Reincarnated into a Game As the Hero’s Friend

Translate: Nisarah     Editor:Fleeting

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In the end, I got a pretty light punishment. The knights that followed me only got a ‘Don’t do something like this again!’ kind of scolding and the army didn’t even put our punishment in the official record.

As for me, I got a scolding, a fine, and 3 days in military prison. I was free from all work so I spent the first 2 days sleeping like a baby in the prison. Honestly, this feels more like a reward than a punishment for me.

By the way, if a noble gets fined, they can pay it after they return to the capital. However, in the case of normal soldiers, their fines are directly deducted from their salary. It’s something of small discrimination.

That’s all for my punishment. As for the rest, I was told to ‘make it up by fighting diligently in the war’. Damn muscle brain world.

Well, the problem comes on the last day, the third day. I let out a sigh. I got a feeling that today might get recorded as my dark history. I don’t know if the term ‘dark history’ existed in this world but that’s more or less what I felt.

(T/N: Dark history means your embarrassing past that you wish you had never done.)

Since I’ve been stuck here these days, I feel really itching to work, especially since I got a lot of news about the situation in the frontline from Max and others that came to visit me.

Unfortunately, even though visiting was allowed, bringing something for me was forbidden so I was forced to eat the not-so-delicious food of the prison. However, I’m not in a position to complain about it so I endured it.

By the way, it seems like while I spent my time just eating and sleeping in the prison, the second group of supply corps arrived in the camp. Though even with the additional supplies, the army still had to manage supplies carefully.

Although I didn’t have any intention of escaping, two guards constantly guarded the prison. Those two always look bored so I talked with them from time to time. According to them, even now, the situation in the frontline is still at a stalemate.

On the early morning of the third day, right around the time the shift of the current guard ended, Neurath and Schunzel visited me with grim expressions on their faces. I wonder what happened.

“Thank you for coming all the way here. Did something happen?”

“No, the situation in the frontline didn’t change.”

“Both sides are still in a stalemate. I will explain everything in detail.”

It seems like in this world the Great Temple is located in the middle of a high mountain that’s why. I guess that makes sense since in the game the destroyed Great Temple looks like it was buried on a high mountain. Because of this terrain, the battle has been concentrated in front of the temple’s entrance since it’s hard to breach the temple via other ways.

“Any attack from the surrounding mountains?”

“For now, there is none.”

Among the 3 Generals, Dreax is undead so he’s a bad match with the priests. All 4 Heavenly Kings are magic-type so they are also a bad match with the priest’s defense magic. As for the other 3 Demon Generals, Avadorus is a Giant so he’s not suitable for entering a building to capture someone. I now understand why the demon’s army chose Beliulace, the reptile-type devil, as the leader of their army this time.

However, currently, the hero, Mazell, and his party are guarding the temple’s entrance. Even though the current situation is different compared to the game, with Mazell’s party’s current level and equipment, it’s going to be hard for the demon army to defeat them. That’s why the current situation is stuck at a stalemate.

But for the situation to still be a stalemate even after the main army has arrived is strange.

“Currently, our army is surrounding the enemy in a half-moon-like formation. They also build earthen walls and fences, so it seems like the army is planning to fight a long battle.”

“I don’t understand. It’s true that the individual battle power of demons is superior to our soldiers but how about our number?”

“Our number is superior to the demon army.”

According to them, marquises and the knight captains didn’t bring any slave soldiers with them since they already knew how powerful the demon army was. However, some nobles didn’t know about it and brought a large number of slave soldiers with them.

So they brought a large number of unskilled soldiers just to bloat up the size of their army in this kind of situation?

“But bringing unskilled people to the battlefield means sacrificing the army’s flexibility.”

“You are correct. Furthermore, the large number of soldiers means we also need a large number of supplies.”

“That sucks.”

I sighed and accidentally let out my real thoughts at Schunzel’s words. After that, Neurath continued.

