Chapter 3: The Defense of the Kobold Kingdom

Over twenty kobolds and one human burst silently from the foliage and rushed at the flank of the unaware adventurers.

“Ack?!” The first to cry out in pain was a large female warrior in infantry armor as she took a stone spear in the shin. She was better equipped than the typical adventurer, who often opted for lighter gear both out of fiscal necessity and due to the nature of their work, but her armor still lacked greaves. For the diminutive kobolds, that made the legs an optimal target.

A nearby sorcerer took another attack in the legs and doubled over.

A long-haired adventurer with a spear took a stone axe to the face when a flax-colored kobold leapt on him, and he fell backwards, unconscious.

Shouts of shock and pain instantly shifted the relaxed atmosphere to one of panic.

The individual doing the most damage to the adventurers was a human woman in a black cloak and a brimmed cap: Darke. She wove through the kobolds and darted past her enemies with an agility belying her five-foot-nine frame, heading straight for one man. Her target was one of the group’s commanders, a knight. He was marching within the group on foot to avoid being an obvious target for arrow fire, but a discerning eye could see easily enough from his equipment that he was no simple adventurer.

Darke reached the knight before he could turn around. She pressed herself against the man’s back and wrapped her left arm around him as if in an embrace. A quick stroke of her hand flicked the visor of the knight’s helm up, just as she drew a dagger from under her cloak with her right hand and thrust it into his face.

Plunge. The blade was a stiletto, a dagger specialized for stabbing through gaps in armor. The thin, sharp, awl-like blade easily pierced the knight’s left eye and entered his skull.

Twist. Darke stirred the blade around with a heated sigh. She then let go of the knife and her victim without drawing the blade out and turned around. It took only a short moment for her target to crumple, all bodily control gone. The sheer speed at which she accomplished this made clear how extraordinary her skills were.

“The bitch got Dawson!” A nearby man with a shortspear screamed, spittle flying, and tried to grab the black-clad assassin by the neck. Darke easily avoided the man’s arm, turning her back to him and dashing off. He tried to chase her, but was hindered when a kobold leapt at him and threw an egg in his eye. Not just any egg; this was a shell filled with ashes and spices meant to blind. The adventurer yelped and fell to the ground, at which point another kobold hacked at his legs with a stone axe.

...This was all they were capable of, of course. Some adventurers paid attention and guarded against the attacks, and some were able to fend them off by just shoving back instinctively. The shields all the adventurers had been equipped with were being used in several different ways, but they proved effective in defending against the kobolds’ attack. This wasn’t the purpose Wyatt had had in mind when outfitting his troops, but the wooden boards were able to protect those without armor. Some were even being put to use as walls to prevent kobolds from escaping their ranks.

“They got meeeee!” Whether the kobold’s shout was an act or genuine was impossible to say as it immediately became a pitiful scream. Those who merely had their attacks blocked were lucky; they had a chance to weave between their enemies and make it out the other side. But those whose escapes were cut off were met with the quick reflexes of their foes and the steel they wielded. Heavy blows broke their bones and slashes cut through fur and flesh. With the screams of their dying comrades at their backs, the escaping kobolds threw down their weapons and fled into the forest.

“They’re fleeing! After them!” The eager shout came from a grey-haired warrior in leather armor who had just caved in a kobold skull with a mace. He was likely a leader of some team. Several of his companions nearby rushed into the forest at his command. Some others followed their lead, throwing down their shields and abandoning the wounded to run after them.

“This is all they’re capable of!”

“They’re nothing!”

“The guildmaster’s worrying too much!”

Their blood was pumping from the surprise attack, and they were invigorated after blocking the kobolds’ blows. They looked down on their enemies for their powerlessness. All these things encouraged the adventurers, driving them forward.

“Hey, that swordswoman in black was the one who’s worth twenty of these dogs, right?”

“Yeah! If we can get her head, we can live like kings for ten years!”

“Well, don’t just stand there! I’m going after her!”

“I’ll be right there as soon as I get the head off this dog... Hey, wait!”

Adventurers poured into the forest, not wanting to give their rivals who went in before them the chance to monopolize their prey.

“Guys, wait, we fell for that last time, and...” Of course, those who had been present for the previous battle hesitated to join them. They knew full well that they’d lost because they had been lured into the forest and led in circles. But for nine out of ten of the participants of this mission, this was their first encounter with the kobolds.

“If you’re too scared, you can just wait here in your own piss!”

“Did you get freaked out by these primitive little bastards and their rocks?!”

Once stirred up, their fervor and rage couldn’t be quieted. Worse, the only one who could order them to stop had already perished. Their colleagues’ half-hearted warnings would only be written off as petty jealousy. As a result, having lost their commander, the middle flank fell into disorder and a significant portion of its adventurers flooded into the forest. The warnings of the knights and Wyatt, who were at the front of the line, wouldn’t make it in time. There was nothing that could be done about it, but their long line of soldiers had gone to ruin.

