Chapter 28

  Marching all the way to Garoshek would have been a simple, straightforward thing to do on a simple, straightforward path devoid of a jungle of black, lava-filled trees, if not for the tiny issue of not wanting to be noticed by enemy forces. As my luck would have it, the only feasible way to remain as undetected as possible was to trek through the Wilds. The whole thing was a right pain in the ass. Not so much for navigation — on account of the map provided by the RMS — but for a certain notion I was holding; rightly or wrongly, I was under the impression that a ruling demon lord had to lead by example and without demanding of his retinue things he himself wouldn’t or couldn’t do. It kind of made sense as demons seemed to place a huge importance on personal power and ability. So, I trudged forward without complaining about being exhausted to point of wanting to drop to the ground like an army mechanic after having to examine and fix a hundred APCs, or about the generous amount of wildlife the forest was throwing at us every five minutes with the intention to make a meal out of us. On the upside, the 17 levels of my human body hiding under my SAC let me get away with pushing myself beyond what would be considered even remotely normal for my species, and I was managing to avoid the indignity of falling behind my troops in terms of speed.

  I was getting familiar with the advantages and limits of my new self: when to run, when to slow down to catch my breath, when to take a short break, when to sleep. I had been rather shocked to learn I didn’t need as much sleep as I had thought. I had to give credit where credit was due: the annoying, sentient sword had been of some help. Alright, tremendous help. While Button was a huge source of information, very often I wouldn’t really know what questions to even ask him, and he only responded to inquiries. My self-proclaimed item set manager, on the other hand, had countless centuries’ worth of experience with how levels worked, and usually after a bit of sweet-talking, he would be quite ready to share.

  Nine days had passed quickly this way. In those nine days I had been constantly worried about Flamey, about Scaragar, about my plan and even about Tarashak. I had been in contact with the archmage regularly; I had been pestering him for updates, through the RMS, as many times a day as I could to the point of him being so annoyed he had to introduce a strict twice-a-day briefing regime, which he would keep short and to the point.

  A few hours after we had left Scaragar, the first ten thousand minotaurs had arrived. There hadn’t been an attack, they had simply made sure to surround and isolate the hill on which the town was situated, no in or out. On the second day approximately another fifty thousand had arrived, taking up positions in the valleys and on the slopes and tops of the closest hills to Scaragar, but still no attack. The third day nothing had happened, and the defenders of the town had watched the minotaur masses moving around, hunting the Wilds, setting up camps, and getting on with the activities expected of a besieging army. On the fourth day even more had arrived, filling the surrounding landscapes with enemy troops — Tarashak had been unable to even estimate the numbers at that point — and the first probing attacks had begun. The Third Ring didn’t seem to have many mages, but on that day the first magical assault had taken place in the form of a hundred or so minotaur mages unleashing spells that manipulated the earth itself, tearing chunks out of the hillside, attempting to pulverise the walls and gates, and so on. My purchases had proved their worth: the defensive magical emplacements that were making the walls, the gates — and possibly the hill itself — stronger and tougher, had laughed in the face of the enemy and refused to collapse or suffer any considerable damage. I was sure the minotaurs would have to do this the old fashion way and charge up the hill and the walls, and try to take the town with blood, sweat and brawn. Just like marines would do. I had been getting a little worried by the ninth day: Flamey had flown the drone out for the first time, Tarashak watching the control panel screen with her, and after an hour of flight-time he had estimated the enemy to be over a million, the minotaur armies stretching out kilometres in every direction around the hill. The damned Third Ringers could build a scaffold out of the bodies of their own troops and climb up the hill and the walls that way. But as of the ninth day, still no proper assault had taken place; the few probing attacks had been dispatched quickly and easily. It was both a good and a bad thing, really; if the enemy wasn’t in a hurry, it meant they had bought into the idea that I was there and felt confident they had time to plan. On the other hand, even though my plan had been working so far, less than six thousand defenders against a million invaders was unnerving. No matter how defensible a position was, there were always limits, unexpected events, and just plain bad luck that could happen at any moment. Not to mention at this point the success of my mission was a firm hope rather than a certainty, and Scaragar had to hold out until I made it happen.

  Tarashak shared my worries.

  [Ahhh. I don’t know what they’re waiting for. They have the numbers, and it wouldn’t be unheard of the minotaur scum to send a hundred thousand of their soldiers right up the hill to be slaughtered. They’re waiting for something, and I don’t know what it is. Their mages have proved already that their skills with earth-spells aren’t up to the task, so I believe their only option really is their tried and tested “overwhelm with numbers” approach.]

