Chapter 49: E-Rank Adventurer Party (3)

* * *

I sent the envoys back.

After I sent them away, I walked back to the Demon Lord room. Only the sound of a couple of fairies giggling and my footsteps echoed throughout the cavern. It took roughly an hour to reach the Demon Lord room, so it was a 2 hour round trip.

The two hours didn’t feel that long to me. For starters, there was the fact that I was deliberating about how I was going to deal with the adventurers, and it was also because I had gotten accustomed to the fundamentally slower perception of time in this world. I arrived back at the Demon Lord room before I knew it.

“…….”

Laura was seated on a boulder in a corner of the room and silently reading a book. The boulder had a red blanket acting as a cushion on top of it. 

The pleasant sound of pages being flipped echoed throughout the room each time she used her index fingers to turn a page. That corner space had become a world of its own with only a red blanket and the sound of a single book. Time would slow down every time she turned a page of her book.

She then abruptly raised her head. Our eyes met. She opened her mouth as if she knew I would be standing here for a long time and as if she was naturally bringing up another topic in a conversation that had been ongoing.

“What did the humans say?”

Humans, she says. Doesn’t this make it sound like she isn’t human? It seems that Laura was drawing a line between her and her own race. I held back a chuckle before giving her a detailed explanation of what occurred.

I posed a question to her as if I were asking her a riddle.

“Now then, how should our forces retaliate against a group of seventy people?”

“A simple battle is all that is necessary.”

Laura needed no time to think as she answered immediately.

“I heard that you have the ability to summon monsters, Lord. Although more funding and materials are required to summon better monsters, our forces should still have some financial freedom. All we have to do is summon enough troops to overpower the enemy. Fight numbers with numbers⎯this is the basics of warfare.”

Laura suggested that we could just increase our numbers as well.

This was indeed a rational strategy. I currently have 14000 gold, so I would have money to spare even if I summoned another thirty lowest-tier golems. If I do this, then I will have a force of seventy golems. If I add my fairies here, then my troops would become so overwhelming that it would become practically impossible for the average adventurer party to defeat it.

Nevertheless.

This wasn’t the answer I wanted.

“Laura. That is the worst possible plan.”

“…….”

Laura didn’t ask me why or look at me with dissatisfied eyes. She immediately accepted my response and began to think about why I had told her that.

In this regard, you could really tell how much she trusted me. Laura fully believed that I wasn’t the type of person who would say something like that without any reason.

Laura opened her mouth a short moment later.

“……It is said that one must consider the Sky, Earth, and People in tactics. I only considered the people. I simply took into consideration the number of enemies and concluded that we just had to also have an army of seventy units. I did not consider the terrain of the battlefield or the duty that is tied to the battle.”

“There are three types of people in the world.”

I grinned.

“Someone who does not know what they had done wrong, someone who knows what they did wrong, and someone who had done something wrong but knows what they should do. In this regard, the answer you gave does not meet my expectations, Laura.”

Laura then fell into deep thought. She twirled her side bang as she did. This was a habit of hers that would come out whenever she was genuinely deliberating something.

Honestly, it was only natural that she would suggest lacking plans or stratagems. She has only experienced small-scale battles up to this point. She led a group of around 30 monsters and dealt with adventurer parties with roughly twenty members. At most, all she had to consider until now was when to put the golem units forward and when she should make the fairies fire at the enemy.

Although a 16-year-old girl being used to combat is also impressive…….

‘It’d be absurd at her current level.’

I had recruited a 16-year-old Laura De Farnese, not a 16-year-old girl. She has to demonstrate her ability so that she can meet my expectations.

I don’t think this is cruel. Similar to how she believes in me, I believe in her as well, no, I believe in her even more. Of all the people in the world, I trust Laura the most. I know how outstanding she’ll become in the future, after all.

Show me who you are.

“I understand.”

Laura took in a breath.

“I want to first point out where this young lady was lacking in and then I wish to speak about how we can deal with the adventurers efficiently.”

“I am looking forward to it.”

“For starters, I would like to bring up the first dimension of military arts, Sky.”

Laura extended her index finger.

“Sky is a metaphor for everything in the world. That is why in the art of war, it is advised that battles should be seen in the perspective of war, and wars should be seen from the perspective of nations. Therefore, for this group of seventy adventurers, our forces should think about what will happen in the future and not only the battle before us. If we were to hire a large number of golems, then we will be able to overcome the immediate threat; however,”

I smiled. I had a feeling that she had come to the right conclusion. My smile must have increased her confidence as Laura spoke in a more cheerful tone.

“As expected, will we be attacked by weak adventurers like this in the future as well? It cannot be helped but to think about this. There are many adventurers who can handle a few dozen golems with ease. We will be at their mercy if they decide to hire a mage one day.”

Laura was on the money.

This was the current state of our dungeon.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ [Dungeon: Dantalian’s Demon Lord Castle]

Rank: Over the hill(F)

Technology Research: 0 Magic Research: 0

*Special Skill: None *Monsters: 42 units *Wealth: 13900 gold

※There are no security measures installed in the dungeon. A human who became a bandit the other day considers this dungeon as a place to take a walk. You can be invaded at any moment. Research technology and magic and install various facilities! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Lowest-tier golems cost 400 gold. If I hire 30 more of them, then I will have to use 12000 gold. I would be using almost all of my funding. When we face high-level adventurers not so far in the future, then the lowest-tier golems would be nothing more than target practice for them.

What would happen if we poured all of our money into lowest-tier golems when, in our current situation, we have to gradually prepare for higher and higher level adventurers? That would be unfathomably foolish.

“We must save our resources for the sake of our future. It would be more than enough to use our current forces to deal with the enemy. Therefore━.”

