36 — 4 (6)

If the terrain was similar, there was no need for Louis to devise a different tactic.

‘Keep the plan as is.’

He would cut roads through the marsh, securing firm supply lines and a retreat route while advancing slowly.

Judging from the orcs’ material state, the goblins would be no different.

Even if the remaining 21% of the orcs joined them, a mix of spearmen and archers would be enough to range freely here.

In swamps and marshes, cavalry was the weakest arm—but Louis neither owned such an expensive arm nor would he use it for this.

Archers were weaker than spearmen, but not always; when a marsh lay between both sides, nothing matched archers for efficiency.

Advancing unimpeded, Louis finally made contact with the goblin force.

Goblins were smaller than orcs, but they could be just as belligerent and underhanded; their guerrilla attacks unfolding against Louis’s army reflected those traits.

Their weapons were unimpressive, but many seemed coated with poison; soldiers struck by them soon showed signs of poisoning.

Even so, Louis restrained his men from pursuit.

This was marshland, and no one knew the terrain better than goblins. With movement hampered, pursuit risked isolation or traps.

What advantages did Louis’s army have now? Overwhelming numbers, complete equipment, and strict provisioning—a qualitative edge.

There was no reason to split the force. The enemy had to defend; once Louis arrived at their position, a set-piece battle would naturally follow.

In a stand-up fight, Louis had no chance of losing to a Green Skin coalition. The orc charge had been shattered with ease; goblins, worse at melee, would fare even worse.

In short, the goblins’ strategy was to fragment Louis’s army and defeat it in detail—so obvious that Louis saw through it at once.

What strategies goblins or orcs without a proper host would try could be found in a beginner’s military text.

Louis slowed his pace and tightened the noose even more deliberately.

By the third day of such advance, the soldiers—now used to goblin tricks—had tightened security so thoroughly that losses were nil, and they reached the goblin village’s environs.

With a broad marsh between the lines, Louis boldly used his archers to rain arrows on the goblins opposite, inflicting heavy damage.

That single strike erased 8% of the goblins. Meanwhile, Infantry Units 1 and 2 were circling through the marsh to close in firmly; in a day or two the long-awaited pitched battle would begin—but a scout’s report that the goblins had vanished arrived together with a message to Louis.

It disappointed soldiers who had been itching for a fight, but Louis was very satisfied to have progressed without losses.

So hurried was their flight that a little stolen coin and scrap metal lay about the goblin village.

Given the terrain, they hadn’t often raided caravans; their hoard was meager—but with losses minimized and the second tile secured, the 1,000-point reward was now in sight.

When each unit accrued enough experience, it would be promoted; Kalbang’s spear unit was on the verge of leveling from the orc battle.

After a fight with the gnolls occupying the third marsh, they would surely be promoted.

“Lord Louis, do we keep advancing?”

As Boromir asked, Louis checked each unit’s status via the unit info panel.

Morale had risen to a peak of 95%, but fatigue stood at 80%.

Given it had been 70% after the orc battle, that was abnormally high—evidence of tension from marching under constant threat of goblin ambush.

“No. We burn this area and rest until the next supply arrives.”

He had to drive fatigue down before the second food convoy arrived. Of all the marsh tiles, Marsh 3 was the roughest.

Once it fell, the quest would effectively be done. The reward was at least 1,000 points, but Louis quietly hoped for as much as 1,500.

While the army rested, supplies arrived—water, spare clothing, and rations.

They had just run out of food; some men had been catching fish in the marsh to supplement.

‘Top off satiety, then move on Tile 3.’

Morale dipped slightly to 80%; fatigue fell to 20% and would drop further after eating.

With preparations complete and satiety topped up, Louis moved the army to Marsh 3.

From the entrance, Marsh 3 announced it was no ordinary place.

Frankly, it was less a marsh than a lake; the humidity was immense.

Where earlier they had forced fires to catch, ordinary flame would not take here. Fortunately, Jerome’s magical fire would catch if attempted repeatedly.

By now the soldiers were seasoned at cutting brush; despite the rough ground, they managed to carve a path.

Had they started here from the beginning, it would have been trouble—but with the troops now trained, they could proceed steadily, if slowly.

More puzzling to Louis than the pace was that the gnolls had let more goblins slip through this terrain than expected; he had thought the goblins fled here.

