Rather than hold my position, I charged aggressively at the enemy.
It was not an agreed-upon action. But circumstances had changed, so I had no choice but to advance.
‘Sixteen…….’
The largest number of bandits we had prepared for was twelve. There were four more than that.
‘This won’t be easy.’
Four. At a glance, it might seem like a small number. In truth, it would not be difficult for me to deal with four bandits if I swung my sword a few times.
But it took time to bring down bandits. And if four bandits latched onto someone other than me, the situation could become dangerously serious.
If the four bandits we let through reached Dana, my precious talent would be slaughtered in less than three minutes.
The situation would not be much different if they reached Anna or Jema.
They might be able to buy time against two or three bandits. But if they had to face seven bandits, even briefly, they would lose their lives within a minute.
They could not bear a numerical disadvantage. But whether six or ten bandits surrounded me, I could somehow hold out.
Making the person who could bear the burden bear it. Making the person who would not die in one blow take the attacks. That was the basis of running a mercenary company.
That was why I had no choice but to advance even more aggressively. Before the bandits broke through behind me, I had to kill as many of them as possible.
‘They’re here!’
We met. The distance between the bandits and me narrowed.
‘The number of bandits who can attack me at once is limited.’
They had not gotten behind me yet. In that case, I had to quickly assess the bandits in front of me and deal with the most dangerous ones first.
‘First. A club. It’s a dangerous weapon, but…….’
A club striking my arm or leg was not dangerous. But if it struck my head directly, even I would have no choice but to become dizzy.
If I lost consciousness while surrounded by enemies, even for a very brief moment, it could lead to fatal damage.
‘But it’s a wooden club. It’s small, and the man holding it is small too.’
I was not small. But perhaps the bandit holding the club had not grown properly when he was young, because he was short.
With that build and height, even if he swung the club with all his strength, he could not inflict fatal damage on my head. Ignore him.
‘Second, a spear.’
An enemy holding a moderately long spear, the sort the guards might use, stood before me.
But I had gotten too close to be harmed by its attacks.
A spear that jabbed away from afar while using allies as a wall was dangerous.
Even if it could not break or pierce my armor, it could target my legs and make me lose my balance. It could target my neck and wound me.
But he was, at most, a bandit. A man impatient enough to rush into the vanguard with a spear in such an urgent situation would not calmly widen the distance.
Once that happened, a spear was no remarkable weapon. At most, it was a staff, a blunt weapon.
I could endure attacks of that level with my armor.
‘Third…… An axe?’
It was not a weapon especially efficient against armor. But the person holding it had a good build, and the axe itself was a fairly heavy two-handed axe.
Getting hit by that would be dangerous. I charged at my first target.
“Hup!”
“S-suddenly!”
The bandit who had raised his axe high into the air and tried to chop me down as if splitting firewood failed to achieve his aim.
My sword pierced his heart. The bandit looked at me with empty eyes.
I immediately moved in search of my next target.
‘That one has a kitchen knife? I can ignore him.’
Of course, a kitchen knife was also a dangerous weapon. A well-sharpened kitchen knife could tear an unarmored person’s flesh to shreds.
But it would be difficult to stab it through a gap in my armor. It would also be difficult for him to ambush me from behind and inflict a meaningful wound.
As I thought, my instincts sounded an alarm. I moved in haste.
“Urk!”
Something heavy brushed past my head. The wind stirred. My head swam.
After that, the bandits who had already surrounded me launched their attacks. Wooden clubs struck my armor, and kitchen knives stabbed at it.
The attacks that followed were not threatening at all. My mind was fixed on the weapon I had barely avoided just now.
‘A hammer!’
That would not do.
My armor was certainly extraordinary, but that did not make me invincible.
There were weapons like hammers, which could crush armor and transfer the impact to the wearer inside, or longswords, which could stab repeatedly at the armor’s weak points.
‘At least it’s a wooden hammer…….’
Compared with a proper war hammer, it was crude. Even if it hit me, I would not die immediately.
But it would transmit a blow stronger than that of an ordinary mace. I had to deal with it as quickly as possible.
“Hup!”
There was no time to think. I had to move.
After lightly knocking aside the spearpoint aimed at me with my sword, I charged the enemy holding the hammer.
“A-ah! Do not come!”
“Die.”
The man awkwardly thrust the hammer out in front of him to push me away, but I casually knocked it aside with my gauntlet and moved forward.
I swung my sword. It cut through the hammer-wielding bandit’s body from shoulder to waist.
“Ughhh…….”
It was a fatal wound. He was certainly dead.
‘That should have drawn their attention properly.’
I kept killing dangerous enemies as I slowly moved forward so that they would fight me rather than the others.
But the battle was not over yet.
***
Iris looked at the mercenary captain.
Kale Wagner. The man who had ignored the plan they had prepared in advance and charged toward the enemy.
“F-follow him…….”
Jema tilted her head. Iris shook her head firmly.
“No!”
‘There is no way My Lord does not understand the importance of tactics and planning.’
An excellent knight did not necessarily become an excellent commander. But merely from the way he devised tactics, he was already an excellent commander.
