Chapter 283 - The Right Way

While Zaos was healing his body since the enemy's spears actually managed to cause more than a few scratches to his body, Cohnal and Melisse finally caught up with a group of soldiers. At first, they hesitated in approaching since Zaos was obviously someone who loses reason when he fights. Still, then they relaxed a little when they saw his eyes.

"Are you alright, Captain?" Cohnal asked.

"Yeah, just a few cracked bones and damaged muscles, I can heal that in a couple of minutes," Zaos said. "Rather than worry about me, help the others kill the enemies, many of them escaped, but we should use this opportunity to pass a message to the survivors. I will join you soon afterward."

Cohnal nodded, and then he returned to the battlefield. Although things proceeded exactly as planned, some mercenaries gave up on running away and decided to take down as many as they could with them. Truth to be told, Cohnal knew that the plan could work fairly well, but he didn't imagine that Zaos would draw so much aggro like that. While they advanced, only a few enemies tried to attack or protect themselves, and the reason for that was Zaos. That shocked them with his savagery.

While Cohnal was doing some clean-up, Zaos healed his body and watched the battlefield. He saw his soldiers fighting pretty well, much better than expected, considering that many of them were fighting for the first time.

"Come to think of it… this is the first time I watched a battle from so close without participating for a while," Zaos thought.

Maybe it was due to the fact that he saw things with a cold head, but Zaos could think that all that was senseless. Men and women killed each other because some of them wanted more lands, and others had to defend the same lands. That was kind of disappointing. From Zaos perspective, fighting the demon god followers made a lot more sense since they had a grudge against the whole world. They had a score to settle, but the mercenaries… they are just fighting because they were dumb and greedy.

"What about me? It is not like I have a greater motive…" Zaos said.

Zaos had a mission in that world, and because he had such a mission and was born into a military family, he learned how to fight, and now he could be a force to be recognized on the battlefield, but he still didn't have a real goal on his own….

Regardless, instead of wasting time thinking about that, Zaos rode a horse of one of the enemies and then began to help on the battlefield. Healing his legs will have to be done later.

"WOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH." 

When they saw Zaos back in the fight, the soldiers grew more excited and began to fight even more fiercely than before. As if that wasn't good enough, the enemies trembled in fear and then dropped on their knees when they saw Zaos. Apparently, he gave them a message much more intense than he had planned. They couldn't even look you in the eye without pissing their pants.

In the end, Zaos made many of them tremble in fear since he glared at them. There was no room for mercy on the battlefield. The blood rushed to Zaos's head once again when he saw dozens of his soldiers dead, after all. Being merciful now would be like laughing while standing in a pile of corpses of his allies.

Despite that, once the battle was over, Cohnal and Melisse showed up with a prisoner. Apparently, that was one of the officials of the mercenaries' army. That guy easily told them that they worked for Edwyrd, the soldier who deserted and made a name for himself among the mercenaries. Apparently, Edwyrd was the first guy that Zaos killed in his charge.

"Why only four thousand of you came?" Cohnal asked.

"Edwyrd only had four thousand men," the prisoner answered with his head down.

"But there is more in Toules. How many are there, and why didn't they move with you?" Cohnal asked.

"Sixteen thousand, they didn't come because they work for other mercenaries," the prisoner replied. "His allies are the heads of three famous mercenary families, and they will arrive with at least five thousand in two days. Edwyrd attacked with us alone because he needed a reason to ask for more once they split the conquered lands."

Cohnal nodded while looking at Zaos. That made sense. Edwyrd had fewer men and fewer accomplishments, so he would need to work harder to gain more power among the mercenaries. Things were a bit different than Zaos imagined, but the result he had expected was the same. The idiot exposed himself and suffered a crushing defeat in a battle where they had eight times more soldiers.

"Get rid of him," Zaos said. "Also, we need to form groups to hunt those that didn't escape toward the town."

"I am on it," Melisse said.

"Cohnal, can you lead the soldiers who aren't too wounded to gather the loot?" Zaos asked. "We don't have much time, but we can't just leave all that here."

"Leave it to me," Cohnal said.

Zaos decided to give a hand and help the mages who were treating the wounded, and he found a troubled Nyana. She didn't suffer any scratches, but it seemed that her first real battle left some mental scars.

"Are you all right?" Zaos asked.

"... I guess so," Nyana said. "It is just… I didn't expect that the battlefield would be so… dreadful. Even after a victory."

"Well, that is a sign that you are a newbie when it comes to battles and that you have a conscience," Zaos said. "You can begin to worry about your head once you start to see corpses and blood and don't feel anything."

"It makes sense… but weirdly enough, I am not having second thoughts," Nyana said. "If we weren't here, the people that were supposed to live in that village would have been massacred, after all."

"That is probably the correct way to look at the things," Zaos said and then patted her head.