In a mixed group like this with a cautious commander, all you have to do is take their leader out and you’ll be fine. That was Gaius’s advice to Sashalia when she had questioned whether or not they could pull off the same trick they’d used in the last battle. Sashalia Denan deeply respected Gaius Beldarus, not only as a man but also as the Black Rose of Igris: she had faith in his experience, skills, and instincts. So she’d believed him, and crafted and executed a strategy based on his advice. Darke’s swift execution of the group’s commanding officer, with the help of their scouts and the kobolds’ noses, contributed greatly to the success of this strategy.

[Attack team to command center: Enemy diverted.]

The report consisted of only two words, but in order to obtain those two words, they’d had to expend incredible effort and make terrible sacrifices.

Kobold deaths: four. Adventurer deaths: two.

These were the results of the first battle in the defense of the Kobold Kingdom.

＊

As Darke ran through the trees, a kobold came up next to her, waving his arms.

“Hahaaa! I got one of ’em!” It was Rain Grass, who was part of her attack team. Just like in the last battle, he’d achieved results right away this time, too.

“How are our losses?” Darke was calm despite her successful assassination of the enemy knight. She knew full well that the battle was only just getting started.

“Leaf Tail got a cut on his leg. And...we lost Sand Head.”

“We got an update from the command center. Two dead in squad four, one dead and one seriously injured in squad six,” the young spirit messenger of the attack team reported to Rain Grass. She was a female kobold who often went on hunts and had been assigned to the unit for her combat experience and her strong legs. “The injured one can’t run, so he’s hiding in the bushes. Hopefully he stays hidden until it’s safe...” The kobolds simply didn’t have the power to evacuate their wounded at this time. It was cruel, but they’d all acknowledged that in the planning stage. “Command has ordered squads four and six to combine.”

“Lady Denan responds quickly, just like I expected.”

That last attack had been carried out by the twelve members of the attack unit and four members from each of the six-member squads four, five, and six, for a total of twenty-four fighters. In just that clash, they’d lost six. That was a twenty-five percent loss, and they’d taken the opposition completely by surprise. The math made the overwhelming difference in the two sides’ fighting power all the more apparent to the Kingdom’s soldiers.

But that fact probably affected the enemy more than it did the kobolds. The sight and sound of the adventurers coming at them through the trees made that clear enough.

“Ooh, we got more on our tails than I thought we would.”

“And if they catch up, we’re done for, but we aren’t allowed to flee as fast as we can... Yeesh, what a pain.” Darke stopped even as she complained, drawing a blade from its sheath. It was a single-edged sword known as a hanger. One-third of the blade was double-edged and it was specialized for both cutting and stabbing. The sword was plain, basically just an extended knife, but it was sturdier than a longsword and often used for hunting by the common people. Recently, the people of the southern lands had been making them with longer hilts so that they could be gripped with both hands. Like Gaius, Darke was well-versed in all bladed weapons, but she gave particular favor to this weapon in battle.

“Oh, you gonna fight ’em?”

“There are some stragglers in the back. I think they need a carrot dangled in front of them.”

“Sounds fun. I’m in.” Rain Grass stood bravely by Darke’s side. The axe he clutched in his hand wasn’t the stone weapon he’d been swinging in the riverbed, but a fine piece of steel crafted by the blacksmith in Ryburgh. He’d left it along their escape route before the attack. Using stone axes and spears in their raid was part of their act to get the adventurers to underestimate them. The other kobold soldiers had all switched to their steel weapons as well.

“Everybody else, keep going! We’ll meet up with you in a minute!” After ordering the attack team away, Darke turned to Rain Grass with a smirk. “Mm... You’re quite the manly specimen, aren’t you, Rain Grass? How is it that you’re so unpopular with the kobold ladies?”

“Wh-Wh-Wh-Who says I’m unpopular?”

“I recall hearing as much from Lady Fog. Ah, perhaps the fault lies with the childhood incidents I’ve heard about, such as when you imitated a cicada in a tree and peed down from the branches, or when you waved a snake around and it bit you on the crotch... Oh, here they come.”

“Hey, wait a second! What exactly have you heard?!”

“Don’t dawdle, now.”

“...Ah, dammit!”

The two of them ran back the way they’d come and attacked three lightly equipped adventurers, the first who had taken off after the kobolds. While Rain Grass split a blond swordsman’s lower leg open with his axe, Darke removed the left hand of a dual blade wielder and the fingers from a fighter with a battleaxe.

“Okay, let’s go.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

They had neither the time nor the need to finish them off. They spun around and ran off again, leaving the adventurers there to hold their wounds and writhe in pain.

“This is one rough game of tag...”

Eventually, one of the knights or their commander Wyatt would come after them. The adventurers’ battlelust would fade. When that happened, their pursuers would regroup and fall back under Wyatt’s command. This was bound to happen; it was just a matter of time. And once the group had regained its unity, the kobolds would be out of plays to make against them. Before that happened, Darke and her teams had to draw as many of their enemies as they could to the designated location.

＊

“Dawson’s dead!” After receiving that frantic report from the knight Humphreys, Guildmaster Wyatt pushed through the line of stopped men as if swimming upstream. When he finally arrived at the mid-flank section Dawson had been in command of, he found that almost all of the adventurers from this portion of the force had been lured into the forest.

“Damn them...!” He muttered furiously, pulling the thin dagger that had stirred Dawson’s brain out of the knight’s face.

