"And where are our troops?" Konrad asked, gaze shifting back and forth between the map and Eyna. "All I've seen were a dozen footmen outside. Shouldn't we have a thousand?"
Nimrod scoffed, waving with a drunken confidence.
"S'more than enough. They're too scared of me to dare attack us."
Right. As if things were that simple.
"Fear won't stop them for long," he claimed. "Somehow, the Demon Lord has returned."
The barracks fell silent.
"Somehow?!" Welf yelled. "What kind of a half-assed explanation is that? Didn't you kill him? Or banish him from this plane or something?! People don't return 'somehow' from the dead."
Yeah, well, he couldn't explain the real reasons in detail.
Like, oh, you know, we formed a band. He's pretty good at the keys, by the way. And we all came back together as friends, before Lucifer—well. Yeah, scratch that.
'Somehow' was the best he could do for now.
"Our troops," Konrad repeated, slamming a hand on the table, ignoring the rest.
The Church girl shuddered.
Stella must have still remembered that fight.
"Our strongest forces are in the base camp near Haiten, My Lord," she muttered, pointing at the map. "I had to scatter the rest along these highways to react to flanking maneuvers."
"Flanking? Through mountains?"
"As I said," Nimrod hollered, "they're afraid. They'd rather dig through stone than face me again. And what small trails they've found so far, my tribes booted them out from 'em."
Right. Maple's wyverns patrolled those, too. And now Stella as well, with, um—
Squirrels. Dead ones.
Kornad couldn't have made that up.
"So, how far do we have eyes?" he asked. "And how far have they been probing?"
She grabbed the map to turn it his way.
"We cover the border from the next kingdom to the north until halfway through Aset to the south. There are no gaps, I made sure of it. And our forces can react within twelve hours."
Hundreds of miles.
How many squirrels did she have?!
Before he'd ask, Helena took over.
"Duke Schwertburg reported attacks, too," she said. "He also rejected the king's orders to let the nomads pass, but has more than adequate forces to cover his side."
"That's a nice way of putting it," Welf grunted. "His army tripled in size since you were gone."
"From what to what?" Konrad asked, brows furrowed.
"About fifteen thousand men," Gabrielle claimed, joining his side at the map.
The place Lily had already decided only belonged to her.
She didn't exactly hiss at the angel, but she did everything short of that while still clinging to his side. Grumbling, angry glances, and most of all, almost shattering Konrad's ribs.
She was way too strong for someone so tiny and cute.
And Gabrielle continued despite all that.
"While Vargas didn't say outright, it seems obvious that they're ready to invade us."
"They what?!" Konrad groaned, struggling to concentrate with all the distractions.
To make matters worse, the always shy and silent Eyna was pushing closer, too. Her small hands found his despite Lily's tight embrace, her soft voice taking over the report.
"He wants his daughter back, Master," she whispered. "But says it's to protect Kasserlane."
Daughter?
Right. Gabrielle. Great.
He wanted to extract himself before suffocating, but the demoness had other ideas.
"So, apart from the Demon Lord's main forces, we have to watch our backs, too?" Konrad panted, feeling as if his eyes were about to pop. His strained voice finally alerted Lily.
Her grasp loosened, but only a little.
Oh, sweet, sweet air.
Whose great idea was to marry a greater demon?
"So, who else wants to stab us in the back?" he asked, rubbing his sides. Nimrod was his first guess, but he went with "King Ronald, Duke Schwertburg? And what do we have to stop them?"
"We have the Rogue Rejects," Welf said with a shrug, "And Helena's knights. Your nobles' men."
"Numbers," Konrad grunted. "I want actual numbers."
"Two hundred men-at-arms," Eyna countered. "Two hundred town guards in Halaima. About five hundred militiamen, but their numbers still fluctuate. And three hundred irregulars."
Yeah. The kind of report he wanted, but not the numbers he hoped to hear.
"What's an irregular?" he asked, only to see Nimrod beating his chest.
"My men. Tribal warriors," his twin claimed with pride. "They can sneak through the forest, climb the mountains, stalk the prey. Strike, and disappear before they knew what hit them."
"So, guerrillas," he noted.
Useful, but not in a straight, open battle—or even in this narrow pass.
He could have used them to harass logistics, but that wouldn't stop the nomads outright.
"What'd you say?!" Nimrod demanded with a bit of a delay.
And whether it was because he didn't hear him, or didn't know what the word meant, Konrad didn't have the chance to find out.
"Never mind, they're yours to command, of course."
It took him a second to notice that Stella summoned her staff again.
So that's how things were?
The bastard was so terrified of the necromancer that—
Okay, no, Konrad could blame him.
"So we have a thousand men to defend this place against—how many nomads exactly?"
He never got a clear report before, but they had a month to count them.
They must have figured it out by now.
"A hundred and fifty thousand horsemen," Eyna dropped a number he wasn't ready for. "Plus minus ten thousand, because they move fast and are hard to count. And their auxiliaries—"
"Okay, stop," Konrad pleaded. "That plus minus alone is ten times what we have."
He could have plugged the pass with them for some time. As long as they didn't bring the big guns, but the Demon Lord wasn't stupid. Who knew what Lucifer wanted him to do?
And why?
Everything he wanted—Maou and Konrad back here, alive—was done.
He even got rid of the dragoness without meaning to. Konrad played right into the fallen angel's hands. And now, he was less confident in fighting his minions than ever.
"So, when will you attack?" Lily asked in the most innocent voice imaginable.
His eyes widened.
"Attack?! Weren't you listening? We can't even hold on, if—"
Wait, no, he shouldn't ruin what little morale they had left.
"Come on, we're here, too," the little ginger pouted. "What's a few hundred thousand men?"
Sigh.
"I'm amazed by your confidence, but Maou Midori can still banish you, you know."
And now that Konrad had seen it in action—hell, he even supplied the mana for his spell.
"Well, of course, you'll take care of Meow Midori yourself," Lily said with a smirk. "But Gabby and I can open a path for you at the very least. Right, Gabrielle?"
To his greatest dismay, the angel didn't even argue with her, only nodding.
"Wait, hold on," he raised both hands in surrender. "You want me to fight him alone?!"
"I'm sure Stella Nord will volunteer to help," the angel claimed.
Ugh. It was the Church girl's turn to go pale, but she didn't protest, either.
"You can't be serious," Konrad had done it in her stead. "Last time we fought him three against one, it was a tie. And compared to that, we're short on one dragon now."
"But you're stronger," Lily claimed with some enigmatic confidence. "Or will be."
"What?!" When? How?
He still didn't have a minute to practice or learn those new spells he had wanted for so long.
But for the first time, Gabrielle seemed to be in complete agreement with the demoness.
"He has to be," she said. "We have already decided."