Reincarnated into a Game As the Hero’s Friend

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The next day, I told the Pledgers about the possibility that the town might be attacked by demons in a meeting. I used the ‘secret information from the royal family’ as an excuse about how I got this information. The room became a bit chaotic and there were some Pledgers who were asking for proof, but I silenced them by telling them to get their proof from His Majesty or His Highness.

I know that this information is hard to believe, but if this information is true, we might all get eaten if you all did not listen to my words! I said that sort of thing to them. Well, more than half of my words were empty threats, though.

“Viscount Welner is rumored to be close to the saintess-sama. As such, it would not be strange if the oracle that is only known in the royal family was to be leaked to the Viscount.”

With the temple head’s follow up, everyone believed in me. I sent a grateful gaze to the temple head.

“Because of that, there is something that I want to ask all of Sirs here.”

“What is it, sir?”

“I’ll build a fort here.”

I pointed to the location on the map. There was no particular reaction from the Pledgers. I guess that’s just how people with no military experience would react.

“This fort won’t hold out for long. As for why, I can’t tell you the details. On the other hand, the battle that will break out in this fort will serve as a signal to proceed with the plan.”

“The plan?”

“Yes. That’s why I ask the Sirs here to take care of the evacuation of the villages near the town when a battle breaks out in this fort.”

After I said that, the expression of the Pledgers finally changed. Well, I understood that the lives of villagers of the region were more important to the Pledgers compared to the life of a governor from the capital who virtually just fell from the sky. I could only smile wryly in my mind. For the time being, I continued my explanation while keeping a poker face.

First, I told the Pledgers about the situation that happened in Count Fleethem’s territory. I told them exactly what I saw, although it was a memory that I didn’t want to recall. The Pledgers’ faces turned pale after hearing my story.

“I want to lessen the victims as much as possible. That is why I need Sirs’ help.”

This time, everyone nodded in response.

“Let’s use the smoke signal. It is impossible to predict how far the battle will spread later, so once the signal is used, evacuate all villages near the town.”

“But sir, to evacuate everyone…”

“For the villagers that live near the town, evacuate them to the town. For other villagers, they can evacuate to the Viscount Grellman or Baron Zabel’s territories. They have said that they are willing to take care of the refugees for about 10 days.”

“10 days?”

“Yes. The reinforcement from the capital will come here in at most 10 days.”

It seemed like everyone agreed with my evacuation plan. I too would have no choice but to agree to do it after I heard the demons would attack.

“Some people might refuse to evacuate.”

“Tell them that if they refuse, I will increase the tax for the entire village 5 times compared to last year.”

The room became noisy, but no one voiced a disagreement. In this world, the connections between villagers of the same village were strong, so if a person’s refusal would affect the whole village, that person would have no choice but to comply. Since it would be impossible for me to explain the danger of not evacuating to each and every villager, I had to exercise my authority here.

I wouldn’t be able to minimize the damages if the villagers refused to evacuate. On the other hand, if there were no villagers’ casualties, then there would only be a record of me using forceful means to evacuate the villagers. Urgh… my stomach hurt.

On the map, we discussed which villages should evacuate to the town and which should evacuate to the other territories, and we also talked about an estimated number of villagers that would evacuate. In addition, we also talked about what to do with the villagers’ livestock. Some villages relied on livestock like sheep to make a living, so how much livestock they were allowed to bring or how much we should compensate for the livestock that were left behind was an important topic.

After the meeting with the Pledgers was finished, I returned to my office and gave some orders for the preparation of the war. I was checking the distribution of the magic lamps and bows when I got the news that Rafed and Sir Kesten were outside of the door, so I let them in.

“Pardon my intrusion, Viscount.”

“It’s fine.”

As always, Rafed’s attitude seemed to be fake. It was as if an ordinary person was acting as an actor if that made sense. When I saw two of them standing side by side, the gap between them was strikingly clear since Sir Kesten was exuding an aura of a veteran soldier.

“Good work, both of you. Sir Kesten, how is the support troop?”

“I have done what I can. They will not be able to fight using the way that the Viscount is good at, but they will be able to serve as soldiers that protect the town.”

It had only been a month since I asked Sir Kesten to train the support troop, so for them to be able to do that much was already impressive. The way of fighting that I was good at that Sir Kesten was talking about was a maneuver battle with a small number of people.

It seemed like that was how I fought when dealing with the bandits. I didn’t realize it, though. Certainly, I didn’t have the confidence to lead a large army.

