I Planned a Su*cide Mission and Got Kicked Out of the Party

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Jeongjae had a completely different combat style compared to the legendary heroes of the past. Instead of observing the overall situation from the rear, he highly respected the autonomy of the commanders managing each legion’s movements. Unlike Walter, who controlled each of the 3,000-strong legions himself, Jeongjae grouped several legions into three clusters of 20,000 to 30,000 each, ensuring that each cluster could operate independently.

This was fundamentally rooted in Jeongjae’s lack of ability. He could not become Walter. However, Walter never even wished for Jeongjae to become another version of himself.

“Commander, it seems the second cluster is struggling. What’s the reason?”

Jeongjae inquired while grabbing a commander who held the title of Count. The general bowed his head and replied.

“It’s the Ogre Fortress in the center. Those giants are rolling boulders and logs down the hill on both sides. The damage isn’t fatal, but it’s impossible to eliminate those giants while they’re positioned there, so we can’t advance.”

“The slope is steep, so it would be difficult to draw out the cavalry as well. I will take action.”

With that, Jeongjae donned a pair of goggles, gripping Holmes’ revolver in his left hand and the Holy Sword in his right. All three were legacies of the Hellhound. Clad in robes and wearing the artifacts of the fallen hero, Jeongjae fully realized that he was stepping onto the battlefield as a being altogether different from the Grand Mage of old.

Jeongjae charged forward. While he didn’t use the Van Fleet magic, the revolver aimed ahead continuously released tiny magical bullets.

The Orcs that noticed Jeongjae’s movements and rushed to intercept him all fell backward from the Mana Bullets. Those who got too close were punished by the edge of the glowing Holy Sword.

With acceleration magic cast on himself, wielding his sword while firing the revolver, Jeongjae was like a two-legged tank that could turn the tide of battle single-handedly. In an instant, he broke through the widely spread Orc legions between his main force and the second cluster, starting his sprint up the hill where the central fortress was located.

The giants, shocked to see a hero charging up the hill alone, began to throw massive boulders in Jeongjae’s direction.

“Urrrgh!”

Seeing the two boulders rushing his way, Jeongjae shouted and swung both weapons simultaneously. One boulder was split in two by the Holy Sword, rolling behind him, while the other shattered into sand upon being struck by a bullet from the revolver. Jeongjae inhaled the flying sand and had to cough violently, expelling bits of stone.

“This is bad for my throat. I need to reconsider next time.”

Of course, inhaling sand was better than getting hit in the head by a rock. As the Ogres thought they could resist by drawing their weapons, Jeongjae swiftly leaped over the wall and stormed into the fortress, severing the head of one giant.

“Guck! Gwaaaah!”

There were quite a few Ogres crowding inside the fortress. Dozens of giants looked at Jeongjae at once, swinging their weapons with an intimidating force that would have made anyone pee their pants a while ago.

Honestly, as someone who hadn’t even gained magical power for five years, Jeongjae was equally scared of these monsters that weighed eight times more than him. However, instead of freezing in place, he immediately drew his weapon and cast a spell without a scroll.

“Unlimited Bullet Magic, Van Fleet.”

Scrolls are fundamentally tools that alleviate the burden of memorizing overly complex magic circles. For Jeongjae, who had endlessly researched the usefulness of this magic, the complex formulas of the Unlimited Barrage spell were already as familiar as his own identification number.

Jeongjae didn’t unleash a barrage for long. Just five seconds. During that short span, he unleashed Mana Bullets to the left and right, and the giants leading the charge fell to the ground, lifeless. Jeongjae hastily stopped the magic to conserve mana and began swinging his sword while rushing forward.

With the start of close-quarters combat between Jeongjae and the Ogres, a path opened up for the soldiers to pass through. Not long after observing the situation from the rear, Alex Caprice realized that this was the perfect moment and shouted loudly.

“The way is clear! Now break through and attack the enemy’s rear!”

The cavalry, clad in armor reinforced with the royal crest, was the legion with the most formidable breakthrough ability in the world, except for the Eramenia spear warriors. Once the infantry commanders realized that Alex’s knights were piercing through, they hurriedly divided their forces to clear a path for the cavalry. The Orc legion, already on the brink of being surrounded, lost its will to resist the moment the knights charged in, collapsing without a fight. As Alex decimated three Orc legions all at once, he didn’t lose a single knight in the process.

Meanwhile, Jeongjae was engaged in a fierce battle against giants who charged at him with lethal intent. One or two Ogres were no issue for a Grand Mage, but the giants, swinging their clubs and targeting him from all angles, became a headache even for Jeongjae.

With his not-so-skilled swordsmanship, Jeongjae slashed at the giants’ legs and split open their bellies while being covered in blood and guts. Almost slipping on the spilled entrails of a giant as he nearly vomited.

“No wonder nobody wants to eat offal. I can’t even think of tripe anymore!”

The Ogres themselves seemed indifferent to their kin being slaughtered by Jeongjae. They appeared to lack even the minimum desire for survival. No matter how seasoned a veteran soldier is, when faced with a situation where allies are being massacred, they tend to lose composure and show fear.

But the giants were different. This race had no innate fear of death. It wasn’t a cultural trait, but rather a genetic trait they were born with.

Such an aggressively hostile trait that was disadvantageous to survival rarely appeared among naturally evolved beings. Jeongjae couldn’t help but wonder if these were artificially bred species for battle as he fired Mana Bullets at the Ogres.

After the chaos of the skirmish, the only one left standing at the fortress on the hill was the hero himself. Alex, having subdued the area, galloped up to the hill alone to observe the situation inside the fortress. As he vaulted over the walls on horseback, he raised the visor of his helmet.

