The Demon Lords stirred restlessly at Amy's agitation. They muttered that dividing the armies was absurd, that it made no logical sense. Zepar suppressed the uneasy current.
"Wait. Dantalion, do continue laying out your thoughts."
"Yes. As I mentioned earlier, I propose splitting the vanguard into two divisions. Then dividing each of those two in two again, for a total of four divisions."
Amy let out a hollow laugh. He wore an incredulous expression and shamelessly appealed to the others around him. The rest stared over as though watching a madman.
"You want to split two divisions into four? I'm starting to suspect something's wrong with your head."
"I said I wanted to hear Dantalion's opinion."
When Zepar issued the warning, Amy's mouth twisted. He answered quietly, "Understood." There wasn't a shred of remorse that might have suggested an apology to me.
"Please go on."
"We will have four units, each composed of five hundred soldiers. One of these five-hundred-man units will bypass the mountain fortress and advance."
Zepar wore a puzzled look. You didn't need to read emotions to see right through him. He was asking what the point of bypassing the fortress was. Our objective was to clear the path in advance so the main army could pass through the checkpoints with minimal losses. Bypassing the fortress ran counter to the operational goal.
I steadied my voice.
"Your Excellency. Might this humble one explain using the map?"
"You have permission."
Stay calm. Before the meeting started, I had consulted Laura time and again. Laura de Farnese—who would one day be counted among the continent's greatest strategists—had given her assurance, and as a game player, I already knew the operation would succeed. There was no way it would fail.
"These four mountain fortresses leading toward the Habsburg Empire, to begin with."
I pointed at the fortresses with a stick.
"From Green to Blue to Yellow to Red, coordination between them is remarkably solid. Of these, the Green fortress is defended by roughly five hundred. The Blue fortress likewise has five hundred. Yellow and Red each have a thousand stationed."
Zepar nodded. He, too, already knew the fortress garrisons. A combined three thousand enemy troops. One and a half times the two thousand that made up our force.
"Doesn't that seem odd? The human armies built multiple mountain fortresses and dispersed their troops. If defense were the objective, it would be far more efficient to concentrate all forces in a single fortress. Which is more impregnable—a fortress guarded by five hundred, or one guarded by two thousand five hundred? The answer is obvious."
The four gates had a troop deployment that defied common sense. A thousand elite monster soldiers would be more than enough to break through a gate defended by only five hundred human troops. If the humans' objective truly had been defense, it would have been far better to combine the five hundred garrisoned at the green fortress with the five hundred at the blue fortress into a single force.
And yet the human army had adopted an inefficient approach. Why? Were they foolish? Or was it something else...
Zepar narrowed his eyes.
"Are you saying the fortresses' purpose isn't defense?"
"Precisely."
He had grasped my intent in a single exchange. It was no wonder Barbatos had appointed him as vanguard commander.
"The fortresses were built to delay the Crescent Alliance Army. Not a single human believes that the Crescent Alliance Army can be held back by one mere mountain fortress. There is only one thing they expect of the four gates — to buy time, to hold the Demon Lord's forces in place until the human army can mobilize a large-scale force."
The fortresses' purpose was not defense but delay. Slow down the Demon Lord's advance to a reasonable pace — that alone was enough for the fortresses to fulfill their role.
Even if the green fortress were defended by a mere five hundred soldiers, the Demon Lord's forces would still need to halt their march, however briefly, to conduct a siege. It would take at least one full day. During that day, a report would fly through a magic crystal ball to the Habsburg Empire. The Empire's margraves would immediately organize their armies.
"The fortresses are nothing more than sacrificial pawns. Green, blue, and yellow — to put it bluntly, they are all decoys for the red fortress. Sacrificial pawns meant to hold us in place until the Imperial margraves can send reinforcements to the red fortress."
No matter how quickly the Demon Lord's army advanced, it would take one day to reach the green fortress, one day to besiege and clear it, one day to reach the yellow fortress, one day to take the yellow fortress, one day to reach the red fortress... That alone was a minimum of five days. In five days, the margraves' powerful knight orders would already have arrived at the red fortress. Conscripted troops might have been mobilized as well.
"My lord, I cannot help but feel concerned. The soldiers garrisoned in those fortresses know full well that they are sacrificial pawns, yet they intend to stand and fight against the Demon Lord's army. They have accepted death from the very beginning. Every last one of them will fight to the bitter end — all merely to delay our advance by a single day. It would be unwise to stake a siege against a fortress held by such men."
