Chapter 54

Chapter 54: 54

* * *\n

“The adventurers will definitely fall into disarray.”

Laura spoke as she twirled her side bang. The sultry rays of the mountain range shined on her. Girls would normally worry about their skin because of these rays, but she didn’t care about it at all. Laura’s green eyes remained fixated on the map.

“The ones they thought were traitors got attacked by the enemy as well. Something that logically does not make sense had happened. Dull-witted people would ignore this, but that human named Riff has a head that is good enough to unite several villages. Two possibilities will most likely come to mind for him.”

Did the Demon Lord get rid of the traitors?

Or were they not actually traitors?

“It will be hard for him to think that the enemy is taking out their own forces. Therefore, that man will…….”

* * *

‘There are no traitors’.

A gruesome scene entered Riff’s vision.

Riff’s group surveyed the village. The village, no, it was where the village used to be. There were a couple of goblin corpses around the now destroyed wooden fences. Other than the fences, none of the buildings inside the village were heavily damaged. If it weren’t for the gruesome chunks of flesh and bloodstains here and there, you might have thought that the villagers were all out for work.

This made it even eerier. This meant that the goblins had consumed the human corpses without leaving anything behind.

One of the adventurers clicked his tongue.

“Just how savagely did those goblins eat for there to not even be a single corpse left looking decent?”

“Jeez, there are only bones left. There should have still been over 50 people, but did they all eat them here?”

“Of course not. They took the humans they couldn’t eat back to their tribes…….”

“Oh my God!”

After confirming that there were no survivors, Riff’s group left the village.

A civilian militia head spoke to Riff.

“Jeez. I don’t get it. Why would the Demon Lord attack this village?”

“I think……kuh. There might be no traitors. At the very least, it wasn’t all of the villages that don’t have a militia that betrayed us. I apologize for muddling your heads, brothers.”

It seems that the first two villages belonging to the civilian militia were simply a coincidence.\n

“Nevertheless, brothers, this is actually an opportunity!”

“An opportunity?”

The militia heads had become dejected after they witnessed the horribly devastated village. Once Riff spoke brightly to change the mood, the others looked at him quizzically. The fact that Riff had never talked nonsense before gave the others hope. They believed that if it’s Riff, then he could do something about this.

“Doesn’t this mean that the Demon Lord is stupidly attacking villages while not knowing who his enemies and allies are? How do you think the other villages would react if we spread this information?”

“Ah!”

The civilian militia heads and the other adventurers let out a sound as they seemed to realize what Riff was trying to say.

“That’s right.”

Riff grinned.

“They’ll immediately try to join forces with us, won’t they? We’ll be making more allies without having to lift a finger. Our relationship hasn’t been good until now because we forced them to give us their provisions, but would those past problems matter when their lives are on the line?”

“He’s right. If there’s a common enemy, then they’ll come together!”

The others joined in excitedly.

“Keke, what a foolish Demon Lord!”

“He wound up helping us on his own!”

“He’s probably nearsighted, that demon bastard.”

Riff almost clicked his tongue. It bothered him to see them get all excited knowing that they would have most likely never figured this out if it weren’t him. This was a pointless thought to have, so Riff didn’t go out of his way to ruin the mood.

News quickly spread throughout the party about how the Demon Lord was crazily attacking all of the human villages without exception.

As Riff hoped, the other villages responded strongly. They started to cry out for the Demon Lord to be overthrown as they joined Riff’s group.

“If he can’t be stopped alone, then we can stop him together!”

“It’s regrettable, but leave your current village and gather in one place. You can think of this as a tactical retreat so that we can take two steps forward later.”

All of the village chiefs promised to listen to his party’s orders. There had never been conditions as favorable as this. There were exactly 2 villages that refused to cooperate, but Riff wasn’t surprised.

‘They’re the traitors!’

Riff had already figured out that the Demon Lord’s army was advancing from the west side of the mountain range to the east. It wasn’t a coincidence that the two villages that didn’t join were at the east end of the mountain range. It was then that everything became as clear as day. Out of the twelve villages on the mountain range, 2 had betrayed the others. The Demon Lord army was intentionally advancing from the west so that they wouldn’t reveal who the traitors are. \n‘You checkmated yourself, you damn coward.’

Riff ridiculed Dantalian.

If he were Dantalian, then he would have passed over the villages that didn’t have a militia. He would have put people in a gloomy doubt so that they wouldn’t know who the traitors were.

