After the battle ended, Steelwalls’ forces started cleaning up the battlefield. There was no way they could perfectly clear their tracks in enemy territory, so all they did was place their companions’ corpses in magic boxes and gather the enemy’s corpses in a pile and burn them. Of course, they didn’t forget to take any of the valuables their enemies possessed. It was a type of clean-up that was only possible due to their perfect victory.
“Good work, Snoc.” Zich waved his hand as he saw Snoc coming down from the rocky mountain. Snoc had clearly done the most in this battle. He was the one who created a small landslide while hiding in the mountain, and the armored soldiers who suddenly appeared mid-battle were also his work.
“Their movements have become much better than before.” Zich praised Snoc’s armored soldiers that had caused the pursuit team’s captain to order his men to retreat.
“It’s not like I was playing around while you were all training, sir,” Snoc said.
Koo! Snoc and Nowem responded loudly at the same time. The armored soldiers were empty bodies of armor that Snoc moved with his power as he had done in the elves’ forest. Snoc had hidden inside a boulder using his abilities and caused a small landslide as soon as the enemy intruded the area he waited for them to enter. This attack took their enemy by surprise. Furthermore, he also induced the pursuit team to retreat by releasing empty armored soldiers while his allies engaged with the enemy. Although they had to use Lyla’s creations and shabby golems to make up for his lack of skills at the Adrowon Great Forest, Snoc was now skilled enough to manage an event of this scale by himself.
If their enemies had actually fought with the armored soldiers, they would’ve found out that these were hollow bodies; thus, that was why the armored soldiers in the frontline were actual knights who had hidden with Snoc. All this didn’t take away from the fact that Snoc had driven their enemies to run away.
One of the knights approached Zich; it was Danny Chris Nunn. As the vice-captain of the Steel Sword Knights, the Count had assigned him as Zich’s aide. The fact that a vice-captain of the great Steel Sword Knights accompanied Zich as his aide clearly showcased how highly considered Zich was among the Steelwall forces.
“How are our casualties?”
“It’s not like there’s none, but there’s not many, especially considering our enemy. Congratulations on such a great victory, sir!”
“The battle isn’t over yet, but thank you.” Zich stared at the people cleaning up and asked, “Where is Grieg?”
“He’s cleaning up the corpses with the others.”
“If he can move on his own like that, I suppose he is completely freed from his emotional trauma.”
“Thanks to you, young master,” Danny said. His eyes were full of admiration as he looked at Zich. Everything Zich had shown Danny since he came back to Steelwall was nothing short of amazing that simple compliments couldn’t describe his accomplishments.
“What are you going to do now? Are you going to wipe out our enemy here?” If they annihilated the allied forces’ pursuit team, it would give a huge edge to the Steelwalls in this war.
Zich shook his head. “Those guys’ troops are still above us. It won’t be a good strategy to attack them recklessly just because we won this time.”
“Then…”
“We are going to attack the Pinne Estate.”
“The Pinne Estate?” Danny looked a bit puzzled. Of course, the reason why they had formed this detachment was to capture the Pinne Estate in the first place, but that was before the pursuit team came into the picture.
“Even if forces at the Pinne Estate are weak, they might drag out time with us. It would put us in quite a pinch if our enemies attack us from behind,” Danny said.
“You won’t have to worry about that,” Zich said in a confident voice that soothed Danny’s worries. “Our enemy won’t be able to chase us, and the Pinne Estate won’t be able to drag out time with us as their opponents.”
“How is that possible? Even if it’s possible for us to trick our enemies into making them run away, it won’t be an easy feat to capture the Pinne Estate in an instant.”
“That’s fine.” Zich smiled. It was the kind of smile that even his companions, who were used to his personality, wanted to step away from. Naturally, Danny’s face also slightly stiffened.
“Most of the remaining troops at the Pinne Estate would empty their capital to capture us.”
“…Are you saying that they would use every single one of their troops? Of course, that will allow them to corner us better, but would that really happen? Anyone can see that would be a serious gamble leading to their disadvantage.”
If the Pinne Estate’s forces missed the Steelwall forces, that would leave the Pinne Estate’s capital unprotected and vulnerable. That would be a huge hit for the allied forces who still had superior numbers even after they lost.
“I’m sure since I baited them,” Zich said.
“A bait, sir?”
“Yes, a bait enticing enough that they would want to capture and kill us even if all other places fall to ruins,” Zich said and looked to where their enemies had disappeared.
‘Hm, I wonder what Glen Zenard is thinking now?’ Zich had released the information that he had been saving so carefully and painfully. He still remembered what a sight Glen showed with his twisted face. Even if he combined his time before the regression and this timeline, he had never seen a better sight than that one.
‘I really want to save that image in a portrait and admire it from time to time.’ Zich regretted that it would be impossible to carry that out. He tried to imprint the image firmly into his mind so that he wouldn’t forget even the smallest detail, but even he couldn’t stop the deterioration of memories over time. Thus, he sighed.
