Reincarnated into a Game As the Hero’s Friend

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Several bonfires are burning brightly under the night sky in the camp. Everyone including me took a rest around those fires. It’s tiring to be surrounded by old men though.

If it wasn’t for the various noble training I’ve done ever since my memory of the past life came back, I would’ve collapsed.

“Sir Welner, you are really a hard worker.”

“You flatter me.”

You see mister, I will die if I don’t work hard. What’s bad about working hard to survive?

I need to work hard to have enough power to protect myself. I also need to work hard to train others since you can’t survive alone in this world. Really, the game’s main character that can do everything alone is too much of a cheat

By the way, the knights’ group battle training is continuing. In the past two days, they’ve been focusing on hit the dummy training but from today on they will be focusing on getting a real-life experience by hunting demons in the vicinity of the capital. The training is done under the ‘protecting the safety of the capital’  banner but depending on how you look at it the training can also be said to be a large-scale demo hunt.

I don’t have any sympathy for the demons that are going to be hunted. Or rather, the demons won’t try to attack a party with over 100 people right? Or will they? Thinking about it made me worried about the merchant corp.

As for the mage team, after they finished writing a report to the capital by pulling an all-nighter, they joined the knights in the group battle training. Cooperation between knights and mages will be important for future battles. After all, fighting as knights alone will be different compared to fighting in an actual war where there will be mages present.

This night camp is also a part of training as everyone is busy discussing the formation and alternating to keep a night watch. Thus, the night continues.

The system of creating a battle formation in the night camp for a one-to-one battle or a war between countries is simple, but for war with demons where flying-type demonic beasts might attack is tricky.

This is the kind of time when a ‘know-how manual’ written by past people who had experience in fighting the demon king will come in handy. The problem is this sort of manual is all obsolete. It’s like reading a military manual from the Edo Period [1]. There are too many things in the manual that was written based on some ‘i think this is good’ without proper research and experiment.

That’s why one of the purposes of this night camping is to discuss applicable things that can be done at a night camp in a war against the demons.

“The attack from the sky is going to be a problem.”

“Right. Building fence might be useless against large flying-type demonic beasts.”

“Building walls during camping is also impossible. Plus, a wall won’t hinder flying demonic beasts.”

“We need to think about how to bring the anti-demon barrier with us.”

After experiencing night camp, everyone noticed that there are too many holes in our defense. It’s impossible to perfectly protect ourselves from attack but having too many holes in our defense is also not good. Every time we moved the camp from one point to another, everyone noticed additional problems. No one can stay put and ignore them.

In this kind of discussion staying silent will lead to others thinking of you as useless and belittling you so from time to time I also joined the discussion.

The biggest problem is probably if the enemy attacks us with area magic when we were camping. If you put aside the chance of winning by fighting with a few elites, the hero party composition of only a few elites makes sense. After all, it’s easier to defend against area magic if you only need to protect a few elites compared to if you need to protect an entire army.

.

Unexpectedly, there is a thing that the game is right.

Well, in the game magic that can seal your opponent’s magic more or less existed. If I’m not mistaken Laura used it. But it’s magic used during battle. I don’t know if that magic can be used in a place like this.

Even if it can, I doubt the magic can last for a whole night. Magic that can prevent encounters with random enemies also existed in the game but that magic also won’t last for a long time.

Apparently, the barrier in the capital can also prevent weaker monsters to enter the capital but it’s not something you can bring along with you. If only the magic tool that created the barrier is more convenient to use.

In the end, the thing we can do to defend ourselves against night attacks is limited. That makes sense. If a medieval army that still relies on horses, swords, and spears fights a modern army that uses hand grenades and machine guns the medieval army will be trampled.

Not to mention that the magic used by the actual army we need to fight is even more destructive compared to average hand grenades. You also can’t use the common starve tactic used in siege since before the opponent starved, their magic will destroy us first. Area magic is cheating. Adding to that our opponents are more adept at fighting.

Our current situation is like a group that has nothing but wooden swords is forced to fight a fully equipped modern army, and that modern army is the one that attacked the group. If not for the demons pulling their punch we will already be doomed.

This battle isn’t something we can win using cheap tricks. One of the few ways I think might be able to increase our winning rate is to increase the number of mages and priests we have. After that, we can only increase our vigilance.

I need to think of ways to win, something crazy that can turn the table. As I held that thought while participating in the discussion suddenly the outside become noisy.

“I have a report.”

“What happened?”

Viscount Grellman asked in the place of the Count. In a sense, the answer to the Viscount question is something I’ve expected.

“A pillar of a blue-green colored flame can be seen from the direction of Veritza Fortress… I have asked the scouts if they saw wrong but they said they really saw it.”

There’s no need for that guy who’s in charge of the night patrol to say anything more because Count Shandel stands up.

“Wake everyone up! We will begin a preparation to march to the fortress!”

“His Highness has privately warned me to be careful of the Veritza Fortress. Viscount Zeavert, Sir’s army has the most number so I would like to ask them to be our vanguard.”

“Understood.”

Everyone who is in the midst of the discussion stands up with a pale face. So it has started. The relieved feeling of everything going according to my memory might be proof of my cowardice.

“Viscount. When you arrived at the fortress don’t attack. Just observe from the outside. Don’t recklessly charge in.”

“I shall do so.”

Our action is something that has been decided during the meeting with His Highness. Even if it isn’t, I know without a doubt that a reckless charge will only make it harder to control the battlefield later on.

The ‘executive’ of this army all rushed out from the main camp. Of course, including me. To think that the attack on the fortress is done in the middle of the night like this. In the game, I only know that the fortress fell. I’m glad I asked the Crown Prince to prepare some kind of signal before.

(Info dump warning! Click here to skip. Summary: The signal fire used by the fortress is created by using wolf manure, copper, desiccant, and several other ingredients that can produce a lot of smoke, then warped it using a bag made by cow innard. The blue-green color is the copper chemical reaction. The desiccant is created using the slime’s core.)

The reason why the wolf character is used on the signal fire[2] is that one of the ingredients of the signal fire is wolf manure. The blue-green color that the patrolling knights saw come from the chemical reaction of the copper I’ve mixed into it. As for the chemical formula of the reaction, I don’t know.

I designed it so you only need to burn the bag to create the signal. Other than wolf manure I also added several ingredients that can produce a lot of smoke when burned and grounded the copper. I packed the mixture in a bag made using cow innard and added desiccant so the signal fire will stay dry. I give it to Marquis Knap via the Crown Prince

After the bag is thrown into the fire, it will shoot up a green-blue colored flame because of the copper chemical reaction. Fire is easy to create with magic so I didn’t think about how to ignite the bag,

I’m sure His Highness has also told the Count about the signal fire. That’s why he immediately knows that it’s an emergency.

By the way, desiccant in this world is created using a slime core powder. The powder absorbs moisture around it. If you scatter it on a wet footprint created because of rain the footprint will disappear. If you scatter it on snow, it will make the snow bubble like boiling water at the place you scattered it. That sight is pretty scary.

[Info dump end]

Well, let’s put that aside.

“Everyone, wake up! We will march toward Veritza Fortress!”

With this, the battle of supporting characters will start.

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T/N:

[1] from the 17th century-to early 19th century↵

[2] the kanji for signal fire (狼煙） has a wolf （狼）character on it↵