Chapter 276 – The Battlefield Really is Hell

Macrito’s POV

“Let’s see what that young man… can show us.”

Macrito Jean Nicklaus, a general in the Tigris army, muttered as he looked down at the road connecting the Duchy of Dihart and the Kingdom of Tigris.

The approximately 5,000 soldiers he had gathered in the past two weeks were already in place and ready for the attack. The archers have arrows imbued with wind magic. Since they were defeated in the last battle, they could hardly shoot at all, so they had plenty of arrows for every soldier.

“Faster than a horse? Weapons with longer range and more power than bows? There are plenty of ways to do things if you have the numbers to do them.”

Last time, they were unable to fight properly because of the interference of the Holy Kingdom, and they suffered heavy damage.

The vehicle is certainly very fast, but it doesn’t seem to have the same defensive capabilities as heavy cavalry. It seemed to be a complicated magical tool, and if it were physically destroyed by an arrow imbued with wind magic, it could be neutralized in no time.

And that weapon that sends debris flying at invisible speeds is certainly powerful, but if the attack is concentrated in a place with no defensive facilities, the soldiers will fall without any way to defend themselves. From the looks of it, they didn’t seem to be wearing any powerful protective gear.

No matter how vicious the weapon is, the people fighting with it in their hands are just people. If they are hit by an arrow, they will be wounded, and if they are hit by a blade, they will be mortally wounded. They are vulnerable if they are in the range of our attacks. And not to mention the fact that they are so few in number. If we come in contact with them, we should be able to easily crush them.

Finally, there were those damn bird women who dropped explosives on us, whom we had no idea how to deal with. But this is far from their base. The number of explosives they could carry would be limited. There would be casualties, but if they ran out of explosives, they would be nothing to fear.

“…They’re here.”

It took a lot of effort to move 5,000 men and keep them lying down in this place so that they wouldn’t get caught in the enemy’s surveillance net. We had to be careful to move at night when it would be harder for them to scout the area. I had my surviving men lead a few hundred men to this spot.

It would have been a waste of time and effort if they did not pass this place, but I won the bet.

“Tsk, they found us, huh?”

But when they appeared on the battlefield, they stopped marching just before they jumped into our trap. It seems that the ambush troops were spotted by the enemy scouts―those damn bird bitches. They really are a menace, aren’t they? If we don’t find a way to blind them, we won’t be able to ambush them, and they’ll be able to see our position.

“Don’t give them time. Sound the gong of attack!”

“Yes!”

At my command, my men begin to ring the gongs. In a normal ambush, I wouldn’t sound the gongs, but this time, the enemy stopped before they jumped into the trap. The arrow imbued with wind magic… it just barely reaches them?

“Nngh…! That’s ridiculous!”

Just for a moment, just for a moment. Even though I only took my eyes off them for a split second, I could see that they had built a strong wall of stone around them. What the hell kind of joke was that! Arrows imbued with wind magic would have little effect in that situation!

“Is that magic? No, but…”

Creating a stone fort in an instant is something I’ve only heard of in fairy tales and heroic tales.

“…That’s not enough.”

Indeed, the appearance of a solid stone fort in an instant is astonishing, but that alone will only buy you some time against 5,000 men. From the looks of it, there were no more than a hundred enemies. If we push them with our numbers, we can crush them. We don’t have any siege weapons, but if the walls are that high, we should be able to climb them by using earth magic, building a steep ladder, or hanging a rope on them.

“It would buy them some time, but it’s a dead end.”

Macrito, the general of the Tigris army, was not happy anyway. What he didn’t like, of course, was the young man, Kosuke, who called himself the prince consort of Merinard. He looked down on each and every one of them. He said that if he really wanted to, he believed that they were nothing and that he could kill them all right now. That it was his mercy to let them go now and give them two weeks to vacate the fortress.

“You will pay for that humiliation with your life.”

The sin of taking this Macrito Jean Nicklaus, the commander-in-chief of the Tigris army lightly, is a serious one. I will surely have his head salted and sent to the witch of the Merinard Kingdom.

☆★☆

As we positioned ourselves just out of reach of the enemy’s attack, we began to hear the sound of gongs.

“Should we get on with the story here and say, ‘is this a joke?’ or something?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I think we’re going to get crushed if we don’t do something.”

“Should we just roll up our asses and run away?”