“Sorry, Boss. We tried to stop them.” A middle-aged swordsman who had been along on the previous expedition sighed and made an excuse for himself.

Wyatt nodded, resisting the urge to grimace. It was vexing, but this adventurer had no authority over the others or any real duty to him. The one who’d had the authority was the knight currently lying at his feet. Not to mention it was Wyatt himself who had tried to exploit the adventurers’ greed on this mission.

“How many squads... no, how many men entered the forest?”

“More than eighty, I’d guess.”

This time, he couldn’t hide his grimace.

Reflecting on his earlier mistakes and making sure his forces on the mission included troops with a variety of equipment had backfired. In the last battle, when the chain of command had been interrupted, the adventurers had all become a mob in the blink of an eye. With that in mind, Wyatt had thought to make use of adventuring “parties,” or teams consisting of individuals who often worked together. They often had fixed members with dedicated roles and operated as a cohesive unit, trusting and cooperating with each other. Adventurers generally opposed one another as business rivals, but they were close with the others within their own party, and party leaders understood their groups and how to command them. Wyatt’s aim was to have as many of these autonomous groups as possible, even though it would be harder to manage mixed groups of support units and fighters all battling together. His plan was to treat his men like skirmishers or small platoons instead of having them fight in a close formation or a line like had been common until recently. It was a smart way to work with what was available to him, but in this case it had worked against him. Rather than an error in judgment, it was more apt to call it simple bad luck.

“This isn’t over yet...” The guildmaster in red armor grasped his jaw in one hand, covering his mouth in thought. Ever since the Five Year War, he’d preferred not to wear helmets so as not to obstruct his field of view. It was a dangerous practice, but he stood by his preference.

Gazing at the healers tending to the injured and the adventurers waiting for orders, he quickly gathered his thoughts and called together the remaining four knights, Seligman, Ashcroft, Humphreys, and Heatley.

“Seligman, Humphreys, take a hundred seventy of those remaining and continue along the river to the kobold village. If our information is right, the path should be flat, so it shouldn’t be a hard march. The enemy will likely try to lure your men into the forest again, so be prepared for that. You can proceed to attack the village when you arrive.”

“Sir!”

“Understood.”

“Ashcroft and I will take thirty and go after our diverted forces, reorganize them, and head for the village from the forest. I’ll leave thirty with you as well, Heatley. Stay here and command our rear forces in Dawson’s place. You’ll relay messages and treat the wounded here.”

Heatley looked a little miffed at being left with the rear guard, but all the young knights replied in the affirmative to Wyatt’s orders.

“The kobolds are clearly trying to pick off smaller groups of us in the forest, so Gaius Beldarus is likely waiting where they’re luring our forces. We don’t have anything to fear from anyone other than him and that woman with the black hair.” His subordinates’ expressions darkened when the name “Beldarus” came up. “I know I’m repeating myself, but Beldarus is our first priority. If we don’t take him out, all of Lady Keighley’s plans will be for naught. Any plans we have of advancement go up in smoke.”

“Is there no chance of him abandoning the village and fleeing?” Ashcroft raised his hand and asked his superior. He was growing a beard to try to hide his baby face.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

“Is there some strategic reason for that?”

“No, it’s just what my gut tells me.”

“Your gut?”

“That’s right. But I’m as sure of it as I am that if I spit it’ll land on the ground. He won’t abandon those dogs. That’s not the kind of man he is. That’s why he won’t just ignore us attacking the village.” He took a breath there. “So I’m changing strategies now that the situation has changed. We’ll attack the village from two places at once with a main force and a detached force led by me. No matter where he shows up, or where he’s hiding, or what his plan is, if we attack the village, he’ll be forced to appear there.”

They were destroying the village largely because of Wyatt’s personal feelings towards Gaius. None of his subordinates knew that, though, and his new plan was sound, so the young knights all went along with it. With the number of knights they had, there was no way for them to execute any tactics more complicated than this, and if they stuck to their original plan of waiting until their full force arrived at the village before launching their attack, the over eighty soldiers that had been lured into the forest could all be killed or at best would simply be useless to them. He couldn’t just throw away a quarter of his full fighting strength before even getting started.

Having foreseen the possibility that they might have to enter the forest, Wyatt had also thought to bring along rangers, scavengers, and hunters who were familiar with the Greatwood. “Hubert’s crew are here this time too, yes? Send them with me. They should know some shortcuts from last time. Also...”

“Him?” At Seligman’s command, a small man in shackles was thrust forth out of the troops. He had a rope around his waist as well, like a criminal.

“You’re going to do some work too, Cyril. And don’t think you’ll be able to get rid of me like you did Hubert.”

The former hunter shrunk under Wyatt’s reproachful eye, trembling and nodding desperately.

＊

And so, the adventurers’ forces were divided. Of course, even when split, each group of them had more than enough strength to crush the entirety of the kobolds’ forces on their own. In fact, considering the ground they were now covering, it might have been even more efficient to split them up. Their foes were few and weak, so there was no need to come at them with overwhelming numbers.

