Preparations (2)
The group introduced themselves as the D-Rank mercenary band known as the Brothers of Gaoshan. They wanted to join the war as my escorts under the Alliance coalition. The man speaking was the eldest brother, Pierce.
He was a sturdy mercenary in his thirties with thick eyebrows. The men lined up behind him all shared the same dark blue hair and heavy brows, proving they truly were brothers. Each of them carried a half-shield on their backs, and their leather armor looked nearly identical. I liked the uniformity of their equipment. Being siblings, their teamwork was probably solid too. The only thing that bothered me was their nickname: the Cowardly Brothers.
“Can I see your mercenary tags?”
I took the tag Pierce handed over. They had completed over twenty successful requests. Yet the fact they were still D-Rank proved they had only taken easy jobs. Still, among those twenty-plus requests, there were no records of mid-mission abandonment. They seemed to have some sense of honor. As long as they held their shields properly and blocked attacks, being called cowards didn’t matter.
“Alright. We have a deal. Step aside for now. Are you two here for the war contract as well?”
The next pair wore long hoods pulled low, but bird beaks protruded from beneath the fabric, and I caught glimpses of fur on their faces.
“That’s right. I’m the C-Rank mercenary, Kk… Ubada. This is Osoro, a catkin.”
“May I see both of your mercenary tags?”
They had only four and three successful requests respectively, yet both were C-Rank. That was surprising.
“Because we’re kk… beastmen, people don’t give us proper requests or process completions correctly. Those filthy humans always try to cheat us out of our money. You won’t do that… kk… will you?”
The reason their rank was high despite few successful requests was probably because they had completed the kinds of dangerous or undesirable jobs that others avoided. In this world, beastmen were culturally taboo, but as someone from Earth, I had no such prejudice. On the contrary, I found these demi-human races fascinating and was curious about their way of life. That alone made me want to recruit them.
Judging by how they hid their faces with hoods and lingered in the guild’s corner, plus their shabby clothing, I could guess the level of discrimination they faced.
“Fine. Contract accepted. And if you want, I’ll deposit money with the guild as collateral.”
When I offered to provide a deposit, a subtle, twitching smile seemed to flicker across the beastmen’s faces.
“Then step aside for now. Are you here for the war contract too? Let me see your tag.”
A few more people approached after the beastmen, all seeking escort work. But after checking their tags, success and failure records, clothing, speech, and behavior, none of them caught my interest. With the seven I had already chosen plus the Chico Mercenary Group, we would have more than enough—perhaps even too many—so I stopped recruiting.
“First, let’s register the requests, then go get something to eat.”
“If there are beastmen, send them to that corner over there.”
We had entered what was supposedly one of the more expensive inns in Abbott Castle, but the discriminatory remark immediately soured my mood.
“Kk… At least they’re giving us a corner seat instead of blocking the entrance. Kk… That’s something, I suppose.”
I was about to argue with the innkeeper or suggest we go somewhere else, but Ubada and Osoro—the ones being targeted—simply moved to the corner as if it were perfectly normal. Seeing them accept such treatment as a given made me feel even worse.
What really pushed me to the edge was when they even put up a partition on our side. If the food hadn’t come out quickly, I might have lost my temper. But after watching the two of them eat, I began to understand—somewhat—the innkeeper’s discriminatory attitude.
Beastmen weren’t just different from humans in appearance. Their eating habits were completely unlike ours too.
The avian Ubada ate like a chicken, shoving his beak into the bowl with wet awp, awp sounds, then lifting his head to swallow. Naturally, food spilled everywhere. The catkin Osoro buried his face in the bowl and devoured everything with frantic, noisy gulps, exactly like the stray cats I used to feed back home when they ate in a frenzy.
Whiteish fur around Ubada’s mouth was streaked with broth, while Osoro’s whiskers were caked with bits of food. It was enough to kill anyone’s appetite.
The Gaoshan brothers, instead of eating their own meals, spent most of the time staring at the pair in fascination.
“They really do eat as wild as the name suggests.”
“Little brother, I used to scold you for smacking your lips while eating, but now I won’t say a word.”
“Yeah. I always thought our fourth brother ate like a barbarian, but compared to them, you’re downright refined.”
The fourth brother, Ensery, apparently had messy table manners, but in front of these beastmen, he was suddenly being praised as a gentleman with elegant dining etiquette.
Everyone somehow managed to eat while watching the two beastmen devour their food with wild abandon. We ate so distractedly that I barely registered what anything tasted like.
To build camaraderie, we talked about the mother who had given birth to the five massive brothers.
“Your mother must have suffered giving birth to five boys.”
“Actually, there are eight of us. The youngest son stays home to care for our parents, and our sisters have all married off.”
“Oh!”
Even in old Korea, families with eight or nine children existed, but these days such large families were unheard of. Simply having that many children earned my respect.
“I tried to avoid dangerous work so I could help raise my younger siblings. That’s why we got stuck with the nickname Cowardly Brothers. But after more than three years without losing a single man, I’m not ashamed of that insulting title.”
“I’ll acknowledge that. Protect my life the same way you protect your brothers’.”
“I will do my best.”
While eating, we also agreed on additional combat pay of two gold per person.
“Osoro, can you track by scent?”