“No.”

I opened the roof of the air board to show my face and set up a stone rampart around the air board of the Merinard Royal Army, which had stopped after securing a clear view. It doesn’t take much time to set up a building that has already been registered in the template.

Having secured safety for the time being, I picked up the receiver of the golem communicator installed on the air board.

“Harpy bombers stay high in the sky and watch out for arrows imbued with wind magic. All magic riflemen should be up on the defensive wall, ready to intercept. Follow the commander and fire as soon as you are in range. Worg, please take command.”

“Roger!”

“Copy that.”

“I’m going ahead.”

“Hey, wait up!”

Leaving the flustered Shumel behind, I jumped straight out from the roof of the air board and using command jump, I was the first to reach the top of the ramparts. Oh, enemies came out of the woods and rocks on both sides. This is serious.

“We can’t let them get us so easily.”

I took out three golems from my inventory and set them up in front of the fort. It is not the armed rock golem that escorted the self-destructing golem before. It is a heavily armed golem armed with an infinity-loaded heavy machine gun and an automatic grenade launcher, with a mithril copper alloy body covered with black steel surface armor.

‘”Commence attack!”

“””Vooo!”””

The heavily armed golems let out a war cry (?) and began to move, firing off a total of four 12.7mm heavy machine guns mounted on both arms. The 40mm automatic grenade launchers mounted on their shoulders are also firing in rapid succession, taking advantage of the fact that they have unlimited firepower. My heavily armed golem is in a good mood today, too.

“…What the hell is this?”

“…Nya.”

Worg and Noir, who came up to the ramparts a step later, were astonished to see the rampaging heavily armed golem. Shumel and the others have already seen it once, so they are not surprised, but all three of them have a kind of… enlightened look on their faces.

“I’m pitying the Tigris Royal Army…”

“There’s nothing we can do about it, is there?”

“There are not many things that fit the word “unreasonable” better than this…”

The heavy machine gun has a caliber of 12.7 mm, and a man in iron or leather armor is as good as a piece of paper in front of it. A heavy machine gun fires at a rate of about 10 rounds per second. That is, about 600 rounds per minute. Each heavily armed golem is equipped with four such guns, and there are three heavily armed golems. In other words, three heavily armed golems can disperse approximately 7,200 bullets per minute.

Moreover, the bullets released can easily penetrate the human body and still have more than enough power to kill. In some cases, a single bullet can kill or injure several people…

“…What the hell is this?”

“…This is crazy.”

In just a minute or so, the Tigris Royal Army of about 5,000 men was annihilated. Perhaps, a few people escaped the harsh attacks of heavily armed golems and dashed to the forests and rocks where they had first hidden themselves.

“How do we clean up this battlefield?”

“Why don’t we just leave them alone? If we leave them alone, animals or monsters will clean them up.”

“They might become undead to some extent, but it’s not Merinard’s territory, so it’s okay, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea… Well, I guess we’ll just have to see if we can scavenge the spoils, then.”

What spoils… are you going to go into that sea of flesh and guts and scavenge it up?

“…That’s impossible, isn’t it?”

Right now, it’s nothing because of the distance, but I’m confident that if I walked up to that thing and looked directly at it, I’d spit something rainbow-colored out of my mouth in one go.

“How’s that for you, Battalion Commander Worg?”

I decided to leave the decision to Worg. I’d like to leave things as they are and let them pass quickly, but it’s important to get the consent of your friends. Hahaha.

“So you’re going to dump me there. Let’s move on; that thing is out of control.”

“Nya…”

Not only Worg and Noir but also the elite magic riflemen who were listening to our conversation nearby nodded their heads with straight faces.

“Alright, let’s just leave it like that! Let’s dismantle the defensive facilities and proceed quickly!”

I call back the heavily armed golem and store it in my inventory, then instruct the harpies to scout the surrounding area before removing the walls with my mithril pickaxe.

“Maybe there won’t be any more surprises, but we’ll still need to be on the lookout for them. Because the only way we’ll lose is if we get taken by surprise without any preparation time.”

“Roger that!”

Pessar saluted with her wings and soared into the sky with her subordinates.

By the way, I purposely ignored the place where the gong sounded… Will this make them even more determined to fight, or will it break their hearts? …Well, I think 90% of them will be broken, but who knows.