OVERLORD VOLUME 14 - Witch of the Ruined Country

Chapter 1: An Unexpected Move - Part 3

Philip had finally reached his destination, a patch of road in Baron Delvin's demesne. He had led his soldiers on a march, starting from the previous day and camping overnight, to the location of the attack. According to intel, a Sorcerous Kingdom's caravan would be passing through this place.

Philip was on horseback, looking down upon his lined-up soldiers.

They were soldiers, or more accurately villagers, under his command.

A total of fifty were gathered.

He had sent draft orders throughout his entire territory, but not many men responded to the call. The most common response was that they had already served the time they were obligated to.

The truth was, this heavily upset Philip.

The plan was devised for the future prosperity of their lands, for the good of everyone who lived there. There was also an abundance of potential spoils of war, which Philip had given thought to and proposed that it should be distributed to everybody. Still, no one came to help.

They're too foolish.

A bunch of ignoramuses who could not tell if something was beneficial to them or not. Nay, this was the exact reason why they had to be led and lorded over by a genius such as himself.

Despite trying so hard to convince himself otherwise, his anger towards those who didn't understand him flared up. He had thought about forced conscription, but that would definitely enrage his old man, who already had a foot through death's door.

In the end, he paid them in advance with the money he had borrowed from Hilma.

After all of his hard work, he managed to gather fifty men, but these were either old geezers well past their prime, sick youths with frail bodies, or men with inflated egos who went around looking for fights in their villages and were generally fractious.

To put it bluntly, they were the nuisances of their village and none of them were worth the money. Even so, Philip felt an indescribable excitement basking in the gaze of his soldiers.

He had a hunch that a widely circulated heroic tale of his own was about to begin. No, it had already begun.

As his territory will inevitably expand, so too would his status grow. He will soon be joining the world's stage under brilliant limelight.

He was about to deliver the first blow to the Sorcerous Kingdom, a feat no one else could accomplish. As a ploy to contain the Sorcerous Kingdom, this would surely allow Philip to receive high praise from the royal family and a rank that's befitting this achievement. Perhaps he could even marry that beautiful princess-

"-So, milord, can we actually attack them?"

Philip, who had been basking in his dream, was dragged back to reality as if a bucket of cold water had just been dumped over him.

He returned to his senses and looked at the soldier who had asked the question.

The soldier was an ordinary man, around 30 years old. He wore disheveled clothes and, for some reason, was holding a wooden shovel. Even a club would have been better than a shovel, otherwise even some of the sticks lying around here would have worked as well. Philip wanted to say something about that, but the shovel was probably the result of his order to have them bring their own weapons.

Frankly, seeing that a few of the villagers were without even sticks gave Philip a bit of a headache. Apart from them, however, the group as a whole appeared as though they were some destitute bandits. Perhaps it could even fool their opponents into believing so.