Chapter 62 – Behind The Wall

“Yoshua, there are more reinforcements.”

――Persuasion was futile.

I punch the captain in the jaw and knock him out without any emotion.

I threw out the slumped messenger, hiding him behind a pile of dead kingdom soldiers.

――As long as I can keep the messenger alive, I can kill everyone else.

Dumbfounded by the surprisingly emotionless voice echoing in my mind, I turned to face the incoming Territorial Army.

At the back of the open Judge Gate, there are several two-meter high, one-meter wide rectangles that the archers are hiding behind as they aim at us. The coffin-like pillars seemed to be used to both block cavalry and wagons from forcing their way through and also to provide a barrier. A medium-sized horse-drawn carriage is wide enough to get through if it’s moving slowly.

The width of the Humvee might be a bit tight. Well, the defense seems to be surprisingly well thought out.

“How many enemies are there?”

“Thirty infantry, ten archers, five cavalries, two mages, and one… ugly.”

“Ugly?”

I don’t know, but it’s probably a high-ranking commander.

I took the Humvee out of storage and got everyone on board.

“All aboard, prepare for battle.”

“””Aye!”””

The arrows raining down on the rear of the vehicle hit one after another, but as expected, the vehicle is lightly armored and bulletproof, so it doesn’t falter at that level.

However, the tires are normal rubber tires, so we can’t continue to be hit by arrows without protection. I’ve heard that there’s a function to replenish air leaks while driving, but I don’t know how or where it works (or if all cars are equipped with it in the first place). At any rate, let’s get some distance.

“Yadar, Minya, can you take care of the rest?”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“I’ll protect my Humvee.”

“I can buy the Humvee back, but I can’t bring you back to life. Your first priority is to protect yourselves.”

“”Okay.””

Myrril and I took short-range teleportation to go around the main gate of Tarantallen and get to the top of the fort. This is where the mages and archers attacked us.

I stowed the seven corpses with their equipment and moved along the corridor-like walls to check the situation.

“What the hell was that?”

“It bounced off a steel arrowhead?”

“I don’t see any horses either.”

“What are you doing? Luen! Push them back and kill them!”

The fat man leading the reinforcements ordered the cavalry captain to sweep the area.

This is the “ugly one”? He indeed looks ugly, but he seems to be a nobleman or something, someone who belongs to a higher class in the tribal union.

The cavalrymen were hesitant to follow up on the archers’ attack because they couldn’t get through. It is only natural for lightly armed cavalrymen to be equipped with short bows. If the arrows of the longbows fired by the archers were repelled, there was no way the short bows they were carrying would work. The guard at the gate gave them spears, and they started to ride their horses reluctantly.

“Apparently, the soldiers upstairs were killed by some strange weapon.”

“I don’t get it with the “apparently” you talk about! Go check it out!”

“Yes!”

“…Damn you, you incompetent Tarantallen!”

Myrril asks me if she can kill him, waving her MAC10.

I shake my head in denial. I’m going to let them swim around and find out what’s going on. Short-range teleportation will take us inside the gate to a place that looks like a guard station. It’s unoccupied right now because everyone is out.

“…There’s no one here, is there?”

I heard a bewildered voice of a soldier who seemed to have arrived at the top of the wall before we did, telling his commander.

“No one? Did those idiots get scared and run away?”

Even if we had escaped, there was nothing but open space in front and behind the gate. There was no way we wouldn’t have been spotted, but the ugly nobleman couldn’t get his head around it, shouting that they would be demoted or executed for running away before the enemy.

“Yoshua, there’s an inner gate at the back. Isn’t that where the living quarters are?”

“Okay, hold on.”

I took slightly longer teleportation to get to the top of the inner gate.

It was like a watchtower with ladders going up and down. The space is small and simple, probably as insurance against the Judge Gate being breached, with only a longbow, a quiver, and a short spear, and no one occupying it.

As I looked further inward, I could see a row of houses about 200 meters away. Apart from a few two- and three-story houses that looked like inns, most of the houses were one-story wooden buildings.

There were no more walls within the walls, just a series of gently undulating hills that stretched down to the horizon, dotted here and there with farmland and houses.

As far as I could see, there were only a few forests and woods.

It’s a cumbersome terrain. The view was good, but there was nowhere to run once the enemy spotted us.

I pulled out a radio from my storage.

It was an old-fashioned military radio that I had procured with the intention of making it as easy to operate as possible. I don’t think there will be any radio frequency interference or blockage, but I don’t know how the use of magic or barriers will affect the signal.

“M1 to H1, let me know what’s going on.”

“Uh, this is H1; I’m riding along at a leisurely pace with the horses in tow. I’m bored, but I don’t see a problem.”

Soon I hear Yadar’s voice. The audio is clear, with no particular noise.

I knew that the situation was just that. At this stage, it was just a trial communication device. It was good to know that there was no problem with the call.

“They’ll probably turn back just before the kingdom, so kill some time somewhere. If you can’t avoid a fight, you can go back to Casemaian.”

“Minya asked if we shouldn’t shoot.”

“Don’t shoot except to protect yourself. I want to leave room for negotiation.”

“Okay.”

“Just so you know, don’t get your hopes up, okay?”

“I know.”

After closing the communication, Myrril and I teleported to the top of the highest building.

Our destination was the subhuman settlement that Misnel had told us about.

“…Hmmm. It looks like that’s where we’re going.”

“…..”

When I looked at the direction Myrril pointed, I, too, was momentarily speechless.

It is a barracks in a hollow that is hidden away from the relatively neat living quarters below. It was covered with scrap wood that had been folded into a dirty mess, like a so-called slum.