“You really annihilated them. Why are there so many Ogres?!”

“It probably indicates that the Demon King is anxious. Giants aren’t normally a race that can be carelessly deployed like this due to their low numbers. If it were a normal army, we would have had quite the struggle, but they were unfortunate to face us. It was no big deal. How is it outside?”

Jeongjae couldn’t help but smirk as he looked at Alex’s face, which was gazing down at him from atop his horse. He looked nothing short of a shining paladin, having plunged into enemy lines without sustaining significant damage, while Jeongjae himself was in a wretched state, soaked in the blood and guts of Ogres.

Noticing Jeongjae’s look, Alex shrugged.

“I fought earnestly as well. Just because I’m not covered in enemy blood doesn’t mean I fought half-heartedly.”

“I know, I know. I just found it amusing. If there’s something urgent, I want to deal with it quickly. I desperately need to wash up.”

“If I were a hero, that’s all I would think about in such a moment. Fortunately, there’s almost nothing urgent now. Almost all of the enemy forces numbering 50,000 have been completely annihilated, and our casualties were minimal. We won this battle decisively.”

“Haaah…”

As Jeongjae sat down heavily in a puddle of blood, he let out a sigh of relief. Although his clothes were soaked in the filthy blood of giants, he wasn’t particularly concerned, having already had a shower in their gore. Alex shrugged again.

“It looks like you achieved good results in your first battle as a hero. What do you think?”

“I only realized that the commanders of the Empire are more capable than Walter thought. Walter never gave such autonomy to each legion while commanding the main army.”

“However, you need to control them well so they don’t run wild. But your words seem to be right. Our country has many capable generals. Since we can no longer rely on my sister and brother, the upcoming battles will depend on how well we can utilize them.”

“I guess I need to befriend the nobles.”

Recalling that all the generals above the major legion commanders were nobles, Jeongjae nodded. Unlike the strictly defined rights based on rank, as stated in the law regarding suffrage, advancement within the military doesn’t particularly discriminate based on titles in the Empire.

The current system allows barons and viscounts to sit in positions equivalent to that of the overall commander of the entire army, issuing orders even to dukes, barons, and even royalty. The Empire’s military rank and title structure is treated as entirely separate from noble titles.

However, in reality, unless you are a soldier with a high-ranking relative, or at the very least, a noble himself, promoting above the rank of a battalion commander overseeing a thousand men is extremely difficult. Most of the commanders of the 30 or so legions in the Empire held noble titles of count or higher, except for a couple of barons. Jeongjae wasn’t particularly dissatisfied with that reality and had no intention of making changes.

Reforming a stagnant system is enjoyable in theory, but when it comes to execution, it quickly becomes a nightmarish puzzle. If Jeongjae was thinking about spending another ten years in war, it might be worth considering establishing a decent military academy to nurture outstanding officers, but delaying like that would only guarantee defeat in the war.

Crucially, Jeongjae had no significant complaints about the current capabilities of the legion commanders. In front of a system that is operating without issues, fairness isn’t necessarily a crucial value.

“We must not stop.”

Jeongjae stated as he leaned against the fortress wall and climbed up onto the battlements. Looking out from the wall, he could see the terrain of the surrounding area at a glance.

The terrain grew rougher the further north one ventured. Using a simple observation magic to look to the north, Jeongjae could clearly see the black flags of the Demon King’s army fluttering here and there. The enemy was waiting for the Imperial army to approach, instead of consolidating their forces.

The intention was clear. Rather than defeating the Imperial army in a decisive battle as they had done before, they intended to exploit their overwhelming numerical superiority to draw out the Empire’s attrition through a delaying tactic. Walter Hellhound had certainly had a tough time with the Empire’s delaying tactics as well.

“There are more than 40 enemy strongholds scattered across the 100 km we need to advance.”

Jeongjae sighed heavily.

“How many of those fortresses do we absolutely have to destroy?”

“I’ll need to consult with the generals, but from what I see, if we try to bypass even one, there’s a high likelihood something will go wrong. Most of them are in elevated areas, making it tricky to ignore them. But I wonder how they plan to receive supplies while hiding out in places like that…”

It was both pleasing and vexing that the enemy was clustered in a location where they couldn’t be resupplied. While it meant they could employ a strategy of surrounding and starving them out, failing to break the fortress and holding them under siege essentially required a large commitment of troops and time.

Jeongjae seriously suspected that the Demon King had set those fortresses as bait to delay them. The Demon King was certainly someone capable of doing just that.

However, at that moment, a wyvern caught Jeongjae’s eye as it dropped a strange chunk of meat above the fortress and flew back. Jeongjae couldn’t help but let out a slight sound of admiration.

“That’s an advanced resupply method.”

“Huh? What are you talking about? Are the enemies even performing normal resupply operations in a fortress built on the hill?”

“It might be dubious if it’s normal, but at least they’re making an effort. It seems there has been some additional transaction between the Dragon Lord and the Demon King following the Eramenia attack. Rather than directly intervening in the war, the Dragon Clan seems to be supporting aerial resupply via wyverns. The troubling fact is that those wyverns can conduct combat as well. Let’s brace ourselves.”

“This road has always been a path of thorns. We were prepared from the start.”

Alex nodded. Jeongjae’s mind was a whirl of thoughts. No matter how he considered it, it was practically impossible to carve a path to the Demon King’s castle using just this one route of the Northern Expeditionary Force. Somehow, they needed to unlock a second and third route.

Currently, the only hopes lay in the Febria Bay Fortress and the Eramenia gorge. While Alex was steeling himself, Jeongjae was fervently praying for either route to be cleared.