Reincarnated into a Game as the Hero’s Friend - Chapter 5

“Depart!”

With one order from the Crown Prince accompanied by the sounds of trumpets, the army departed. It’s made up of about 4,200 infantry and cavalry combined, 300 mercenaries, and lastly, the unit that is placed at the rearmost is the support unit made of about 100 students.

The supplies that the army brought are few. The reason why is because of time. The battlefield is located too close to the capital, so taking too much time for preparation can be dangerous. Thanks to that, the army movement is quite fast. However, there is no way for the aristocratic army who have their territory stationed in the provinces to be able to make it in time. So this army is mostly made up of people only in the capital.

Another reason why this army’s preparations are lacking is probably that they underestimated this demon outbreak because usually, their scale is small. It makes sense though since unlike me they have no information from the game.

To make up for the lack of supplies, they will send more people, something along that line I guess.

The main forces are 2300 people from the First Division and Second Division of the capital’s knights and 300 people from the Royal Guard.

The rest are 1,000 people from various noble’s private armies, along with 300 mercenaries. The number may seem to not add up, but the 1,000 people didn’t include slaves brought by nobles.

Well, since the combat ability of slaves is low, they are brought only to inflate numbers.

The way the slaves are treated in this world is quite different from what is often depicted in other games. Here, they are properties that were bought with a lot of money. Harsh treatment to the point of killing them is just too wasteful.

On the contrary, a skilled slave can make more money than a random soldier. A drawback of being a slave is that they have no freedom to emigrate, but other than that their life can be quite comfortable. In that sense, their treatment is similar to how ancient roman treated their slaves.

By the way, the Zeavert’s army didn’t bring any slaves because I insisted.

Honestly, the first time I learned that this world has a slavery system, I was pretty shocked. The game didn’t mention them.

It’s probably because, again, the game developers may think that it’s a useless detail. The game didn’t have any slave characters after all.

Or maybe the slavery system is introduced in a new update after I died? 30 years is a long time after all, is this what people call a generation gap?

Anyway, let’s move on.

For a noble’s knight, usually, one person will be assigned with 3-5 orderly. That also applies to the knights of Zeavert’s, or rather Zeavert and its relatives’ noble houses’ army. There are 15 knights, 71 orderly, plus hunters and porters that we barely managed to recruit, for a grand total of 103 people. Including me, it’s 104. Considering the fact that the demon outbreak is a sudden incident, gathering this number is already pretty good.

(T/N: Orderly/batman is a person assigned to a military officer or knight as a personal servant.)

Anyway, our participation is only for show. The fact that despite being a count household our number is small is not a problem.

The situation of other noble’s armies is not that different. Those barons only brought 3-5 people. They are probably only here because of their obligation, same as the students.

We do get some curious stares. Mainly because despite being small in number, we have a lot of luggage.

“However, is dividing the army like this truly necessary?”

The person that asked me this is Max Lyman, captain of the knights employed by Zeavert’s household and the de facto commander of this army.

Actually, the amount of knights employed in a noble’s household is not enough to create an official knight division, so Max’s title ‘captain’ is more of what people often call him rather than an actual position.

Max is a man in his late forty. He looks exactly like how a ‘power fighter’ is with his large build. He’s an excellent and loyal knight with great ability at commanding troops. Max is also one of my father’s trusted subordinates.

Despite his excellence, Max shares one common problem of this world’s knights, the tendency to think that their own personal might is everything. But, in the current situation, personal might alone is not enough.

“It won’t be good if our people got injured here.”

“If you said so……”

The tone of his voice is full of doubt. It’s not like I can just tell him we’re going to a sure-lose battle. He won’t disobey me, so I guess it’s fine.

The orders that I’ve given are not that complex anyway.

Five knights will form a five-man team and one knight will be chosen as the team’s commander, while the other has to strictly follow his command. The five-man team leader is literally called a five-man commander.

I also created 3 platoons, each with around 30 members, and appointed 3 people as its commanders. This created a more efficient chain of command since I and my lieutenant Max only need to give orders to those 3 people.

The five-man was the smallest unit of the army at the time of the ancient Rome empire and ancient Chinese. The army as a whole is also usually led by a representative team of five members.

I don’t know why it’s five, not six, seven, or eight, but it’s something that the two warmonger countries used for their army, so it must be more suitable for a real battle than something like the Dunbar’s number that’s created by scientists.

(T/N: Dunbar’s number is a theory that says the maximum number of people that a person can maintain a stable relationship with are 150 people.)

In a chaotic war, the number of people one normal person can lead is five. Maybe in an everyday situation, five is also the limit of members that a team leader can properly lead since this world doesn’t have any real-time communication system.

The groups of hunters are all under my direct command. When in a pinch, their only role is to hurl our luggage at the enemy on my signal.

I doubt their ability to execute a more complicated command properly, so this is enough.

“As His Highness and Royal Grandson’s first campaign, this feels a bit too plain…”

“I guess..”

Augen, one of the knights that I appointed as a platoon commander, said that, while here I am, my head hurts after remembering what’s going to happen.

The Crown Prince and The Royal grandson will both die in this battle. Along with the news of the disastrous defeat of the knight order, this news is probably going to be the talk of the town. If possible, I want to prevent their death but that might be too difficult.

Now that I think about it, this kingdom’s king is really energetic, huh. I mean The Crown Prince is 38 and The Royal Grandson, i.e his son, is 10, but The Second Princess is like 15-16.

While thinking about that useless information, we finally arrived at the forest where the outbreak is reported to be.

When I looked back at the capital’s wall, it looked small. I think the distance from here to there is about 4-5 km?

It might be doable for cavalry, but that distance will be too much for infantry with full armor to run.

Is it just me, or is there a creepy feeling coming out of the forest? My horse started to quiver from the fright, and I stroked it gently to calm it down.

Then, under The Crown Prince’s order, the army started to create a formation – first division at the center, second division at the right flank, and the noble-adventurer army at the left flank.

Won’t the left flank collapse first? is what I thought. But well, it is not like I’m a strategist so maybe I’m just the one that doesn’t understand the situation correctly.

The left flank commander is Marquis Norporth, a noble from the north who looks like a dandy uncle. His family has been protecting the border and maintaining the public order in the north so he’s a perfect choice for a commander. He didn’t appear in the game, so I don’t know what kind of person he is.

He might not have the game knowledge, but still, he’s the commander that underestimated this outbreak and recklessly ordered the left flank to charge. I don’t think I can rely on him too much.

“Gather the knights!”

“Yes, sir!”

Max relayed my order to the platoon commander and they brought their knights. Good, the chain of command at least functioned.

When all the knights were gathered, I told them the strategy we were going to use.

It’s a strategy that can minimize losses in this sure-lose battle.