"Understood."
Zepar spoke.
"But the enemy's bravery is no reason to avoid battle."
"My lord. I am not suggesting we avoid battle. I am suggesting we avoid a siege."
"...What do you mean?"
Zepar, you really are a tactician rather than a strategist. Tactics determine the outcome of a battle once the strategy is already set. What matters in strategic competition, on the other hand, is to foil the opponent's strategy itself.
"Divide the vanguard into four units. First, position one unit between the green fortress and the blue fortress. Have them establish a fortification there. The garrison in the green fortress will be bewildered. Then, have another unit attack from the front."
"A feint?"
A force of five hundred from the rear and five hundred from the front—roughly a thousand in total—would assault the mountain fortress from both sides. A fortress like the green one would fall easily enough.
"Naturally more effective than a frontal assault. But I have a question. Why not deploy the remaining five hundred-strong units?"
Oh, Commander Zepar. A feint isn't the objective of the strategy. It's the means.
"To conceal our true strength from the mountain fortresses. When the green fortress falls to the feint, the remaining fortresses will think this: The Demon Lord army that invaded this time fields a thousand troops. They employed a feint to preserve that thousand as much as possible..."
The Demon Lords blinked. They still hadn't caught on. I spoke.
"It's merely a thousand-strong force. The remaining fortresses can defend against that with ease. The Empire's border margraves won't mobilize."
"...!"
Zepar's eyes went wide.
"Of course! The feint is the bait!"
"Yes. After the green fortress comes the blue fortress. We repeat the same movement. We order a five-hundred-strong unit to bypass the fortress and advance into the mountain terrain, then establish a position between the blue fortress and the yellow fortress. There's no need to rush. Taking about two days to move at a leisurely pace would be ideal."
I let a faint smile cross my face.
"The more leisurely we move, the more our enemy will grow confused about our true objective. This Demon Lord army's goal isn't to break through every fortress to the end—perhaps they'll be satisfied with the yellow fortress and consolidate their hold there. That's the kind of impatience we'll instill. More likely than not, the enemy will mistake our strategy for a hammer-and-anvil tactic."
I glanced over at where Amy sat. Her expression was grim. She wasn't following the conversation at all. Just wait. I'll graciously explain it all for your sake. I'm feeling generous today.
"The human high command will reason as follows: The Demon Lord army fields roughly a thousand. What is their objective? To capture the mountain fortresses while preserving as many troops as possible. What do they fear most? That the garrison at a single fortress swells into an impregnable stronghold."
Therefore, the humans will conclude that our Demon Lord army is striving above all to sever the links between the fortresses.
"A thousand-strong assault force can defeat at most a thousand defenders in a siege. That means the Demon Lord army preemptively stopped the garrison from growing beyond a thousand—they sent five hundred to block the roads, lest a fortress send reinforcements to another... To the humans, the five hundred positioned between the two fortresses will appear as the anvil, and the five hundred attacking the fortress's front will appear as the hammer."
Now, from the humans' perspective, what is the best countermeasure?
I grinned. Oh dear, that bad habit of mine had slipped out again. Whenever I sensed things were going exactly as I'd planned, a sinister smile always crept onto my face. I'd never maintain any dignity as a Demon Lord at this rate. But I simply couldn't keep myself from smiling.
"Your Excellency. The Demon Lord army, fielding a mere thousand, has split its forces in an attempt to capture the mountain fortresses. How do you expect the human army to respond?"
"They'll leave the fortress and try to pick us off one by one...!"
Zepar slammed his fist on the table. He was clearly agitated. I nodded.
Five hundred men garrison the Blue Mountain Fortress. If five hundred monsters attack from the rear and another five hundred from the front, it won't hold. In that case — the human army would undoubtedly decide to launch a counteroffensive of their own.
The garrisons of the Yellow and Red Mountain Fortresses — two thousand in total — would pounce on the five-hundred-strong monster unit in the rear. The difference in forces is a full four to one. The monster unit would be annihilated in short order. During that time, the Blue Mountain Range would hold against the forward monster unit.
To summarize.