“What about you, Rafed? The thing I have entrusted to you. How is it going?”

“I have prepared what you asked for, but as expected, I was unable to prepare much.”

“Well, that couldn’t be helped.”

The fact that he could prepare some of them was already helpful. I would be acting as a bait in the upcoming war with the demons, so my job was to lure the enemy out then wait for the Capital Knights to arrive. The military power that I held wasn’t that big, but since I didn’t have to defeat the demon general on my own, I could use other ways to buy some time.

I then gave Rafed some instructions and entrusted the division of the goods to him. I was honestly grateful for the fact that Rafed was a former merchant, so he knew the importance of supply and transport.

When Rafed left the room, Sir Kesten turned to me with a somewhat sarcastic expression. As expected of the Grand Duke’s former subordinate, even their expression was a bit similar.

“Will it be fine to leave the arrangement of the supply to Rafed?”

“As long as our opponents are demons, it will be fine.”

I got a feeling that as long as there was a sign I would be losing, Rafed would disappear into the thin air before I knew it. It could even be said that the fact that Rafed hadn’t betrayed me yet means that I was still winning. Really, that guy was like Matsunaga Danjo.

(T/N: Matsunaga Danjo is a samurai in the Sengoku Period that kept changing his allegiance to whoever was winning at the time.)

Despite asking that kind of question, Sir Kesten never interfered with Rafed’s job. It seemed like Sir Kesten asked that just so he could make sure of my thought.

“May I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“Why do you think the way you do?”

I didn’t understand Sir Kesten’s question, so I gave him a confused look. Sir Kesten then continued, “If your aim is to protect the town, you can just shut yourself inside of the town and wait for the Knights to arrive. There is no need to lure out the demon general.”

“Ah, that’s what you mean.”

“Your Excellency, I do not understand why you even went all the way to make yourself bait and lure the demons to the north gate.”

Ah, he noticed. It was true that there were other ways to fight if my aim was only to protect Anheim. But I wanted to kill Gezarius here and provoking him to lure him out was the only way I could do that.

Of course, the possibility that Gezarius wouldn’t attack Anheim and would just shut himself off in Triot exists, but that possibility was very low. Demons were arrogant, so he wouldn’t stay silent after being provoked repeatedly.

“If the demons attack the town wall while I shut myself here, the citizens will feel really anxious. As such, I judged it would be best for me to minimize the time that the demons would spend attacking the walls.”

“Your Excellency, you are quite eccentric.”

Well, it was true that because of my memory of the previous life, I was concerned about keeping the ‘civilians’ away from the battlefield as much as possible.

On the other hand, as a noble and a governor, the civilians were also really important. This world didn’t have advanced technology, so many things like transport still relied on the civilians as a labor force. In addition, a territory without civilians was not that different from a wasteland. Just like the proverb, ‘You are the ship and the people are water. Water can both carry the ship and overthrow it.’

Although, in the end, everything was just a theory.

“In addition, I can only do well by using the way I’m familiar with . I’m not a person who could say ‘we won!’ proudly despite the fact that there were many victims.”

“I see.”

As for to whom I would say ‘we won’ proudly… Well, let’s not think about that. Before Sir Kesten continued to probe me, I changed the subject of conversation.

“Incidentally, there is something that I want Sir to do.”

“Please tell me.”

“Sir knows about the existence of Skywalks, right? I want a messenger to go to the capital after he has confirmed that a signal has risen from the first fort. I want Sir to choose the messenger.”

“I understand.”

“I also want Sir to teach the veteran soldiers about how to use these things, but please do so in absolute secrecy.”

I handed Sir Kesten the Skywalks along with a magic bag. Officially, the magic bag contained ‘necessary documents’ while in fact it contained a magic tool that I didn’t want others to learn of its existence. The magic tool had gone through experiments, so I had already confirmed it could be used. What’s left now was only to make use of it in an actual battlefield.

It would be better for these things to be used by veteran soldiers. Frankly, I didn’t have any confidence in using them.

After I explained what these things were to Sir Kesten, he looked shocked. Since even someone with a long experience showed that sort of expression, these things would definitely be effective in an actual battlefield.

“I’ll begin the construction of the first fort tomorrow. I leave the protection of Anheim town to you, Sir.”

“Understood.”

It would most likely take 20 to 30 days from the start of the operation to the enemy’s attack to the first fort. Mazell’s party was probably approaching the dungeon of the third Demon Generals by now.

Let’s produce a result that wouldn’t make me feel ashamed in front of the hero party.

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