Chapter 381

He is Orson's subordinate, Virgil.

The village girl who had just been grabbed by the neck and thrown to the ground by the orc leader had now recovered. She looked at Virgil's face, and the look in her eyes was not only admiration, but also a bit fascinated.

Sure enough, for every girl in distress, there will always be her own Prince Charming who comes to save her at the moment of crisis, right?

The village girl was thinking this and happened to see Virgil walking towards her.

She couldn't help but want to stretch out her hands to Virgil and shout "I do", but Virgil walked straight past her and walked behind her, closer to the villagers around the fire.

He untied the ropes of the villagers. Finally, he thought of something, turned around, walked towards the village girl, and untied the ropes from the village girl.

Sure enough, he had me in mind, otherwise how could he be the last one to help me? It was definitely because he wanted to put the person he valued most last.

The village girl thought this and was already thinking about how to spend the rest of her life with Virgil.

"That..." The village girl lowered her head, blushed, and sounded a little shy.

"What's wrong?" Virgil looked confused when he saw the village girl's behavior.

"Thank you very much for your help." The village girl said this, stood up, bowed to Virgil, and then walked to her grandfather.

Sure enough, letting myself confess to a strange man is still not possible.

"??" Virgil touched his head, a little confused.

Then, he turned around and looked at the mercenaries who were clearing the battlefield.

After counting the number of people, Virgil nodded.

In this battle, due to the surprise and ambush, none of his men were killed. The only few injuries were caused by the battle with the orc leader just now, and they were only external injuries. After a period of recovery, they can act normally.

After thinking for a while, Virgil turned back and walked to the villagers.

"Sorry, we were late and put you in such a dangerous situation." Virgil said with a hint of apology in his tone.

"It's okay, it's okay." In front of the village girl who had just been rescued by Virgil, an old man with white beard and hair and a wrinkled face shook his head. "We all thought we were going to die, thanks to your arrival."

"But, can I ask, what happened on the front line?" The old man then changed the topic.

"Ah? Please ask." Virgil was a little surprised, but still respectfully prepared to listen to the other party's words.

"Before, the people in the town above said that we had better move." The old man said. "but

They also said that our position is not the front line of the battle. The front line should be able to withstand the orcs' attack. Even if it is breached, intelligence will be sent back to help us evacuate. "

"That's why we stayed in this village. However, we didn't receive any news, and the orcs entered our village and tied us up."

Virgil finally understood. The old man was blaming the army and officials for not informing them properly.

However, it is understandable. After all, the front line collapsed almost instantly. No one expected that the pressure from the orcs was so great at the beginning, and they failed to adjust and respond in time, which caused the orcs to quickly expand their results.

In this chaotic situation, the notification was not in place, resulting in villagers being killed without their knowledge, and the responsibility did not entirely lie with the officials.

Commanders who failed to respond promptly also bear a considerable share of the blame.

"I'm sorry. It's true that we didn't inform you well enough about this, which almost caused you to be killed." Virgil said this and bowed to the old man apologetically.

"I'm not blaming you, after all, it was you who saved us." The old man said and sighed. "It's just that I also experienced the last orc invasion and know the rules of the orc attack."

"Why did the orcs invade in just a few days this time...Has our empire really made progress in these years?"

Virgil was silent when he heard this.

The village girl behind the old man seemed to realize that something was wrong with the atmosphere, and she quickly pulled the old man's sleeve.

"Okay grandpa, don't talk about this anymore. We just saved a life. Now we should consider evacuating."

"Oh." The old man nodded when he heard this.

If he had known that the imperial army could lose so many cities on the front line at the beginning without letting any news out, he would have been relieved a long time ago.

"By the way, let me help you with the evacuation..."

…

Balu is sitting in the military tent in the outdoor military camp at the moment, and he is not in a good mood.

In the past two days, small groups of troops that went to other villages to search for supplies continued to lose contact. Balu initially estimated that they should have encountered a human ambush force.

