Chapter 286: Boldly marching through enemy territory

286 – Boldly marching through enemy territory

After the disturbance in the Kingdom, what followed was the large scale task to enable the Demon King’s Army to march towards the elf village. Since the elf village is in the human territories, to march there basically means for the Demon King’s Army to pass through the human territories. Normally it wouldn’t be possible to get that far. After all, for a long time the demons had been prevented from crossing the border to Empire. Well, there’s a reason for the demons deliberately stopping there as well though.

However, this time is different. Many of the forts protecting the Empire’s border have fallen for a start, making it practical to pass through. Even without that, by using Natsume-kun and vampire girl to seize hold of the inner workings of the Empire, there’ll be no problems so long as we can adequately fool the citizens.

By borrowing in advance things like Imperial Army uniforms and banners, the Demon King’s Army could be disguised as the Imperial Army. Well, we don’t have enough to equip the entire army with that though, so by having some conspicuous officers and so on be like that, at a glance nobody would realise that it was the Demon King’s Army. Even though they’re called “demons”, their appearance isn’t any different to humans after all. Just changing their clothing is enough to avoid suspicion.

Normally, members of the Divine Word Religion’s inquisition that have the Appraisal skill would be keeping watch everywhere, with the duty of discovering any demons who were trying to sneak in, but even they are acting more like collaborators this time. Even though they know who we are they’re just letting us through. Likewise with the Empire’s intelligence units.Diiscover new stories at novelhall.com

Consequently, despite us being the Demon King’s Army, we were able to boldly walk through the human territories with complete success. The ones we’ve taken with us this time, are the 3rd Army lead by Mera, the 8th Army lead by oni-kun and the 9th Army lead by me. Just those three armies. Even the Imperial Guardsmen under direct control of the Demon King have been left in the demon territories along with Balto. That being said, even with just the soldiers from the three armies, we probably have more than enough forces. Just one army has enough strength to completely trample over a small human country. And we have three.

With such armies, attempting to secretly travel through would be fundamentally impossible. In which case it’s better to just go boldly instead. By coming through so boldly, even if anyone thought something was a bit off they would just consider it to be how things are instead. All the more so since the two great powers of the Divine Word Religion and the Empire are declaring us to be an allied army. Well, I’ve left making the necessary arrangements of all that to the pope so there shouldn’t be any problems.

「Hey, you’re not thinking of something bad are you? Don’t do it, okay?」

Ughhh. At least once the battle starts I’ll be able to switch over and endure it, but like now where I have to just sit quietly while moving it’s painful. It’s not good for people to gather like this. Why do people form groups like this? Being alone is fine. Rather, seriously please let me be alone.

Ah! I sense from one of my clones that Yamada-kun has taken the bait! Now’s not the time to be like this! I gotta leave so that I can observe! This has nothing to do with this crowd of people being painful and wanting to get away from them! This is for a perfectly valid job okay!

「Consequently, I’m going out.」

「Shiro-chan, only an esper would be able to make sense of so few words you know? Consequently from what?」

I ignore the strangely frustrated Demon King and teleport. Phew. Finally I can breathe again.

Author’s note: This is the last update of the year. Everyone, have a good New Year.