In which case, their foe’s only strategy was to surprise them again and lead their forces away. Either that, or attack them with arrows like last time. The adventurers kept their focus on the forest around them. They were on guard for surprise attacks from their blind spots.

Which was why when a man nonchalantly stepped into view in front of the main forces entrusted to Seligman and Humphreys on their march down the riverbed, they were more than a little surprised to see him. The man was a ways away along the winding path of the river, but they could see him through the trees that lined the sides of the dry bed. The newcomer was a frighteningly large man resting an axe on each shoulder. The way he ambled towards them with a horse at his side carrying his things seemed almost like a lumberjack on his way to work. But this man was carrying battleaxes, not woodcutters’ axes—huge blades the likes of which would take a normal person both hands to lift. He, however, wielded one in each hand like some kind of barbarian warrior from a long-ago tale. This was no woodcutter.

“S-Seligman! It’s him! He’s here! Beldarus!” The knight Humphreys turned from his position at the front of the line and shouted. Like the currently recuperating McArdle, Humphreys had been present when Gaius had handed some bandits over to Wyatt, so he knew the man’s face.

“Archers! Crossbowmen! Sorcerers! Get ready!” Humphreys bellowed to the adventurers under his command.

In the face of the Black Rose of Igris’s physical strength, taking him out from a distance was a wiser course of action than engaging the man in close combat. Wyatt had instructed each of the knights to do so. If this had been the beginning of a battle with an enemy army, it would have been a certainty that arrow-deflection spells would have been cast by enemy mages, but there didn’t appear to be any such magic users present here. Not to mention how the man was simply walking toward them, along an open path, with clear visibility; there was no better target for a ranged attack.

“Why is he walking straight toward us when we outnumber him so badly...?” Humphreys had plenty of questions, but could see no reason not to start shooting. “Wait until he’s in range!”

Bows, crossbows, and sorcery all required time to prepare a second shot, though the time varied between them. That was why, when shooting straight-on, it was standard practice to wait until you were sure to hit your target before launching your first projectile. Humphreys raised his right hand, signaling his ranged fighters to prepare to fire. He glanced behind him to check the status of his troops.

They’re not ready yet?!

Well, since they were currently in a marching formation, there wasn’t much they could do about that. The adventurers were in a long line behind him, without much room to spread out due to the narrow riverbed they were traversing. The men were crowding together as the column came to a stop, preventing any bowmen or sorcerers from having the room they needed to use their weapons. Gaius was rapidly coming closer, too close to target with blind, arcing shots that would have been effective against an army. The only ones who were prepared to fire on the man were those at or near the very front of the marching order who had direct lines of sight on him.

Gaius was now running ferociously, sprinting headlong towards them, almost like a little kid in a race. The sight might have looked comical to those who didn’t know what was going on. But for those at the end of his sprint, it was nothing short of terrifying.

“Sh-Shoot! Shooooot! Don’t let him get close!” Humphreys yelled, panicked. He couldn’t wait for those behind them to get ready. All he could do was let individuals fire whenever they were able to.

Those archers who had their bows drawn fired arrows, and the sorcerers who had mustered up the elemental energy within them fired magic bolts. Whoosh. Fwoom. Projectiles cut through the air on their way to their rapidly approaching target.

But none of them hit Gaius’s body. His horse leapt in front of the man, shielding him with its body. An arrow pierced the horse’s shoulder, a bolt gouging into its neck. Magic burst into it, blowing away the left side of its face. But the horse didn’t stop; it continued running, protecting its master, even with a third of its head missing.

“It’s a golem?!” Some nobles or royals imported these golem horses from other regions to show off their wealth and power. Humphreys had once seen a bronze golem horse on display at Lady Keighley’s manor, and he’d heard from Wyatt about his commander once facing an enemy noble on an iron horse on the battlefield. However...he’d never heard of one being used as a shield in battle. Humphreys regretted even for a second underestimating the enemy who’d appeared so carelessly before them. Of course the former general would have a plan; appearing to be without one was his plan. Gaius Beldarus had approached the formation where it would be most difficult for them to counterattack him, bringing with him a shield to protect him from arrows and spells, and now he was close enough to begin cutting into them.

“P-Prepare your next shots!”

The crossbows were the slowest to reload, so they had no chance. The sorcerers snapped out of their stupefaction and began calling up elemental power. The archers were faster than them, but by the time they could aim, that man would be right on top of them.

Who would he target first?

Fuck! Fuck! I practically just raised my fucking hand and went, “I’m commanding here!” Humphreys put his hand on his sword hilt. He was too late. “Too slow,” the eyes of the beast barreling toward him seemed to say.

There he is. He’s coming. He’s right in front of me.

An adventurer standing in front of Humphreys rolled to the side to dodge out of the way of the oncoming golem and the monstrous man following right behind it.

Ahh... I should have done that, too. You’re smart.

In the time it took that thought to pass through his mind, the golem horse’s half-destroyed head...didn’t hit him.

I dodged? It missed? I’m okay? No, that can’t be. I mean, look, now he’s swinging his axe!

＊

Splutch. Gaius kicked the knight’s body away, pulling his axe out of the fresh corpse’s head, then twisted his body to behead a sorcerer next to him with a backhanded swipe from the same hand. Then, using his other axe, he severed an archer’s right arm and swung down at a swordsman in front of him.

