We waited for the advance party of the enemy army on top of the walls, I had the members of the 2nd platoon line up along the wall with their AKs shouldered. I made them stand there since I thought it’ll look cool and intimidating.

Half an hour passed and Scout-3 returned to base. According to the pilots, they passed by a small group of riders around 15km south of the town. They estimated that the group will arrive in the next hour. Heck, they can arrive right now, we're already prepared anyways.

Another half an hour passed before we finally saw dust clouds in the distance. I took out my binoculars and looked at the group. The group is mostly composed of armored knights armed with lances, there are also several men holding flags. In the middle of the group are several robed people.

I ordered my men at the gatehouse to close the gates. By close the gates, I meant to block the gates with barbed wires. If they still managed to get through the barbed wires, then we'll just drop some grenades down the murder holes. And if they manage to survive the grenades, there's still 2 APCs ready to block the gate. 

The group of riders finally managed to get near the walls and noticed us. One of them made his horse move forward, "We are the Nareña Liberation Force, let us in so we may drive the foul monsters out of town."

"There are no more monsters here." I replied with a loud voice.

"Huh? Impossible! Let us in, in the name of His Majesty the King." The knight announced.

“The King's words do not have any value here in Nareña." I answered back.

"Yeah, Nareña isn't part of the Kingdom anymore! We are free men now!" The old man, a.k.a the town representative, added.

"YOU DAMN REBELS!" The knight yelled as he pulled out his sword, "CHARGE!"

The other knights lowered their lances and charged at the gates only to be caught in the barbed wires. Their horses got tangled in the barbed wires and the knights got thrown off. Once the knights were thrown off, the APCs blocked the way leading to the city and we threw some grenades down the murder holes.

The grenades went off and the knights inside the gatehouse got decimated. The knights outside didn't even dare to move as they saw their fellow knights getting blown to bits. The robed people got off their mounts and began saying something. But I couldn't hear what they were saying, I could only see their mouths moving. After a short while, balls of water appeared in front of some of the robed people. Sorcerers huh?

The balls of water were launched at the gatehouse. They probably think that we used some fire magic or something. Well, too bad for you, those ain’t magic. The lead knight went to the center of the group before barking out orders, “THEY’VE GOT FIRE SORCERERS! THOSE WITH WATER APTITUDE GO UP FRONT!” Yup, they totally think that we’re using magic.

By the time the balls of water reached the gatehouse, the explosions had already gone silent. Only the bodies of the unlucky knights and horses remain. Bits and pieces of armor lay scattered everywhere along with some flesh.

Upon seeing the carnage, the knight leader turned his horse around and ran away while shouting, "Retreat! Retreat!"

The other knights soon followed behind, some of the dismounted robed people got run over by the fleeing knights. Those who were lucky got on their horses and joined the fleeing knights.

"That was easier than expected." The town representative said as he looked at the fleeing enemies.

"They'll be back with the full force of their army you know." I replied.

"Bah, they can bring all the men they can muster but they still won't capture Nareña. Not with you guys defending. Anyways, I'll gather some volunteers to help in the defense." He said before waving goodbye.

I watched him get down the walls and mount a horse waiting below before continuing into the town. As soon as I lost track of him, I turned my attention to my men again and gave orders to prepare for the upcoming battle.

+ + + + +

An hour has passed after the failed attempt to enter Nareña. The group of knights and sorcerers rejoined with the main army. The knight in charge of the group went immediately to the center of the formation and found the commander.

"Your Lordship! I have come to report the failure of the mission." The knight leader said as he trailed behind the commander's horse.

"How in the nine hells did you fail!?" The commander questioned irritatedly.

"They have a powerful Fire Sorcerer among their ranks, my Lord." The knight leader said.

"Fire Sorcerer!? How the fuck did the monsters have a fire sorcerer!? How dare you lie to save your own skin!?" The commander yelled at the knight leader. "Have you gone mad!? At least make a believable excuse, not some crazy bullshit."

Dammit, why the hell did this fat noble become the leader for this force? The knight leader ranted to himself. "My lord, it is not monsters occupying the city, but rebels."

"First fire sorcerers, now rebels? IS YOUR HEAD WORKING PROPERLY!?” The commander yelled.

“What I speak is the truth, my lord. You can also ask the leader of the sorcerers.” The knight leader retorted.

“GET ME THAT DAMN SORCERER THEN!” The commander demanded.

“As you wish, my lord.” The knight leader replied as he bowed his head. Why the hell don’t you get him yourself!?

The knight leader went to the head of the formation and searched for the sorcerer's leader, but found no one so he instead went to the nearest sorcerer he could find, “Where’s your master?” He asked the sorcerer.

“Our master!? YOU DAMN KNIGHTS RAN OVER HIM!” The sorcerer yelled.

“YOU'RE BLAMING US!?” The knight leader retorted back.

“YOU’RE THE FIRST ONE TO FLEE YOU DAMN COWARD.” The sorcerer spat back.

“WHY YOU daMN LITTLE TWIG!” The knight leader said as he placed his hand on his sword.

The regular troops who overheard the argument began whispering to each other, “The knights ran away?”

The knight leader who heard the troop’s whispers grew more agitated and pulled out his sword and faced them, “SHUT UP YOU DAMN LEVIES! YOU HAVE NO SAY IN THIS ARMY!”

“Says the one who ran away, some knight you are.” One of the levies said in a loud voice.

“YOUUUUU!” The knight leader roared as he got off his horse and charged the man who insulted him.

But before the knight leader could reach the man, someone yelled to stop the knight. “THAT’S ENOUGH! I WAS RIGHT ABOUT YOU! YOUR DAMN HEAD IS BROKEN.” The commander said.

