I Became the Commander in a Trash Game Who Copies Skills

Chapter 54. Indika (1)

During my stay in Wolfskrig after returning from the secret mission.

While busy training the reorganized mercenary band and continuing my personal training and research, I took time to visit the lord's castle and meet with Archduke Gabir.

It was to review the scenarios of the upcoming civil war and devise response strategies.

War is full of variables, but surprisingly, the major flow itself can be grouped into chunks called scenarios.

Those scenarios are listed as local conflicts, the formation of fronts around key points, the gathering of armies, skirmishes between division-sized units, light clashes, total mobilization, and finally, a full-scale battle.

The current situation is roughly at the fourth stage.

The division-sized units of the Imperial army and the rebels are probing each other from a close distance.

According to the shared information, the 3rd Division, commanded by Archduke Gabir, is expected to initiate the first clash.

“I expect a battle to break out at the main force within a day or two.”

I shared the situation with the members.

It would be a light clash at first.

Depending on the outcome of that clash, there might be a slight change in the front line, but that would be all.

What's important is what comes after.

After the initial battle, both sides' armies will be repeatedly reinforced, and after searching for an advantageous battlefield, they will finally clash with a bang in a large-scale battle.

In the process leading up to the decisive battle that marks the end of the war, all attention from both sides will be focused on the enemy in front.

Naturally, the guard on the rear will be reduced.

We will aim for that gap.

“We retake the village first. The principle is to receive minimum supplies but never to plunder. Remember. We are at war with the rebels. Not the people of the Empire.”

My plan is as follows.

While the enemy's attention is focused on the front.

We will bypass them and disrupt their rear.

The villages will be retaken peacefully.

The fortresses will be attacked and captured.

We will subdue supply caravans and capture messengers carrying dispatches.

Before long, the rebel main force led by Marquis Ricardo will also sense the anomaly.

But by then, it will be too late.

By that time, his main force will be facing the Emperor's army.

If he shows even the slightest opening in front of the Iron-Blooded Emperor, he will be thoroughly trampled from head to tailbone by the Pegasus Knights.

Even if, by some chance, he dispatches a large force, it doesn't matter.

A division-sized army is slow due to its numbers, and we can just use our small-scale mobility to avoid a clash.

As a result, Marquis Ricardo's attention will be constantly divided.

The Emperor I know will never miss that opportunity.

That was the plan.

But.

“……Captain.”

“By Luark. What in the world.”

“My goodness.”

I felt it once again.

Reading the state of a war is truly a difficult task.

You can read the general flow and prepare to some extent, but it's impossible to predict all the variables.

Just as there are many investors who claim to have read the flow of the macroeconomy based on numerous indicators and policies, but none who can predict sudden shocks like war or epidemics.

Such a person would not be called an investor but a self-proclaimed prophet or a conspiracy theorist, becoming an object of ridicule.

I felt that when we arrived to retake our first target, Canyonrock Village.

“Karen, any survivors?”

“None.”

Everyone was dead.

Regardless of age or gender, all the villagers.

* * *

There is an argument that investing is more about reacting than predicting.

Especially short-term traders who buy and sell over a few hours or days use that expression a lot.

Although I'm ignorant enough about investing to have only put about 100,000 won into crypto following a friend, if I were to give my personal opinion, I think both prediction and reaction are necessary.

If prediction prepares for the long-term flow, reaction solves the variables that are right in front of you.

At least, that's how it is in Warlord Conquest, where the stakes are not money but lives.

“There are no ambushes or traps.”

“Looking at the state of decomposition, it seems to have been about three or four days.”

“Captain, the livestock and grain have all been plundered. This isn't a bandit who's only after valuables, but a predatory supply run.”

A scene of massacre.

I analyzed the remaining traces.

To find the culprits who massacred over two hundred villagers overnight and created this hellscape.

“…Those sons of bitches deserve to be torn to shreds.”

“How can they do this while wearing human skin?”

The members' anger was at its peak.

Although it was wartime, they had murdered innocent citizens of the Empire.

