CHAPTER 259: THE GREAT LIBERATION BATTLE 4

 

— Dragon’s Tower, 1st Floor —

The day of the large-scale liberation battle. 11:00 a.m.

The Tekirana Alliance entered the dungeon’s transfer magic circle one hour earlier than their originally scheduled noon deployment.

Now, at the Tekirana Alliance’s headquarters on a hilltop, Mohito, the clan master of Heavy Ram, was about to confront Heil.

「Hey, Heil! What’s the big idea, suddenly moving up the operation by an hour in the middle of the night!? The other clans had plenty of preparations to make too, you know!?」

「Yeah, I do feel bad about that. But this was part of the operation—no, rather, it was something necessary for confirmation.」

「Confirmation…?」

「That’s right. Confirmation of whether or not there’s a Calvados informant embedded in the Tekirana Alliance.」

「So? Did you get that confirmation?」

「I did. Without a doubt, we have a mole among us—well, just as I suspected.」

「Isn’t it that guy Aun from Seiha or whatever? He’s probably your informant, right?」

「No, that’s absolutely impossible. The only thing Aun-san and his people knew was that we were supposed to go through the magic circle at noon.」

Only the upper executives of the Tekirana Alliance, who had been contacted via communication-type magic devices the night before, knew about the one-hour advance. If that information had leaked to Calvados, it would serve as undeniable proof that there was an informant among them.

「But still, everyone in the alliance was informed of the new assembly time this morning. It’s possible Calvados caught wind of that movement, right? You can’t just accuse your comrades so easily over a single hour change. How could you be sure there’s a mole from something like this—」

「Calvados has held the number one position in Wislo, an adventurer city, for an incredibly long time. There have been numerous large-scale liberation battles before, and Calvados has won every single one. Because of that long experience, everything they do has become… systematic, almost to a fault.」

「You’re not making any sense! Explain it more clearly!」

「Calvados, of course, conducts thorough investigations—things like how much supplies the enemy has prepared. And because they’re so accustomed to these large-scale battles, they can accurately predict how long the fighting will last, what the most effective defense formations are, how long it takes to deploy them, and so on. They prepare everything accordingly. And naturally, they even make sure everyone’s lunch is prepared in time—specially ordered bento boxes that deliver nutrition quickly.」

「Bento? What does that have to do with anything!?」

「A few hours after I informed everyone yesterday, the scheduled delivery time for the bento was moved up by one hour—despite it being the middle of the night. Calvados never expected that we’d be monitoring the catering orders. …But with all that in mind, wouldn’t not suspect someone be far stranger?」

「So… who’s the informant?」

「That, I don’t know yet. Frankly, I don’t even need to know at this point. We can use this to keep feeding false information instead. And once the battle starts, it’ll be obvious who’s genuinely fighting and who’s not. The mole will expose themselves soon enough. And when that happens, we’ll deal with them accordingly.」

「I see. If you’ve thought it through that far, I won’t say any more.」

In this large-scale liberation battle, information would be the most critical factor. Calvados had likely intended to dominate the information war through the use of their mole, securing overwhelming superiority.

If they knew how Tekirana would attack, its scale, the troop deployment—everything—there would be no way for the outnumbered and undersupplied Tekirana Alliance to win.

——However, with this single move by Heil, the balance of power was suddenly restored to even.

If the information reaching Calvados through the mole was false, and they acted on it, they would only bring disaster upon themselves. At this point, every bit of information from the mole had become a liability.

And now, while everyone was focused on his words, Heil quickly delivered the next move.

「Now then, here’s the revised plan. First, we’ll split our current forces in two. One group will launch a concentrated attack on the enemy encampment positioned to the right of the Ogre City’s entrance. The other will continue striking the enemy forces as they return via transfer, hunting them down the moment they reappear—what I call ‘return hunts.’」

Everyone gasped in shock at Heil’s words.

This was because his approach sounded overly cautious—chipping away at the enemy little by little rather than taking decisive action, a strategy that offered little hope of turning the tide in their favor.

What’s more, if a large contingent of enemy forces—including their main units—returned via return stones and transferred en masse, Tekirana could easily find themselves caught between two forces and end up being the ones repeatedly hunted down instead.

But at this point, no one in the Tekirana camp could voice any objections.

Likewise, Calvados, even having obtained this information, couldn’t fully shake the suspicion that it was a setup, preventing them from making any bold moves.

Heil had masterfully created this situation—where his every word was accepted without resistance—in a matter of minutes.

And this strategy, which at first glance seemed like sheer folly, would soon give a devastating blow to Calvados.

—All thanks to a hidden trump card already set in motion behind the scenes.