* * *

“Allow me to introduce these two, Your Highness Dantalian.”

Lapis spoke. There were two dwarves standing behind her.

“These two are talented cartographers from the demon world.”

“It is an honor to be in your presence.”

I reached out and shook hands with them.

“I welcome you both. Allow me to get straight to the point.”

I immediately got down to business. Dwarves detest going through formalities by nature. They’re inherently artists and master craftsmen, so they only have interest in things that they can genuinely devote their passions to.

“I ask of you two to create a map of the area around my Demon Lord castle.”

“We are honored. We did not dare to assume that Your Highness had called us for any other reason.”

The dwarves responded happily.

“We shall do our utmost to prepare a map according to Your Highness’ request; however, there are a couple of things we wish to confirm first.”

“Feel free to ask.”

“How wide of a range do you wish for the map to cover?”

“For starters, bear in mind that I wish for several maps.”

I looked at the dwarves seriously.

“I desire a total of 5 maps. The first map I require is the complete map of the continent, the second map I require is the complete map of the Teuton Kingdom, and the third map I require is a map of the region within the Teuton Kingdom that my Demon Lord castle is located in. Can you acquire these three maps first?”

“Of course.”

The dwarves seemed a bit surprised.

“There should already be several pre-existing maps that meet each of those three conditions.”

“I only want the highest quality of maps.”

“Understood. May we ask what the remaining two are?”

“For the fourth map, I want you to draw a map of the nearby villages and castles. You must include the elevation of the land, the wide and narrow roads, the lay of the land, and the scale of the villages.”

The glint in the dwarf’s eyes changed.

“……I am certain that this will become quite the full-scale map.”

“For my final map, create a map of the inside of my Demon Lord castle.”

“As is your right, of course.”

The dwarf bowed deeply.

“Considering how Your Highness requested for even the elevation of the land, we now know that Your Highness has a deep understanding of cartography. We may be undeserving, but as we are professionals that would be saddened to be called the second-best in the demon world, we shall comply with your demands.”

The master craftsman dwarf managed to obtain the first three maps immediately. It would take some time to produce the latter two maps, but once I asked them to first produce the map of the area around my Demon Lord castle, they promised to create a partial draft of the map as soon as possible.”

* * *

“━We, the army of the Demon Lord, must leave the castle and assault our enemies. Traditionally, being on the defense is three times more advantageous than being on the attack; however, that is only under the condition that the defensive side has a proper fortress. Contrary to its name, far from even having a fortress and a palisade, the Demon Lord castle does not even have a wooden fence. Furthermore, the passageways are excessively wide, so it is not appropriate for a small number of troops to defend.”

Laura spoke calmly.

“Under these conditions, it is far more favorable for our foes since they can attack whenever and however they desire. While they are able to retreat whenever they want after entering our Demon Lord castle, we cannot do the same. We cannot allow them to have such freedom. We must force a disadvantageous battlefield onto them.”

Laura looked straight at me. Her eyes were sparkling.

“Our forces shall operate a detached force. We shall head towards the village the adventurers are residing in and attack them there. For this sake, we require a detailed map of the village nearby. This map will be worth the investment as it will continue to help us from now on.”

“Wait one moment. Couldn’t the adventurers abandon the village?”

“They absolutely cannot.”

She assured me.

“Why is that?”

“A majority of the adventures were born in that village. If the adventures abandon the village, then they would be betraying all of the civilian militia from that village. The adventurers would not be able to bear the loss of so much manpower in an instant. They have no other choice but to firmly defend the village for the sake of maintaining their force of 70 people. Taking in the civilian militia for the sake of strengthening their numbers has, in turn, harmed their mobility greatly.”

I found myself giving her a round of applause. She had made the right suggestion.

“So their manpower will decrease immensely if they abandon the village, and they cannot invade our castle since they have to defend the village, thus, in the end, the adventurers will lose their goal and become busy trying to defend their own!”

“To be exact, it is not their ‘own’, it is the civilian militia’s. The adventurers may claim that they had brought in the civilian militia for the sake of their goal, but━we will reverse this situation. The adventurers will have to help for the sake of protecting the civilian militia’s village.”

We will turn what the other party considers as their advantage into their weakness.

Infantrymen are strong in head to head battles. Therefore, by putting forward bowmen, you can transform the strength of infantrymen into a weakness where they are then ‘only capable of head to head battles. Knights boast perfect defenses due to their heavy armor. Both bows and spear blades are unable to pierce a knight’s armor. Therefore, by making the battlefield a swampish area, you can transform their strength into a weakness where they are then ‘unable to move because their armor are too heavy’.

Be it soldiers, armies, or nations, they all have strengths and weaknesses.

For certain nations, having most of their region be rough mountain passes would normally be seen only as a bad thing. Their harvest would be bad and it would be hard to travel to. However, in the art of war, by using the rough mountain passes which would normally be a disadvantage as a part of their defenses, then you could turn it into an advantage.

Laura explained that this was a fundamental of war.

“Nonetheless, more troops would be required in order to force the adventurers to defend. However, if we acquire more golems for that sake, then we would be putting the cart before the horse. This discussion started under the basis that we are not going to get more golems, after all.”

“You are correct.”

“Up to this point, is the dimension of Earth.”

She smiled nervelessly.

“Now it is time to discuss People.”

***

TL Note: Thanks for reading the chapter! I’m sorry for the delay. I totally didn’t get sucked into the new Animal Crossing game. Well, I also had a lot more assignments this week, so it was a bit of a pain to handle everything. In any case, I’ll try to get the next chapter out sooner, but I can’t make any promises that I won’t get distracted by Animal Crossing, hehe.