Chapter 78: 78

The other Demon Lords stirred because of Amii’s instigation. They were talking about how splitting up our troops was unusual and went beyond all reason. Zepar stopped them.

“Quiet. Dantalian, let me hear your suggestion.”

“With pleasure. As I said before, we will split our vanguard into 2 groups. We will then split those 2 groups and create a total of 4 units.”

Amii snorted. He deliberately appealed to the people around us with a dumbfounded look. The others also looked at me as if I were insane.

“Two units weren’t enough, so you want four now? I’m beginning to doubt whether your head is on straight or not.”

“I said that I will listen to Dantalian’s suggestion.”

The corners of Amii’s mouth twisted downward once he was warned by Zepar. He quietly muttered that he understood. He didn’t even remotely sound as if he intended to apologize to me.

“Continue.”

“We will have a total of 4 units with 500 troops each. One of these units will disregard the fortress and continue marching.”

Zepar looked dubious. I may not be able to read his emotions, but it was obvious what was on his mind. For what reason would they ignore the fortress? This is what he was asking. Our goal as the vanguard is to clear the path for the main force so they can pass through the gateways while incurring the least amount of losses as possible. Ignoring the fortress goes against the goal of our operation.

I maintained the calmness in my voice.

“Your Excellency, may this humble one explain further using the map?”

“I allow it.”

Let’s keep cool. I discussed this with Laura multiple times before this meeting. Laura De Farnese, the girl who’ll become one of the greatest tacticians in the future, gave me her assurance and, as someone who had played the game, I already know that this strategy is going to work. There’s no way this will fail.

“First, in regard to the four fortresses in our path towards Habsburg.”

I pointed at the fortresses with a rod.

“The green, blue, gold, and red fortresses work together fairly well. Among them, the green fortress is protected by approximately 500 soldiers. The blue fortress is also protected by 500 soldiers. The gold and red fortresses are occupied by a thousand troops respectively.”

Zepar nodded. He naturally knows how many troops the fortresses have respectively. A total of 3,000 enemy soldiers. Compared to our army of 2,000, they have 1.5 times more soldiers than us.

“Have you never thought this was strange? The humans created multiple fortresses and split their troops up. If their goal is to defend, then it would be more efficient to focus all of their militia into a single fortress. A fortress protected by 500 and a fortress protected by 2,500, it’s obvious which would be considered the impregnable stronghold.”

It’s hard to rationalize putting troops at 4 different fortresses. An army of a thousand elite monsters is more than enough to breach the defenses of a gate being defended by 500 human soldiers. If their goal is to defend, then it would be much better to combine the 500 soldiers in the green fortress and the 500 soldiers in the blue fortress.

And yet, the humans chose to utilize this inefficient layout. Why’s that? Is it because they’re foolish, or……?

Zepar narrowed his eyes.

“Are you saying that the fortresses are not meant to defend against us?”

“That is correct.”

He immediately understood where I was going. As expected of the person who Barbatos deemed appropriate to be the leader of the vanguard.

“The fortresses were built to block the Crescent Alliance. No one, not even the humans, would think that a single fortress would be enough to defend against our Crescent Alliance. They only expect one thing from their 4 gates. They expect the gates to keep us occupied long enough for them to gather their massive militia together.”

The fortresses aren’t meant for defense, they’re meant to delay us. The fortresses accomplish their goal by simply slowing our forces down.

Even if there are only 500 soldiers defending the green fortress, the Demon Lord army has to stop their advance momentarily for the sake of carrying out a siege. This will take at least a day. During that day, the humans will use a magic tool to send a report to the Empire of Habsburg. The margraves of the empire will then immediately rally their troops.

“The fortresses are nothing more than sacrificial lambs. If I may be frank, the green, blue, and gold fortresses are like the bridesmaids to the red fortress. Sacrificial lambs with the sole purpose of slowing us down until the margraves are able to send reinforcements to the red fortress.”

No matter how fast our troops move, it’ll take a day to reach the green fortress, a day to conquer the green fortress, a day to reach the blue fortress, a day to conquer the blue fortress, and a day to reach the gold fortress……. Getting this far will take at least 5 days. Within the span of 5 days, the margraves will have sent their elite cavalry and they would have already arrived at the red fortress. They might have even conscripted more troops by then.