Personally, I'm not one to be bound by grand causes, but the members' morale is directly linked to such justifications.

No matter how little human life is valued in this era, this level of organized civilian massacre touches the conscience deep inside a person.

It would be even more so since most of the mercenary band was born in the Empire.

Of course, even without such reasons, it was also a direct and indirect threat to our army.

It had already ruined our plan to peacefully receive supplies from the village and blocked our planned route to the west.

They might even have noticed our presence and decided to attack.

The scout team that was sent out for reconnaissance returned.

“Karen, did you find any tracks?”

“Yes. They lead to the northwest.”

“Numbers?”

“Around two thousand. But there are footprints of a beast I don't know. Much larger than a horse or an ox, but not a giant either….”

Karen's brow furrowed.

I examined the footprints in question.

They could certainly be called those of a beast.

First, the size of the sole was much larger than a human head.

The number of toes was also four on some, and five on others.

But this, this was an animal I knew.

“It's an elephant.”

“An elephant… sir?”

“Or a mammoth. But a mammoth wouldn't be able to come this far down. It's too hot.”

“……Ah.”

Karen tilted her head.

It seemed that even for a ranger of the Empire, an elephant was an unfamiliar animal.

Well, even in the medieval era, only nobles with active foreign exchanges knew about elephants; to commoners, they were close to imaginary animals.

But Karen.

Didn't you say you were from the northern grand duchy?

In the northern grand duchy, they raise mammoths, which are similar to elephants, for combat.

Why doesn't she know?

“I know that the City-States, the Indika Kingdom, and a bit farther, the petty kingdoms of the southern continent tame elephants and use them as war machines.”

Olif approached.

He was certainly knowledgeable in this area.

By the way, this man.

His gaze had changed after consuming the elixir.

Before, he felt like an old man holding onto his aged body with a strong will….

Now, it was as if only his shell was white-haired and wrinkled, while he was like a vigorous young man.

“I know that Marquis Ricardo was in charge of diplomatic negotiations with Indika when he was young.”

“I see.”

I returned to the village where the members were waiting.

Although my opinion was the same as Olif's, it was necessary to be certain.

Among the thousands of playthroughs, those three countries had never once interfered in the Empire's civil war.

At most, the Theocracy, the Northern Kingdom, or the City-States would offer passive support.

‘Or an orc or vampire invasion would happen at a bad time.’

Anyway, this was a first.

That meant this incident was also a variable I didn't know about.

It was highly likely that it was created through the World Scenario 4.0 update.

I gathered the members and opened the granary.

The ones who had committed the organized massacre had piled the corpses in the village granary and left them there.

The two hundred or so villagers were becoming a small hill, decaying.

“Ugh. Bleargh.”

“Cough! Kugh….”

A sight that turned the stomachs of even mercenaries.

I went inside.

I began the search, personally moving the corpses.

The mercenaries who were helping me ran out and vomited after just a few minutes.

It was a natural reaction.

If it weren't for [Lord’s Unyielding Mind], I would have joined them in making a pajeon right now.

“Was it a rye pancake instead of a pajeon?”

“Ugh. Dammit. Huh, yes? What did you say?”

“Yesterday's menu was rye bread and lamb stew… no, never mind.”

It seemed the stench of the corpses was putting a small dent in even my steel-like mentality.

Fortunately, I soon found what I was looking for.

It wasn't the corpse of a villager, but that of a half-naked man.

“He's a slave soldier from the Indika Kingdom.”

Olif was right.

A nation probably created by the developers with inspiration from India.

A country that appeared only after crossing beyond the Theocracy and the City-States south of the Empire, and passing through a vast, uninhabited land.

The kingdom of slaves and sorcery, Indika.

“Damn it.”

I couldn't tell why they had sent an army all the way across the world to the Empire.

There must have been some kind of deal with Marquis Ricardo, but I didn't think that alone would justify the enormous expense of dispatching troops.

But that wasn't what was important right now.

“Everyone, prepare for battle.”

Indika's sorcery could eavesdrop on communication crystal balls.

Our position has been compromised.

***

‘We will proceed with the operation as planned. The first target is Canyonrock Village.’

