"The adventuring party will surely fall into disarray."
Laura spoke while twisting a strand of her hair. The scorching mountain sunlight fell upon her. A girl would normally fuss over such sun exposure for the sake of her skin, but she was entirely indifferent to it. Her green eyes held nothing but the map.
"The ones she thought were betrayers ended up getting hit by the enemy instead. Something that defies common sense has occurred. A fool would simply dismiss it, but the man named Lief is clever enough to rally nearby villages. Two possibilities would come to mind for him."
*Did the Demon Lord's army kill even the betrayers?*
*Or perhaps they never actually betrayed them at all?*
"It would be hard to think the enemy forces would gnaw away at their own flesh. Therefore, that man would..."
*There were no betrayers.*
A horrific scene came into Lief's eyes.
Lief and his party surveyed the village — or rather, what had once been a village. A few goblin corpses lay around the ravaged palisade. Apart from the fence, none of the buildings inside had sustained major damage. Had it not been for the carnage strewn about in places — mangled flesh and bloodstains — one might have mistaken the village for one where everyone had simply gone off to work.
That was even more unsettling. It meant the goblins had consumed every last trace of human remains.
One of the party members clicked his tongue.
"Those goblin bastards must have gorged themselves something fierce — there's not a single decent corpse left."
"Ugh, nothing but bones. Still, there had to be over fifty people here — they ate the lot right here?"
"That's not it. The ones they couldn't finish must've been dragged back to their tribe..."
"Oh, God!"
Having confirmed there were no survivors, Lief and his party left the village.
One of the militia captains spoke to Lief.
"Man, I just can't make heads or tails of it. Why would the Demon Lord even attack a village out here?"
"Probably... *ugh*. It seems there were no betrayers after all. At least, not every village without a militia has betrayed us. I'm sorry for causing confusion among you all."
The first and second villages attacked happened to be ones with militia stationed in them. That was mere coincidence, or so it seemed. At least, that's what Lief concluded.
"But gentlemen — this is actually an opportunity!"
"An opportunity?"
The militia captains had been thoroughly demoralized after witnessing the devastation of the village. Lief raised his voice brightly, hoping to lift the mood, and the people turned to him with puzzled looks. The fact that Lief had never once spouted nonsense before planted a seed of hope in them. Maybe this guy could actually pull something off.
"That damn fool Demon Lord doesn't even know who's an enemy and who's an ally — he's just rampaging through every village he comes across. Spread that word to the other villages. Let's see how they react."
"Oh!"
The militia captains and the adventurers around them gasped, as if something had suddenly clicked.
"That's right."
Lief grinned.
"They'll want to join forces with us right away. Won't they? We just made allies without lifting a finger. Up until now, relations were tense because we kept demanding food, but when lives are on the line, who cares about old grudges?"
"That's it! Whenever a common enemy appears, people naturally band together!"
The people clapped and cheered with excitement.
"Pfft, and they call him the Demon Lord? What an idiot!"
"He's practically helping us on his own!"
"He can't see what's right in front of him. That demonic scum."
Lief nearly clicked his tongue. These guys would have had no idea what the current situation even meant if it weren't for him, and here they were snickering. Still, a win was a win, so Lief chose not to spoil the mood.
The adventure party immediately spread the news. The Demon Lord's army was madly attacking human villages, and no one was exempt.
Just as Lief had hoped, the villages reacted strongly. They began joining his side, crying out for the overthrow of the Demon Lord.
"If we can't stop them alone, then we'll stop them together!"
"Regrettable as it is, we need to abandon our villages and gather in one place. Think of it as one step back so we can take two steps forward."
The village heads one by one promised to take orders from Lief's adventure party. There could be no better news. Only two villages had yet to join, but Lief didn't mind.
'Those bastards were traitors!'
Lief had already figured out that the Demon Lord's army was marching from the western side of the mountain range toward the east. Coincidentally, the two villages that hadn't joined were located at the far eastern end. Only then did everything become clear. Of the twelve villages in the mountain range, two had betrayed them. The Demon Lord's army had deliberately marched from the west to keep the traitor villages from being exposed.
'That's your fatal mistake, you cowardly bastard.'
Lief scoffed at Dantalion.
He thought about it. If he had been Dantalion, he would have simply bypassed the villages without a militia. He would have plunged them into the demon of suspicion so that no one would know who the traitors were.
Then there would have been no alliance of seven villages—three of the twelve villages had been devastated and two had betrayed them, leaving seven remaining. There would have been no gathering of some four hundred humans to build an impregnable fortress!
Lief gathered all the humans at the village that served as the fourth checkpoint when marching from west to east. Sturdy wooden palisades were erected in layer upon layer. They even dug trenches to serve as a moat.
'Now the hammer and the anvil are perfect!'
The hammer was the seventy-strong adventure party militia. Every last one was clad in heavy armor. Whether it was a hundred Goblins or two hundred, they had nothing to fear. As the core of the hammer's strength lay in offensive power, they couldn't have been better suited.
The anvil was the four hundred villagers. Their equipment was shabby, but they had solid palisades and deep trenches. Considering the crux of the strategy—"the anvil holds off the enemy while the hammer launches a surprise attack"—four hundred humans, palisades, and trenches provided more than enough defensive power. Four hundred Goblins? They could hold them off for one day, two days, three days—as long as it took!
Lief surveyed the area around the palisades. The four-layered wooden fortifications were sturdy enough to withstand even a proper army. He was overcome with pride, excitement, and a touch of sadness.
"…Daneff. Now I can finally get my revenge."
The village comrades who had been deceived by the wicked Demon Lord and sacrificed.
How many nights had he spent vowing vengeance?