“Yipe!” The swordsman defended skillfully, diverting his blow. The fact that one of these fighters was skilled enough to block the heavy axe — even at the cost of his sword — was proof that this great slush of “adventurers” contained people of all different skill levels and abilities.

With an impressed grunt, Gaius caught his balance and decided to go after his still-galloping golem steed instead of attacking the man again. The front ranks of the group that he’d just hit were at the peak of their confusion and likely wouldn’t be able to pursue him even though almost no time had passed. He had achieved his goal.

Catching up to Claudette quickly, Gaius leapt deliberately into the line of soldiers and swung his axes around him. It appeared chaotic, but his attacks were carefully planned. He focused on the long-range attackers, swinging his blade at archers, those with magic staves, and particularly sorcerers.

“W-Waaah?!”

“My hand! My hand!”

“Help—”

With each swing, arms and heads went flying, transforming the line into a scene from Hell itself. Those who survived would later describe falling under the terrible delusion that this one man would methodically cut through each and every one of the one hundred and seventy men in their force. That was how savage a spectacle it was.

Of course, Gaius wasn’t some immortal from legend. By the time he’d rendered a dozen men dead or otherwise unable to fight, he’d been hit some four times himself. Two of the blows had been weak enough that he’d caught them on his coat of plate, but the other two had reached his skin. One slash had gone through his leather armor and upper arm and a thrust had grazed his cheek. Both attacks had come from skilled fighters.

Shouldn’t stay here any longer. As soon as Gaius thought that, his axe buried itself in an enemy’s breastplate. Feeling the blade pierce flesh and metal to lodge itself in bone, Gaius abandoned it without a second thought, determining it too difficult to remove quickly.

“Claudette! Let’s go!” Gaius called out to his trusty steed and fled into the eastern woods, kicking away any adventurer unfortunate enough to be in his path.

＊

Gaius ran through the trees, zig-zagging along a serpentine path to avoid any projectiles fired after him. An arrow whooshed past his ear, and the shouts of the adventurers followed him...but he couldn’t allow himself to escape completely. It was part of their plan, and his goal of protecting the village, for Gaius to lure the adventurers east of the riverbed and stop them there.

“Ah, how dreadful! Ohhh, dreadful! Just dreadful!” The elder popped his head out of Gaius’s rucksack, wide-eyed and yelping.

“You okay, old-timer?” Gaius asked him, still running.

“Do you always do this sort of thing?!”

“Not always, no... I’d be dead if I did.”

“You surely would!” On “would,” a magic bolt slammed into a nearby tree and the old kobold squealed in shock. “Just so you know...! In that melée back there, I got a little startled and may have wet myself a bit! Forgive me!” The old man apologized, flustered.

“Hahaha. It’s to be expected for a new recruit in his first battle. Try not to let it bother you.” Laughing, Gaius had Claudette match his pace, and he plucked a war pick from the weapons adorning her back. Now he was armed in both hands again after losing one of his battleaxes earlier. “Why, in my very first battle, I was on the receiving end of a cavalry charge. I was so scared, I shit myself! Hahaha.”

“Huh?! Shitting yourself... That’s a bit much, isn’t it...?”

“Wha...?”

“...”

“...”

“Hahaha!” The two old men laughed together.

“All right, ya big lug! Incoming message! Five quick ones are going around us to cut us off! Be ready for them!”

“Got it! We’re pushing through!”

The two men glanced to their sides. Just as they’d been warned, they could see their prey through some trees, overtaking them.

＊

Meanwhile, the assault team had led their pursuers deeper into the forest, striking them another three times as they did. Even Darke and Rain Grass were breathing hard now, and their force had lost another two of its members. One had been killed in one of their strikes and the other was heavily wounded, but they’d gotten a report that he’d managed to hide himself in a tree.

When the day had started, Darke’s attack team was twelve strong. They were down to eight now. That meant that the Kobold Kingdom’s full army of forty-nine had been reduced to forty-one now. On the other side, the adventurers had started with three hundred thirty-one, including several knights, and had been reduced to about three hundred. Looking at just the numbers, the kobolds were doing more than well for themselves, but in terms of ratio, their losses were huge. Their numbers were just too different.

The attack team was fulfilling their role, but they were becoming exhausted. Noticing Darke in particular starting to slow down, the adventurers couldn’t hide their excitement. They scrambled after her, racing to see who would be the one to take her down. Their fervor was understandable. Wyatt had put a sizable bounty on the head of every kobold warrior, using guild funds both public and private and even throwing in his personal funds to pay for them. If an adventurer took home three kobold heads, they’d be paid enough for an average commoner family to live in luxury for an entire year. This was an unprecedented bounty. They’d even get half for exterminating non-combatant villagers. And the female fighter who stood with the monsters was worth twenty of their heads. If they could take out the ringleader commanding the kobolds and conspiring against the Marquisate of Northplain, they’d receive fifty times the bounty. Wyatt had actually stood in front of them all at the guild and left a mountain of gold coins on the receptionist’s desk before they had set out, showing them that his bounty rates weren’t empty promises. This was a true once-in-a-lifetime, get-rich-quick opportunity for easy money.

