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275 – The Conclusion of the Human-Demon Great War
By the time I returned by teleport, the battle was mostly concluded. Having lost the Hero and his comrades, the human army had lost their spirit. In contrast to that, standing in reserve until then at the rear of the 7th Army, was the uninjured 10th Army. However, every member of the 10th Army are crack troops trained by my own hands. The human army, which was in low morale with losing the Hero, didn’t have the strength to stop the 10th Army.
「Welcome back.」
I was greeted by Waldo-kun who had taken command. Just what you’d expect of an ex-, er, actually current, young noble from a prestigious school. Commanding troops is no big deal. I guess he wasn’t Felmina-chan’s fiance for nothing huh.
Unfortunately however, since the amount of time I had to train him was much less than for Felmina-chan, his status values have fallen behind a lot. Even so, since he’s already improved to the same level as an ordinary 10th Army soldier, that shows that on top of being raised to a vampire, his original talent was significant. Well, saying that, a certain other vampire senpai of his is a long way ahead, so I guess Waldo-kun is going to have various troubles though.
When I check the status of the other battlefields via the clones, at the 2nd Army’s place the fort is held by monkeys and at the 3rd Army’s place the humans have abandoned the fort and have begun to retreat. Mera had ordered the 4th Army to withdraw, and they’re currently retreating. It seems like the 5th Army has begun to retreat. For the 6th Army, it seems that the deputy commander has given the order to retreat in place of the dead shota. For the 8th Army, it feels like oni-kun has overdid it and completely exterminated their opponents. Because I summoned the Queen Taratekt to the 1st Army, they’ve been completely destroyed along with the opponent’s fort. You could say that all the battlefields have reached a conclusion.
Here too, the close combat is over. The 7th Army, which was thrown into confusion by the Hero, rallied together when the Hero died and counterattacked. They cooperated with the 10th Army, and have almost completed mopping up the human forces who came out from the fort. There’s still the battle with the lot holding up in the fort, but since they’ve lost the Hero, I don’t think they’ll hold out for long. Both in combat strength and mental strength.
The final results, are that the demons won in four places including here. The humans won in three places. I guess you could call the place where both sides were annihilated a draw. Saying it that way is does seem like it was quite a close contest, but the overall damage the humans have suffered is larger I guess. For a start, they had heavy casualties even at the places where they won. However, considering the lower population of the demons, the damage the demons have suffered is not something to make light of. If not for irregulars like me and oni-kun, I guess the demons and humans would have suffered about the same amount of damage.
By itself, that’s just as planned. While the boobian of the 2nd Army’s unexpected tactics gave them total victory, it would be too much to say that it was beyond the expectations. Where the plan went amiss for sure, was when I ended up having to kill Argnar. This is a war after all, so of course I had thought about the possibility that Argnar could die in battle. However, I would have never thought that I would be forced into actions like crushing him by my own hand.
It’s become necessary to hasten the plan. The expectation was for the demons to gather around Argnar and Balto, but since one of those two is gone, it will take a long time to assemble the demons. It will also take a long time to reorganise the wounded armies. Normally what we should do is to be cautious of a counterattack from the humans, and only once organised for defence as much as possible would we then attack the elf village, but it might not be possible to use such a deliberate method. I guess it might be better to make haste, and only organise our war resources that are able to invade the elf village, and basically decide that it can’t be helped if the defence becomes neglected.
I also have to think of how to deal with the probable new Hero Yamada-kun. I gotta make sure that he and the Demon King never meet no matter what. At the same time in that country there is the operation to crush the secret maneuvers of Potimas, so I’ll put Natsume-kun and imouto-chan to work. Natsume-kun has acquired the Seven Deadly Sins skills of Lust and Greed. Now he’ll move stealthily, in order to store up power. If I can use my reins on him to guide down a convenient route, then he’ll probably be able to do a good job. As for the reins holder, I guess I’ll let imouto-chan do it.
I also can’t fail to meet up with the Divine Word Religion at least once huh. I gotta explain about the new Hero for a start, and perhaps we might be able to get them to cooperate with us. Even without that, with this war over there is the agreement to invade the elf village, so we gotta hammer out the details for that. For the demon army to deploy to the elf village which is in the human territory, it is essential to have the cooperation of the Divine Word Religion after all. If I wanted to I could use my teleportation to send them in, but then I would be forced to consume quite a large amount of energy, so I’d prefer not to.
Ah, speaking of the elves. I also gotta analyse the body of Cyborg Poti that vampire girl and Felmina-chan collected. Machines are totally out of my area of expertise, but I bet it’s made using magecraft infused super-science, right? In which case I should be able to analyse it somewhat. If I can determine what kinds of magecraft have been performed, then I’ll be able to understand just how dangerous that substitute was. I already have a rough idea of the threat it poses from the battle scene with vampire girl though. If there’s a problem, then it’s the fact that I don’t have the slightest idea just how many of those super-science weapons the elves possess. I guess the only way to find out is by running into them. Well, the Demon King is also here, so if I also participate in the war then I’m sure we would never lose though.
Finally, I gotta reconsider the situation with the System. I never considered the possibility that the Goddess would actually intervene. In the future, when it’s the time to destroy the System, if the Goddess intervenes again then the plan could be ruined. To make sure that won’t happen, I will probably have to prepare some kind of countermeasures. Unfortunately, I still don’t have any specific ideas on how to achieve that yet though. Is it actually even possible to prevent the intervention of the Goddess who is at the core of the System? But, I gotta do something. Shit! I’ve really been had.
Argh, there’s so many things to do. Too many! Why is it so hectic? Everything’s the fault of that shitty Goddess! I’d never say that in front of the Demon King and Kuro though, naturally. Sigh, without some kind of reward I just can’t do this. I’ll have the Demon King prepare something sweet I guess.
For the time being, I’ll leave all the decision making regarding the capture of the fort to Waldo-kun. Yes, let’s.