Chapter 30

  Reinos’ yellow, demonic eyes widened, his mouth opened and closed without a sound, then he looked around as if for support or objection from the squad. I couldn’t really tell if he was happy or not by my sudden suggestion, or if it even made sense to him. But as things stood, my sole general was not here, and I found myself in need of another, so I was happy to spend a 100,000 RE on his appointment.

  ‘Alright, listen Reinos, I want you to go into Garoshek as a general,’ I began to explain. ‘You meet the requirements for this kind of battlefield promotion: you are level 35 or higher, right?’

  ‘I … I am,’ he said, still looking around like a lost child.

  ‘Good. I will appoint you to be my general and form that bond,’ I said to him. ‘You will go into town and recruit every qualifying demon in there as a member of your army. Should be easy; the minimum requirement to start one is one thousand members. The larger the army the better aura skills a general will get, so I want you to recruit everyone eligible, which means everyone over level 15.

  I waited patiently as Reinos took half a minute to mull this over, blinking rapidly in the process, until a realisation hit him.

  ‘And then you want us to break out?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do,’ I said, and I saw the next question forming and coming my way, so I answered pre-emptively. ‘Zag and Iska will help choose which side of the city will be the breakout point, then they will get you in. I will stay behind, and I will create a nice diversion to keep the focus of at least two, maybe even three of the enemy camps on me. We’ll be able to talk to each other once you’re my general, so we’ll be able to coordinate. The way I see it, five or six thousand demons, strengthened by the offensive auras of a general, should be able to overrun a couple of minotaur camps while they’re focused on me. If you can get more soldiers that would be great, but we can do with five thousand. The rest of the enemy force will react of course; their generals and officers can also coordinate the same way we can. Hm. We’ll probably need to do a second diversion as well simultaneously. I’m not sure how long it will take them to get around the city to see what the commotion is, but it’s unlikely we’d have to face all of them at once. Our numbers are limited, but so are theirs right now, and I think we can whittle them down if we do this right. If it becomes unmanageable, withdrawing back into the city is always an option.'

  Reinos rubbed his chin, thinking hard about my orders.

  ‘It … sounds like it could work, but are you sure, my Lord?’

  I sighed. Was I sure? Maybe. I was sure we had a chance, so it was worth a try.

  ‘You know, Reinos, from what I’ve seen and heard, a demon’s idea of warfare is simple and straightforward, right? Army against army on a field, the one with more and stronger soldiers wins. The minotaurs certainly subscribe to this idea, and your former lord did as well.’

  ‘That is how war is.’ Reinos nodded.

  ‘Well, numerical advantage isn’t bad, and pitched battles probably have their time and place, but remember this: warfare is about diversions and deception and knowing things the enemy doesn’t.’

  ‘Deception? I see,’ he nodded knowingly. ‘Like having the enemy believe what they’re after, which is you, is in Scaragar and having their armies massing there?’

  ‘Exactly. We have them where we want them for the moment.’ I grinned and got back to planning. ‘Once you get to the city, take your time to build your army properly, and to pick and choose your aura skills as a general carefully, taking the composition of your army into account. I recommend Zag and Iska to be your first two captains and picking others carefully from the locals. You will be commanding and holding your army together through them. I want every advantage, every scrap of strength and power we can get. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, Lord,’ he said, nodding fervently.

  I was under the impression he was starting to like the plan.

  ‘Now, do you think the townsfolk will go along?’ I asked, turning to the two scouts.

  ‘They will,’ Zag said. ‘They don’t care much for a new ruling demon lord, or a general, but they hate the Third Ringers as much as any of us, and they’re itching for a fight they can win.’

  ‘And to slaughter the minotaur scum until they can paint the city walls black with their blood.’ Iska added, and everyone in the squad nodded in approval.

  A gruesome image, sure, but I wasn’t going to complain about my men being motivated.

  ‘Good,’ I said, then looked at Vik and Sur, both sitting on small, white rocks, absorbed in their work. ‘How many arrows have you two got?’

  ‘Got about seventy. Give me two hours it’ll be a hundred,’ Vikaret stated, not looking up from the arrow she was currently refurbishing.

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  ‘Sixty,’ Surtakhan grumbled, taking a momentary break from the crafting of a new arrow to poke around the pile of straight-ish branches and sharp stones at his feet. ‘Three hours to a hundred.’

  ‘If you had a day?’ I asked.

  ‘Skill’s got limits, Lord,’ Vik said, looking annoyed. ‘I can make another fifty on top later, but that’ll be it.’

  ‘About the same, Lord.’ Sur nodded in agreement, sneering at the branches.

  They didn’t look happy, but it wasn’t as bad as they seemed to think; however the magic of their crafting skills worked, their arrows were crude but functional. Three hundred of those, infused with Hell Mana, would go a long way. My sentry turret had three drums with four hundred rounds each, plus I had a good surplus of ammunition for my rifle and sidearm. I wasn’t keen on wasting it, but I was willing to sacrifice some for a distraction, which I didn’t intend to keep up for longer than fifteen to twenty minutes. The bulk of the job would inevitably go to the soon-to-be-established army, and as such, it was the most crucial element of my plan. I turned to Reinos and extended my arm for him to clasp.

  ‘It’s time to go to work, general.’

