Chapter 24: Regroup, Hit and Run

Good. Good. Hmm.

I see now the group that was sent ahead by Bon.

It was around 120 skeleton goblins along with the previous group of skeletons.

While thinking of a plan, I inspected the recruits.

Lina was preparing the storage crystals that we got from our previous battles. We got these from monster drops. I don't know the reason behind it, but once in a while, a strong monster can drop a storage crystal.

I wonder why they were empty?

Hmm.

Small, quick, and follows orders. Good. They could work like backstabbers in a group.

They also keep fighting even after losing an arm or head.

As long as the negative energy is present, they would not fall.

But looking at the army, we saw that these guys are nowhere near to being a threat.

I taught the goblins some stealthy tactics that we used to do before on some bandits. These should come in handy. By the way, they also have the Icy Touch spell. Amazing.

Moving on,

Tactics to defeat a large army, It would be large scale spells, wouldn't it?

WE DON'T HAVE MAGES ON THAT SCALE!

Boo, it just won't work.

Damn, this plan might already be a failure.

Why isn't Bon here already? Oh. He might still be in the cave reviving the other goblins and hopefully some hobgoblins.

I looked at Lina, doing her work. Can she do it? Like a gigantic blizzard spell or something? But that would use up all her energy, and she might disappear herself.

She caught me looking at her, and she turned around to continue her work.

Hmm.

How about that summoning manual!?

I flip its pages to see if I can summon an army in a jiffy.

But, No luck.

Armies would require a massive amount of negative energies or a large group of living sacrifices. That's so old school.

Skeleton Warriors, Mages, Marksmen. If I only had 2000 of these guys.

It's been three days since Dolf left. He told me it's only one day away from here from the capital.

The army that we saw will be clashing with them by then.

So, we have no choice. I did my best to recover all my negative energy these past three days.

While doing that, I made the most out of our remaining storage crystals. Also, I made more backups for my Claw spears. Then, I also made some throwing Teeth spears from the teeth of the Behemoth in the process.

Embedding crystals in weapons are hard work, but I managed to do it for all of my guns because the battle ahead will be a big one.

I sent out one of the goblins to advise Bon to follow us after he finishes his tasks. We will be engaging the army first. We want to look kind to the dwarves here.

So, I marched out with my army, barely around 150 men.

We don't have horses, so our marching is the same as running.

It would look strange if someone saw a group of skeletons running in formations.

It was just 6 hours when we saw the army, and they would make stops on the way, so we have time.

After running non-stop (except for Lina since she always floats around) for 3 hours, we saw the camps of the goblin army.

They have multiple warbands roaming around for enemies.

How could they have such an organized army!? I felt like I'm fighting a real commander here.

It's nighttime now, and they can't see well in the dark.

Being skeletons, we don't have a scent, so the wolves that the goblins rely on can't be that much of a threat in detection.

By the way, Those wolves look like the spiritual summons of a beastmaster. So, no livestock. Still, summoning beasts? That's high-level stuff.

We should whittle down their numbers before they reach the capital.

Quietly that is.

Groups of five will infiltrate tents and kill everyone inside.

They seem to sleep once they're inside their tents, and there are hundreds of tents around here.

It's also noisy around here, so no problem if they squeal a bit when they get stabbed. You'll always hear hammering and moving things around here. Are they blacksmithing or crafting?

So, after a few more moments of planning, we strike out with my group of 4 skeleton goblins wielding short bones as daggers.

Bon used the remaining bones of our defeated enemies as weapons and equipment for our recruits.

Idmon: "(t) Let's go."

They nod. It's bizarre how my soldiers respond without me even using . I guess it's only for hostile undead or feral undead.

We entered a small tent that has 15 goblins sleeping inside.

We made it quick. We got all 15 in barely 30 seconds.

And we hit the next tent with eight goblins.

After hitting a few more tents, I realized that the big guys are only in the bigger tents in the middle of the camp or outside guarding the borders.

After doing this for an hour, we hit almost 20 tents and killed around 150 goblins. Not bad, but they will notice this once they move out.

I regrouped with my men. I sent out ten groups.

We're still 50 so, good news.

After a few minutes, the goblin army moved out.

We heard no shouting or alarmed notices from the goblins. They just went and left the dead goblins behind. Strange.

It was like one whole squad of their army disappeared, and they didn't even care?

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We did the same things as their army are moving towards the capital.

We took out 200 on the second run and 250 on the third run.

Still, are they around 10,000? They're too damn many.

I also encountered a tent with hobgoblins. 4 of them. I advised my groups to use . They should slowly kill the hobgoblins to prevent them from fighting back.

While we raided the goblin camps, The rest of the group is safely following the army from a distance.

I think we are only half a day away from the capital.

We need to do something big before they get there.

What can make big group explosions??

Yeah! Storage Crystals! If only I could find a spot that has the most number of enemies to detonate a large number of crystals.

Or maybe, if the goblins have a place where they store explosive materials? Maybe even storage crystals of their own.

They do have these weird siege contraptions that look like it could be loaded with storage crystals.

Weird as it may sound, but goblins can build respectable siege engines, even though they look like they might collapse any second.

Sometimes they do.

The next run would be looking for a place like that, and the killings should be put on hold.

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I went back to the leading group in the meantime.

The next run would begin when the goblin army makes another stop.

I saw Lina sitting on some high rock, looking at the stars again. As if she could dissolve and go up there any moment. Or that's just how it looked like because she's a ghost?

Idmon:"(t) Hey…"

Lina:"(t) Hey, Boss."

Idmon:"(t) I just went here to apologize. You know, we just met and took you to our group. Now you're in the middle of a war."

Lina:"(t) Don't matter. As long as I can travel around and get out of the boring village."

Why does she look so sad when she says that? It's like she wants to stay there, but it hurts so much to do so.

Idmon: "(t) Once this is all over, Let's go back there, and you can tell me the whole story…"

Lina: "(t) Is that a promise, Boss?"

Idmon: "(t) It's a promise."

And then she went back to look at the sky.

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We went in for the last run.

(Search)

(Storage tent)

(Sneaky, sneaky)

After 30 mins of sneaking around the camp, I saw one large tent that has a lot of workers going inside out carrying boxes and the like.

It should be there.

I don't know if I developed thief skills, or these rogue legs that I have are just that good. I just sneaked past four guards by quickly leaping above them and skipping on various things to get me inside the tent.

The others stayed behind. They can't do anything that hard yet.

What I saw inside was goblins opening boxes. They had barrels inside.

Some of them had holes, and I saw black powder coming from inside the barrel.

Hmm, Is this the place?

I guess it should work anyways.

I slid a large number of storage crystals in different barrels.

We should wait for them to move these things around and release them later.

Or I could release the crystals when we're in battle. Just to get them rattled… Yeah, let's do that.

We still got time, so after I did this. We went in and did our business in some tents.

In the end, we still killed around 120 goblins and various monsters.

As we return to the leading group, I saw a familiar face.