‘It can't be helped, but it’s impossible.’ Furthermore, it was not all over yet. ‘I will be able to see even better expressions than that.’
Although Zich shared pretty direct information, he didn’t give everything away. He simply revealed that he knew information from before this timeline.
‘I didn’t tell him that he can no longer regress and that I regressed.’ Perhaps, Glen could have thought far enough that Zich also gained the power of regression and was going crazy about it now.
‘Will he be able to realize that he no longer has the regression ability too?’
Zich placed his hand down. He thought of the utter shock Glen must have felt hearing the shocking piece of information he told him. He recalled how he had deflected Glen’s sword and pierced his sword into Glen’s abdomen while Glen stood there defenselessly.
‘Even then, he didn’t let go of Tornium.’ Zich’s attack caused Glen’s arm to bend widely to the side, but even then, Glen tightly held onto his sword.
‘Would he have been able to hold on to his sword if he knew that he lost his power of regression?’ Glen was obsessed with the power of regression. If he found he lost his power of regression, it was highly likely that he would be completely frozen in shock and not even be able to resist weakly.
‘Of course, he could have been so flustered that his mind completely blanked out, but…’ Zich clearly recalled the image of Glen tightly clutching his sword while being dragged away by a knight. ‘He probably won’t be able to think that his ability to regress has been completely neutralized. I’m sure he thinks I regressed like him.’
Or perhaps he wouldn’t even be able to think that far either. ‘Well, regardless of what he thinks, it’s obvious what he’ll do.’ Thus, this operation would be successful. ‘Please think hard and despise me all you want, aspiring Sir Hero. Make it worth saving your life.’
* * *
The defeated pursuit team managed to escape the forest and rocky mountain, and they finally stopped after running for a long time. They looked miserable. Their shiny armor, symbolic of a knight, was stained with blood and dust, and most of the horses had died, so they had to run on their feet. Most of all, there was a sharp decline in the number of troops. The captain decided to regroup his team for now.
Despite the miserable state of the pursuit team, thanks to the captain’s judgment and the skills of the troops, their forces still remained intact even after three sudden ambushes, a trap, and another ambush. However, this was the only positive part of their situation. Since they needed to move as fast as possible to quickly chase after their enemies, they reduced any additional burden to the minimum and packed the smallest amount of food and goods possible. However, with this attack, they had lost all their food and supplies…
‘One or two times will be all right, but it’s impossible to keep fighting like this.’ The captain decided to first set up a camp. They needed to rest and time to regroup some of their scattered soldiers when they retreated. However, they wouldn’t be able to last long because, apart from anything else, they had no food.
‘I sent some guys to hunt in a hurry, but there’s no way it’ll be enough. Even if I want to plunder, we aren’t in enemy territory either.’ They lost most of their money as well, so buying food was not an option.
‘I’ll have to first retreat to Pinne’s capital.’ He could get supplies for his troops there. Joining up with the reinforcements in the Pinne Estate had also been one of their original plans as well.
However, an unpleasant voice interrupted the captain’s decision.
“Sir, what are you going to do now?”
The captain sighed. He was now completely sick of this voice. The captain turned around and stared at the man named Glen shouting at him. Glen used a precious potion to heal his wound, so it cleanly patched up the deep wound on his abdomen. However, it seemed as if he hadn’t fully recovered from the injury either as he looked slightly tired. On the other hand, it was clear that Glen wasn’t interested in his fatigue in the slightest. Glen’s face looked frighteningly stiff, like someone who had heard his parents’ obituary. The captain glared fiercely at Glen, but Glen didn’t even glance at him.
The captain sighed again and finally said, “We’ll first head towards the Pinne Estate’s capital. We’ll be able to get supplies and protect the estate, so it’s obvious…”
“No!”
The captain scowled at Glen’s extremely rude behavior. His hand twitched as if he wanted to strike Glen’s neck immediately.
“How can we just go to the capital when we don’t know where they’re heading?!”
The vice-captain couldn’t hold in his anger anymore and shouted, “We already know about their goal! Besides, the order we received was to protect the Pinne Estate! There’s nothing strange about going to the capital!”
“What if they go back to the Steelwall Estate! If things go wrong, the main camp might be attacked!”
The vice-captain could not answer immediately because it was true that the main camp was currently weaker due to the formation of the pursuit team. However, the captain spoke up instead, “We can pick a group of people to spy on our enemy. If the enemy returns, then we’ll also return. Most importantly, we no longer have any supplies. No matter how long knights can last without eating for a few days, our group’s power would significantly weaken too.”
“You can easily solve those matters by taking resources from the villages around us and requesting supplies from the Pinne Estate!”
“Even if we do that, we can’t fight our enemies currently. I don’t know what methods they’ve used, but the number of our enemies is on par with us. We'll be defeated if we get ambushed while waiting for supplies to come.” Glen was about to say something, but the captain firmly raised his hand.
“We’re heading to the capital. Sir, I’m the captain of this unit so follow my decision!”