“Your Excellency, this naturally concerns me greatly. The soldiers stationed at these fortresses intend to fight us despite knowing that they are sacrificial lambs. They are prepared to die. They will fight desperately until their final breaths. Solely for the sake of delaying our march by a single day. It would not be wise to carry out a siege on a stronghold that is being defended by these sorts of people.”

“I understand that.”

Zepar spoke.

“However, our foes being brave is not a reason for us to avoid fighting them.”

“Your Excellency, I am not suggesting that we should avoid fighting them. I am saying that we should avoid carrying out a siege.”

“……What do you mean?”

Zepar, it seems you’re a tactician and not a strategist. Tactics are something that is performed during a battle where strategies have already been determined. On the other hand, what’s important in a battle of strategies is thwarting the other party’s strategy entirely.

“After dividing our vanguard into 4 units, we will position one of the units between the green and blue fortresses. We will then make that unit set up an encampment. The human infantries will become confused. At that point, a different unit will attack from the front.”

“A diversion tactic, is it?”

Five hundred from the rear and five hundred from the front, a total of a thousand troops will attack the fortress from both ends. The green fortress will easily be captured.

“I understand that this would be more effective than attacking from only one side; however, I am curious as to why you are choosing to not utilize the remaining two units of five hundred soldiers.

Dear me, General Zepar. Pulling off a diversion tactic is not the goal, it is a trick.

“It is for the sake of hiding our fighting power from the other fortresses. If the green fortress is captured through the usage of a diversion tactic, then the humans will think this: the demon army that is invading this time around only has a thousand troops. They used a diversion tactic to preserve their numbers as much as possible…….”

The other Demon Lords blinked. They didn’t seem to understand yet, so I elaborated further.

“An army of only a thousand soldiers. The remaining fortresses should be more than capable of fending those numbers off. Thus, the margraves will not do anything.”

“……!”

Zepar opened his eyes wide.

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“So the diversion tactic is a decoy!”

“Correct. After the green fortress is the blue fortress. We will repeat the same movements. We will make 500 units ignore the fortress and advance to the mountains and order them to set up an encampment between the blue and gold fortresses. There is no reason for us to hurry. It should be perfect if we move at a decent pace for 2 days.”

I smiled shallowly.

“The slower we move, the more confused our foes will become about our objective. Maybe the demons are not trying to breach all the way to the last fortress? Maybe their objective is to only get past the gold fortress and strengthen their forces? We will sow a seed of anxiety into them. There is a high possibility that the humans will misinterpret our stratagem as the hammer-and-anvil tactic.”

I turned to glance at Amii. His expression looked fierce. He wasn’t following along at all. Wait a second. I’ll kindly spell it out for you guys. I’m feeling generous today.

“The leading members of the fortresses will most likely think along these lines: the total military strength of the Demon Lords is around a thousand. What is their goal? To preserve their military strength as much as possible and capture the fortresses. What do they fear the most? Troops gathering at a single fortress and becoming an impregnable wall.”

Therefore, the humans will conclude that the demons are putting in an effort to cut the connection between the fortresses.

“At most, an attack force of a thousand troops can overcome a defense force of a thousand troops in a siege. Therefore, the Demon Lords are preemptively creating a blockade so that the defense force cannot exceed a thousand soldiers in the slight chance that another fortress tries to send reinforcements……. To the humans, the 500 between the two fortresses will seem like the anvil and the 500 attacking from the front will seem like the hammer.”

In a situation like this, what’s the best move the humans can make?

I grinned. Oh dear, a bad habit of mine came out. I always end up grinning wickedly like this whenever I start to predict things. This is why you can’t find a spec of dignity as a Demon Lord on me. Nonetheless, holding back this grin is unbearable.

“Your Excellency, it will appear like the demon army has split their army of a thousand soldiers up in order to conquer the fortresses. What do you think the humans will do once they see this?”

“They will come out of their fortresses and try to take us out one by one……!”

Zepar struck the table with his fist. He was clearly excited. I gave him a nod.

The blue fortress has 500 men. If 500 monsters attack from both ends respectively, then the fortress won’t be able to even put up a fight. Therefore⎯⎯the humans will undoubtedly try to pull off an attack of their own.

If the 2,000 soldiers from both the gold and red fortresses were to assault the 500 monsters from behind, then the monsters will most likely get wiped out in an instant since there would be a 4 times difference in military strength. During this time, the blue fortress will continue to defend against the monsters attacking from the front.

Let’s organize this.