Slowly but surely, the adventurers closed the distance between them and their attackers. If the pattern held, the monsters would turn around and try to hold them up again soon. That would be their opportunity.

And right when the pursuers took up their weapons in anticipation...something happened.

＊

“Houghf—” A breastplated warrior tumbled down with a rather unladylike exclamation, as if she’d tripped in the dirt.

An adventurer who had been behind her ran past, sparing her nothing but a glance and a smirk. A club-wielding man from the woman’s party caught up to her soon after, and grabbed at her arm to pull his companion to her feet.

“Wait! Don’t!” the woman shouted, swatting away her party member’s hand. At her strange reaction, he looked down and groaned, spotting the problem. The fighter had fallen into a small pit, dug down about thigh-depth. Wooden beams were set along the sides of the pit’s walls, each with several nails sticking out of them, pointing downward.

Yes... the woman had run straight into a fang-filled mouth hidden under some leaves. When she’d tried to pull herself out, the long nails on either side of her had dug into her like fishhooks. Any further pulling would only cause the nails to dig deeper into her flesh. Even squirming would further deepen her wounds. To save her, she’d need to be dug out, and the trap dismantled around her.

Thinking it would be difficult to accomplish this on his own, the club-wielder waited for more members of their party to catch up with them so he could ask them for help. If they took the time to free her, the whole party would end up far behind those pursuing the kobolds.

...But the trouble didn’t end with only this one party.

The adventurer who’d sneered at the fallen warrior raised his axe to strike at a kobold who’d tripped, and felt his boot snag on something. In the next instant there was a whoosh as a long, flexible object snapped through the air and whipped him across the abdomen. The blow doubled him over, the impact more than stopping him in his tracks.

“Ah...gah...?” The impact had knocked the breath and the contents of his stomach out of him and he’d almost lost consciousness, but as he came back to his senses, he pushed aside the object that had struck him with trembling hands... slip... He felt something wet and looked down to discover himself pulling a sharpened stick from his navel. The “whip” that had struck him was a strong, supple branch. The strength of the blow had likely come from the flexible branch snapping itself straight, and several stakes tied to the branch had gouged into his abdomen. The thing his foot had touched was the tripwire for this trap.

It was a primitive trap, really, but it had still packed enough punch to pierce through his leather armor.

“Aaah?! Ah, aaah, ahhh...” The man fell to his knees, groaning as a sequence of feelings took hold: surprise, then pain, and finally resignation. His midsection no longer able to support his upper body, the adventurer toppled over onto his back on the grass.

“Fhoo, fhoo, fhoo...” His eyes were wide as he tried to regulate his breathing. Every time his chest rose and fell, more blood oozed from the holes in his gut. At this point, his only hope was for someone to find him and help him. But with the stakes having gouged all the way into his internal organs, it was unlikely that the healers the guild had brought with them would be able to save him with their first aid even if someone did find him.

A scream went up somewhere else. This time, it was a long-haired man in a deep blue cloak who stood as short as a child.

No, he wasn’t short; he was probably over six feet tall. His head was just lower than it should have been, for the simple reason that he had fallen into a pit trap. It wasn’t even that deep; they’d all probably dug similar pits as children, horsing around in fields. The problem was that this pit was full of thin, sharpened stakes sticking up out of its floor.

The pit had been hidden by dirt and grass, and when he stepped on it the force from his fall and his own weight had impaled his feet, calves, and thighs on countless tiny spikes. The man was wearing a breastplate over chainmail, which was considered heavily armored for an adventurer, but all that protection was powerless against a trap that targeted only his legs.

“Fuck! Fuuuck! It hurts! It hurts! Help me! Somebody help me!”

“Hey! Hold on!”

Luckily for him, another member of his party was nearby. The second man, wearing well-worn infantry armor, quickly doubled back to his wounded comrade and set about helping him.

What was unluckier was that that man then set off another trap.

His foot brushed at a wire concealed by leaves, releasing a sphere held in place on a nearby tree. The sphere was a ball of thorns made up of stones and lumber held together by rope to weigh it down, with countless sharpened stakes sticking out of it.

Ka-shunk. Once released from its bonds, the ball swung like a pendulum and impacted the man’s shoddy helmet, the thorns piercing his face.

“Rrgh.” With a short grunt, the poor victim crumpled powerlessly to the ground. The spikes pulled free of his head, wet with various fluids now leaking from new holes.

All the man in the cloak could do now was scream, his savior gone.

In other places, more and more traps of various designs like these were sprung one after another, injuring or killing their victims.

The forest was quite large, and the chance of falling into the pits dug haphazardly between the trees was very small. It was impossible that every spot could be a trap. That was why it didn’t take much time or detailed analysis for the adventurers to realize that it wasn’t by chance that this was happening. They’d been skillfully led here, to a killing ground of deadly traps.

Those bushes. That bed of grass. The carpet of fallen leaves before them.

Where were the wires? Which was a trap? What was lurking there?

Before long, everything looked like a trap. In fact, it seemed that the only likely safe place to stand was on the tree roots. The adventurers hesitated to even step off of them.

