“Fire! Fire!”
The bandits deliberately shouted.
Soon, the startled soldiers would rush out, only to be cut down by the bandits’ blades.
In the chaos, the enemy soldiers would be unable to do anything, fleeing in disorder.
Then, the bandits would inflict heavy casualties, seize the equipment, and return triumphantly to their base.
But no matter how long they waited, there was no chaos, and the soldiers did not emerge.
If a fire broke out, the soldiers should naturally panic and rush out.
“Why is it so quiet?”
It was eerily quiet.
“Check inside the tents.”
Following the vice-leader’s order, a few subordinates lifted the unburned tents and checked inside.
Only then did they realize.
“Th-there are no soldiers here!”
“It’s the same here! There’s nothing inside! It’s just an empty tent!”
“What?”
The vice-leader hurriedly looked around.
The soldiers who had been standing guard at the entrance of the encampment.
The soldiers who had been dozing inside.
They were not people but scarecrows dressed in soldiers’ uniforms.
“Damn it! It’s a trap! Retreat quickly!”
The vice-leader finally realized it was a trap, but they were already deep inside.
Whoooosh—!
Along with the whistling sound, dozens of arrows began raining down on the bandits.
“Argh!”
“Ahh!”
“Raise the shields!”
They quickly raised their shields to block the arrows, but it was no use.
Even if they predicted the direction of the arrows and raised their shields, arrows from other directions struck them down one after another.
“Th-this is bad!”
Only then did the vice-leader realize they were completely surrounded.
“Stay calm and follow me! Break through the encirclement!”
Once caught in a trap, the only thing they could do was to break through the encirclement and retreat!
But the vice-leader didn’t know.
“Show these inexperienced pups who don’t even know where they are the true terror of our might!”
The fact that the soldiers of this territory were born and raised in a land where the weak could not survive.
That the soldiers of Schrantz they were facing were on a completely different level from the ordinary soldiers they had fought before.
* * *
Deep in the mountains where you couldn’t see an inch ahead.
Two bandits named Tod and Rud, hiding in the mountains, were chatting.
“By now, the battle must be in full swing, right?”
“Probably. Ugh, why is it so cold here? Just crossing into this territory, and the climate is completely different.”
It was still cold at night, but this territory seemed unusually chilly.
“I have a question. Tod, did your empty sack shrink in this cold too?”
“Why are you trying to make me a eunuch for no reason?”
“Didn’t it get crushed when that female mercenary you tried to hit on kicked you?”
“It’s not crushed! One is still intact, how many times do I have to tell you!”
“Alright, I’m sorry. So please, stop shouting! What if we get caught?”
The bandit group had middle-ranking officers who maintained order.
They would severely punish anyone who didn’t keep proper watch or fooled around.
Usually, they would whip the offenders, leaving them bedridden for days.
In this situation, they should fear the enemy more, but this location was on the opposite side of the enemy, with many slopes.
Thinking the enemy wouldn’t come, they feared the middle-ranking officers more than the enemy.
“These guys and those guys. Making fun of something that happened over a year ago. As if they’ve never been kicked before.”
With a huff, he suddenly plopped down.
Tod laid down so roughly that it seemed like he might crack his head open.
“Hey, are you sulking? What kind of man sulks over something like that? I’m sorry. I won’t tease you anymore, so calm down… Huh?”
As Rud reached out to Tod to console him, he felt a strange sensation on his hand.
A damp, sticky, warm liquid. And a familiar smell.
‘Blood?’
“Hey, are you okay? Did you really crack your head?”
Worried, Rud fumbled around and felt something strange.
A thin, long wooden stick was sticking out of Tod’s forehead.
As he traced the stick, he felt feathers at the end.
‘This is…?’
Realizing what the stick was, Rud’s face turned pale.
“Enemy…!”
Thud!
But Rud couldn’t even scream to the end, unable to alert his comrades.
Rud fell with an arrow precisely through his forehead, not knowing where it had come from.
Whoosh—!
And then, a group emerged from the darkness.
Ignoring the bandits, they stealthily climbed the mountain.
* * *
The battle that began in the darkness only ended at dawn.
The first battle was a great victory, and before Ian were bandits tied up and kneeling.
“Seven bandits killed, 29 captured. Including what appears to be their leader, a few managed to break through the encirclement and escape. We have two seriously injured.”
As Oswell reported, Ian nodded.
“Send the wounded back for treatment.”
It was regrettable that some had escaped, but capturing a large number of bandits with minimal losses was a significant achievement.
“Brother, how did you come up with such a plan?”
Hubert, who had participated in the bandit subjugation, was amazed.
At first, he had protested when they set up the encampment in a place easily visible to the enemy.
Even though he didn’t know much about command or tactics, it seemed like a bad idea.
Oswell had also opposed it.
Yet, Ian pushed through with his plan and only explained the reason after everything was prepared.
The encampment wasn’t meant to station soldiers in a place easily visible to the enemy.
Rather, it was a trap to lure the enemy out.
