I Became the Commander in a Trash Game Who Copies Skills

Chapter 52. Chess (2)

Before I got into ‘Warlord Conquest’.

Back when I was addicted to online poker, I enjoyed playing chess for fun.

It was on the same platform as my favorite poker game, and dabbling in it once in a while turned into a hobby.

It was just the right kind of mental exercise to cool down a head heated up by a few hands of cards.

Personally, I wasn't the type to go on an aggressive offensive from the start.

My preferred playstyle was to accumulate a winning advantage with a decent exchange ratio in the early and mid-game, then push hard in the endgame when more than half the pieces were gone to create a checkmate.

In this kind of long-game play, the most important piece was surprisingly the ‘pawn’.

In fact, looking at the pawn by itself, it was an insignificant piece.

The weakest piece that only moved forward.

A one-point piece, like the soldiers and pawns in janggi.

A mere infantryman who was easily picked off the moment they were scattered.

However, the status of a pawn that survived until the endgame was often comparable to that of a queen.

This was because of a rule called promotion.

When promotion was activated, a pawn could transform into any other piece, including a queen, right on the spot.

The condition was to reach the opposite end of the chessboard.

Like a small special operations team that infiltrated deep into enemy territory to strike from behind.

“Halt.”

I raised my staff.

The members stopped.

[Deploying [Wide-Area Silence].]

A silence quietly descended upon the forest.

We waited in place for about five minutes.

This was because an enemy might have detected the flow of mana.

After five minutes, I sent out a reconnaissance team.

It was a scout team centered around Karen.

[The scout team deploys [Ranger’s Step].]

While reorganizing the mercenary band into a company system, I created several new formations.

Among them, the scout team was a branch I had been thinking about for a while.

Karen, now an old-timer in the mercenary band and the captain of the 2nd Company.

She was a former ranger who specialized in scouting.

Swoosh…….

A dozen or so shadows moved through the undergrowth.

Their gliding movements produced no sound.

The result would have been similar even without [Wide-Area Silence].

The scout team, which could be called Karen's direct unit, was composed entirely of former rangers.

Rangers were a profession employed by the Empire and nobles to manage the forests within their territories.

For reference, the forests of this world are not the peaceful and romantic places like campsites that one might think of.

Cruel bandits.

Man-eating beasts.

Scheming necromancers.

Groups of beastmen were the inhabitants of this natural labyrinth.

The duty of a ranger was to prevent these monsters from coming out, protect the lord's hunting grounds, and patrol the roads that cut through the forest.

“Wow… they went ‘shwoosh shwoosh’ and just disappeared. I've been watching them for two whole days and I still can't get used to it.”

As Brol said, they were not ordinary people.

They were individuals who could stroll through a demonic landscape, where even the Imperial army couldn't guarantee survival if they entered unprepared, as if it were their own home.

Of course, the ranger profession had a very high mortality rate, and many retired.

The former rangers in our mercenary band were such retirees.

Anyway, a full day had passed since we entered Elkanto Forest.

The mercenary band was moving while minimizing its presence with the [Wide-Area Silence] spell, in addition to the scouts' reconnaissance.

Elkanto Forest was a forest formed along a canyon where two mountain ranges met.

When viewed from above, passing through this long, hourglass-shaped forest would allow us to enter the heart of the Anti-Imperial Faction's territory.

Of course, neither the Emperor nor Marquis Ricardo was unaware of this fact.

Therefore, both allies and enemies had deployed guard posts and troops near the entrance of the forest.

However, neither side was likely too worried.

The fact that it was a forest made it difficult for large-scale troop movements.

The narrow canyon terrain made it easy to defend with a small number of troops.

And on top of that, they could call for support while buying time if needed.

This was a battlefield where the defender could not be at a disadvantage.

“Captain.”

The scout team, having finished their reconnaissance, returned.

Karen pushed back the hood she was wearing.

Her fierce gaze stood out against her gentle features.

Her demeanor was certainly different from usual.

Perhaps because it was her home ground.

“Enemies.”

“Numbers?”

“Estimated around three hundred. However, they are holding their ground using a sturdy wooden stockade as a shield. The path to it is heavily trapped.”

They were well-prepared, as expected.

There were broadly two options.

Attack.

Or retreat.

I asked the commanders for their opinions.

“They haven't noticed us yet. If we launch a surprise attack, we can definitely win.”