The reason he had broken their agreement and charged out was that he had to have a reason to do so.
‘There are too many enemies.’
Iris immediately understood his intent. He planned to hold down even a few more enemies and lessen the burden on the rear.
If the formation itself moved after him, it would only make his decision meaningless.
“Hold your positions!”
Iris bit down hard on her lip.
He was an excellent commander. Yet he had no choice but to abandon command and run forward.
This mercenary company was too weak to fight without forcing him into mortal danger.
‘Then I must keep my wits about me as well!’
Excluding the noncombatant Dana, Iris’s position could be regarded as the very rear of the unit.
The reason he had placed her there was to entrust her with command on the scene. She could not betray his intentions.
Holding her position, Iris watched him fight.
‘……Amazing.’
She had felt it while teaching him, but his objective skill with the sword itself could not be called especially remarkable.
His basic strength, build, and senses were good, so he was not at a level that could be called lacking. But to Iris, a knight of the highest level, his shortcomings were visible.
The way he stepped. The way he swung his sword. He had never made a fatal mistake, but she kept noticing inefficient movements.
Even so, Iris was impressed.
‘It is like watching a well-composed chess record…….’
His tactical sense and grasp of the situation were perfect.
It was easy for people watching from afar to say, ‘At this time, he should do this! At that time, he should do that!’ But for the person standing on the battlefield, doing the ‘theoretically correct thing’ was close to impossible.
An enemy was running toward him, spewing curses. Another enemy was targeting his back. A weapon brushed right past his body.
His field of vision was bound to narrow. His judgment was bound to become hasty.
‘The axe, the hammer. He recognizes how durable his own armor is and is giving priority only to enemies who pose a threat, as efficiently as possible……!’
It was enough to make her think that a scholar who had studied swordsmanship and tactics all his life, if given a trained body and armor, might fight in that manner.
He was neither drunk on his strength and swinging his sword wildly nor terrified and only defending passively.
Step by step, he was fighting as though culling them, selecting enemies who might threaten him and dealing with them one by one.
“They are coming!”
But the bandits were not satisfied merely with giving up on Kale either.
Six bandits broke away and began running toward Iris.
“……Urk.”
With a tiny battle cry, a stone flew from the sling.
Unfortunately, it did not hit. The fast-flying stone grazed a bandit’s ear.
“Hold firm!”
It was a crisis.
Three bandits surrounded Anna and Jema, who stood on the front line, and leveled their weapons at them.
Even one against one, victory could not be guaranteed. No, defeat was more likely.
Though they had good builds by the standards of this mercenary company, the two of them were still women. Compared with men of ordinary build, they could not help but be lacking in many respects.
Moreover, even if they were bandits, the enemies would have experienced actual combat a few times. Though inferior to trained soldiers, they would be more seasoned than Anna and Jema, who had never in their lives swung weapons to hurt someone.
But they had prepared for this situation as well.
“Throw the nets!”
The two mercenaries each threw a net. Fortune favored the mercenary company. Both hit.
“Ghk!”
“What the hell is this thread?!”
The bandits, who had not practiced beforehand what to do when ‘caught in nets,’ could not easily escape that situation.
And if they were bandits who had not even received proper training, they had no choice but to flounder for quite some time.
In an instant, two of the six were floundering. The remaining bandits charged in as well, but Anna and Jema, who were holding the front line, somehow endured.
“……I’m going!”
Then Iris moved.
Like an experienced hunter, she waited for an opportunity, then instantly pierced the heart of a bandit who had exposed an opening while trying to target Jema.
“N-no!”
One bandit beside him fell into shock. From his perspective, in only a few seconds, the three comrades running alongside him had either died or begun floundering.
But hesitation on the battlefield was a sin. Jema’s club slammed into his shoulder.
“Urk!”
It did not have enough force. But it was enough to make him hesitate for a moment, and a follow-up attack came.
“Here I go again!”
Ember threw a second net with one arm. The bandit who had been briefly flustered became entangled in the net, like the bandit beside him.
“Finish him!”
“Yes!”
Leaving the three bandits caught in the nets to Ember and Jema, Iris moved toward Anna.
She cut off one bandit’s arm. Niv covered her while holding a spear made by carving wood.
“You have done well!”
Iris charged in like lightning and stabbed the neck of the uninjured bandit.
Meanwhile, one of the bandits first caught in a net escaped it and fled.
“S-surrender! I lost! Just spare my life!”
The bandit with the severed arm screamed, dropped his weapon, and lay face-down on the ground.
In an instant, six bandits had fallen. Dana did not even have time to sing.
But they had been able to fight this way because they had placed their strongest member in the most dangerous place.
“My Lord, are you unharmed?!”
Iris looked anxiously toward the front. Kale was still fighting there.
While the five mercenaries in the rear used nets to kill or capture five bandits and drive off one, he had fought the remaining bandits alone. And he had won.
Two bandits were fleeing. Only one bandit remained on the battlefield who could still fight.
“Amazing…….”
Kale was crossing swords with the man who appeared to be the leader of the Bandit Gang. But Iris could not imagine him losing.
‘……My Lord.’
To her eyes, he looked like the embodiment of victory.