In the past two days alone, the number of soldiers lost by Balu's men has reached 5,000. Half of them were ambushed by humans when they were separated from the large army and acted alone, resulting in the annihilation of the entire army. The other half were searching for missing soldiers. In the process of joining forces, they were ambushed by humans and the group was destroyed.

Five thousand people is not a small number, it is already equivalent to 5% of his army.

The original joy of rapid progress was ruined by these things.

"Chief Balu." At the door, a tall orc walked in. He looked very angry, and there was no respect for him in his tone.

"The soldiers sent by our Iron Spear Tribe to search for the missing troops were ambushed by a small group of human troops and suffered heavy losses."

Judging from his appearance, there was no doubt that he was here for accountability.

"Sorry, it's my problem. The scouts didn't do a good job of investigating the terrain near the battlefield."

In fact, it's no wonder those scouts.

There are many mountains and forests near here. The woodlands are dense and very suitable for hiding. There are also many hidden trails that the orcs don't know about.

Although this land was the land of the orcs a long time ago, the orcs have been away from here for too long. When they invaded last time, the orcs did not leave any topographic map of this place to future generations, so this time they are equivalent to leaving again. This road.

"I don't need to hear apologies!" the chief of the Iron Spear Tribe said angrily. "As the joint chief, you should think of a way now. We are not following you to let our precious soldiers be buried in this mountain forest!"

"All I know is that I will try my best to find a way..." Balu nodded.

"If you can't come up with anything in the next few days, don't blame me for burning this place down." The chief of the Iron Spear Tribe said this as he prepared to leave.

"Wait, what did you just say?"

"I said, I will burn this place down!"

"Yes!" When Balu heard this, he clapped his hands suddenly. "I figured out a way!"

…

"So, on the battlefield, it's about the right time, right place, and right people." Orson was sitting in the headquarters in Phoenix City, teaching Li Te.

However, the postures of the two of them were slightly ambiguous.

Liteuk sat on Orson's lap and watched Orson write and draw on the paper.

Her hair brushed against Orson's chin, occasionally making Orson feel uneasy.

This was what Leeteuk requested. Orson couldn't resist Leeteuk, so he had no choice but to agree to it.

This can only be done when there is no one around.

"The so-called timing is difficult for us to grasp, and the same is true for the other party."

"The favorable location is now in our hands." Orson pointed to the sand table not far away.

He ordered his officers to make it overnight.

At first, the officers did not know the use of the terrain map made of a pile of sand. But when the deployment of troops from both sides was accurately reflected on the sand table map, the officers discovered that what they could only imagine in their minds was , suddenly became vivid, which made it easier for officers to formulate combat strategies based on the terrain on the battlefield.

Of course, in order to make a sand table, it is necessary to ensure that the terrain must be shaped correctly. For this reason, Orson gathered all the hunters from the villages around the battlefield and asked them to help formulate and correct the terrain, so that he could more accurately restore the terrain. The topography of the battlefield.

"Oson, you mean that we can use the terrain to deal with the enemy, and even rely on the favorable terrain to kill the enemy on a large scale?"

"Yeah." Orson nodded. "Do you know why I only sent mercenaries to carry out guerrilla tactics before?"

"Why?"

"Although guerrilla warfare is strategically a large-scale battle, it is actually subdivided into countless small-scale battles. Therefore, there are strict requirements for the military literacy of soldiers." Ossen explained.

"The empire's current soldier phalanx has a minimum size of one hundred, and the average size is between five hundred and one thousand."

"Soldiers who have received formal military training, in order to make up for the gap in individual strength, often form groups and fight collectively to bring out their full strength, but mercenaries are different."

"The size of most mercenaries is relatively small, and the largest mercenary group only has a few thousand people. Under this, mercenaries except for forming formations in big scenes when necessary, actually most of the time It’s skirmishing.”

"In terms of the ability of a few people to work as a small team, regular soldiers are far inferior to mercenaries."

Of course, Orson would not say that if the mercenaries died more, his side's future losses would be smaller.