Yesterday morning.

I had reported Canyonrock Village as our target during my communication with the Archduke.

One might call it complacent, and perhaps it was.

However, the variable of eavesdropping had been completely ruled out.

Not only were cases of foreign powers intervening in the Empire’s civil war rare, but Indika's participation was entirely unprecedented.

It was like the Ming Dynasty suddenly joining the Hundred Years' War between England and France.

Even if I could go back, I would have made the same choice, unless I could read the future.

In any case, now that it had happened, there was no time to look back.

“Move it, move it! This way!”

“3rd Company! To your positions!”

We reorganized the troops.

As if our past training hadn't been in vain, they moved nimbly under the command of the four company and platoon leaders.

We formed our ranks with the plundered village at our backs.

This was because the village was situated on a relatively high, hilly terrain.

“Goodness me, is it even possible to just listen in on a communication crystal ball like that? I heard the nobles even use them to cheat on their spouses.”

Once we had a moment to breathe, Brol belatedly made a fuss.

I gave him a simple explanation.

About the fact that the communication crystal ball itself originated from over there.

The story that the current model was the result of the White Magic Tower, one of the Empire's four great magic towers, importing and recklessly modifying Indika's crystal ball sorcery.

“…I see. I don’t understand a single word of what you just said.”

“……”

Why did he even ask, then?

In any case, the enemy was not yet in sight.

There was likely still some distance between us.

At the time of the eavesdropping, they had probably already left the village.

Judging by the state of the corpses’ decay, the enemy had plundered Canyonrock Village three to four days ago.

Assuming they had turned back immediately, they would be about a day or two away by now.

Since we didn't know when the enemy would appear, I had the men rest in shifts while maintaining maximum alert.

However, as we were on guard against an unseen, unknown enemy, not a few members harbored doubts.

The representative of that opinion was the 3rd Company's captain, the former leader of the Black Helm Mercenary Band.

“With all due respect, sir, do you really think they will come for us?”

It was a reasonable question.

Olif provided the answer.

“We're a mercenary band isolated in enemy territory, are we not?”

“……?”

“Put yourself in that army's position. Wouldn't we look like a delicious piece of prey?”

“Ah…!”

That was right.

From the intercepted communication, the enemy had learned that we were a mercenary band.

They were on Marquis Ricardo's side.

To be precise, they were reinforcements who had come to aid the rebels in a distant foreign land.

Of course, the fact that they had burned an innocent village and massacred its residents did raise some questions.

Razing a village on the rebel's side would only serve to strengthen the pro-imperial faction's position.

What could their motive be?

I couldn't know for now.

But that wasn't what was important at the moment.

What was important was the fact that they were the rebels' reinforcements, and they could earn merit by eliminating us.

“They would want to build up achievements to be able to demand anything later. Eliminating a special operations team that has infiltrated the rear is quite a meritorious deed.”

An army of 2,000, including war elephants.

A force that could easily trample a mere mercenary band.

But there was a catch.

The enemy had only limited information about us.

Just as Brol had muttered while scratching his beard through his helmet.

“Aren't they just rushing over all excited because they don’t know our numbers? Thinking we’re only about three or four hundred strong?”

We waited for a day.

The next morning.

As expected, the enemy revealed themselves.

As expected, it was Indika's regular army of two thousand troops, including an artillery unit and war elephants.

“Do not be afraid.”

[Deploying [Commander’s Roar].]

[Deploying [Lord’s Unyielding Mind].]

I stood at the very front, with my back to my members.

I will get straight to the point.

We only needed to eliminate two threats.

The elephants.

And the artillery.

Between the two, the artillery was the more dangerous.

Because we had no artillery of our own.

However, I had prepared something for this very moment.

[Deploying [Small Subspace].]

I reached into my breast pocket and took out an amulet from the subspace.

This was a masterpiece, his life's work, created one hundred and fifty years ago by the vampire Count Kashutal to counter the threat of the dwarven artillery.

Its effect was simple.

To reflect any non-magical projectile exceeding a certain mass and velocity.