Chapter 82
3rd POV
Early the next morning the kingdom army changed to an offensive stance.
The 1st division of the kingdom knights who were positioned in the leftmost flank moved first.
Riding their horses, the 1st division moved by taking advantage of the mountain range to slowly chip the number of the demon army while avoiding being surrounded by demons from both sides.
Dont go too deep! Remember our aim is just to chip away our opponents number!
Vilsmaier ordered his man while carefully observing his opponents movement. Not long after, Vilsmaier saw the huge shadow from the distance.
We will retreat now. Tell the Mage Unit to send the signal. Dont try to fight that. Dont let anyone die!
Following Vilsmaiers order, the Mage Unit shot a huge fireball to the sky, and with the support of the Mage Unit, the 1st division started their retreat.
Seeing the huge fireball in the sky, the 2nd division at the right flank started to move.
The 2nd division used the momentum of their horses to attack the demon armys frontline to thin its force. They moved in the direction of the entrance of the Great Temple as if they were planning to enter it.
Dont forget that we are only pretending to aim to enter the Great Temple!
But captain, we might actually be able to enter the Great Temple using our current momentum.
The knight standing beside the captain of the 2nd Division, Hindermann, interjected but Hindermann shook his head.
If we, the 2nd division, entered the Great Temple, the food supply in the Great Temple wouldnt last.
Even though the Great Temple is in front of us, we cant enter
Because the demon armys strongest combatants along with their commander Beliualace were currently heading to the 1st division, the 2nd division mowed down demons in front of them with quite an ease. Of course, demons kept resisting.
However, it was futile resistance.
Captain!
Hes here! Fire the fire arrows!
As a response to his subordinates alert, Hildermann ordered to shoot fire arrows. Following his order, the knights at his side skillfully launched the fire arrows while still on horseback. Then, the 2nd division began to retreat rapidly and by the time Beliulace arrived, they had already retreated quite a distance away.
Shortly after Beliulace arrived at the place sprawled with the reptiles demon corpses, he heard a battle cry from a distance. It was the noble army stationed next to the 1st division that started their attack far from where Beliulace was currently standing.
With a furious look on his face, Believe turned away and headed to where the noble army was.
Welners POV
Welner-sama. Is this really okay?
Yeah. What we need to do first is to instill the confidence of we can defeat these demons! in the soldiers.
Well, that wasnt the only purpose of this strategy though. I turned my face to Max.
You can laugh.
No, its fine sir. I had plenty of laughs before.
Max, this is where you should say I dont dare to laugh or something you know.
Although I said that, if I saw other men wearing a freaking white dress with sandals just like what I was wearing now, Id also laugh. Ah, I could feel the wind on my toes.
I was wearing this outfit as part of my punishment because I left my post without authorization. Women in my previous life might get angry if I said that they were weak but that was how women in this world were perceived as. This was the era where men looked down on women. Female adventurers and knights existed though.
Since women were considered weak in this world, wearing womens clothes like this was like saying im weak.
Calling a man weak in this muscle-brain world was an insult so that was how wearing a womens outfit became a punishment. I was also prohibited from riding a horse. I traveled on my feet and became the center of attention among the soldiers.
Though my actions were judged as a not desertion attempt, I still left my post without authorization hence this punishment. How to say it the curious gazes around me were painful. To make matters worse, I still needed to dress like this tomorrow.
But at least I was still alive. If I was found guilty of a desertion attempt, I would have gotten a death penalty or at best I was going to be forced into a suicide mission.
Still, if this kind of punishment was given to other military men, like the many old men with a beard in this army, the sight would be quite. amazing.
There were many kinds of punishment in the army. There was whipping, canning (though the cane used was more like a branch than a cane), night watchmen, not being given meals, then demotion.
The demotion here meant that you would be demoted from your position as a commander of the army of your own house and become a member of other noble houses armies. Since this was the punishment, you would be worked to the bone by your new commander.
Even if the demotion only happened to just the commander, that commanders entire army might receive the same treatment so this punishment was only given when someone committed a pretty heavy crime. When someone got this punishment, the after-effects were often pretty terrible. There was even a case when a demoted commander along with his entire group of knights died because they were deliberately sent on a suicide mission.
Then there was also the punishment of not being given a meal. Actually, people who got this punishment did get their meal but they were only given tasteless stuff like wheat porridge and water and no meat. Because soldiers needed to move around a lot on the battlefield, being given only porridge as your meal was pretty harsh.
All of these punishments were pretty harsh in their own way but well, they were punishments. Being imprisoned or forced to pay fines were miles better than any of these punishments I thought.
Oh.
Thats whistle arrows, right?
As I was thinking, I heard a sharp sound of wind from a distance. It was the sound of a whistle arrow, a type of arrow similar to the Kabura arrows in my past life. I liked its sound but I rarely got the chance to use it since whistle arrows were only used to create signals. What a shame.
After the sound of the whistle arrows, a battle cry could be heard coming from the direction of the 2nd division. The noble armies in that area probably started their battle. If I wasnt wrong, that was where Count Harfolks army was stationed, right? I heard that the Count participated in the Hilde Plain battle so he probably understood when to retreat.
My strategy was pretty simple. This army had no sense of unity even among the commanders. Plus the battle line was too long horizontally so getting instruction from one side to the other was going to take quite a bit of time. That was why rather than forcing the army to move in unity, I chose to just let individual armies move separately.
Normally, doing something like this would be pretty dangerous since an individual army was weaker than a united army so they might get destroyed but in this war, our enemies didnt have any commander other than Beliulace. The individual armies located farthest from Beliulace would attack the demon army, and when Beliulace comes closer, they would retreat and use long-range attacks instead. Then, the individual armies on the other side would launch an attack on demons since they were now the farthest side from Beliulace. Rinse and repeat.
The nobles wanted to show off as much as possible in this war so when Beliulace was far from them, they would attack aggressively causing the demon army to suffer greatly.
This strategy worked because our opponent didnt have cavalry and Beliulace was hard to miss even in the distance as he was so big.
If our opponent wasnt an army but just a group, it might be possible even for non-soldiers to use this strategy. But using this strategy to fight an army was pretty hard even for soldiers.
Moreover, when Beliulace wasnt present around them, the demons tended to just fight individually, not in a group, so it was more advantageous for us. Though the cases where many fought individually rather than in groups also applied to us.
Well, I could think of that later. For now, lets focus on exhausting Beliulaces patience.
T/N: AHAHAHA our MC crosdressed! I wanted to see it in a person. Anyway according to the poll result, I will use past tenses from now on, and sorry for the delay!
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