“Sticking my nose to the ground isn’t exactly pleasant, but if it’s following a scent, I can do it.”
“I can’t fly. Kk… Everyone always asks about that when they see me. Kk….”
Ubada brought it up before I could even ask. He pulled back his hood and showed us his arms and back.
“We don’t have separate wings. Kk… In our race, our wings became arms, so we can’t fly. It’s disgusting when people compare us to harpies.”
The avian Ubada wielded two long, slender spears, while Osoro seemed to fight with a pair of short swords.
“Tomorrow morning outside the castle, we’ll practice coordinating our movements. Unless something special comes up, we’ll all sleep in the same space, so let’s not make things awkward for each other.”
We rented two rooms at the inn and split up to sleep. Pierce, acting like a proper leader, established a rotation for night watch.
“When an attack comes at me, the Pierce brothers will surround me with your shields. Ubada and Osoro will split to the left and right and ambush anyone attacking me.”
Since my life as the client was the top priority, I didn’t even consider counterattacking to defeat enemies. The entire training focused solely on defense and disrupting the enemy’s ability to continue their assault.
Ubada used his race’s natural lightness to leap into the air like he was flying, throwing or thrusting his spears. Osoro moved with feline agility, darting around chaotically while swinging his short swords. Both were clearly better suited for offense than defense.
We repeated the drill under various scenarios until our coordination began to improve.
“That’s enough for today. Tomorrow we move out with Baron Cortner, so let’s unify your outfits with the Pierce brothers—black leather armor for everyone.”
After training, I considered what to feed them. Given Ubada’s beak, I made American-style hot dogs—sausages stuffed into bread with ketchup.
“Kk… When I swallow chunks whole I can’t taste anything, but kk… each bite of this has a different flavor. Kk… It’s delicious.”
For the catkin Osoro, I prepared a sticky meat stew. When I made the viscosity similar to Churu cat treats, he managed to eat without smearing food all over his mouth and whiskers.
“It feels a bit disappointing when they don’t eat wildly anymore.”
Pierce and his brothers looked almost sad that the beastmen’s energetic eating style had disappeared.
“For the rest of today, let’s prepare food that will last a long time. With thousands gathering, supply issues are bound to arise.”
Count Shulman’s knights arrived, along with the pot-bellied Baron Cortner leading his own knights and soldiers. The force Count Shulman was sending to the Alliance numbered three hundred men.
From that day on, we left the inn and stayed in military tents. A young soldier named Harvey was assigned to attend me.
After Count Shulman’s speech, Baron Cortner gave one as well. His protruding belly made it clear he wasn’t a man who had rolled around on battlefields. The knights under him and Count Shulman’s knights didn’t look like battle-hardened veterans either. It seemed they were only sending newly titled nobles this time.
After two days of marching, we joined Shuzel Kingdom’s expeditionary force of roughly five thousand. A few days later, three thousand from the Redecup Kingdom and four thousand from the Orman Kingdom joined us as we entered the Splain Empire.
Just the three kingdoms’ combined army already exceeded twelve thousand. When you added the imperial forces and troops from other regions, I estimated the total would reach sixty to eighty thousand.
Since the orcs numbered around thirty thousand, people began saying that once the great army gathered, they should wipe out every last monster living in the Akran Mountains. Everyone spoke as if victory was already assured.
This wasn’t just our side. The nobles and officials of the Splain Empire thought the same. It was also why the amount of alcohol served at the simple nightly tent banquets kept increasing.
But I didn’t see it that way. Watching the three kingdoms’ armies move, their supply lines, scouting, and reconnaissance were a complete mess.
Looking at the Shuzel Kingdom army first, Marquis Kalshain commanded five thousand soldiers, but he wasn’t controlling all of them. Each territory’s troops had their own commanders and separate supply chains. As a result, the chain of command was nonexistent, and there were no unified rules for the soldiers. They literally didn’t even know who was on their own side—an absolute rabble.
I wondered if sixty to eighty thousand troops like this could actually function when gathered together.
The orcs’ sphere of activity is expanding further. Pioneer villages can no longer hold out and are being abandoned.
After hearing the ranger’s report, Deputy Commander Gale could only frown. Ever since he saw the orcs rampaging under the cry of “For the Horde!” he had felt uneasy. When messengers ran back and forth shouting “For the Alliance!” he had even laughed, thinking it was just like the game World of Warcraft.
But after learning that the Horde and Alliance were now fighting in the area where he played as a mountain ranger of the Akran Mountains, he felt nothing but irritation. The leisurely retirement-like gameplay he had enjoyed suddenly felt like it had switched to hardcore mode.
“I submitted a tester report asking how we should respond to the war between the Horde and the Alliance. Has headquarters given any answer?”
“No, sir. Unfortunately, Gale, the higher-ups say we should just let the game flow naturally.”
Gale, who lived in Toronto, Canada, couldn’t help but feel disappointed by Changing’s response. In the early days of the game, they hadn’t been like this. Lately, he had the strange feeling that he was being deliberately neglected.
“Deputy Commander! Orc riders incoming!”
“Orcs with catapults!”
“The forward watchtower has collapsed! The forward outpost personnel are retreating!”
Reports flooded in as messengers and routed soldiers poured in all at once. Gale felt a headache coming on.
‘Should I just log out already?’