...Everyone stood still. On top of being lured here, the adventurers were now trapped in place.

No, to be precise, they weren’t held in place by the traps themselves; it was the fear the traps had instilled in them. No matter the reward, there were few who would leap into that sea of traps with no plan. This was exactly the reaction Gaius had been anticipating, and that Sashalia had planned for.

However...

“Don’t panic, you idiots!”

Just before their fear could crescendo to pure, unthinking terror, someone arrived to metaphorically seize them all by the scruffs of their necks and shake some sense back into them.

It was their leader, who had chased after them to regroup his forces, the knight in the red armor, Guildmaster Wyatt.

＊

Wyatt’s chest heaved as he caught his breath, turning a sharp glare on the nearby adventurers. “There’s no reason to chase after them! They’re not going to abandon their village! If the dogs run, all we need to do is march to their homes and burn them down! Those beasts are using tricks like this to keep us from getting there! Are you all too incompetent to understand that?!”

The shouts doused the adventurers’ spirits like a bucket of cold water.

“Use your heads! Do you think they could stop dozens of us with simple pit traps?! You fools got full of yourselves and did exactly what they expected!” From the victims he’d spotted on his way here, Wyatt was sure he’d seen through the kobolds’ plan. “You don’t want to set off their traps, do you?! Of course you don’t! So pull your heads out of your asses, work together, and test the ground before you move forward! That way you won’t get caught in them!” His simple countermeasure was something any idiot could understand. All he wanted was for them to think about how to get out of the current situation. Just doing that would stop them from panicking. The adventurers close enough to hear him were regaining their calm. “Tell the others what I’ve said! Repeat my words! Make sure everyone who’s still chasing them hears!”

“Y-Yes, sir!”

“Hey! Stop! Come back! Tell everyone!”

“Back! Back!”

“Got it! Heeey! Back this way, back!”

“We’ve got one trapped here! Help us!”

“Send help. But be careful.”

“You over there! That’s enough! Come back for now!”

“I can’t move! Somebody help me!”

Voices bounced back and forth between the trees. But, unlike the earlier screams, these voices were rational, with purpose to them. Wyatt had restored the group’s crumbling morale with his tirade.

“This is as good a spot as any.” Wyatt looked around and got the attention of his subordinate still shouting out orders. “Ashcroft, gather everyone here. This space should be big enough for us to reorganize.”

“Sir!”

“You there, start checking for traps. Just around here where we’ll be gathering. And be cautious.” One after another, he gave orders to the adventurers he’d brought and the rangers and hunters he’d hired, and they all set about their tasks with “yes, sir”s.

“Now, Cyril. We’re closer to the village here, yes?” Wyatt glared at the shackled former hunter, and the latter shivered.

“Y...Yes. Much closer. If we head straight that way, we should end up in the field where the village is. I found a shortcut that this intersects with. It’s easy to walk here, which makes it like a landmark. I remember it very clearly, so I’m sure of it.”

Wyatt nodded wordlessly.

“A-Anyway, Guildmaster, could you remove these shackles? I won’t be able to defend myself if something happens. And I don’t think you need my guidance anymore.”

“No. In fact, I’d like to have your legs bound, too. It’s your fault we lost so many last time. I’m only keeping you alive until we’re through with this mission.”

“B-But sir...”

The surrounding adventurers all turned to Cyril with loathing, some of them even spitting in his direction. It wasn’t that the dead Hubert had been very popular among the adventurers, or that they felt a solidarity with their own, but they still couldn’t accept what Cyril had done.

Eventually, the stragglers caught up. Those who’d rushed ahead returned and the injured were being retrieved. The corpses would have to wait. During all that, a few more fell victim to more hidden traps, but as no one was off on their own anymore, they were able to get help quickly and it didn’t lead to another mass panic.

“Looks like things aren’t going as they planned, either.” Ashcroft said. Wyatt turned away from the healer he’d been speaking to and looked in the direction Cyril had said the kobolds’ village was. He spotted the beasts and that swordswoman watching the gathering adventurers with regret.

“It’s pretty obvious what they were trying to do now. But with this many of us together, they’re not even going to get close anymore.”

“Looks like it.”

“We’ve suffered significant losses, but we can start getting back to our plan now.”

If they could send the injured to the rear, then the remaining members of their parties would be able to fight without misgivings. Their whole force wouldn’t have to be halted here. Thanks to Wyatt catching up to them, the group that was lured into the forest had been mostly recovered.

That should have been the case, anyway...

Hyooh.

Hyooh.

“Huh?” Cyril had been crouching to rest his weary, shackled arms, but he suddenly stood. The hunters who had finished checking for traps nearby also started glancing around warily.

“You hear that?”

“Yeah.”

“Th-That was a warning! I’m sure of it!”

As Cyril and the hunters conferred, faces serious, Ashcroft asked, “What do you mean, ‘warning’?”

“That’s the first sound it makes when you enter its turf. That reedy whistle. Where could it be? Where is it?”

“What are you talking about...?” Ashcroft was scratching his beard in frustration when he saw it: an adventurer carrying one of the wounded on his back screamed and suddenly went flying.