Damas, the captain of the 3rd Company, was for attacking.

“It will take a lot of time to clear the trapped area. We might end up getting bogged down and facing a counterattack.”

Karen's stance was somewhat passive.

“I don't know. This is difficult.”

“We will simply follow the Captain’s orders.”

The other two company captains abstained.

Both opinions were valid.

If we were going to retreat, we wouldn't have come this far in the first place.

But the risk of a counterattack that Karen mentioned was also very real.

‘It will be difficult. You might be able to do it. But there will be quite a few casualties. Considering the battles to come, it would be best to reduce losses by any means necessary.’

Back when I was devising the strategy in Wolfskrig.

I had shared the current operation with the Archduke.

He wasn't negative about the operation itself, but he said that breaking through the forest would result in quite a few casualties.

He wasn't wrong.

In a forest, numbers weren't everything.

The dense trees and undergrowth could themselves become a labyrinth and a natural fortress.

It wouldn't be strange to lose twice the number of the 300 defending troops to break through.

However.

“Tonight. We attack at midnight.”

I had a card he didn't know about.

“Have the members fall back. There's some time left, so let them get enough rest.”

I rubbed the back of my neck, which had become stiff from moving in a state of tension all day, and looked up at the sky.

The sky, nearing sunset, held only the remnants of sunlight and was tinged with a deep navy blue.

In a few hours, even those remnants would disappear, and only the moon and stars would be the sole sources of light in the night sky.

Tonight was the night of the full moon.

* * *

Baron Barrenvold stroked his smooth head.

It was an anxious gesture.

He looked out beyond the stockade with an equally anxious gaze.

In the dark forest.

Flickering torches were gradually approaching.

It was the enemy.

Clang, clang, clang! Clang, clang, clang!

“Put out the fires! Bring the water buckets!”

“Arrows! Where are the arrows?”

The inside of the stockade was already a scene of chaos.

Flaming arrows had landed everywhere.

Soldiers were running around in a panic.

Since more than half of them were mercenaries, no better than back-alley thugs hired on the cheap to fill the numbers, their response to a surprise attack was pathetic.

Of course, strictly speaking, he himself had hired such mercenaries, and he himself had volunteered for the defense mission without proper training.

Still, there was something he believed in.

It was the forty trap hunter mercenaries he had luckily gotten his hands on.

The hunters had spent half a month setting traps throughout the entire nearby forest.

They said it was a trapped area that could stop even ten thousand Imperial soldiers.

“Adjutant! Adjutant!”

“Yes, my Lord Baron.”

“The trapped area. Didn't you say we could stop thousands as long as we had the trapped area.”

“That is….”

Swoosh— Thud!

A flash.

Blood and brains.

And an arrow stuck in his head.

The adjutant fell.

Baron Barrenvold gasped and fell on his butt.

It was then.

Rat-tat-tat-tat! Rat-tat-tat!

A deafening roar came through the darkness.

Soldiers on top of the stockade fell and rolled off, one after another.

“Aaargh!”

He knew it was gunfire.

However, as a former merchant, it was a sound he had never heard before.

The only battles he had experienced were fights between his hired mercenaries and the bandits who targeted his merchant caravan.

Clutching his helmet with one hand, he instinctively ran towards the barracks, when one person caught his eye in the distance.

A subordinate wearing animal skins and holding a bow.

It was the leader of the trap hunters.

“You, hunter! Yes!”

“…My Lord Baron.”

“Yes! Didn't you say the trapped area was impregnable! What is this!”

“It seems the other side has hired rangers.”

The hunter was calm.

At least, that was how it looked to Barrenvold.

He was anxiously fiddling with his bowstring, but it was an action that went unnoticed by Barrenvold.

“What? R-rangers?”

“Rangers have much more experience than we do. We are better at setting traps, but when it comes to dismantling them or other things….”

“So.”

“…Pardon?”

“So what. Are you making excuses right now? Do you know how much money I spent to get the bounty on your heads lifted?”

The hunter's expression soured.

His hand slowly moved from the bowstring to his waist.

However, this action also went unnoticed by Barrenvold.

“Hold on. Hold on, even if you have to sacrifice your lives! If you hold on for three, no, two days, reinforcements will arrive. If you can't hold on until then, you'll be dead men even after the civil war ends… Gaaargh! Kugh!”

A dagger stabbed Barrenvold.

Twice in his fat belly.