The humans will respond to our diversion tactic by trying to divide and conquer us. First, the blue fortress will defend against the unit of monsters attacking from the front. The troops from the gold and red fortresses will swoop in to attack the monsters from behind and wipe them out. They will then join up with the blue fortress to overwhelm the rest of the monsters.

The humans will undoubtedly believe that this tactic will lead to their certain victory. It truly would if,

“If the military strength of our vanguard was truly only a thousand soldiers, that is. We will then mobilize our remaining soldiers and conquer the blue fortress. Contrary to their expectations, a total of a thousand five hundred monsters will attack from the front!”

“…….”

“Your Excellency, this is the highlight of this operation.”

Zepar’s eyes are filled with excitement, but he isn’t smiling. I’d appreciate it if he did since this is quite the entertaining deception tactic.

Our foes will think this is a small-scale invasion that happens every year.

But that’s wrong. This is the Crescent Alliance’s skirmish. By moving slowly and prolonging the battle, we’ll make our enemies believe that this can’t be the Crescent Alliance.

They’ll think we’re prolonging the battle strategically.

But that’s wrong. We’re plotting short battles and forcing short battles on them. We’ll make them worry that the blue fortress will fall to the deception tactic if they don’t end the battle quickly and we’ll use this concern of theirs.

They’ll think that we’re carrying out a deception tactic.

But that’s wrong. The deception tactic is nothing more than a bait. We’re making them underestimate our military strength. The margraves of the empire will conclude that there’s no reason for them to mobilize their troops if there are only a thousand monsters. They’ll believe that the troops stationed at the fortress will be more than enough to handle us with ease.

They’ll think that they’re going to divide and conquer us.

But that’s wrong. They may think that the blue fortress can hold us off while the troops from their gold and red fortresses come to attack us from behind, but the truth is that the unit we placed in between will be the ones holding them off while the rest of our troops assault the blue fortress.

“Our enemies will confidently believe that they are pushing us into a mire, but it is the other way around. The moment they neglect the true strategic value of the fortresses, our vanguard will conquer those empty fortresses without shedding a single drop of blood. And, pfft.”

“…….”

“P-Pardon me. I was imagining how Commander Barbatos will react when she comes here and discovers that we have already conquered the red fortress when, at most, she had only expected us to reach the gold fortress. I could not help but laugh.”

I couldn’t hold back any longer. I let out a laugh. It isn’t as bad as before, but I’m somewhat bipolar. It seems the flood gate has broken.

“Huhahaha!”

General Zepar must have not been able to hold his laughter back any longer as well as he laughed with me. As expected, he may look a stern, refined gentleman on the outside, but he still has a sense of humor. There’s no way he would claim to be Barbatos’ vassal if he didn’t have one. That girl’s brain has a few loose screws, after all.

However, no one else laughed excluding the two of us. For some reason, the rookie Demon Lords were looking back and forth between me and Zepar with slightly pale faces. Their faces were filled with shock.

What? Where’d all that big talk run off to, Amii? That was a rather good joke, you know? By all means, laugh as much as you want. It’ll only make me feel embarrassed as the one who said the joke if you’re going to look all serious like that. If Barbatos were here, she would probably be rolling on the floor laughing. Was expecting Amii to have a sense of humor like this asking for too much? I found this truly to be regrettable.

“Very well. Let us proceed according to Dantalian’s plan. Men, let us first destroy the green fortress!”

On this day, General Zepar chose to carry out my strategy.

Operation . The general gave it this name. Is it not the perfect name? Our unit of 500 will become a flytrap and lure the 2,500 soldiers stationed at the fortresses.

Don’t the soldiers of these fortresses refer to themselves as the watchdogs of humanity? How nice of them to refer to themselves as dogs. Nonetheless, you guys won’t stand a chance. You watchdogs will die pitifully without being able to even cry out to your masters and it’ll all be because of me…….

***

TL note: Thanks for reading the chapter. Honestly, this chapter was pretty repetitive, so it got a bit difficult to translate. I do my best to avoid repetition, but since the same ideas kept getting reiterated, I had a hard time translating. Well, the author probably could’ve ended this chapter early, but ending a chapter a thousand words shorter than every other chapter would be weird. I’m not going to dislike an entire series for it.

In any case, wordpress did another huge overhaul of the editor, so I have to get used to a new ui again. If you see anything weird, then it’s probably because I’m still fumbling with things. Please understand, I’m still learning :^)

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