As the battle raged on around him, Werner wasn’t feeling as confident as he looked. Even from his position higher on the slope, he was dwarfed by the Demon Commander and keenly aware of their difference in strength.
Cold sweat ran down Werner’s back. His opponent was too strong for any human but the Hero to face. One direct blow from Gezarius’s arms could be a fatal wound.
At the same time, he was oddly composed. The way Werner saw it, if the Demon army stole his body, they probably wouldn’t be able to use it if it were too damaged.
Their conversation only made him more certain of that hypothesis. Had the Demon army continued a full-frontal attack, he would have been dragged right into combat. The fact that Gezarius entertained their short conversation convinced Werner that his opponent had been trying to judge the right distance to put between them.
Gezarius rushed forward and swung his arms. Werner sidestepped at the last moment. His new spear may have been able to withstand the attack, but the old one he had long used would’ve snapped. Plus, this one was lighter, aiding him with his agility.
Werner ducked under the next swing and stabbed his spear forward while in a crouch. He thrust it upwards, aiming under Gezarius’s chin, but the Demon twisted away to the side. The Demon Commander spun on the foot he dodged with and, using its momentum, swung his arms down. Werner dodged, and Gezarius’s fists cratered the ground where he’d been a split second earlier. Werner put a few steps between him and his foe, keeping his eyes trained on him all the while. Now, neither one stood higher on the hill than the other. They faced each other on even ground.
Werner went on the offensive, launching a few sharp stabs with his spear. They found their mark, but they were too light to wound. Gezarius began to laugh, and Werner quickly retreated a step. Gezarius moved in, maintaining distance, and Werner swung his lance as if to cut the Demon’s legs from under him.
Gezarius hadn’t predicted this. The blow landed. It left him slightly unbalanced, but there was not nearly enough power in the blow to sap his strength. He swung his arms to the side in a large arc as he tried to fling Werner away.
Werner dodged this attack before running further downhill and gathering himself. This left Gezarius uphill, looking down at Werner. At the same time, Werner had to look all the way up to the sky to see Gezarius. For a moment, they simply glared at each other.
But the next moment, a dull sound reverberated as a strong blow hit Gezarius’s back. He felt his body rise into the air. Barely managing to look up above, he noticed small ballistae mounted inside the fortress. It left him shocked. They hadn’t been there until just moments earlier. They launched not bolts but large, cudgel-like clumps of metal. The weapons were so close that the shot had slammed into Gezarius at full force.
Caught off guard by such a strong blow, even Gezarius couldn’t maintain his stance. Werner watched the Demon Commander fall to the ground and ran from the scene, not to avoid an attack, but to avoid getting roped into what was coming next. He wore a serious expression.
When Werner had planned to utilize carroballistae, he hypothesized that they had never been invented in this world because a large supply of magic bags let anyone carry regular ballistae anywhere. Thus, Werner thought that even ballistae could be transported so long as they were single-shot types.
That was what had prompted Werner to request a large supply of magic bags from Duke Seyfert. Once he accepted his appointment in Anheim, he could initiate the loan properly. It wasn’t just the supplies inside the magic bags that were munitions but the bags themselves.
Werner filled them with ballistae and handed them to Schünzel, leaving him with the orders to conceal the weapons until the Demon Commander turned his eyes from the summit. Then, Werner became a decoy in the battle to create an opening for Schünzel and his men to attack. Once Gezarius had turned his back to the hill and was focused completely on Werner, they pulled the trigger.
The mass of the shot was enough to send Gezarius rolling downhill. The Demons in the surrounding battle looked on with shock. The Hero hadn’t been at this battle; a mere army of humans had their commander tumbling down the slope. It left them astonished.
