BBYW Vol. 4 Chapter 29 (WN)
Chapter 29 – Fishing and Hunting
Several days later, I was leading the platoon of rag-tag adventurers towards the third fort.
The fort was surrounded by the undead forces on all sides; it looked like there wasn’t even space for even a single ant to go through. The general estimate was that it would take half a day at most for the fort to fall. We really arrived in the nick of time.
“Advance! Keep going forward like this!!”
“WOOOHHH!!!”
“You lot, it’s time to show your guts! Anyone who turns tail and flees is going to get a taste of my sword!!”
“WOOOHH!!”
I rallied the troops and received a pretty reassuring response.
The adventurers following me numbered to about 300; we could only train for a few days, but their clouded eyes managed to gain a fiercer light.
What made their pupils shine now was the fear and trust towards their commander, me, and the strong will to protect the two princesses waiting back in Thebes.
The three sources of motivation instilled into them during the training — “Fear”, “Wish” and “Desire” — spurred them to face upfront the “Terror Armies”, an enemy much greater than them in numbers.
“WOOOOOOHHHGHH!!”
Upon noticing our arrival, some of the undead creatures turned around to face us.
As far as my eye could tell, the creatures were two to three thousand in number. Most of them were fixated on the fort, so they did not even notice our presence. The ones that started coming after us were about 200.
“So these are the mummies!! Haha, damn scary faces for sure!!”
I grinned, baring my fangs, and raised my right hand.
“All troops, turn back! Turn back!!”
Just before we would clash with the undead, I ordered my platoon to draw a neat arc in the sand and turn around.
“WOOGGHH!! WOOOGGHHH!!”
The “Terror Armies” chased after us, howling loudly.
The sight of their soon-to-be prey escaping their maw surely irritated them; the creatures rattled their teeth in aggression.
“So our first haul is about 200. Not bad, not bad at all!”
I laughed, my fangs exposed, and gave the next order…
“Turn around!! We’re charging them!!”
“WOOOHHH!!!”
Our troops turned around again, this time to charge directly in the groups of undead chasing after us.
“WUOOOOHHHH!!!”
The first one to cut in the enemy lines was me, of course.
I jumped in the midst of the enemies and quickly drew my sword.
“Siegfried!! Back to hell, where you belong!!”
“GWOOoooohhh…”
Sliced by the flash of my blade, the monsters turned to dust.
“Siegfried”’s magic nullification properties were apparently effective on the undead creatures as well; the blade barely needed to touch them for their bodies to crumble and scatter away.
“Follow me!!! Don’t lose to some mummies!!!”
“WOOOOHHHH!!”
“FOLLOW THE COMMANDER!!!”
The adventurers followed my example and started attacking the undead with their swords and spears. As it turned out, the “Terror Armies” were not very strong individually; after our charge broke their momentum, it was not too difficult to deal with them.
Soon enough, the 200 or so mummies that chased after us had been turned into dust, their remains spreading in the wind.
“All right! We’re pulling in the next haul, men!!”
“WOOOHHH!!!”
Once more, we headed towards the fort.
When we were close enough, some of the undead started coming after us.
“Good, turn around!!”
And once more, I gave the same order.
The creatures we hooked left the fort; after we were far enough, we turned around, crushed them, and headed to the fort again.
That was the plan I hatched in order to save the third fort: to draw away the “Terror Armies” surrounding it and crush them, bit by bit.
The most fearsome trait of the undead creatures was that they felt no emotion and would always fight until the end.
Generally, in a clash between two armies it was rare, if it ever happened, for both sides to do battle until either side was completely wiped out.
Once a battalion lost one third of its numbers, the chain of command was broken; once losses exceeded one half, it became impossible to put up a proper fight, so they were forced to either retreat or surrender.
Even if the commander refused to back down and ordered the troops to keep fighting, some of the soldiers would refuse to obey such orders and flee, so in any case it would not be possible to keep fighting in the same way.
Such common sense in the art of war, however, did not apply to the “Terror Armies”.
No matter how many of them fell, they would always continue to fight, till the last creature dropped.
(And that is what we exploited. The inability to think rationally is both their greatest strength and weakness).
The “Terror Armies” did not fear their enemies; they were thus unable to deal with traps or strategies.
In effect, we used the same strategy again and again, but they did not show any sign of learning, and kept falling for it.
“All right then…let’s whittle them down some more. You’ll see that war is not only about numbers!!”
We continued with the same strategy until we managed to reduce the numbers of the undead surrounding the fort by about 20%.