  ***

  [The demon known as Reinos meets the level requirement for the position of general.]

  [As the ruling demon lord of the Fourth Ring, you have appointed the demon known as Reinos as one of your generals.]

  [The demon known as Reinos has become a general, and receives the epithet “The Vengeful Flame”]

  [Bond with your general is established. You can now monitor and aid your general in his duties via the relevant menus of the Ring Management System.]

  I felt the same, barely perceptible magical ongoings in my soul as I had when making the bond with Tarashak. And it seemed the Genius was having a good time with it, deciding on an epithet for my guy. Huh, now I knew where the weird nicknames were coming from, and I had a feeling the Genius would upgrade it at some point should Reinos achieve something significant. I wondered what Tarashak’s epithet had been when he first became a general. And speak of the devil, a message popped up on my NeuroHUD, coming from the “generals” menu of the RMS.

  [Hellfire Lord! What is the meaning of this? Why is Reinos no longer under my command? He’s not dead, is he? Oh, wait! Why do I feel like I can talk with him like I can with another general?]

  ‘It is because he is now another general,’ I informed Tarashak.

  [What? Why? You just took him from me and made him a general? How very dare you?]

  ‘Come on, Tarashak, I need a general with me to get rid of the enemy at Garoshek. Reinos is the most qualified for the job. He’s a good lad, he’ll handle it. Don’t worry!’

  [Hm. That is true. He is more than capable.]

  ‘That settles it then,’ I said. ‘How goes the siege of my capitol? Still no major assaults?’

  [Well, it’s not exactly an assault, but I think the minotaur scum are trying to demolish the hill. Other than that, we’re bored here to the point that the demons are starting to listen to your daughter’s nonsense about princesses because they have nothing better to do.]

  ‘How nice … hold on! Demolishing the hill? What do you mean?’ I asked, suddenly worried.

  [It’s as it sounds. Some twenty thousand minotaurs with pickaxes and a few hundred of their mages with their earth-type skills began to chip away at the hill’s base on all sides.]

  ‘Uh … what? Why?’ I demanded. ‘Are they trying to tunnel up into the city?’

  [Doesn’t look like it. I think they are trying to demolish the hill as it is until the city on top literally topples over and falls.]

  I was speechless. Really? Did I hear that correctly?

  ‘Is that even possible?’

  [Who knows? But I can’t underestimate the stupidity and the numbers of the Third Ringers, so maybe.]

  ‘Can you do something about it?’

  [No. The base is too far down for spells or arrows to be effective, and they are erecting wooden structures to protect their makeshift miners as we speak. They won’t come up here anymore, not even probing attacks, and we can’t go down there. So, they are going to try to demolish the entire hill.]

  ‘It’s … it’s a large hill,’ I said, recalling the size of it.

  Scaragar Hill — as I called it — was at least a hundred meters tall, the plateau at the top on which the city had been built was almost a whole square kilometre. I was profoundly dumbfounded by this new development. Could a few tens of thousands of minotaur miners and their magic support just … demolish it? Sure, the besieging army could count as many as a million minotaurs and other beasts by now, which meant they could work non-stop in shifts, but still!

  [Well, even if they succeed, it won’t be today or tomorrow.]

  ‘How long do you think you have then?’ I asked.

  [Hard to say. A hundred days? Perhaps more? In any case, it would be prudent if the Hellfire Lord made some haste in enacting his plans at his earliest convenience.]

  ‘Uhm … yeah, don’t you worry! Everything’s going as planned. You just hold on, look after Flamey, and leave the rest to me!’ I said, trying to reassure myself more than him. ‘We’ll get that gate before you’re in real danger, and once we take it, the minotaur scum-king will know I’m not there. Hopefully he’ll abandon the siege and rush to take the gate and my title.’

  [Hopefully.]

  Tarashak conceded.

  ‘Yeah.’ It was all I could say to that, and it was time to change the topic. ‘How is Flamey doing?’

  [I don’t want to talk about it.]

  ‘What? Why? Is she alright?’ I panicked.

  [Of course she is alright. I just don’t want to talk about it. Once this siege is over, I would like to keep as much distance from her, and anything related to hugs and princesses as possible. I didn’t even know what those were until ten days ago and I’ve had enough of it already. She should concern herself with raising her skills and spilling the blood of the enemy like a proper heir to the ruling demon lord. Not this.]

  It seemed my darling daughter wasn’t using her Princess Charm on the general, which was fine, as I had instructed her to level her other psychic aura skill more; Lost in the Fog had a more immediate and useful effect in combat. But it sure seemed like she was employing it quite enthusiastically with others. If she was to level that skill to its full potential, then Hell was in danger of turning into her own, personal fan-club. Heh, that made me smile. I wished I could talk to her. It was really annoying that I could talk to my generals through the RMS but couldn’t talk to my daughter, my sole heir whom the future of an entire dynasty depended upon. How was this fair? Or practical? In any case, I was sure she was missing me as much as I was missing her, which was extra motivation to get the job done right and fast.

  ‘Alright, General Reinos, let’s go over some details!’ I turned to the mage, who seemed to be having some trouble processing the rather fast developments.

  Well, waging war was like a river flowing across rough terrains — according to an ancient general of renown — constantly changing shape and adjusting to its surroundings.

  That’s exactly what we had to do: adapt, improvise, overcome.