“YOOUUUU PIG!” The knight yelled as the target of his anger changed from the man who insulted him to the commanding noble.

“WHO ARE YOU CALLING A PIG!? KILL THAT MAN, WHOEVER BRINGS ME HIS HEAD GETS 10000 PISAS!” The commander ordered.

The levies immediately surrounded the knight leader, but the knight leader was better trained and equipped than them. The levies couldn’t do anything but poke the knight leader with their spears. In return, the knight leader would grab a spear head and smash it into two before pulling the unfortunate levy and stabbing him.

 This went on until the commander’s personal knights stepped in. Outnumbered, the knight leader fought on valiantly until his last breath, taking with him a knight and a few levies.

 After the knight leader’s little fiasco, the army continued their march to Nareña. The commander didn’t believe the knight leader’s report even with the support of the other knights and sorcerers reports, he dismissed them as the ramblings of cowards to save their skins.

+ + + + +

In the royal capital, in the central plaza. The group of heroes gathered in front of Johan’s store. Johan came out of the door and greeted the heroes.

“Good, good. Now that you’re here we can now leave, my workers actually prepared the convoy already while I was away, so we can leave now.” Johan said to them.

“Oh that’s great. How about those men who were supposed to come along?” Rika asked.

“They’ll need to find another way, since we need to leave now. I’ll just have some of my workers give them enough funds to get there if they come to my store.” Johan answered.

“Okay.” Rika said before turning to her classmates, “Hey guys, are you ready to leave now?”

The other heroes all agreed to leave immediately, most of them were relieved to leave the capital earlier since they don’t know if the King and Court Sorcerer will still come for them.

“C’mon then, we need to leave now if we want to arrive in the eastern duchy earlier. The journey will be 1 week long, so we better hurry.” Johan said. “Tia’s already in one of the wagons, you heroes will be riding the last 2 wagons in the rear.”

“Okay, well you heard him guys, let’s go now.” Kelvin said as he took the lead.

"One week? In that wagon? No waaaay." Cess muttered to herself.

After all the heroes have boarded, Johan spoke to some of his workers first before riding the lead wagon. The wagon convoy consists of 5 wagons in total, 2 were transport wagons, the two wagons that the heroes are in, while the rest were cargo wagons. The merchant convoy started to move as soon as a way was made through the busy plaza.

As the wagons moved on, several mounted men followed some ways behind the convoy. They were all dressed as travellers and didn’t stand out among the crowd.

“Beute 1 and 2 have joined together and are leaving the capital. Bravo team will pursue while Alpha team will search Beute-1’s store before joining up with bravo team, over.” One of them spoke to his radio.

+ + + Ian + + +

I’ve just received word from the SAS teams that I sent to watch over my classmates and to monitor Johan. They reported that Johan and my classmates have already left the capital and are heading east. One team will follow Johan and my classmates, while the other will first raid Johan’s store before joining together.

Half an hour after receiving the report, I spotted a dust cloud to the south. Guess the enemy’s already here.

"2nd platoon, to your positions." I yelled.

The men and women of 2nd platoon positioned themselves along the battlements, the quad 20mm was also manned. The APCs down below has already blocked the gate. The tanks in the forest were also ready now, they were only waiting for my signal.

Although we've already seen the dust cloud in the distance, it still took around half an hour before we could finally see the enemy. According to Leah's estimation, the enemies number around 500 to 700. The enemy is more than 5 times larger than our whole force, I only have less than 100 men: 2 medics, 68 infantry, 6 mortar/artillery crew, and 12 tankmen.

The enemy's numerical advantage isn't a problem with our modern equipment though. We got M48s with 90mm cannons, the quad 20mm can fire 480 rounds per minute, and we have MG42s and AK47s for our small arms. We can basically demolish the small invading army.

The enemy army stopped roughly around 150 meters or so, the max range of their bows? The formation split up in the middle making a path where a pig on a horse marched. The pig stopped right in front of the gates.

"There really are rebels here." It said, "Rejoice you peasant scum, for you will have the honor of surrendering to the great I, Count Le Chun de Yobab. I the great and magnanimous ruler of-"

"Shut up porky!" I shouted since I was getting tired of listening to him, "Nareña is now an independent town, so get the hell out of here and return to whatever pigsty you came out of."

"PORKY!? PIGSTY!? YOUUU! YOUUU PEASANT SCUM! I OFFER YOU PEACE YET YOU DARE INSULT ME!? PREPARE TO FACE MY WRATH!" The pig squealed.

"Yeah yeah, go back to your army and begin the assault, we're waiting, you know." I said mockingly.

"DAMN YOU PEASANT SHIT!" The pig squealed one last time before returning to his army.

A couple minutes after he returned to his army, several rows of men moved forward. So they're just gonna fire some arrows huh? We have no way to defend ourselves from the arrows, so I had my men enter the gatehouse for protection. The quad 20mm crew just raised the gun so that the front metal plate could shield them.

As the pig saw my men retreat from the walls, he circled around his army while shouting something. Trying to raise morale I guess. I looked at the enemy army one last time before taking cover inside the gatehouse too.

We waited inside the gatehouse with bated breaths as we awaited the hail of arrows. A few seconds passed before we heard a report from the tanks outside, “Sir, *Krshk* the enemy let loose the first volley of arrows. The troops at the back also *Krsk* appear to be doing something, over.”

“I see, keep on monitoring them, don’t fire yet. Wait for them to come at us.” I replied.

“*Krshk* Roger that, command.”

As soon as we finished talking, we could hear the impacts of the arrow from atop the wall. The attack has already started. And all we could do for now is to wait for the volley of arrows to stop, after that comes our counterattack.