“I wonder why we don’t just have wars in the summer. That way, monsters wouldn’t come out of the forest to attack us, you know?”
My bosom buddy voiced his thoughts aloud as he kept a relaxed eye out over the rustling grasses of the plains. Next to him, I was repairing his bow, checking the tension of the bowstring, and tightening it up.
Somewhat distracted, I said, “The Croway Plains are known to flood during the summer, so this whole place becomes a marsh. The bug swarms are so bad that even monsters won’t bother coming out here. But that’s also why no one lives here. The land can’t be cultivated.”
He glanced at me. “Did your grandpa teach you that too? That guy knew pretty much everything.”
“He sure did,” I said, agreeing with him.
The truth, of course, was that I was drawing on my knowledge from my previous life. I might’ve been ignorant about the ways of the world at large, but I knew a lot of oddly specific trivia, and I played that off as being things I’d learned from my grandparents.
They had hailed from some place outside the mountains and, for some reason, ended up living outside the village. I had actually inherited my complexion from my grandmother too. I hadn’t asked them where they’d come from, but I’m sure my grandmother had her own reasons. Or maybe I was just being a presumptuous grandson, imagining that there was something special about her.
Still, they really had known a lot. Thanks to the knowledge they’d bequeathed to me, I was able to hunt and cook most monsters.
“All right, I’m done fixing up your bow,” I said. “Go call the others over. Oh, and make sure you address me as ‘lieutenant’ from now on.”
“Sir, yes, sir!” Taking his bow from me, he straightened up as taut as a bowstring himself and saluted me before running off.
I smiled bemusedly as I watched him go. Then, I got to my feet, rolling my shoulders.
Time to get to work.
After I’d gotten my beard shaved, some of the guys started giving me crap, like saying I’d job-changed from a barbarian to a pretty boy. And since the fact that I was being backed by a nobleman had gotten out, the harassment had worsened. People had even made passes at me.
Arowa and my other hunting buddies—people I had known from around the village—had been cooperative and always did as I asked, but guys from other villages couldn’t do anything without giving me grief.
Seeing as playing Mr. Nice Guy wasn’t going to get me anywhere with them, I’d decided to try my hand at being Sgt. Hardass from the nastiest boot camp movies I could remember...at least until we arrived at Croway, where we were now.
No one wanted to die out here, myself included.
I meant, if the softest civilian was supposed to avoid dying on the battlefield, they were gonna need some training, right? I’d seen drill sergeants in anime, manga, movies, and novels, you name it. By drawing on every last shred of teenage nerd expertise from my misbegotten youth, I was gonna turn these peasants into real men.
And I gotta say...it was hella fun.
“Fall in line, maggots!”
With bows on their backs, the twenty-eight men under my command split into two perfectly straight lines in front of me.
I was inspecting each and every one of them before we moved out to ensure they were all appropriately prepared. This was one of the advantages of moving in a small group.
One of them had a loose belt. I kicked him in the gut.
“Do you want to die in this godforsaken plain? Get your gear straightened out like I told you!” I yelled.
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t notice!” he gasped, his voice strained.
“The only words I want to hear from you are ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir,’ got it?” I snapped. “Now try that again.”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
I realized I was probably going way too far, though it hit me a little belatedly. But role-playing a drill sergeant was really fun.
Everyone was watching me. I didn’t know what to make of the look on their faces, but they weren’t actually thrilled by this, were they...? I must’ve been imagining things.
I had the feeling the guy I kicked wasn’t exactly holding his gut either; his hands seemed to be a little lower than that. But I was probably imagining that too.
Yeah. I’m definitely just imagining things.
“Today, we’re going to keep patrolling the edge of the woods. Clear out all enemies!” I ordered. “And if you see a monster, I want its head on a platter. Got it?”
“Yes, sir!” they shouted in unison.
“Don’t try to be a hero. Don’t try to act tough. You think a monster’s gonna die from the prick of a single worthless arrow? No! You’re all just powerless, scum-sucking slugs! But even the nastiest beast will feel the sting of two dozen arrows. We move in a group, we turn our target into a pincushion, and we string it up for dinner!”
“Yes, sir!”
“And no matter what, don’t slack on your signals! As long as you work together, there’s no enemy you can’t beat. Now, let’s move out!” I shouted, then punctuated my speech with a battle cry. “Annihilate them all!”
My men rallied back with a rousing cheer that echoed across the plains.
Whoops, the birds all flew away. I’m sorry that we’re a bunch of noisy assholes.
Interestingly, they’d all picked up on the whole “yes, sir, no, sir” thing like it was perfectly normal. Maybe it had already entered mainstream knowledge from previous transmigrators—I guess I wasn’t the first person who’d given in to their teenage fantasies here.
Drawing their bows, my men dropped to a low crouch in the tall grass and began to sprint toward the Black Forest. I followed up the rear, occasionally checking over my shoulder as I ran.
Visibility in the plains was absolutely terrible. The sparse trees, shrubbery, and long grass that grew to a man’s height made sure of that.
I was certain that both our own camp and the enemy’s encampment were somewhere near the center of the plains, ready to square off against one another. But as of yet, there were no signs of warfare as far as the eye could see. Croway was more like a picturesque sea of grass right now, but I was certain that the two armies would turn these plains into a bloody battlefield before long.