A steady stream of oil-filled pots impacted on the sides of the wall, followed by flame arrows.
The explosive impacts were comparable to the bursting of a ‘Fireball’, creating bright red flames which gave off endless plumes of black smoke.
Jugem could feel the uneasiness radiating off the nearby members of the defense force. The goblin leader raised his magic greatsword and roared.
“Hold fast! Flames like these can’t breach the wall! As for the defense of the gate―”
The sound of a heavy impact, doom, came from the outside of the gate.
The walls were much thicker and bigger than the watchtower, which now lay in ashes. Even when struck by flaming arrows, they did not catch fire easily. As such, they concluded that this was just a feint to draw attention from their real objective, which was breaching the gate. It seemed that this was the right decision. Once more, a great doom came from the gate.
It was a deeper, more powerful sound than the impacts of the ogre’s clubs. It was the sound of siege weapons — most likely battering rams.
“Loose!”
In time with Jugem’s shout, the villagers fired their arrows with practiced ease.
Cries of pain rose from the other side of the wall. However, the battering rams did not stop.
They must have been using multiple rams in a sequential attack.
“Loose!”
Once more, the arrows flew aloft on Jugem’s command. However, this time, they were answered by arrows from the enemy. Several times the number of arrows fell upon the village like rain.
Yet, not a single one struck the defenders.
The enemy attack had been a series of ranging shots, so they had all missed, impacting harmlessly on walls and buildings. However, the more archers they had on their side, the higher their chances of hitting. As such, if their accuracy was a non-zero number, things would be bad.
“Fall back! Fall back! We’re moving to a new position!”
The villagers obeyed Jugem, who could still make himself heard despite his lowered volume. They hurriedly shifted their location amidst their growing panic.
To date, the villagers had only learned to shoot from fixed positions. Their aim was to accurately target the area just outside the main gate. As such, when they could do both, their accuracy was increased, but conversely, once they had to move to an unfamiliar location, their arrows would no longer hit their marks well.
Fighting a ranged battle now would be very difficult.
“Spears up! We’re moving into close combat!”
A loud ping came from the other side of the wall. It sounded like something metallic striking the wall, completely different from the dooms of the battering rams. In all likelihood, it was the sound of axes, and they were coming from everywhere.
Numbers were a huge advantage. They could use the door or wall attacks as feints in order to attack from a completely unexpected direction. If Jugem were the commander for the other side, he would do that too.
Just as planned… it looks like the situation’s going well and the enemy is dispersing.
Most conventional attack strategies would be useless in the face of the opposition’s numerical superiority. For the villagers of Carne, their best bet would be to steadily erode their enemies’
fighting strength.
As long as the enemy formation weakened, they could attack from the village at any time. Ideally, they would strike at the enemy commander in a wedge formation. That way, the panicked enemy would immediately consolidate their troops.
Bringing the ogres back halfway was part of the preparations for that event. Even if the ogres pressed their attack by themselves, it would be difficult for them to make the enemy panic and achieve their objective of drawing the troops at the back gate out to the front.
Granted, once the scattered enemies rush forward to encircle us, we’ll have no way of retreat…
well, I guess that’s what they call entering the dragon’s lair despite knowing he’s home…
In other words, this was a suicidal tactic.
Even so―
“Well, we’ve achieved half of our objectives already.”
Jugem muttered to himself as his line of sight moved to the rear gate that he couldn’t see from here.
He had already prepared an escape route for his master with the highest probability of survival.
There was nothing more to worry about. It might be cruel to say so, but as long as all the villagers here died, nobody would know how many had fled and Enri would remain cloaked in a shroud of mystery.
Protecting Enri was Jugem’s first and highest priority. He would pay any price for that and not regret it in the slightest. Because of that―
“Everyone! Wait for the door to go down! We’re going to charge! Our target is the enemy headquarters! Our only chance of survival is to kill their commander!”
“Ohhhh!”
A series of determined howls answered him. There was a slight wavering in some of the voices, but nobody looked like they were going to back out.
All that remained was the raw courage of men who fought for their children and their loved ones.
Enri and Nfirea ran down from the rear observation deck, herding the women and children toward the area in front of the rear gate. Nfirea’s grandmother Lizzie was not there, because she was currently hiding all the alchemical wares she had borrowed from Ainz.
She would have no time to escape, but she had already accepted her fate.
“No problem! There’s nobody around! We’ll open the gate now and head for the forest!”
The gathered children, faces pale from fright, nodded desperately.
Meanwhile, Nfirea and Britta turned the handle, slowly opening one side of the gate.
At the moment they opened the gate, Enri stuck her head out to look around. There was nothing. Just as she saw from the observation deck, there were no troops in sight. Jugem’s plan had succeeded.
“Then, let’s go!”
The first to exit were Agu and his tribesmen. If they were ambushed in the forest, they would carve a bloody path through their enemies. Next was Britta. She was the group’s scout, and if Agu couldn’t find any soldiers, she would handle things.
Taking the children’s short legs into consideration, the pioneer team would advance toward the forest. Behind them, the children would follow them two by two. The mothers would accompany the children as they ran. Children without parents would be led by older children.
The last ones were Enri and Nfirea, who would then run to the front.
Even after getting out of the gate, the forest was still far away. Considering this was the dead of winter, the distance felt several times longer than it normally did.