bodies of the attacked villagers were nowhere to be found.

◆

"Are they still not back?!"

The men who went to search the forest never returned. The sun was already beginning to set; if we stayed any longer, it would be night.

"Young Master, we really should retreat."

"…Fine."

With my men still not back at this hour, the remaining soldiers were getting anxious. It's not that I was getting anxious, of course!

"All right, we're pulling back for now!"

Without waiting for the others, we left the village and tried to meet up with Tashiba's unit, which should have been on its way. We tried.

"Gyaah!"

A sharp pain shot through my leg.

"Wh-what is this?!"

The source of the pain was an arrow. An arrow was sticking out of my leg. Had an undead been lying in wait?!

I scanned my surroundings. Where was it?! The nearby bushes rustled, and something emerged.

"…A Goblin?"

It was just a Goblin. Damn thing, startling me like that. So that means this Gobli—

Thwip! Fwip!

"Gyaah!"

"Guah!"

My men screamed. They'd been shot with arrows, just like me. So it wasn't this Goblin?!

More rustling, and from another bush, several more figures appeared.

"An Orc? And an Elf?"

An Orc emerged, and for some reason, an Elf.

"Why is an Elf here?"

"Hmph. Do not lump us in with those weaklings."

For some reason, the Elf seemed offended by my words. What was going on? Why were a Goblin, an Orc, and an Elf together? And why weren't they undead?!

"Wasn't it undead that attacked this village?"

"It was undead. But they weren't the only ones who attacked."

"Eh?"

What did this Elf just say?

"The pleasantries are over. We'll make you one of your men's little friends."

With that, the Orc lifted me up and tossed me into the bushes.

"Guh!"

Where I landed, I saw them. My men—the ones who had gone to search the forest.

"Y-you guys… you're okay…"

But not a single one of them answered. Instead, they turned to me with vacant stares, their eyes disturbingly unfocused.

Amidst them, a stranger approached me. A human, with a blood-soaked mouth…

"H-hey, don't tell me… Stop, get away!"

I struggled desperately, trying to crawl out of the bushes. But my men piled on top of me, pinning me down.

"Get off! Get off of me! Get off, get ooooff!"

◆

"Oh, look at them scurry home."

The nobles from the nations that had joined my subjugation force were now frantically abandoning the front lines.

This was all thanks to our preparatory work. Once my Vampire Bats made reconnaissance possible, we learned that this country was seeking cooperation from its neighbors, so we decided to launch a sabotage campaign.

Specifically, we sent undead to attack the surrounding countries. A straightforward assault would just get them easily defeated, so we had the Dark Elves, Orcs, and Goblins join the operation.

Basically, we did the same thing we did in this country: we attacked humans camping along the roads with undead to bolster our forces. Then, we had them attack villages in the weakest, most remote territories. Of course, we let a few people escape to spread the word.

As expected, the lords' sons left in charge and the soldiers left behind for their incompetence panicked and rushed to retake the villages, completely unaware that it would be their first and final battle.

And so, the subjugation failed. Their forces were decimated, making any further attempts impossible.

"The remaining humans would then rush to seek aid from powerful neighboring nobles. However, by that time, other minor nobles would also be flooding them with requests for help, and the capacity of the nobles being asked for aid would quickly be overwhelmed," Adolnel explained.

"When that happens, the nobles who were asked for help will turn to others in their own faction, but those nobles will be in the same situation. They'll end up asking the high-ranking noble who leads their faction for aid, but the forces that can be dispatched per territory will be drastically reduced. After all, with such a crisis unfolding all around, they'll need to keep troops to defend their own lands."

The result was that only small-scale forces could be sent as reinforcements to each territory. Those reinforcements were then toyed with and swiftly annihilated by our growing undead army—which had swallowed the villages and the minor lords' soldiers whole—and the Dark Elves who commanded them with guerrilla tactics.

"And because the attackers are unaware of our daytime forces, like the Dark Elves, they are at an even greater disadvantage."

"Indeed."

At that point, those left in charge of the territories had no choice but to recall their main forces from the front. The lords, learning of the dire situation back home, rushed back to protect their lands.

"Desertion in the face of the enemy is a grave crime, but for nobles, protecting their own territory is the highest priority. Moreover, when even reinforcements were requested and defeated, they can hardly order their vassals to abandon their lands to continue the fight. Doing so would cause them to lose all respect, and the chain of command would collapse."

"And they probably figure it's fine to lose the forces of a few minor lords with insignificant armies?"

"Yes. But as the numbers grow, it becomes a figure they can no longer ignore. Furthermore, once our forces on the ground regroup, they'll be able to attack towns, which will soon force the mid-tier nobles to retreat as well."

Once that happened, the allied nations participating in the joint army would have no future but to withdraw.

"However, I've ordered our units in their lands to retreat at an opportune moment. So when the allied soldiers return, they'll find no enemy to fight and their trip will have been for naught. But fearing another attack while they're away, they'll hesitate to rejoin the war. They won't want to risk it happening again."

"And then, we'll merge with our newly expanded forces and have an all-out battle with what's left of this country's army, is that it?"

Wow, what a vicious strategy. Undead that can turn their victims into more soldiers are truly unfair, aren't they? Well, not that I won't make the most of it.

And so, with most of the nuisances out of the way, we prepared to face our primary enemy in a final, decisive battle.