After spending so much money to hire them, I couldn't just send them here to support the situation, right?

Although Orson does think so in his heart, if he says it out loud, his tall image may be damaged in front of Li Teuk.

Chapter 5: What’s on my mind

"Master Orson, Master Orson, something bad has happened!" While Orson was still instructing Li Te, the door was suddenly pushed open by someone.

The door opened because of the arrival of Orson, Carlisle, who became the deputy commander of the front line.

When he saw the postures of Orson and Li Te, Carlisle was stunned for a moment, looked at each other with both of them, then he closed the door and backed out.

When he opened the door again and came in, the relationship between Orson and Leeteuk had returned to the way it should have been, with Leeteuk standing behind Orson's chair.

However, you can still see their mood at the moment from their awkward expressions.

"General Carlisle, what happened, are you so anxious?" Orson raised his head and looked at Carlisle in confusion.

"That's it, Mr. Osen..."

…

On the front line, Virgil led a team that had just led the villagers from several nearby villages who had not yet evacuated through a forest path.

Just as he was about to take his mercenaries to the front line, he saw fire coming from the mountains in the distance.

The raging fire soon spread throughout the mountain, burning all the hiding places originally used by the mercenaries to fight guerrilla warfare.

After that, the fire continued to spread in the direction of Virgil.

The mountain forest in the eastern part of the Antica region seems to be burned out by fire.

The guerrilla war had not started for a few days, and the losses caused to the orcs had not started yet. In this way, when the fire completely burned the forest, the orcs' advance would be slow for a while, but when the forest was burned, the orcs' advance would no longer be harassed by the mercenaries.

After receiving this information, Virgil quickly made his own judgment, and then, he led the mercenaries, taking advantage of the fire not spreading to other forests, passing through the forests that had not been burned, and continued to go around the enemy's flank and rear.

If he didn't take advantage of this period of time to gain more results, it would be too late later.

Although his mercenary force had only 400 people, they were all carefully selected by Orson for him. The strength of each mercenary was at the third level, and they had worked together in normal times, and their professional quality was quite high. Therefore, after receiving Virgil's order, the mercenaries did not complain at all, but executed the orders from the superior.

...

"Oh, so that's it." Orson nodded after hearing this. "General Carlisle, guess why I sent mercenaries to delay the enemy's attack?"

"Uh..." Carlisle hesitated for a moment, and then asked: "Mr. Orson, are you trying to...delay time?"

"Yeah." Orson nodded. "Do you know why I want to delay time? Compared with the orcs, our war costs are obviously higher. If we drag it out, we may win, but the wealth of the Dukedom of Antica will be slowly destroyed."

"Please forgive my stupidity..."

Orson smiled and pointed to the direction of the capital on the map of the empire behind.

"I'm waiting for people there to come."

"There?" Carlisle looked at the map following Orson's finger, "But hasn't the royal family sent troops here?"

At this moment, a hurried sound of footsteps sounded at the door again.

"Report to the commander... there is a troop outside the city." A soldier walked into the room, bowed his head and saluted, and reported the military situation this time.

"What's the number?"

"National Silver Dragon Knights..." The soldier bowed his head and said these words.

As soon as these words reached Carlisle's ears, he felt as if his head had been hit hard and was confused.

"Wait... I, did I hear it right, the Silver Dragon Knights?"

"Yes." The soldier nodded. "The leader is the Knight Commander, Prince Arthas."

"I see, let them into the city, and invite His Royal Highness here."

"Prince Orson, are you doing all this to wait for the Silver Dragon Knights to arrive?" After the messenger left, Carlisle looked at Orson in disbelief.

The National Silver Dragon Knights, also known as the Royal Knights.

This knight group is controlled by the royal family and is the strongest ground force in the entire empire.

According to legend, before the establishment of the human empire, it was still in the form of a tribe. At that time, each tribe was accompanied by a dragon. The tribe that eventually established the empire defeated the evil red dragon Holland together with the founding dragon, the great silver dragon Skaia.