The human army would counter the Demon Lord army's feint with a divide-and-conquer strategy. First, the Blue Mountain Fortress would defend against the forward monster unit. The Yellow and Red garrisons would ambush and annihilate the rear monster unit. Then they would immediately reinforce the Blue Mountain Fortress and crush the remaining monster unit with overwhelming numerical superiority.
The human army would be confident that this was a foolproof strategy. And indeed it would be. If.
"If our vanguard's full strength truly amounts to only a thousand, that is. We would then mobilize the remaining thousand we've kept hidden until now and storm the Blue Mountain Fortress. Contrary to human expectations, a total of fifteen hundred monster units would attack from the front!"
"......"
"Your Excellency. This is the crowning jewel of this operation."
Zepar's eyes brimmed with excitement, yet he wasn't smiling. But I wanted him to smile. After all, wasn't this a brilliantly entertaining deception?
The enemy would treat this battle as a minor incursion — the kind that occurs regularly on a yearly basis.
But that would be a mistake. This was the Crescent Alliance Army's opening move. We would make the enemy believe that if this truly were the vanguard of the Crescent Alliance Army, they would never act so leisurely, and would never commit to a prolonged war.
The enemy would think we were strategically planning for a long war.
But that would be a mistake. We were planning for a short war, and forcing a short war on the enemy. We would exploit their anxiety — their fear that if the battle wasn't ended as quickly as possible, the Blue Mountain Fortress would fall to the feint.
The enemy would think we were executing a feint.
But that would be a mistake. The feint was nothing more than bait, designed to make the mountain fortress garrison misjudge our strength. In the end, the Imperial margraves would miscalculate: "If it's only a thousand, there's no need to mobilize even us." They would come to believe that by deploying all fortress garrisons, they could crush us with ease.
The enemy would think they were picking us off one by one.
But that would be a mistake. They would believe the Blue Mountain Fortress was holding our forward unit in place, while the Red and Yellow fortresses attacked our rear unit. But the truth was exactly the opposite: our rear unit was pinning down their Red and Yellow forces, and our forward unit was assaulting the Blue Mountain Fortress.
"The enemy will be convinced they're pushing us into the quagmire, but in truth, it is they themselves who are stepping into the mire. The moment they abandon the mountain fortresses' core strategic mission, our vanguard will seize those emptied garrisons without shedding a single drop of blood. And then — *chuckle*."
"......"
"I-I'm sorry. I can't help it — just imagining Legion Commander Barbatos's face when he arrives with the main force, expecting to have conquered at most the Yellow Mountain Fortress, only to find we've already taken the Red Mountain Fortress too — 'Ta-da!' — it's just too much."
I couldn't hold it in anymore. I laughed out loud. My laughter echoed through the tent. It was less frequent than before, but I still had my bipolar disorder. It seemed like a manic episode had just burst wide open.
"Hahaha!"
Commander Zepar couldn't keep a straight face this time either and broke into laughter along with me. Sure enough, for all his outward severity and dignified bearing, he did have a sense of humor after all. I should have known — there was no way a man with no sense of humor would willingly serve as a trusted lieutenant under someone like Barbatos. That guy was quite the character.
But aside from the two of us, nobody else was laughing. The novice Demon Lords were staring at me and Zepar in alternation, their faces having gone somewhat pale. Every last one of them wore a look of utter shock.
What's this? Where did all that bravado from moments ago run off to, Amy? This is a rather exquisite joke, I'd say. Please, laugh to your heart's content. If you keep a stone face like that, it only embarrasses the one who bothered to crack the joke. If Barbatos were here, he'd be doubled over, clutching his belly in laughter. I suppose expecting that level of comedic instinct from Amy was too much to ask. I genuinely regret that.
"Very well. We proceed with the plan Dantalion drew up. All forces — first, smash the Green Mountain Fortress to pieces!"
That day, Commander Zepar decisively adopted my operational plan.
Operation name: *Ant Hell*. That was the name the commander gave it. If that wasn't a fitting name, I didn't know what was. The five-hundred-strong embedded force would serve as the ant colony itself, sucking in the two thousand five hundred human soldiers garrisoned within the fortress.
The mountain fortress defenders called themselves humanity's hounds, did they? Quite a hobby, calling yourself dogs. But their opponent was not a favorable one. You hounds will die without so much as a single whimper to alert your master. And it will be none other than I who makes it happen……