Chapter 166: Attacking the Nes (2/2)

Thus, my plan was to have these lizardmen equip a bunch of shields and form the vanguard of my army while the medusas and the guardsmen trailed behind.

Armed with my shields, they could basically ignore the bone spears of those rodents so all that remained was for them to cleave open a path for us. Naturally, I wouldn’t mind if they were able to finish off all those who resisted us in one go.

While the combat strength of two thousand lizardmen was already scary enough, I wouldn’t mind if they grew even stronger. With that in mind, I had a two-star guardsman square off against a two-star lizardman.

The scales of the lizardman were just able to deflect the slashes of my bone broadswords. As for that guardsman, should he ever get bitten, the outcome was obvious even without guessing…

Thus, the first thing that lizardman did after exchanging a couple of blows with the guardsman was to nimbly circle around him and latch onto his shoulders. Jaws wide open and teeth bared for all to see, he attempted to bite the devil…

Thankfully, this was merely a duel and not a fight to the death. Weslin stepped in before that happened and ended the match, narrowly avoiding a potential bloodletting.

The lizardman won and that was even under unarmed conditions…‘if I were to equip them with proper weapons and protective gear, their combat strength would definitely go through the roof.’

Other than the four-star Weslin, the lizardmen who came to aid us, included 200 three-stars with the rest of the 1800 consisting entirely of two-stars.

‘These had to be the elites of their elites. I have to say, Westley really went all out to curry my favor.’

‘But the problem is that I still don’t have that many equipment to hand out to them!”

Even though I kept myself busy crafting a bunch of equipment in the interim where we waited for more reinforcements, those were mostly experimental prototypes. They were still usable in a pinch but even then there still wasn’t enough to go around. Tallying up the numbers, I was barely able to gear up 500 lizardman.

As I was mulling over the choice of whether or not to take the risk by attacking now or play it safe by crafting more equipment, Violet Snow chimed in with a plausible suggestion as to how we could send out a preliminary assault.

“I feel that we should gear up these 500 lizardmen first and send them on a reconnaissance mission. If we find that their resistance is lacking, we can dispatch a larger force then.”

‘So we should test the waters first then? That’s a pretty flexible strategy that works well with others. Given that these lizards have an impressive level of defence, they can just run away if things start to look bad.’

Truth be told, I had considered a diversionary tactic, in other words, faking an all out assault on one entrance while we focused the majority of our forces on another. However, the outcome of doing so was that we confirmed this piece of intelligence: no matter which entrance you attacked, the rodents had a roughly similar defence force stationed there.

Thus it was clear to us that what we truly needed was a concerted push through one of these entrance and not a three way assault.

“That’s not a bad idea, we’ve dragged out this battle with the rodents for too long already so let’s just start this quick.” I had Weslin hand out my assorted mix of 500 or so bone shields, swords, spears, hammers and whatever nonsense I concocted in my spare time. Having done that, these lizards even began to look the part of a lizard hero, what with all the weapons and armor I gave them.

“Leave the main assault to us.” She confidently declared as she thumped her chest. “They’re just a bunch of rats. Don’t worry, we’ll perfectly show off the most valiant side of the draconic race!”

“Mhm, go then. As long as you’re able to wipe out these stubborn rats, I guarantee I won’t interfere in your affairs.”

“Understood!” With so many witnesses nearby, I chose not to reveal too much details. Weslin was no fool however and immediately understood what I was trying to say. Having gained my official assurance, her excitement skyrocketed.

As if she had taken a shot of pure adrenaline, she rushed into battle, shield raised and spear waving. “Follow me. Today will be the last we see of these stubborn rats!”

“Kill!” The lizardmen roared and charged in after their leader with spirits high.

Having seen the effectiveness of my shields against their spears, Weslin wasted no time in having the three-star lizardmen form a mobile shield wall in front of the army. Behind them, the rest of the lizardmen formed up ranks after which they rapidly advanced through the nest.

Not long they took their first few steps, a hail of bone spears descended upon them. While a portion of these spears ended up making it through the shield wall, their scales surprised me once more with their sturdiness when they harmlessly deflected the vicious spears of the ratmen.

However, it wasn’t actually that surprising once I gave it some more thought. Given that the spears were crafted from shoddy materials and that they didn’t possess a height advantage like my harpies, it wasn’t that surprising that their attacks failed especially since their opponents were three-star lizardmen. The higher one’s star level was, the more sturdy their scales became.

“From the sounds of battle, it seems like the plan is underway already.”As Violet Snow and I stood at the entrance, there was only so much we could see from the outside especially since the already narrow width of the cave was filled up by the sheer size of these lizard big brothers. For the most part, we had to rely on our hearing to determine what was happening inside.

(TL: I think he meant oni-chan instead of big brother but then, I’m not too sure about it either.)

Truth be told, the sounds of combat were actually rather easy to make out. The screams of pain all came from the Abaddon Rodents while the lizardmen hadn’t even suffered a single casualty up to this point.

Two minutes later, a lizardman ran out of the cave and under my anxious gaze, reported the news that I had been waiting for: “Your Excellency, the fighting inside the cave was intense but the enemies weren’t a match for our clan. Mistress Weslin has determined that it’s alright to mount a full-scale assault…”

As expected, fighting a war was all about finding the right counter to everything. While the medusas’ offensive abilities were impressive, their defensive abilities were lacklustre in comparison. Against the aggression of the rodents, they would’ve suffered heavy casualties even if I sent them in with shields. However, who would have known that such a difficult problem was nothing more than child’s play for the lizardmen.