Ch.1273Is This the Best I Can Do?

I couldn’t keep chatting with Arkala for long, as we had gathered an army for war and couldn’t just sit around making small talk.

“Caljarat didn’t come along? Good. If that fellow were here, I was planning to ask him to stay away from me forever in exchange for my participation.”

“…What, afraid he might force you to be his wife?”

“That and more. Even if I were a ten-year-old child, he’d probably kidnap me, raise me, and try to get me pregnant.”

“……”

Continuing this conversation would only make Caljarat seem more pitiful and disgusting.

—-

Gathering 40,000 troops in one place was no easy task. Even half-rotted undead aren’t blind or deaf.

They too had heard the rumors spreading across the world and witnessed the movements of various races gathering under the blue star in response.

Tens of thousands of troops assembled in one place to fight them.

Whether they could win or not was secondary; the sheer numbers alone were enough to put them on alert.

The undead were naturally wary and tried to interfere. Ambushing those trying to gather, picking them off one by one—that sort of thing.

I actually thought they’d target me first, but surprisingly, they never attacked me directly.

[I would have done the same. Sending a large force to wear you down would be pointless since you could fly away, and sending an elite squad would risk total annihilation from your counterattack.]

‘So they can’t find an angle to kill me and instead obsessively target others?’

[An angle? Interesting expression. But yes, that’s correct. They chose a strategy with less risk and higher success rate.]

Hersella had explained earlier that rather than risking targeting me, it was much safer and more efficient to slaughter hundreds of weaker targets.

It made perfect sense when I heard it, and I immediately agreed. Sure enough, Garmerlic and his subordinates moved exactly as Hersella had predicted.

Small-scale ambushes through teleportation gates, picking off those heading toward me one by one before retreating.

Naturally, I tried to prevent this by quickly flying to repel them whenever I sensed such movements.

Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I was too late or fell for diversionary tactics, and sometimes I didn’t notice at all.

But as these incidents repeated, I gradually became more accustomed to them, and eventually I was able to block most of their ambush attempts.

After being repeatedly repelled, they seemed to give up and things quieted down.

Without such interference, we might have gathered 50,000 people… but on the other hand, I earned the gratitude of those I saved, making them easier to command, so it wasn’t a major loss.

Probably.

‘Well then, it’s about time…’

I stopped my wandering thoughts and turned to look at the western horizon.

A ruin with moonlight streaming through holes in the ceiling.

Beyond the countless craters and rocky hills formed by fallen rocks, a massive floating fortress cast its shadow on the land like an island.

A fortress of death, wrapped in gloomy darkness like fog, echoing with ominous sounds and pouring black rain.

Monsters with wings of bone and membrane flew around the fortress like swarms of mosquitoes, while on the ground, an army large enough to fill the horizon stood in formation.

Half-rotted giants and beasts, armored skeleton knights, and monsters made of mixed bones and flesh from different species.

They were slightly less grotesque than naturally occurring undead monsters or those commanded by Feyrus, but they all had the appearance of half-dead creatures, making them equally disgusting.

‘Giants, dragons, dwarves, humans… they really have all sorts over there. And some unidentifiable monsters mixed in too.’

[Indeed. The composition of their army, a mixture of all kinds of oddities forming a single force, quite resembles yours except for the minor difference of being alive versus not quite dead.]

…Isn’t that the biggest difference?

Anyway, judging by how they displayed their forces in formation like this, it seemed Garmerlic was truly prepared for an all-out war with full force.

Just as my companions and I had anticipated.

‘Looks like he has no intention of retreating and waiting for another opportunity. He’s chosen to meet us head-on with full force.’

Until now, he had only sent out separate units for sporadic engagements, but with my army right at his doorstep, he could no longer divide his forces that way.

Garmerlic’s remaining options were either to flee far away with his fortress again or to defeat this army of 40,000 that I was leading head-on.

Apparently, he had chosen the latter.

‘Does he think he can win if we fight?’

[Well… I suppose we’ll only know once we clash.]

‘Right. As you say, we’ll find out when we fight.’

After staring at the Agnita Fortress for a while, I quietly descended and landed in front of the 40,000-strong army, then turned to face them directly.

A multi-racial coalition force with all kinds of species mixed together, varying in form and size, just like the undead army.

Actually, they couldn’t even be called a coalition force.

These people had gathered in one place only because they shared the goal of stopping the Undead Duke, but they had no trust, goodwill, or even minimal comradeship toward each other.

Some even harbored grudges against others, and many had lived their entire lives without knowing of each other’s existence, so calling them a coalition was generous—they were closer to a ragtag bunch.

While individuals—or racial units—might be highly trained, as a single army they lacked order, discipline, and coordinated tactics.

If I had enough time, I might have been able to command and train them into a unified army, but unfortunately, there was no such luxury.

Most participants were reluctant to engage in a prolonged war, the Second Great Collapse could begin at any time, and above all… there was the issue of supplies.

Everyone had brought enough food for a few days, so there was no immediate problem, but it was impossible to supply an army of 40,000 for an extended campaign.

Beyond the question of whether there were enough stockpiled provisions to handle such consumption, maintaining a supply line to transport them to the front was nearly impossible.

Even if we allocated some troops to transport and guard supplies, they would likely be picked off by the enemy’s teleportation ambushes and lose everything.

In other words, our 40,000-strong undead subjugation army would clearly disintegrate from hunger or suddenly collapse in defeat if we couldn’t end the war quickly.

Unlike the undead army that needed no food supplies, our side would rapidly weaken as time passed, and conflicts between races would gradually worsen.

Therefore, we needed to wage an all-out war with all available forces while we still had sufficient food.

Or well… we could feed on the corpses of our allies to satisfy our hunger.

It might sound crazy, but it was a strategy of sorts.

Eating corpses is far better than eating each other while alive. After all, everyone becomes meat when they die, right?

Originally, these creatures hunted, killed, and ate each other anyway.

They’re used to it, so they’d probably eat without complaint if ordered.

Of course, such creatures typically have the hypocrisy of becoming enraged when their own kind are eaten, so that method should be kept as a last resort.

Anyway, that was why I had marched right up to the fortress without any plan and decided to fight without any strategy.

We had to choose a short, decisive battle because we lacked the ability to maintain supplies, and we had to charge in recklessly because we didn’t have time to reorganize into a unified army.

Well, human wave tactics are still tactics, I suppose.

To truly be called a sea of people, we’d need five times our current numbers, but these weren’t humans but heteromorphic races.

With monsters who could kill hundreds single-handedly and creatures several meters tall in abundance, even 40,000 seemed equivalent to hundreds of thousands of humans.

Though qualitatively, there was something to be desired.

‘Only one giant, Bergelmir, and only two ancient dragons came. And one of them was already our ally.’

Whether they feared exposure to the light of Heaven’s Wall during battle, or simply didn’t care until the end, or were seeking to benefit from others’ efforts…

Among the 40,000 troops, only five could be considered demigod-level forces. Excluding our allies Balaur, Caliburn, and Bergelmir, there were only two.

The bald-hating orc female warrior Arkala and the thunder and storm dragon who introduced himself as Bishaf. Just those two.

Another dragon, Krakbabel, declined to participate, citing injuries from a battle with giants.

Whether that was the real reason or just an excuse, I’m not sure… probably the latter? Most dragons are vile and cowardly.

Anyway, that made five. Six including myself.

That was the total of demigod-level powerhouses gathered to face Garmerlic.