“Why would I go and do something as useless as that?” I said, exasperated as I looked them over.
The ones in front of me were the ones who’d been behind the rocks, making up eighteen. The bowmen in the trees, plus their two guards each, were still in place. In total, there were twenty-four men present, less than the thirty projected.
“You don’t have nearly enough men to stop me,” I said, giving them a grin so wild even I felt it.
With the enemy leader still stunned, still not understanding the kind of fight I was raring to have, I shot forward. The only thing I was thinking of was to go straight and knock ’em out. Just that. And because I was only thinking that, I was fast. As I suddenly picked up speed, the bandits standing in front came within range of my cane in an instant.
“Wha?! B-Block—”
Seemingly having finally come back to his senses, the leader cried out an order, but it was too late. Plus, it was a bad order. The men he was giving it to probably hadn’t expected anything but “attack” and when to do it. That was why he should’ve said “charge” or “now” instead. Really, saying anything different in this situation was a bad call.
And for him to order a block? First off, their total confusion at how I was able to see through their ambush would have made them poorly prepared for a block. The leader giving his men an order to defend when they’d all been preparing to attack was seriously inept of him. All he’d do was just confuse the men in front, and just as I thought, his order ended in the poor dude standing right in front of me receiving a direct hit.
“Yeaaaargh, take this!”
In my forward momentum, I stabbed my cane in front of me. I had stepped forward, digging both my feet into the ground, and used gravity to turn and swing my body with every muscle fully activated. All the power from pushing against the ground went to my back, to my arms, and finally, to the cane in my hand.
And all that weight transformed into power to knock the guy away.
“GUAAAAAARGH?!”
Screaming, the guy flew about three meters, hitting two other men past him to bring them all crashing onto the ground, twitching. From the looks of it, they weren’t dead.
This was the third reason I hadn’t brought my cudgel: I needed my cane if I wanted to blow away my enemies.
If I tried something like this with a spear, I wouldn’t so much as blow my enemies away as I would skewer them, and if I did that, even I wouldn’t be able to pull the thing out, so I’d lose my weapon. With my cane, I could change the way I used it to knock my enemies away or damage their insides. I mean, I could do the same with my cudgel, but the weight of the cudgel would make it easier to break bones, and it’d probably sink into the enemy instead of whack them away.
But sending them flying wasn’t my goal. I wasn’t playing around, after all.
“Huh? Wha, hah?”
Their leader was bewildered, not understanding what had just happened in front of him. He wasn’t the only one. The other “bandits” were just as confused. Seeing as no one had shot at me from the trees, it looked like I’d unnerved everyone who saw. I used that time to swing my cane again, and in just an instant, another one, two, three enemies were swept away.
“Okay, who’s next?” I asked, baring my canines as I grinned, like a wolf showing its fangs.
I must’ve looked pretty damn scary, because these grown adults—guys experienced with rough, dirty, violent work if they were hired for something like this—had frozen in place. When I took a step forward, they took two steps back. Not a single one had the guts to come at me. I couldn’t blame them. It was just human instinct working.
And that was the secret behind the Special Battalion’s ability to win while outnumbered.
First off, there was the general rule that when a group lost ten percent of their forces in a battle, their attack capabilities took a massive hit, and when thirty percent were taken out, they’d usually be devastated, maybe even treating it as complete annihilation. This was due to the fact that at such loss not only would they not be able to count on their unit’s battle power anymore, but the remaining soldiers making up the unit wouldn’t be able to keep up morale.
To put it bluntly, fear could break their spirits in a way simply killing them wouldn’t. It was even easier to break the spirits of people who’d thought they had the upper hand and underestimated us. They wouldn’t have ever expected to lose, after all, so they wouldn’t have been prepared for the possibility that they could actually die.
And what would happen when they’d suddenly realize they were near death’s door? What would they do when faced with the unbelievable fact that they’d just seen a human blown three meters away like it was nothing, while quite clearly being told they were next?
“E-Eeek?!”
My threats had finally sunken in for one man, who screamed and lost his balance. That scream triggered other screamers, or people just point-blank running away from us, so scared they showed their backs to us as they ran.
Having the possibility of death shoved in your face when you weren’t ready would, of course, scare any human. And fear was contagious. Without a particularly skilled leader to keep them focused, that contagious fear could cause an entire unit to spiral out of control. And when that happened, numbers meant absolutely nothing. All that was left for us to do was to cut down the ones left stunned or running.
And that was the Special Battalion’s methodology.
“Charge!”
The order didn’t come from the enemy. It came from me. And at my order, the knights who’d been in hiding attacked the “bandits” running away. They were the other knights sent from the Special Battalion. The three accompanying me out in the open were a front, with the other knights following us from a reasonable distance while keeping themselves hidden.
And so, our strategy had been for me to lure them all out, charge at them, and therefore crush their morale, perfectly priming them for the other knights to come in and cut them down.
“Wh-Wh-What, what in the world... Is this how the ‘Black Wolf’ hunts?!” the “bandit” leader cried, trembling. While he’d stood there, stunned, we’d split their group in an instant, and before he had a chance to get his head around things, his men had started to flee. He hadn’t had the time to get them under control. Poor guy.
And after taking a few more down, I stood in front of that pitiable man.
“What, you didn’t know? Wolves hunt in packs.”
“In packs... The ‘Black Wolf’s’ pack... You mean the Special Battalion!”
“Yup.” As the leader finally figured it out, I smashed him in the head and knocked him out—or at least, I was pretty sure I had just knocked him out.
“Took him long enough to notice. Though the whole point was to not let him,” I said, a wry smile on my lips.
This was one of the reasons I didn’t try to stop the “Black Wolf” nickname from spreading. With that kind of reputation being public knowledge, we could have someone like me stand out alone—sometimes acting as bait, sometimes as charge commander—able to adapt to different situations before we finally hunted as a group.
And I came out of this battle strategy safe and sound today too. The knights sent from the Special Battalion were used to that, and they didn’t let a single “bandit” get away, either knocking them out or cutting them down. They’d also pulled the archers out of the trees they were hiding in at some point.
It’s really thanks to the guys’ skills that I get to take it easy.
“Okay. Let’s get the rest of it done, then.”
Having confirmed that we were basically done with fighting, I started tying up the “bandits” knocked out on the ground.