"I'll take the neck of the Demon Lord Dantalion…and bring it as an offering to the memorial of our village Jalsen!"
Lief clenched his fist tight.
The next day at dawn, before the sun had risen, Lief led his seventy-strong unit out on their mission. They infiltrated the dungeon without any resistance whatsoever. Just as Lief had predicted, not a single monster guarded the dungeon. They looted the Demon Lord's chamber to their hearts' content and withdrew from the dungeon unscathed, without a single casualty.
Lief cheered silently in his heart.
'We won!'
"They'll think they've won."
Laura's lips curled into a cold smile.
"My lord, do you recall what you told me some time ago? To deceive the enemy, first deceive your allies. To deceive your allies, first deceive yourself. You act as though your actions carry no meaning, yet those actions accumulate and layer upon one another, until in the end they crystallize into a single masterstroke."
I nodded. It was the nonsense I had blathered the day Laura power-leveled me, just to cover up my embarrassing past. But Laura had taken it and found some profound truth in it.
"The opponent lets their guard down completely, and only at the very end do they grasp the meaning behind everything that has transpired—by which time it is far too late. …That is the teaching my lord bestowed upon me. I, Laura de Farnese, can do nothing but marvel at my lord's insight."
She turned her gaze straight ahead. I followed suit.
Before us, a vision of hell was unfolding.
"AAAAGH! My arm, my aaarm!"
"Please, spare me! I'll give you anything—just please—!"
"Mama! Waah! Mama! Mama!"
Pandemonium.
Hundreds of humans were being butchered by just as many Goblins. Those who scrambled and clawed to escape the village found Goblins swarming them like a wolf pack. A stab to the thigh, an arm severed at the elbow, a bite to the nape—even the strongest young man could not run after that. Their bodies became half-corpses and they crumpled to the ground. The wails of the dying and the cheers of the killers rose together, and across the earth the blood ran in rivulets.
Laura and I stood at the village gate, observing this mortal hell. There were those who charged toward us, brave souls that they were. But they were stopped cold by the wall of Golems and Goblins, and in the end they lost both legs before they could even reach us. The only reward for their courage was the fangs of vicious Goblins. Crunch, crunch—two or three Goblins would latch onto a single corpse and tear at the flesh without pause, as though determined to chew straight through the bone.
"The adventure party's defeat was sealed from the very start."
Laura said this in a placid tone. The sound of flesh and bone being crunched apparently struck her ear like birdsong.
"From the very start? What do you mean?"
"From the moment they pressured other villages into providing food for the adventure party. The party had flaunted its strength. As a result, humanity split into two camps: those who joined the adventure party, and those who were extorted by it. Internal conflict was inevitable from the outset."
And that was what produced the scene before us now.
Indeed, the defensive line formed by four layers of wooden palisades and a moat was formidable. Even if they had deployed their Golem corps, the moat would have bogged them down and made a direct charge impossible. If the Golems' breakthrough power was nullified, they could only rely on the Goblins—but even a Goblin army of four hundred would find it a tall order to breach a fortress like that. My Demon Lord's army would have ground to a stalemate against the fierce human resistance, and the siege would have dragged on endlessly until Lief's adventure party returned.
But that was only under the assumption that the Demon Lord's army actually had to breach the defensive line.
The siege was exceedingly simple. We sent the Goblins charging forward. Just as the monster horde reached the palisades—the main gate opened from the inside.
The so-called traitors who had infiltrated the villages had turned coat and opened the gates from within.
'Wh-what the hell!?'
'Why the fuck is the gate open!?'
'There are traitors!'
The defenders descended into utter chaos.
Humans numbering the equivalent of two villages, with Parsi at their head, seized a full section of the palisades—the ones lining the path to the main gate. At the same moment, the monsters strolled leisurely through the gate. With no way to tell traitors from allies, and unable to decide whether to fight or flee, the defenders milled about in confusion as the monsters surged upon them in an instant.
The outcome could only be as plain as day.
It was hard to imagine that this had been a fortress guarded by four hundred stout mountain folk—a hundred of them traitors, admittedly—given how quickly the battle ended.
"Lord Demon Lord! Hahaha!"
Parsi came walking down the village's main road. The humans from the village where he served as chief escorted him. They had all tied rope around both forearms—a mark that told the Goblins they were "humans not to be eaten."
They dragged along a line of extremely aged old men.
"Look at this! These old geezers are the village chiefs who pointed spears at Lord Demon Lord. They were so interested in Lord Demon Lord's household wealth that they fell for those adventurer scum. They're also the despicable bastards who stole our village's precious wheat! Sons of bitches!"
Parsi kicked the chiefs in the back. They were surprisingly sturdy for old men, but with their arms bound and a kick to the spine, they crumpled helplessly. When they recognized me, they screamed at the top of their lungs.
"Great one! Please, forgive us!"
"Demons—demons have clouded our eyes! To dare defy the great one's—"
There was no need to hear more. I made a cutting gesture across my throat with my finger. Parsi's group, as if waiting for the signal, immediately drove axes and spears into the chiefs' backs. Sharp spear tips burst through the old men's chests. They spilled blood and let their heads fall into the dust on the ground. And so eternal night shrouded their eyes.
I shook my head in disgust.
"Foolish. To throw away the path of coexistence and choose annihilation instead."
"Please do not trouble yourself, Master. Those who have insulted your benevolence shall receive their just retribution."
Laura's beautiful voice prophesied a horrific future without a moment's hesitation.
"As you command, Master. In the end, only then will they grasp the meaning of every action that has taken place until now, and realize that it was already too late."
I gazed upon the village that had become a sea of blood, as one might look upon the slopes of autumn mountains.
The sun hung at the very apex of the sky. There was still ample time before the screams faded from the blue heavens.