If he did, then 7 villages━3 villages out of the 12 were destroyed and 2 villages had betrayed the others, so there were 7 villages left━ wouldn’t have formed an alliance. An impenetrable fortress of almost 400 humans would have never been created!

Riff gathered everyone to the fourth village in line if going in a line from the west to the east. Sturdy fences were put up in layers and a moat was dug out as well.

‘Now the Hammer and Anvil is perfect!’

The Hammer is the adventurers and the civilian militia with a total of roughly 70 people. They were all heavily armed. They weren’t afraid of a hundred or two hundred goblins. The key point of the Hammer is its offensive ability, and they were exceptional in that regard.

The Anvil is the large group of approximately 400 villagers. Although their equipment was shabby, they had sturdy fences and a moat. When considering the vital point of the tactic is ‘the Anvil defends against the enemy while the Hammer attacks from behind’, 400 humans, fences, and a moat was more than enough. 400 goblins? They could defend against them for any number of days!

Riff looked around the fences. The 4 rows of fences were sturdy enough to block even a normal army. Satisfaction, excitement, and before long, sadness, fell over him.

“……Daneff. I’ll be able to avenge you soon.”

His village comrades that were sacrificed after being deceived by that treacherous Demon Lord.

For how long has he craved for revenge?

“Demon Lord Dantalian’s head……I’ll put it on display in the center of our Jalsen Village!”

Riff clenched his fists.

The next morning, Riff set forth while leading a group of 70 men before the sun could rise. They managed to invade the dungeon without any interference whatsoever. As Riff predicted, there wasn’t a single monster left to protect the dungeon. They pillaged the Demon Lord’s room as much as they wanted before leaving the dungeon leisurely without suffering any casualties.

Riff let out a mental cheer.

‘We’ve won!’

* * *

“They will most likely think that they had won.”

A cold smile appeared on Laura’s lips.

“Your Lordship, do you remember the lesson you taught me a few days ago? If you wish to deceive the enemy, you must deceive your allies. And if you wish to deceive your allies, you must deceive yourself first. By showing actions that appear as if they have absolutely no meaning, those actions will pile up and compress together to ultimately transcend into a single stratagem.”

\nTheir defenses fell into a bowl of confusion.

With Parsi as the lead, two villages’ worth of people were in charge of a section of the fences. It was the fences with the path that was connected to the main gate. The monsters leisurely passed through the main gate at the same time. Having failed to distinguish who the traitors were, the humans were swarmed by monsters as they couldn’t decide whether they should fight back or run away.

The result was as obvious as watching a fire.

The battle ended so quickly that it was hard to believe that 400 sturdy mountain people━a hundred of which were traitors━were defending this fortress.

“Your Honor Demon Lord! Haha!”

Parsi came walking down the main road. He was being escorted by his village people. They all had a string tied around both of their wrists and this was a sign that told the goblins that they were ‘humans you can’t eat’.

They were dragging a bunch of old people behind them.

“Look! These are the village chiefs that pointed their spears at Your Honor! They were tempted by those adventurers at the chance of getting their hands on Your Honor’s wealth. They’re also the sons of bitches who stole our precious wheat! Damn bastards!”

Parsi smacked their backs. The old village chiefs had bodies that were studier than expected but being struck while their arms were tied forced them to fall down with little effort. Once they noticed me, they started to cry out desperately.

“O-O Great Being! Please forgive us!”

“T-The Devil was in our eyes! We would not dare to━!”

There was no reason to listen to them any further. I drew my finger across my throat. Once I did, Parsi’s group raised their axes and spears as if they had been waiting for this, before stabbing the old village chiefs in their backs. Spearheads came out the other sides of their chests. The old men spat out blood before their heads dropped to the floor. Thus, an eternal night covered their eyes.

I shook my head in disgust.

“How foolish. How could they have abandoned the path of co-existence and choose the path of ruin?”

“Do not worry about it. I shall make those who ridiculed Your Lordship’s mercy pay the appropriate price.”

Laura’s beautiful voice foretold a horrible future without even the slightest bit of hesitation.

“Everything will be as Your Lordship desires. They will come to realize the meaning behind all of our actions at the very last moment; they will realize that it’s already too late.”

I gazed at the village that had become a sea of blood as if I were staring at an autumn hillside.

The sun was at its highest point. More time was needed before the sound of screaming disappeared from the blue sky.

***

TL note: Thanks for reading the chapter! So I’ve piled up like 3 big projects to do within the next 3 days, so expect the next chapter to take a bit more time. Other than that, nothing else to really say. I hope you guys are all doing well during this quarantine and I’ll see you guys in the next release.