The attack squad had lured away ninety adventurers, and an additional thirty had followed. They’d managed to reduce that number down to fifty-five. On top of that, most of the adventurers were still scattered. Many had died or been injured by traps, magical beasts, and the kobold squads, but more and more were simply abandoning the fight or fleeing due to the confusion of being cut off from their commanders or their draining enthusiasm for the mission. Wyatt’s use of adventuring parties, which he’d hoped would be able to think for themselves in an emergency, had backfired as the parties were all prioritizing self-preservation over the expedition as a whole. They may have been combat specialists, but adventurers were fundamentally people who fought in their own self-interests. They didn’t live on their reputations and their faithfulness to their contracts like full mercenary companies did.
The reason soldiers were kept close enough for their commanders to see them and speak to them...no, the reason they had to be kept that close was precisely to prevent such losses of morale. That’s why wide-open spaces had always been chosen as battlefields in the past. The Kingdom’s Army was able to maintain morale even while split up largely due to their ability to uphold the chain of command and share information between separate groups using spirit-speak. As long as the command center remained active, the kobolds would most likely be able to maintain order and assertiveness in their actions. Even with a quarter of their forces split off and all the strategies they’d had thrown at them, the dregs of the remaining adventurers still surpassed the Kingdom Army’s fighters when it came to strength, but the scales of battle were starting to tip heavily in the Kobold Kingdom’s favor due to this difference between their forces.
“We’ve made it this far...” Sashalia took a moment to allow herself to feel relief until Hopping Rabbit prodded her shoulder to get her attention and made a report:
“There’s another message from the attack team. It’s from Captain Darke, to the General.”
“Hm?”
＊
[Attack team to Command Center: No lasting injuries. The Captain’s breast provided ample protection.]
[Command Center to Attack Team: Please be more precise in your reports. Did you mean “breastplate”?]
“What in the world are they doing?” The elder sighed after catching that uncoded message.
“...Did something happen?”
“Mm, the pale one seems to have battled the enemy leader and lost.”
Gaius sat against a tree and listened, his expression stony.
“Seems she was injured, but her life’s in no danger and her team was able to get away. No need to worry.”
“That idiot.”
The elder picked up several scents from Gaius, but didn’t ask about them. “How are you doing, though?” the elder asked. Exhaustion and weariness were clear on his partner’s face.
“Pretty embarrassed... Guess this isn’t as easy for me as it was when I was young.” Gaius smiled wryly. It was no wonder he was fatigued. He’d fought battle after battle, and faced quite a few highly skilled opponents all at once. The blow he’d taken from Melinda combined with all his other wounds, large and small, were starting to take a toll on him.
“What’s that? Mocking the elderly, are you?”
“Huh?! Oh! No, that wasn’t my intention.”
“Hmph... Mm?”
“Did you get another message?”
The elder confirmed the contents of the message he’d been sent and sighed irritatedly. “They’re more persistent than we thought. They’re still moving, even in this situation. The twenty-odd uninjured foes they left in the rear have picked up several more and are making their way up the river.”
“I would have expected them to have retreated by now...and if it’s a group of about thirty...”
“It’s a bit too much for them to handle.”
The only troops stationed along the river on the way to the village were three small squads, making a total of nine kobolds. They were precious fighting power, and Gaius would have liked for even one of them to be able to join the attack squad instead, but they couldn’t be removed from their duty of cleaning up the enemies Gaius had already gone through or that had been separated from the main force. They were the bare minimum fighting power needed to perform that role, and absolutely would not be able to deal with a human force of thirty head-on. The path this group was on also had some traps, but there were many more on the western side of the river where the adventurers had been stranded. Once the adventurers made it through the forest and reached the plains, there would be nothing stopping them from reaching the village.
“The little lady’s asking our status, probably trying to decide if we should head back and regroup or go at them as we are.”
“I’m good. We should concentrate our fighting power to the west. That’ll avoid more losses.” Gaius couldn’t hide the fatigue in his voice as he answered.
The elder harrumphed in response, then went quiet in thought for a time. “Say, Slayer of Fifty.”
“...That’s an exaggerated nickname, old-timer.”
“Oh? How many did you slay, then?”
“It wasn’t fifty.”
“Don’t be modest, just tell me.”
“...I counted forty bodies afterward. But I didn’t fight them all at once...”
The elder cut him off by asking, “How many would you say you’ve defeated today?”
“Dunno... Thirty-four or -five, maybe? I wasn’t really keeping track.”
“Hmm. So if we add the thirty we’re going to face now, it’ll be sixty-five-ish, eh?”
“Well...I suppose it would.” Gaius cocked his head, unsure of where the elder was going with this.
“Let’s say you’ve the strength of forty men. I may be your partner, but it is only my first battle, so we’ll say I’m worth half that—call it twenty. What do you get when you add those?”
“...The strength of sixty men?”
“Exactly. Together, we’re the Slayers of Sixty! Sixty-five will only take a tiny bit more effort than usual!”
The elder’s logic was spotty at best. Gaius was confused for a moment, but then he understood what the elder was trying to say.
“Hahaha! You’re right about that! True, it’s just a matter of simple math! You really do know your stuff, elder!” He slapped his knee in amusement.
“Sure I do. Though you’ve lived about thirty times as long as I have! Gahaha!”
“Oh, life’s about quality over quantity! Hahaha!”
The two shared a laugh for some time.
“Well, shall we get going, Your Majesty?”
“Let’s.” Gaius stood, once again ready to take on his foes.
＊
After another encounter with a tree-eating lizard, scuffles with traps, and general interference from the kobolds... Wyatt finally met back up with Ashcroft and the twenty or so men he’d rounded up. A lone adventurer approached him soon after.
It was a messenger Heatley had dispatched from his position at the rear. The adventurer ran up, covered in sweat and out of breath, and reported to Wyatt what Heatley’s squad had discovered while taking care of the injured: that the knight Humphreys had been defeated by Beldarus on the riverbed; that Seligman and the main force had been cut off from them, left on the other side of the river when it filled; that the supplies they’d brought with them on carts had been washed away; that the injured and medical team had taken refuge next to the river; and that Heatley had taken twenty-five men from the rear who were heading upstream to attack the village in place of their main force.