  [How are you progressing, Hellfire Lord? Are you there yet? Your heir is getting on my nerves, she’s teaching her personal guards about princesses, and I don’t think I’ll be able to stand this for long. You need to get that gate under control then come back and take the brat off me.]

  The archmage concluded his second report on the ninth day, and I grinned to myself; good going, Flamey!

  ‘Well, glad to hear things are calm for the moment, but be ready for anything!’ I replied to him via the RMS function in the “generals” menu. ‘If I can believe my map, in a few hours we’ll reach the edge of the Wilds at a point quite near Garoshek. Then we’ll scout out the place and see if there’s a way to get in and out of the city. If there is, we’ll go in, resupply and recruit, if not, we’ll move on the Orroth.’

  [We’re always ready for anything, we hardly sleep here. In any case, I don’t have anything else to report except that your heir is sending you “lots of hugs”, whatever those are. Hellfire Lord, now we’ve had our two exchanges, so don’t you dare contacting me again today asking me how your “sweetheart Flamey” is doing, or I swear I will send her out to teach minotaurs about the differences between a crown and a tiara. I’ve had enough of this human nonsense for the day.]

  ‘You have my word general. I’ll check in tomorrow morning. Or if there’s an emergency. A real one, I mean.’

  [Good stuff. Oh no, now I’m talking like you. Aaah. And I thought the Third Ring scum were bad. Alright, tomorrow morning, if nothing happens before then.]

  ‘Over and out, general,’ I said, and there was no reply, he had closed the connection already. I turned to my dirty and worn-down retinue. ‘Alright, people, let’s get moving, we have a whole city to explore and exploit!’

  ***

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  As I stepped out of the forest, leaving the last of the blackened, stone-like lava-trees behind, the view was different from what I’d expected. Actually, I wasn’t even sure what I had expected, but I was glad to see the burning sky once again over a vast open space spreading out below us. The ground sloped down in front of me, the forest being on higher ground as if on a plateau, the edge lined with jagged, white rocks. The city of Garoshek was there in the distance, some five or six kilometres away on the plains stretching out below, a terrain pockmarked with craters and littered with white rock formations of all sizes. Quite the sharp contrast to all the dark trees, soil, rocks and hills I’d seen so far. Then again, we were about three-hundred kilometres north of Scaragar now; even on Earth and on other planets the scenery could change drastically with such distances. I jogged to the edge of the plateau and threw myself onto the ground, peering out from behind one of the rocks.

  ‘Alright, let me take a quick look,’ I said to my troops as they followed my example and laid down on their bellies.

  ‘I can see the city is surrounded still,’ Reinos commented as he narrowed his yellow eyes at the view. ‘I can’t tell how many though.’

  I got my rifle off my back and aimed it at our target, hoping the optical zoom of the targeting system would be able to tell me what was going on down there. Perhaps I could even spot some suitable gaps in the enemy’s ranks, large enough for us to sneak through. The zoom function did its job well, and I could observe ranks upon ranks of enemy formations, each with their own camps and their own emplacements.

  ‘Would you look at that?’ I muttered,

  ‘What is it, Lord?’ Reinos inquired.

  ‘The enemy is entrenched around the city,’ I said to him, shaking my head.

  They had built long, tall mounds and trenches around their camps, with large spikes sticking out of them facing the city, probably to slow down or even stop any breakout attempts. Their spacing was good enough; a hundred or so metres from the gates and walls, with hundreds of minotaurs standing guard behind them. The earthen fortifications had gaps every fifty or so metres, maybe three or four metres wide, so minotaurs could get through in case they wanted to assault the walls — although it seemed like they lacked the numbers to do so. I could see remnants of abandoned camps further back from their forward positions, which by my estimate meant at least half if not more of them had been pulled away from this siege to join another at Scaragar. This seemed to have left this place with a by-the-book stalemate: considering the city had a garrison — which was a defence-oriented organisation as opposed to an army with a general at the head — the minotaurs didn’t have much to worry about. Conversely, the Third Ringers didn’t have the numbers to mount an assault against the walls with any hope of success, so they were content to keep the residents bottled up inside. This stalemate of course suited the minotaur king more than it suited us, but here we were. I could only see one side of the city, but if the enemy was consistent with their encirclement, their total numbers would be around thirty to forty thousand at most, with ample gaps between their formations. Could we make it to the city walls? Maybe.

  ‘Alright. You said there are smaller, hidden gates in those walls, and that they’d be blocked and guarded from the inside, correct?’ I turned back to Reinos.

  ‘Yes, Lord. I saw them last time I visited the city,’ the mage replied, nodding. ‘If we can get to one of them unnoticed, and convince the guards inside it’s not an enemy trick, they’d let us in.’