Once in the neck.

“Fucking idiot. For a fake noble.”

The massive body slowly collapsed.

As his vision faded, numerous thoughts flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern.

He had lived by the creed that a man should live in a way that would not bring shame to the name his parents gave him.

In line with that creed, he had used any means necessary to bring down rival merchant guilds and became one of the largest traders in the southwest.

Of course, perhaps because he had suffered too much, he briefly resented his parents when he became bald at a young age, just like the other half of his name, but when signs of a civil war appeared, he paid a large sum of money to Marquis Ricardo and was granted the title of Baron.

It was a life peerage that could not be inherited, but that alone was an honor for the family.

And if he could just defend Elkanto Forest, Marquis Ricardo had said he would grant him another title later.

Not the current non-hereditary barony, but a real, inheritable title.

Baron Barrenvold uttered, his voice leaking air, like a last will.

“Not. A fake. Noble…….”

* * *

“Shit.”

Weaver, the trap hunter, fiddled with his bowstring.

It was a habit that came out when he was nervous.

He had stabbed his employer.

He couldn't help it.

He looked around.

There were no witnesses.

Everyone had rushed to the stockade to fend off the attack, so they didn't even know the Baron was dead.

Of course, the fact that they didn't know their commander was dead meant either the commander was incompetent or the soldiers were morons.

Here, it was both.

“Hoo. Hoo.”

Weaver ran in the opposite direction.

He intended to join his brothers who were waiting in a hut.

When the bell announcing the enemy's intrusion rang, he had a bad feeling and had come out alone, leaving his brothers in the hut, which was fortunate.

Fucking Baron bastard.

Telling him to buy time by sacrificing their lives.

Could they even buy time?

It was probably possible.

The trapped area, made of snares, pits, spear blades, falling logs, and the like, was constructed over a very wide area.

Even if the rangers dismantled the traps and secured a path, the path would be narrow and form a bottleneck.

They could easily hunt the enemy by showering them with arrows as they advanced along the narrow path.

The problem was that the number of enemy troops was larger than expected.

When he reported to the Baron, he had said they could stop ten thousand, but of course, that was a lie.

If the enemy continuously threw their troops in successive waves to clear the trapped area, they would be out of options too.

However, it wasn't like there was no way to survive.

He just had to abandon this shitty stockade and hide in the forest.

There were rangers, but surely not all the enemy troops were rangers.

He could hide and watch silently, and if an opportunity arose, he could just slit the throats of some of the troops.

In fact, that was his and his brothers' area of expertise.

They were called trap hunters, but they were actually half-bandits.

Bandits who hid on the roadsides, robbing those who looked easy and letting those who looked difficult pass.

They usually robbed poor travelers, and sometimes they killed people for money or kidnapped women to sell to brothels.

Then a bounty was placed on them, but thanks to the gullible Baron, their identities were temporarily laundered.

That was why he had eagerly participated in the civil war.

If he achieved military merit, he would be granted a pardon.

‘I'll leave this shitty stockade, hide, kill some enemy soldiers, and cut off their ears. If I make the excuse that ‘I did my best to defend but was outnumbered,’ I should be able to get credit for my service.’

Weaver nodded his head.

The plan was perfect.

He had arrived at the hut.

He threw the door open.

“You maggots! Hurry up and pack your… huh?”

They were dead.

All of his brothers.

A gaping hole in the wall. Guts scattered on the floor. Blood covering the table, chairs, and fireplace. Fragmented bodies and limbs.

A moment later, the smell of blood hit his nose.

The hunter's panicked eyes scanned the traces.

With the sharp eyes and archery skills he had earned his living with, the scene was reconstructed in his mind.

Someone had broken through the wall of the log cabin with brute force.

The hunters, who had been sitting around playing cards, were slaughtered without a chance to resist.

They hadn't been killed by swords or spears.

A much larger weapon. Something like a giant axe and a fist the size of a human head. Or a grip with overwhelming strength capable of snapping a spine….

“…Minotaur?”

Grrr. Grrr…….

Huh?

Why are beastmen here….

Guoooooooh-!

* * *

[Deploying [Warrior's Binding].]

[Summoning bound enemies.]

[Summoned troops: Minotaur Warrior (2), Centaur Javeliner (2), Horned One Elite Fighter (4), Horned One Warrior (19), Unhorned One Archer (3), Unhorned One Infantry (6)]