“Wh-What was that?!”

“A magical beeeast!”

From the bushes emerged an enormous reptile, its torso alone easily twelve feet in length.

The hunters who saw it screamed. “It’s a lizard! A tree-eating lizaaard!”

Its huge mass barreled toward them at an incredible speed, closing the distance in an instant.

“I’ve got it!” A mace-wielding warrior in full armor yelled bravely, standing in front of the beast. He raised his shield and took the full force of the lizard’s rush head-on. The impact sent the man flying into a tree, where he crumpled into a heap at its base. He didn’t get up. His heavy armor may have saved his life, but no one dared check.

The tree-eating lizard charged into the area where the adventurers were reorganizing and bit down on the arm of the man closest to it with a sickening crunch of bone. It swung its tail, injuring yet more men.

The group once again fell into chaos.

“Surround it! Surround it and kill it! There’s more than enough of us to deal with a magical beast! Stay calm!” Wyatt drew his sword and berated the scattering adventurers. At that moment, another tree-eating lizard leapt out from the trees and knocked over a chanting sorcerer, trampling over the man’s face.

That’s when Wyatt saw the black ropes around the lizard’s neck and legs.

“Those are...” Their sudden encounter with these monsters was no coincidence. The kobolds had captured the lizards beforehand and then released them at the humans after luring them here. The lizards, which were instinctively territorial, headed straight for the adventurers when released, throwing them right back into the chaos they had just been fighting to escape.

...Capturing such huge beasts and keeping them here wasn’t something that could have been done on short notice. Wyatt realized that even his own attack on the kobolds had been part of the kobolds’ plans.

“That can’t be! How could they be so clever, so precise?!” Now that he truly understood the Kobold Army’s ruse, Wyatt clenched his fist and shouted. His pulse raced, blood hot from the shame of playing right into their hands.

“S-Sir Wyatt! What do we do?!” The panic in his subordinate’s voice irritated the commander, but they had to deal with the magical beasts before them, and couldn’t let the soldiers they’d finally gathered together scatter once again.

“Ashcroft! I’ll take them down one at a time! You just make sure those adventurers stay here!”

It’s all right. It’s all right. I can cut down two lizards easily, as long as I have this armor. It’s going to take a lot out of me, but I’m ready for that. This is fine. It’s within expectations. Telling himself this, Wyatt took up his weapon, Sword Eater.

Right as he was about to step forward, a scream reached his ears.

“Waaaaah!” It was a kobold’s voice.

“They’re going to attack now?!” Wyatt turned around, activating his Red Plate. He saw one of the little monsters running around out of the corner of his eye.

“Eeeeee!” The dark-brown-furred beastman ran straight toward Wyatt, crying out in what seemed like terror.

“...Just one of them?”

The frenzied beast wasn’t even holding a weapon. Something was clearly off about this. That much was obvious, but Wyatt had no idea what it might mean.

“Eeeyaaaaah!” The kobold Wyatt had thought was charging him instead clung to a nearby tree and scooted up it, moving like an insect.

“What is it...?” The guildmaster stared blankly up at the kobold, detached from the tumult and chaos around him for a moment, until bringing his gaze back down to find out what the kobold had been fleeing from.

Gwooooooun. Something was howling, crashing through the trees, causing branches and leaves to shake.

“That’s...” Wyatt had been on several missions to put down these creatures when they wandered out of the forest, so he instantly recognized it. A magical beast that anyone with a passing familiarity with the Greatwood would know for its physical characteristics and its infamous ferocity.

It was a huge beast with thick brown fur and six legs as thick as logs. It had sharp fangs and claws like blades. It was a bugbear, in a mad rage due to the spear sticking out of its back.

＊

[Attack Team to Command Center: Magical beast release successful.]

[Command Center to Attack Team, Kobold Squads 3, 4, 5: Understood. Begin attack.]

Watching the sublime confusion of the adventurers from the cover of the trees, Darke had her spirit messenger report back to base.

“...It’s finally time!” Rain Grass said with a grin.

“Yep, everybody’s rarin’ to go, aren’t they?” Darke responded, a smirk of her own on her face. “Blue Gale! As a reward for taking one of them down, I’m giving you an important task now!”

“Thank youuu very much, ma’am!” The blue kobold accepted his role proudly, blood from his kill still on his fur. He gave the item in his hand a vigorous wave and then plunged it into the ground.

It was a simple banner; an emblem drawn in charcoal on an animal hide. The charming image of a kobold’s hind paw. A kobold’s front paws grew into fingers as they aged, but their rear paws remained the same and kept their distinctive shape. Similar flags went up in the locations where the other squads were hiding.

They’d all butted heads debating this symbol. “I don’t think we need to spend time or effort on this,” Sashalia had commented, but Gaius had laughed and told her, “No, it’s very important.”

It was just as Gaius had said. Everyone had been waiting impatiently for the moment to raise these flags, and for what came next, too.

“Well, everyone, it’s time for our counterattack.” Darke unsheathed her sword swiftly. She pointed it at their enemy and took a short breath, shouting out what the kobolds had been waiting for: “By our fangs!”

“By our fangs!” came the response from the valiant warriors.