Upon learning the truth, Hubel was impressed, but it was also a plan that could have failed if the enemy hadn’t taken the bait.
“They’re a notorious bandit group, so they must be battle-hardened. I figured if we showed them a weakness, they would surely launch a surprise attack.”
In fact, Ian knew that Den’s bandit group always sought to demoralize their enemies in the first battle.
And that they always chose night raids.
Knowing that, they could prepare thoroughly.
‘If they knew we were fully prepared for a raid, they wouldn’t attack.’
That’s why they deliberately made it look weak to lure the bandits into attacking.
Of course, they also had to figure out how to inflict effective damage.
‘The books I read in school helped a lot.’
In devising this plan, Ian drew on memories of reading all the comics in the school library during his youth.
‘Thank you, comic books of the Chu-Han contention!’
The situation was so similar to the comics, and when executed, it worked beautifully.
“I see. I can’t believe you thought that far ahead!”
“As expected, young master, you are truly remarkable.”
However, Hubert and Oswell, who were completely unaware of this, could only admire.
‘It’s not like I came up with it myself.’
Feeling embarrassed by the excessive praise, Ian cleared his throat and pointed to the side with his finger.
There, the captured bandits sat in a row, bound and restrained.
“Sir Oswell, what is the punishment for bandits?”
“The punishment for bandits is execution. If you give the order, I will behead them immediately.”
Oswell’s eyes and the blade of the sword he held gleamed menacingly.
It seemed like he would cut off their heads right then and there if ordered.
The minimum punishment for bandits was death.
This was how strictly bandits were dealt with in this country and all territories.
“Send them to Dobina Village and have them escorted to Rosen.”
However, Ian did not kill the bandits recklessly.
It wasn’t because of the values of a 21st-century South Korean citizen.
‘We’re short on laborers in the pioneer village. It would be a waste to kill them.’
He had already taken Jurdan’s advice and was sending all of Schrantz’s criminals to the pioneer village for “rehabilitation.”
Originally, he was someone who disliked protecting the human rights of criminals who had trampled on the rights of others.
‘Since these bandits have come to Schrantz, we must proceed according to our laws!’
The bandits would face a rehabilitation program that would last until their deaths.
After being escorted to Rosen, they would soon pass through Vilcen and end up in the pioneer village.
They might consider themselves lucky to be alive, but they would soon realize.
That their comrades who died fighting here were actually the fortunate ones.
Clap clap!
Ian clapped his hands to draw everyone’s attention.
“Now, let’s get ready to depart.”
Den was waiting for the vice-leader to return triumphantly with a victory report and plenty of loot.
However, he was soon shocked to see the vice-leader and a handful of subordinates return battered and bruised.
“What? You were wiped out?”
“I have no face to show you, boss. It was a trap.”
The vice-leader, who had left with 50 subordinates, returned with only a handful.
Most had been captured, and some had gone missing while breaking through the encirclement and fleeing.
It was unclear whether they had deserted or simply gotten lost in the darkness.
In any case, the damage was undeniable.
“Whoever the enemy commander is, he’s more cunning than I thought. But a mistake is a mistake. We’ll make up for it next time.”
“Yes, boss!”
Expecting severe punishment for the heavy loss.
The vice-leader breathed a sigh of relief when no punishment was handed down.
It wasn’t the right situation for that anyway.
“The enemy will be emboldened by their victory. They’ll attack at dawn, so prepare thoroughly. Have the ambush units keep a close watch and force the enemy to bleed.”
They would use their boosted morale to push forward.
Den planned to maximize the terrain’s advantages to inflict significant damage on the enemy.
But.
Wahhhhh!
Suddenly, a war cry echoed.
Soon, a bandit rushed into the tent in a panic.
“B-boss! It’s a disaster! The enemy has already reached near our base!”
“What?”
Having won the first battle, Den expected the enemy to attack using their heightened morale.
“The enemy is already on the move?”
He hadn’t anticipated an immediate attack.
The vice-leader and the subordinates all thought the same.
But the tragedy wasn’t over yet.
Another bandit burst in and shouted a report.
“Boss! Many of our ambush units in the rear have been killed! It seems we’re surrounded!”
“Are those guys elves or something? How can they move so quickly through such dense and high mountains!”
No, how did the ambush units fail to notice the enemy approaching in the first place!
“I-I don’t know!”
There was no way to know without being on the scene.
Then, the vice-leader finally realized something.
“B-boss, come to think of it, we didn’t encounter any ambush units on our way here.”
In such darkness, identification was difficult, so they should have exchanged passwords.
But he hadn’t met a single person on the way here.
These bandits were practically no different from regular soldiers.
Den, a former knight, and the vice-leader, a former instructor, had trained his subordinates thoroughly.
“Does that mean they were all taken out?”
The only possibilities were that the ambush units had all fled after learning of the defeat or that they had been taken out without a chance to report.
Both scenarios were unbelievable, but given the circumstances, the latter seemed more likely.
“Boss, from my personal experience, the enemy is not ordinary. They all seemed like elites who had been through multiple battles.”
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