Sashalia’s order was quickly sent via spirit-speak. She could see by the movement of the stones on the map that Red Eye’s Squad One and Squad Two, which were both equipped with stolen magic staves, had received and were following her orders.
“The enemy’s movements have changed. They’re not responding to our provocations or lures anymore,” Hopping Rabbit said, watching the positions of the stones representing the enemy.
“Their numbers have dropped enough that it’s actually easier for their commanders to control them. Honestly, any normal group would have retreated by now... It’s like they’re obsessed,” Sashalia said without taking her eyes off the map.
It was as the elder’s granddaughter had said. A group had reformed inside the forest and, after letting a few members leave the battlefield, they’d begun marching steadily forward without being distracted by feints from the kobold squads. This many humans together would be difficult for the kobold soldiers to fight at close range, especially now that Darke had been injured. But the kobolds had to take this group down. They couldn’t afford to risk leaving the group Gaius was fighting by the river or any of the scattered adventurers in the forest alone. Due to fighting, traps, splitting up, and fleeing, there were only about seventy of the Adventurers’ Guild’s original three hundred thirty fighting men remaining on the battlefield. However, the Kobold Kingdom’s original forty-nine-strong army had also been reduced to thirty by death or injury. It was all going to come down to this.
“It’s okay, we can do this with the traps and the terrain on their route...” Sashalia crossed her arms. Hopping Rabbit leaned over to wipe some sweat from the half-elf’s forehead with a cloth.
Just then, one of the housewives went pale and shouted, “Report from Brown Turtle! Humans spotted in the forest to the west of the plains!”
“What?!”
They’d widened their scouting range around the village in response to the previous attack. Brown Turtle was stationed at the very end of that range, as far from the battlefield as possible. He was basically only there as insurance, so when the emergency report came from him, Sashalia and the housewives were more than a little surprised.
“There are four of them. I’ll mark their position!” A small stone indicating a small number of enemies was quickly placed on the great map. Their location showed that they’d taken a wide detour around the battlefield, and it conveyed their intentions clearly to Sashalia.
The enemy had bound the kobolds’ hands and were on their way to destroy their head.
“That smaller group who left the main force wasn’t injured and retreating, but a separate squad going around to attack us directly here...I can’t believe they’d take such a detour right through the Greatwood.” Without the right experience, navigating forests without getting lost was quite difficult, and this was no mere forest—it was the Greatwood. She couldn’t believe they’d purposely head so deep inside without having been lured there. “It’s not a place you can just waltz into.” A small party of hunting-type adventurers quickly came to mind, the memory sparking pain in her shortened ear. “It’s him...”
Sashalia nibbled on the knuckle of her index finger and changed tacks. She didn’t need to get to the bottom of this right now; she needed to come up with a countermeasure. “We could call back the squads fighting in the forest...but if we cut back any more on them, some adventurers will definitely get through...then there will be dozens of them flooding into the plain...but that’s the only way...Sir Gaius is fighting at the river...he won’t make it back in time...”
“M-Miss Sashalia, what do we do?!” Hopping Rabbit asked, panicked.
“Sashalia...”
“What should we...?” The housewives were similarly nervous.
“Wait, just wait. I’m thinking. I’ll think of something.” The small half-elf covered her mouth with her hand, a cold sweat breaking over her as she brought her full thinking power to bear. She continued muttering to herself to organize her thoughts, which only made the housewives more nervous, but Sashalia wasn’t an experienced enough commander to remain perfectly calm and collected in a situation like this.
“Ye bloody idiot!” ...However, there was one among them still in high spirits. He was a bit of a lech, not very smart, and tended to get carried away, but he had more courage and nerve than anyone. His words prevented the room from falling into complete panic.
“What th’ hell d’ye think I’m here for?!”
＊
“Eep!”
“Walk faster.”
“I will! I will! Stop prodding me with your sword!” Cyril flinched away as Wyatt threatened him with his blade.
The guildmaster and his guide, as well as the two adventurers, Quincy and Margot, emerged from the forest and quickly cut across the plain, arriving at the outskirts of the village. Quincy quickly set fire to a storage shed near a line of stakes that had been pounded into the ground for some reason. From there, they set about tossing burning torches into every pit dwelling in sight. Eventually, the frames of the dwellings and the woven branches that supported their sod roofs caught fire, creating several sources of red light in the dark caused by the thick clouds overhead.
“There’s no one in the houses,” Margot remarked to Wyatt, lighting a new torch.
“They’re hiding somewhere, or they’ve run. It doesn’t matter. Just destroy their dens and all their supplies. We can finish off the bitches and pups later.”
“Right.”
“Our top priority is disrupting the dogs still resisting in the forest.” Wyatt was also setting fire to a primitive dwelling, torch in hand.
“Hopefully it works.”
“It’ll work. During the Five Year War, we were surrounding an enemy fort when there was a fire in the fort’s kitchen. It only spread a little before it stopped, and didn’t actually affect the fort’s defenses at all.”
“Oh?”
“However, unluckily for them, the smoke billowing out of the fort made it look like it had fallen, so the reinforcements who were coming to their aid retreated instead. In the end, the fort really did fall two days later. It’s not like this is the exact same situation, but they shouldn’t be able to maintain their cool when they see this.”
“Makes sense,” Quincy remarked, tossing a second torch into a dwelling that was refusing to catch fire. Eventually, the sound and smell of something burning inside reached him.
“I wonder if you can see the smoke from the forest, though.” Margot, who had been a part of the guild for a long time and was relatively friendly with Wyatt, was not afraid to raise her doubts.
“I’m not worried about that.”
“You’re not?”
“Well, look at the things. Their noses probably work better than their eyes, right?”
“Ahahaha! That’s for sure!”
...As they went about setting fires, the group finally encountered the first residents of the village in its center. There was a simple structure consisting of nothing more than a roof, some pillars holding it up, and a floor in the square in the middle of the village. The structure was swarming with female kobolds, one young redheaded girl seated among them. There was a great desk in the middle of the hovel, and the map made of animal skins with countless stones atop it proved this was no mere shelter.
“I see.” Wyatt came to a conclusion instantly. He didn’t know how she was doing it, but it was clear enough to him that this delicate elf with the half-missing ear was the commander who had driven him to his current position.
“I don’t believe you were invited.” The redheaded elf was the first to address the newcomers.