  ‘Okay, that sounds like a plan,’ I agreed, then turned to the two scout demons pressing themselves to the ground on my other side. ‘Zag, Iska! I want you to go down there and see if there’s enough room for us to sneak through the enemy lines and make it to one of those small gates, wherever they are. Can you do it?’

  Zagrathar and Iskaret, the two demons who had not only chosen skills for scouting and sneaking but had perfected them, nodded.

  ‘Sure thing, Lord,’ Zag, the male member of the stealthy duo growled with a lipless grin on his blood-red face.

  ‘Thought you’d never ask, Lord,’ Iska, the undisputed — and self-proclaimed — queen of covert operations grinned even harder, trying to outdo her counterpart.

  ‘Good.’ I nodded to them. ‘Observe everything on your way: number of enemy units, their command structure, their placements, any gaps, weaknesses, and once you’re in the city, have a look at the other sides from the walls as well. And if you can, assess the fighting strength of the garrison and the residents. Tell them we’re here to recruit, and maybe, just maybe, to break the siege if possible.’

  ‘Yes, Lord!’ the scouts chorused.

  I had gotten to know my ten escorts reasonably well during our trek here, and I had seen the pair of them blending in with the trees of the forest to the point even I could barely see them, sneaking up on unsuspecting monsters in absolute silence. I considered demons their size doing that a remarkable feat, and while I had never asked them what sort of skills they had, my conclusion was that they’d chosen well. And since both Reinos and Grashon — who had known them for decades — vouched for their abilities, I was confident they were the right demons for the job; if there was a way through and in, they’d find it.

  As it turned out, titles like “warrior”, “soldier”, “mage” or “scout” weren’t an innate, unalienable part of a demon; they were job titles, not unlike my “Hellfire Lord of the Fourth Ring”. They came with skills that would become available as a demon got better at his chosen profession, and The Genius would offer more related skills later as they levelled their initial skills. The Upstairs world had something similar going on — according to Button — but they called them “classes” up there, and unlike a demon’s title, they couldn’t be changed. Once a human or other surface world creature got a class, he was stuck with it as an integral part of his being and had no choice but to level its associated skills until the day he died. A demon, on the other hand, had the option to change jobs — the condition being that he started doing that second job already and became proficient enough to be offered a related skill. A fresh start so to speak. Demons could even keep some of their existing skills from the previous job if it was usable in any way shape or form in the course of his new job. Zag and Iska, for instance, had become scouts after spending a decade as soldiers. I hadn’t asked for more details, but I imagined they had at some point realised that they liked going out on their own to explore — or to sneakily slit some throats with their curved daggers — instead of the mass, bloody brawls a demonic battle was. And since some soldier and warrior skills were useful for scouts, too, they had got to keep many of them. Even Reinos had been something else; he used to be a guard for some time, but he had started using Hell Mana to form and cast spells, and voila, he’d been offered his initial magic skill and thus stepping onto a new path, changing his title to mage. Grashon — by far the largest demon in my retinue — had always been a warrior and would always be one. His words.

  The two scouts sprang into action — which meant they crawled forward between the white rocks, slithering down the slope onto the plains. I watched them making their way forward quickly at first, then slowing down to moving ahead carefully, sometimes sprinting from one larger rock to another, sometimes creeping and crouching. Soon I had to go back to using my targeting system’s zoom and watch them through my NeuroHUD as the distance increased, and when they reached one of the numerous abandoned campsites and were getting close to the ones still being used, I lost sight of them completely. These scout demons were good at their jobs, weren’t they? And it was up to them now to find us a way in, and it was up to us to wait patiently for them to come back. Which we would have done, if I hadn’t spotted a column of minotaurs and some other beast demons I had not seen before, heading our way from another part of the encirclement.

  ‘Reinos, Grashon, we’ve got company,’ I informed the two senior demons.

  ‘We … what? Company? What does that mean, Boss?’ Grashon inquired in his usual manner.

  ‘An enemy formation is heading this way. Right there,’ Reinos said, looking in the same direction I was pointing my rifle at.

  ‘I … see something there,’ Grashon exclaimed after squinting his eyes for a couple of seconds. ‘They know we’re here, or what?’

  ‘Probably not. Or not yet anyway. They might be a hunting party heading to the forest. Troops must eat and the EXP doesn’t hurt either,’ the mage commented calmly in a matter-of-fact tone.’

  ‘Well, that’s all well and good, but it looks like they’re heading straight towards us.’ I observed.

  ‘Back to the forest?’ Reinos asked.

  ‘Back to the forest.’ I confirmed.

  And with that, we crawled back into the monster infested nightmare-land from whence we had come forth not ten minutes before.