Chapter 814 (1/2)

Chapter 814: Impartial person

Translator: TransN Editor: Meh

“The demonic beasts have fled! They all fled!”

Cheers were heard across the battlefield. The demonic beasts that were previously gathered at the entrance of the cave had all fled away leaving several corpses behind them. The machine gunner released the trigger only to find out that his finger joint had gone numb. Because there was no time to change the gun barrel, it had turned red which, according to the shooting regulations, meant that it was scrapped.

“Their numbers were intimidating, but once we start fighting them, they didn’t look so scary.”

“The Church’s God’s Punishment Army was much more fierce.”

“They are only beasts after all.”

“Beasts? Why are you talking nonsense? Go fight them with a bow if you dare. Three years ago, these things were terrorizing the Western Region. Everything changed because of His Majesty, do you understand!”

“Ye-Yes, Captain!”

“Instead of celebrating, change the gun barrel.”

Edith was standing in the back of the battlefield. She had a thoughtful look while watching the busy yet orderly First Army. After following Roland’s army to participate in the Tooth Extraction Campaign and the Church’s destruction, she always tried to imagine how would she command the army in order to achieve the maximum effectiveness of the firearms.

Without a doubt, this was a completely new kind of army and so the combat strategy was different from that of the knightages and the mercenaries from before. It was not easy to forget her previous successful experience of fighting through charging, relying on excellent weapons, and personal bravery. But when she realized that knights could no longer compete against the new army, she promptly discarded all of her previous experience and started watching all of His Majesty’s actions closely. Through today’s battle, she was able to verify that her thinking was basically correct.

The most notable feature of the firearms was their ability to kill opponents with extreme efficiency before they could get closer without regard to the spacing between soldiers and their physical condition. Therefore, the narrower the shooting area, the more intense the firepower would be. As long as the ammunition supply did not stop, they could fire from morning to night.

Two platoons of soldiers could be arranged in a battlefield where previously only three to four knights would be able to charge from. They could only arrange three machine guns not because more could not fit but due to limited ammunition. But even so, their fierce firepower still made it hard for the demonic hybrids to advance—they did not even get tired or need to aim. They just had to pull the trigger. Whenever the opponents were too close together, she would even see a thick blood red mist arising in the entrance.

If His Majesty was in command, he wouldn’t have done anything different.

The only thing she did not understand was the behavior of the demonic beasts.

Obviously, some of them had basic intelligence. When it got difficult to attack the cave entrance, many of the demonic hybrids began to wander outside the cave, occasionally howling, but still not advancing as if they were encouraging the other demonic beasts to sacrifice themselves. But since they had the ability to think, why did they still obey the weird commanding voices? The demonic beasts apparently did not need a relationship between lords and subjects, which was about mutual support and protection. As long as they escaped into the Barbarian Land, they could totally survive alone, unlike humans who had to be part of a group in order to survive.