The quest showed goblin survival at 82%; since Louis had killed 8%, the gnolls had slain only 10%. Why?

The Civilization System answered.

‘Ah—word reached the goblins that an army was coming.’

Gnolls were few in number but smarter than orcs and goblins.

Seeing goblin bands bolt, the gnolls quickly deduced why.

They judged it better to find new ground than stay here.

Their numbers were small—that was decisive. They’d taken harsher marshland only because they were so few; in raw power, they were the weakest of the three.

With the other two tribes smashed earlier, they had no reason to hold this place.

Louis didn’t think that far through, but with solid intel he decided there was no need to proceed as before.

He summoned Boromir and Kalbang at once.

“Boromir, go inside and scout to the interior.”

Kalbang objected immediately.

“Ah, my lord Louis—that’s too dangerous. We don’t know what might happen in there.”

“I think there are no monsters left here.”

“Sir?”

“They’re all gone, surely.”

“…Understood. I’ll form a detachment and depart at once.”

“Just fix the location and come straight back.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Boromir felt uneasy for a moment, but Louis’s certainty that the monsters were gone convinced him to obey.

Kalbang would have harbored doubts to the end, but Boromir wasn’t that type.

Louis sent Boromir to scout in order to cut a straight road to that position from here.

That way, unlike the winding paths they had made so far, they could save a great deal of time.

Boromir, under orders, advanced quickly—and after some time he came upon an empty gnoll hamlet.

‘The young lord was right.’

Boromir and a hundred in the vanguard sprinted forward.

As befit the swiftest men, they seized the small hamlet in a flash and searched it.

While Boromir examined walls thick with shamanic markings in what must have been the priest’s house, a subordinate entered.

“No trace of them at all. They’ve left completely.”

“Right. They were scared—ran with their tails between their legs. You, hurry back and report the location to Lord Louis.”

“Yes, sir.”

Boromir intended to search the surrounding area with the remaining men.

After dispatching the runner and probing a strangely shaped dwelling, Boromir soon caught a signal from a subordinate.

He went at once. The hamlet straddled the marsh entrance, and a short way from the central square stood a peculiar altar.

From the looks of it, something had been offered alive there not long ago—grisly traces everywhere.

“Ah, the gnolls have left?”

“Yes, sir.”

Receiving the relay report, Kalbang was more shocked than Boromir himself.

He couldn’t guess how Louis had reached this conclusion—but it wasn’t the first time this young lord produced uncanny results.

As Louis returned to camp, the runner reported directly.

A message reached Louis as he listened.

With two of the quest’s three conditions solved, only one remained—and its identity had just been revealed.

‘Forest… Wurm?’

Louis had heard of a Forest Wurm. Grown, it was a monstrous creature that could devour a forest.

That would be true of a mature one—but fortunately the quest named a juvenile Forest Wurm.

‘Wait… if we kill it…’

The Mage Tower would pay an enormous price. Forest Wurms were rare, commanding high prices; a juvenile might fetch even more.

Excited, Louis led a unit out at once.

He headed to rendezvous with Boromir—but what he found was troublesome.

The creature raging in the hamlet square was indeed a Forest Wurm, and Boromir looked to be in danger.

As Louis saw it, Boromir was in real peril. The Forest Wurm had butchered thirty soldiers outright. During a belated withdrawal order, it had seized Boromir by the ankle.

Boromir ran at full speed, but the Wurm overtook him in an instant and bit; Boromir sliced it and tumbled across the ground.

He scored a deep cut by channeling mana, but within seconds it healed before his eyes.

Unable to withstand the flurry, he dropped his sword and crawled—just as Louis’s unit swarmed the Wurm.

Embarrassed by his sorry state, Boromir still could not have been more grateful to heaven.

“Keep your distance and stack damage!”

Louis had brought an entire unit—the numbers were no joke.

Encircled, like by an army of ants, the Forest Wurm thrashed and slew several brutally, but as spear shafts began to punch deep into it, its body turned into a pincushion.

‘In the end, nothing beats numbers. Heh. What a windfall. Now—what parts of a Wurm’s corpse are the most valuable again…?’

After finding less to loot from orcs, goblins, and gnolls than expected, the Forest Wurm was a rich prize for Louis.

On top of that, Civilization chimed with quest completion.