Reincarnated into a Game As the Hero’s Friend

was a maneuver battle with a small number of people.

It seemed like that was how I fought when dealing with the bandits.
I didn’t realize it, though.
Certainly, I didn’t have the confidence to lead a large army.

“What about you, Rafed? The thing I have entrusted to you.
How is it going?”

“I have prepared what you asked for, but as expected, I was unable to prepare much.”

“Well, that couldn’t be helped.”

The fact that he could prepare some of them was already helpful.
I would be acting as a bait in the upcoming war with the demons, so my job was to lure the enemy out then wait for the Capital Knights to arrive.
The military power that I held wasn’t that big, but since I didn’t have to defeat the demon general on my own, I could use other ways to buy some time.

I then gave Rafed some instructions and entrusted the division of the goods to him.
I was honestly grateful for the fact that Rafed was a former merchant, so he knew the importance of supply and transport.

When Rafed left the room, Sir Kesten turned to me with a somewhat sarcastic expression.
As expected of the Grand Duke’s former subordinate, even their expression was a bit similar.

“Will it be fine to leave the arrangement of the supply to Rafed?”

“As long as our opponents are demons, it will be fine.”

I got a feeling that as long as there was a sign I would be losing, Rafed would disappear into the thin air before I knew it.
It could even be said that the fact that Rafed hadn’t betrayed me yet means that I was still winning.
Really, that guy was like Matsunaga Danjo.

(T/N: Matsunaga Danjo is a samurai in the Sengoku Period that kept changing his allegiance to whoever was winning at the time.)

Despite asking that kind of question, Sir Kesten never interfered with Rafed’s job.
It seemed like Sir Kesten asked that just so he could make sure of my thought.

“May I ask you something?”

“What is it?”

“Why do you think the way you do?”

I didn’t understand Sir Kesten’s question, so I gave him a confused look.
Sir Kesten then continued, “If your aim is to protect the town, you can just shut yourself inside of the town and wait for the Knights to arrive.
There is no need to lure out the demon general.”

“Ah, that’s what you mean.”

“Your Excellency, I do not understand why you even went all the way to make yourself bait and lure the demons to the north gate.”

Ah, he noticed.
It was true that there were other ways to fight if my aim was only to protect Anheim.
But I wanted to kill Gezarius here and provoking him to lure him out was the only way I could do that.

Of course, the possibility that Gezarius wouldn’t attack Anheim and would just shut himself off in Triot exists, but that possibility was very low.
Demons were arrogant, so he wouldn’t stay silent after being provoked repeatedly.

“If the demons attack the town wall while I shut myself here, the citizens will feel really anxious.
As such, I judged it would be best for me to minimize the time that the demons would spend attacking the walls.”

“Your Excellency, you are quite eccentric.”

Well, it was true that because of my memory of the previous life, I was concerned about keeping the ‘civilians’ away from the battlefield as much as possible.

On the other hand, as a noble and a governor, the civilians were also really important.
This world didn’t have advanced technology, so many things like transport still relied on the civilians as a labor force.
In addition, a territory without civilians was not that different from a wasteland.
Just like the proverb, ‘You are the ship and the people are water.
Water can both carry the ship and overthrow it.’

Although, in the end, everything was just a theory.

“In addition, I can only do well by using the way I’m familiar with .
I’m not a person who could say ‘we won!’ proudly despite the fact that there were many victims.”

“I see.”

As for to whom I would say ‘we won’ proudly… Well, let’s not think about that.
Before Sir Kesten continued to probe me, I changed the subject of conversation.

“Incidentally, there is something that I want Sir to do.”

“Please tell me.”

“Sir knows about the existence of Skywalks, right? I want a messenger to go to the capital after he has confirmed that a signal has risen from the first fort.
I want Sir to choose the messenger.”

“I understand.”

“I also want Sir to teach the veteran soldiers about how to use these things, but please do so in absolute secrecy.”

I handed Sir Kesten the Skywalks along with a magic bag.
Officially, the magic bag contained ‘necessary documents’ while in fact it contained a magic tool that I didn’t want others to learn of its existence.
The magic tool had gone through experiments, so I had already confirmed it could be used.
What’s left now was only to make use of it in an actual battlefield.

It would be better for these things to be used by veteran soldiers.
Frankly, I didn’t have any confidence in using them.

After I explained what these things were to Sir Kesten, he looked shocked.
Since even someone with a long experience showed that sort of expression, these things would definitely be effective in an actual battlefield.

“I’ll begin the construction of the first fort tomorrow.
I leave the protection of Anheim town to you, Sir.”

“Understood.”

It would most likely take 20 to 30 days from the start of the operation to the enemy’s attack to the first fort.
Mazell’s party was probably approaching the dungeon of the third Demon Generals by now.

Let’s produce a result that wouldn’t make me feel ashamed in front of the hero party.