"Good morning, brill. How was your day so far?"
"Good morning, bron. I just returned from the town. The outside has been dangerous lately, I had to take a detour a lot of times to reach the village."
"That's true but you return to the village without a scratch every time."
"That is because I am careful."
"Also, you are one of the few people still allowed to leave the village without escort."
"That is because I can avoid the bandits easier if I am by myself. Also, you are part of the village defence force. They need all of you here to defend the village."
"That is true. If only the bandits went away. I can't wait for the day that bandits no longer bother us. I want to go on a vacation."
It's scary that I became so accustomed to the bandits now. The repeated attacks of the bandits on our village hasn't stopped, and the bandits are getting more and more aggressive but it has been easier to deal with them.
The village chief has been sending a lot of letters to the town mayor lately. I think that they are finally hammering out the fine details of the plan to eliminate the bandits. I didn't have permission to read the letters, and I don't want to open up an official letter like that. Thank goodness, the village chief likes to talk about it.
He seems more excited these days. That should mean that they are very close to completing the plans.
"Good morning, village chief. Here is your letter."
"Good morning, brill. You don't have to deliver it to me. I can just drop by your house later to get it myself."
"I know that the contents are important and would affect our village, so I specially delivered it. The rest of the villagers understand. This concerns everyone after all."
"Very well, Thank you. Let me just read it now. I hope that it brings good news. Hmm...mmm....I see."
The village chief will take some time to process the letter. I can head back home first and unload my baggage. Hornbasher already rushed back home. I need to get there fast or he might just destroy his harness to remove himself from my carriage.
"Baa!!"
"I know, I know. Give me a moment to drop my things and I will unhook you."
*Clack* *Clack* *Clack*
"Alright, go and play."
"Baa!"
Hmm, business has been stale lately. It's steady as ever and I still sell out every time I go to the town but there hasn't been anything of note. My customer base hasn't increased.
I guess I need to reach out to the other towns to increase my fame. It would add another thing to my already busy schedule but it's ok.
The actual work can be done easily as I have gotten better at my work but the travel time would be something that would clog my schedule. The risk would increase too, since the travel length from the village to the other town means that the chances of me encountering bandits would increase.
After we clear out any organised bandit force in our region, then I could possibly go with that, and I will expand to everywhere.
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*
"Brill, the village chief is gathering us. He has something to announce!!"
"Thanks! I'll be right there. Go on ahead!"
"Okay, Don't be late!!"
If the village chief is gathering us then it looks like they finally have a plan ready.
"May I have your attention, everyone. I know I retired from being the village chief but I will be taking over the announcement for the moment. This plan has been thought over for years since we found out that the bandits have established a base, so I wanted to be the one to finish it. Forgive me for this selfishness."
All the way back then, huh. Then they better have a good plan. If this plan fails then the bandits will have the advantage. This should also be the reason they took years to finish figuring out the plan.
"It has been named 'Compression Ring'. The first part of the plan involves asking for help from the neighbouring regions to surround our region, and prevent bandits from escaping. The next part is recruiting as many people as we can to form the ring. They will be stationed to surround the whole region and, as the name suggests, compress the ring until we find the bandit's base and wipe out every bandit."
It seems like a simple sweep of the whole region though. Also, if we move that many people, won't the bandits get alerted? How are we going to mask our movements?
"I know all of you have concerns like 'will the bandits know of our movements', 'how much of our defence force will we have to send?', or 'will the village be safe if we send a lot of our defence force to the ring?' but we have already prepared for this plan."
If it took them that long, then they should have already figured out the disadvantages of the plan and have a countermeasure for it.
"To mask the people going out to be part of the ring, they will masquerade as part of the mercenary escort of merchants. We will fake a mass hysteria of merchants fleeing the region and recruiting a lot of mercenary escorts to protect them. This should make the bandits think about their plans as they go forwards since merchants are one of their most lucrative targets. Next, we will train every villager to defend the village. You don't have to be masters of combat. We only want you to have the most basic of abilities and defensive formations. This is to fool the bandits that the defenders are still in the village."
All right, so far so good. The village defence force all wear heavy armour. Their faces are fully covered, so you can't tell who is whom. The only exception will be the captain because he wants to fully see everything clearly. It is also a strategy to attract the hatred of the enemy by presenting them a familiar target, which is himself. If the enemy sees a group of mobs, they will focus on the only one they can recognize. It helps lessen the pressure on everyone else but it puts him in danger more.
We can fake being the defence force but the enemy will think something is up if the captain is missing. The captain is also very strong, so he should be part of the 'ring', it would also boost the morale of the defence force that are going with him. However, it would be a show of weakness in the eyes of the bandits if he is gone when they show up for the regular siege.
He can't exactly fake an injury because if we show that weakness, the intensity of the bandit attack would increase.
"The captain will stay as he is indispensable to the defence, the rest of the veteran defence force will go in his place, along with most of the new trainees. The rest of the villagers would need to hold the defence of the village for a month at most. If we succeed then we would get rid of the base the bandits have established, and clean out every bandit force in our region."
Ah, It seems that he won’t be part of the ‘ring’. I’m happy that we would have a professional stay to defend the town. The only thing I am worried about is which of the village defence forces will lead the group during that ‘ring’ plan?
A month? Not too long and not too fast. The whole premise of the plan is that the ring will hold all of the bandits back from escaping. If the bandits find out before they formed the ring then they would just break out and escape. If the bandits regrouped and focused on one side of the ring then they would also escape.
This ring needs to be thick enough to hold their position against a large group of bandits, or they need to 'compress' fast enough that the other sides can easily reinforce any side where bandits might try to break through.
"The expected time for this plan to finish is a month but we will only start this plan two weeks from now. Things will continue as normal inside the cities and towns to prevent the bandits from being suspicious. Our village, however, will proceed to train everyone to act as the defence force. Are there any questions?"
"Here! Village chief! This plan would need a lot of people to perform well. If that amount of people were gathered, wouldn't we need a large amount of supplies and food? Will the defence force be bringing their own? or would we need to contribute up some rations and supplies to help the plan?"
"Yes, everyone in the region is expected to contribute some supplies and food to help the plan. This is also why the merchants are involved. They will disguise those supplies and food as part of their wares. They are also contributing to the war, as they have suffered steady loss because of the bandit situation."
I figured they would gain more because they could buy cheaper from the bandits. However, they are also prime targets of those bandits, so they must offer some sort of 'toll fee' whenever they encounter bandits. Even with the guards and mercenaries they hire, there is a limit to how much they could take before they break down from repeated attacks. If they encounter bandits with a similar or slightly less force than them, then offering a little bribe would be better than taking damages. It would only spiral down whenever they encountered other bandits. Their personal strength will wear down but they aren't encountering the same group of bandits. They will grind down too fast if they keep rushing to fight every bandit they encounter.
"Good, if there is nothing else then let's start the training!"