“And the first impression of the demon army also greatly affected the morale of our army. You see, the general of the demon army is a devil that seemed to be a Dragonewt.”

In this world, a Dragonewt is like a higher evolution of Lizardmen or a Sahagin. It walks on 2 legs and can use weapons. It has intelligence but its face looks like a dragon so there’s barely anything that is close to human in its appearance.

(T/N: Sahagin is a fish-like creature that can walk on land in the Final Fantasy game.)

When fighting against a Dragonewt, you need to be prepared for casualty even when you are a group of high ranked adventurers or knights. So, it is naturally dangerous for normal soldiers to fight Dragonewt.

Compared to that, Lizardmen or Sahagin only pose a threat to ordinary humans. In the later half of the game, demons that looked like Dreax and Beliulace appeared as random encounter monsters. These monsters are also quite strong. I can’t tell this to Neurath and Schunzel though.

“According to the witness, the Dragonewt’s height is twice that of a normal human and its physical strength is also far stronger than ordinary demons.”

“So he’s almost as big as a Giant.”

In the game, Beliulace was weaker than the small fries that the player randomly encountered in the later half of the game. The resurrected Beliulace was as strong as the resurrected Dreax though.

Wait a minute, did I tell Mazell about the fact that the 3 Demon Generals will resurrect later… Hmm, I don’t think I did. It’s not important information in the current situation but I should tell him later on when I get the chance.

As I thought, Neurath continued his story.

“In the first battle, a part of our army suffered considerably and even now some of our soldiers still feel fear.”

“Suffered how?”

Basically, an ignorant noble looked down on Beliulace and recklessly attacked him to get military merit but ended up being eaten.

“Eaten?”

“Yes, from what I heard that noble got eaten literally. One of his arms was cut off first then the demon started to eat him from his abdomen.”

“What the…”

So he was eaten, right in front of the entire kingdom’s army? That guy wore leather armor?

I know that some nobles prefer to only cover their vital points with metal armor and then wear leather armor to protect the rest of their body because it’s easier to move in leather armor than in metal armor. Some nobles even purposely wore grandiose armor to stand out. Well, that’s up to the taste of each person so I won’t dwell on that here. As for me, I prefer to wear simple armor.

“From what I have heard, this noble cried and shouted for help full of pain and fear as he was eaten alive starting from his abdomen. That scream and the sounds of this noble being chewed until not even his bone is left strike fear in the surrounding soldiers and it makes their rank collapse.”

“Well, that seems like a normal response.”

It’s probably like watching the movie scene of a dinosaur eating a human alive but live. Watching that kind of thing is probably really terrifying. To make matters worse, the one being eaten and killed was noble, so he was one of the army commanders. It makes sense for a part of the army’s formation to collapse.

“It seems like the morale of some soldiers hit rock bottom after they saw the demons that attacked the collapsed part of the army formation eat both the injured and the corpses of their comrade.”

“But on the other hand, there are also some soldiers that are filled with a desire to take revenge for their eaten comrades. There’s a considerable amount of difference between the will to fight of soldiers in the army.”

Thus, even though the soldiers of some nobles have low morale, they still can’t retreat. Huh… The movement of the entire army becomes slower because of their different amounts of morale. Even if the most people of this world are muscle-brained, the will to fight definitely differs between normal soldiers, knights, and slave soldiers. 

Even if the people burning with a desire for revenge can calm themselves down, there are still people with no desire to fight. These people frustrated the motivated nobles but, you see, when someone is receiving a ‘You make me frustrated’ attitude from others, they tend to become even more stubborn.

This is the glaring weakness of a hastily assembled army. If this army has more time to prepare, the commander can take their time to choose people that are truly motivated to fight and bring only them. But since this army is hastily assembled with the intention of just gathering as many people as possible, the will to fight between each member of the army will definitely be different.

However, it seems like everything is mostly going according to my prediction.

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T/N: A war build up. I liked this kind of chapter since it explained the logic and stuff behind the situation in a war in detail

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