Magic Caster of Destroy

Numbers were a huge advantage. They could use the door or wall attacks as feints in order to attack from a completely unexpected direction. If Jugem were the commander for the other side, he would do that too.

Just as planned… it looks like the situation’s going well and the enemy is dispersing.

Most conventional attack strategies would be useless in the face of the opposition’s numerical superiority. For the villagers of Carne, their best bet would be to steadily erode their enemies’

fighting strength.

As long as the enemy formation weakened, they could attack from the village at any time. Ideally, they would strike at the enemy commander in a wedge formation. That way, the panicked enemy would immediately consolidate their troops.

Bringing the ogres back halfway was part of the preparations for that event. Even if the ogres pressed their attack by themselves, it would be difficult for them to make the enemy panic and achieve their objective of drawing the troops at the back gate out to the front.

Granted, once the scattered enemies rush forward to encircle us, we’ll have no way of retreat…

well, I guess that’s what they call entering the dragon’s lair despite knowing he’s home…

In other words, this was a suicidal tactic.

Even so―

“Well, we’ve achieved half of our objectives already.”

Jugem muttered to himself as his line of sight moved to the rear gate that he couldn’t see from here.

He had already prepared an escape route for his master with the highest probability of survival.

There was nothing more to worry about. It might be cruel to say so, but as long as all the villagers here died, nobody would know how many had fled and Enri would remain cloaked in a shroud of mystery.

Protecting Enri was Jugem’s first and highest priority. He would pay any price for that and not regret it in the slightest. Because of that―

“Everyone! Wait for the door to go down! We’re going to charge! Our target is the enemy headquarters! Our only chance of survival is to kill their commander!”

“Ohhhh!”

A series of determined howls answered him. There was a slight wavering in some of the voices, but nobody looked like they were going to back out.

All that remained was the raw courage of men who fought for their children and their loved ones.

♦ ♦ ♦

Enri and Nfirea ran down from the rear observation deck, herding the women and children toward the area in front of the rear gate. Nfirea’s grandmother Lizzie was not there, because she was currently hiding all the alchemical wares she had borrowed from Ainz.

She would have no time to escape, but she had already accepted her fate.

“No problem! There’s nobody around! We’ll open the gate now and head for the forest!”

The gathered children, faces pale from fright, nodded desperately.

Meanwhile, Nfirea and Britta turned the handle, slowly opening one side of the gate.

At the moment they opened the gate, Enri stuck her head out to look around. There was nothing. Just as she saw from the observation deck, there were no troops in sight. Jugem’s plan had succeeded.

“Then, let’s go!”

The first to exit were Agu and his tribesmen. If they were ambushed in the forest, they would carve a bloody path through their enemies. Next was Britta. She was the group’s scout, and if Agu couldn’t find any soldiers, she would handle things.

Taking the children’s short legs into consideration, the pioneer team would advance toward the forest. Behind them, the children would follow them two by two. The mothers would accompany the children as they ran. Children without parents would be led by older children.

The last ones were Enri and Nfirea, who would then run to the front.

Even after getting out of the gate, the forest was still far away. Considering this was the dead of winter, the distance felt several times longer than it normally did.

They frantically pumped their legs and ran.

It was too far.

It was not enough.

At this moment, they heard horses from behind them.

Enri was extremely fit, so much so that she was turned off by it. Even so, her heart was pounding and her breathing was in disarray. Fear drove her to look behind, and there she glimpsed something she could not believe was there ― despair.

“No way…”

Over a hundred mounted knights had appeared from behind them. They must have been hiding in the blind spots of the observation deck, sticking close to the walls. They had only emerged because they were sure nobody else was going to come out.

It was a long distance from the village to the forest. However, there was a huge difference between the speeds of horses and humans.

Maybe Agu and Britta could flee. But it was impossible for the children. They would be overtaken.