“Blind them! Hurry the ballistae for the next attack!” barked Werner. The next moment, the hunter launched countless blinding ceramic bombs. Gezarius was still crumpled on the ground at the foot of the hill when the bombs fell, and he raised his arms in a desperate attempt to shield himself. The ceramic stood no chance against his strength. A broad sweep of his fist broke two of the bombs, filling the air with blinding powder. Gezarius’s nose and eyes were overloaded with the stench and pain of the spreading powder. More bombs collided with Gezarius’s body, their contents filling the air and covering his face and body.
Gezarius ran, all the while screaming in pain. He may have just been trying to escape the range of the blinding agent and ballistae, but that didn’t change the fact that a Demon Commander had turned his back to run from an army of humans. It left the Demon army rattled with disbelief.
“Force them back!” At Werner’s command, his men raised a battle cry. The shaken Lycanthropes were helpless as a wave of swords and spears crashed upon them, cutting and stabbing, tearing flesh and dyeing their fur red. A Werewolf was kicked off the hill, and he tumbled to the ground below. The moment their commander had fled the battle was the moment their spirits broke, and the moment their foes cast aside their fear of the Demon army. The Demons were thrust from the hill with a force unimaginable from mere humans.
“Everyone up on the hill, prepare the stones!”
After dispersing the Demon army, Werner didn’t pursue. Instead, he turned once more to the rocks they had catapulted onto the bandits’ hill when routing them. This time, they had been secured by ropes at the hill’s ridge. And now, as the defenders cut the ropes, they came tumbling down all at once.
The Demons were now downhill, and the sight of the large stones barreling towards them had them fleeing as fast as possible. As if driven by herd mentality, the moment one turned to run, they all did. They may have just been trying to chase after their commander, but from the perspective of the kingdom’s army from up on the hill, it was a clear retreat. Jubilant cheers tinged with disbelief reverberated through the air.
“Lord Werner!”
“We did it!”
“Don’t get too carried away. Hurry and treat the wounded, then prepare for retreat.”
Werner’s stratagem had sent the Demon Commander running, but he was quick to issue orders to Neurath and the others, who were still caught up in their moment of triumph. Then, he released a heavy sigh and wiped the sweat from his brow.
The ballistae were of an old type left in Anheim, and while they could be adjusted up and down, they lacked a turntable, meaning it was hard to aim them left or right. Had the monsters dodged to the side with their inhuman speed, there would have been nothing Werner and his men could do. The success of a second-round volley was incredibly unlikely. That was why he had used a blinding agent to steal Gezarius’s sense of sight and leave him oblivious to his surroundings.
This was also the reason they hadn’t launched arrows. Had a single blow been able to defeat a Demon Commander, that would have been an option. However, their goal was to wait for the knight brigade to take out the Demon Commander. Given that a second round of arrows wouldn’t have hit their targets, the visual effect of expelling the Demon Commander off the hill better aligned with Werner’s goals. Thus, he had them launch heavy projectiles that would make an impact.
His gambit with the rocks had also expended all the boulders they’d used to storm the hill fort. The jars filled with blinding agent were almost completely exhausted as well. They wouldn’t be scoring another victory with those tactics again.
“Make sure our preparations are completed by evening. We march once the sun is down.”
“Will he really come after us?” Holzdeppe asked.
“Well, a nocturnal assault would better suit their instincts,” Werner said.
He commend Schünzel once more for his perfect ballista volley, then ordered that the magic bags be put away. If monsters were influenced by territorial instincts, Werner figured that they would think much like the animals they resembled too. Thus, they prepared for the night ahead.
“Be careful with the magic lamps we’ll be using in our retreat.”
“Understood.”
After ordering Holzdeppe to send a scout, Werner took out their most detailed map and asked Neurath, Schünzel, Holzdeppe, and Goecke for their opinions. After some discussion, they all reached a mutual conclusion.
“Here, huh?”
“That’s what I thought as well.”
“It’s the best place for a hunt.”
Holzdeppe and Goecke nodded along with them. After confirming the best place for an attack on their way to the third fortress, they decided to make their way there with all haste. Werner ordered that they hurry their preparations to retreat.