Our Family Has Fallen

Chapter 57: Chapter 57: Underestimating the Enemy and Acting Rashly_1

To shift the blame entirely, the second-in-command emphatically exaggerated the Barbarians’ combat strength and threat, claiming that his desperate escape was to summon reinforcements.

”I suppose those Barbarians must be the murderers. They must have been hiding here, planning to continue eliminating other bandits at night. It was fortuitous that we found them; otherwise, more people would have died by their hands tonight.”

Seeing the captain remain silent, the second-in-command could only steel himself and continue trying to take some credit. However, the captain wasn’t paying attention to this; his focus was elsewhere.

If all the information matched and they could dispose of the bodies so quickly, didn’t that mean the Extraordinary item truly existed? He had been worried about not having an excuse to attack the Barbarians, but now there was a ready-made reason!

With this thought, the loss of several elite fighters didn’t seem so painful after all.

Snapping to his senses, the captain drew his saber and shouted his commands loudly.

”Those Barbarians killed our brothers! I shall avenge them! Find them, and kill them!”

”Vengeance!”

”Take them down!”

”Kill, kill, kill!”

They were all nearly dying of boredom; no one could refuse the chance for some amusement. Now, everyone showed a strong eagerness for battle.

Soon, the bandits dispersed to search the area, but Lance and his companions had already slipped away; they were unlikely to be found.

”Although we’ve lost quite a few men, they are in no better state. By now, they have probably fled back to the Barbarian camp,” the captain mused, then commanded aloud, ”Return and prepare for an all-out attack!”

The captain also understood that if those men were discovered, they were unlikely to stay. It would be difficult to find them in the vast forest, so it was better to attack their vulnerable point—the Barbarians’ camp—and force them to return.

The large troop rushed back to their camp, and the remaining bandits were also informed.

Two elite teams and Laosan had reportedly been killed by the Barbarians, and now the captain was launching a war of revenge for their brothers.

Having all come from military backgrounds, they displayed an orderliness and execution beyond the reach of ordinary bandits under the captain’s command.

Soon, they had donned their equipment. Some men began leading horses and dragging cannons, pulling out a war machine and two boxes of bombs from the camp.

Laosan’s description of ”not much” seemed conservative. Where did this bunch of deserters get so much ammunition? One didn’t need to think to know they most likely had looted some munitions depot while fleeing.

The captain donned his armor, slung his saber, and made rounds in the camp to issue arrangements.

Under his management, everything became orderly. This man truly had talent to have become an officer of the reformed artillery.

Soon enough, everyone in the camp stood in military formation, fully outfitted, while the captain mounted a tall, majestic horse and surveyed the troops from the front.

Looking at this spectacle, it was clear that the artillery unit’s strength was formidable. Even after losing two elite teams and assigning men to guard the camp, they could still muster more than seventy men, plus a cannon. Wouldn’t they easily handle the Barbarians, who only numbered in the twenties or thirties?

”...Those Barbarians crossed the border and ambushed us, killing many of our brothers, adding to old grievances. It’s time to settle all scores...”

The captain roused the troops with a pre-battle speech, then drew his saber, pointing in the direction of the Wolf Faction.

”Victory in this battle is assured! March!”

The advance of a troop of less than a hundred men had such a formidable presence—one could only imagine what a spectacular scene a real battlefield with thousands of soldiers clashing would be.

Lance and his companions had already sneaked up earlier. Now, watching from a distance as the troops progressed, they noticed more than ten horses in the enemy camp.

These weren’t the plodding draft horses of farm owners pulling carts, but genuine Imperial warhorses. Although they also pulled carts, what they towed were artillery pieces.

So tempting!

”They’ve departed. What do we do now?” Laosan asked, turning to Lance as he watched the troops set off.

”Follow them. Reynard and Balistan, you two lag behind at a distance. If attacked, prioritize your own safety and do not engage offensively.” Reynard and Balistan were more heavily equipped, making them less mobile than the others. Following too closely would easily give them away, so they were to maintain some distance.

After instructing them, Lance took Dismas and Laosan to stealthily tail the troop.

There was, in fact, a considerable distance between the artillery unit’s camp and the Wolf Faction’s camp, and such a large-scale movement was unlikely to go completely unnoticed.

Some startled bandits even thought the artillery unit intended to attack nearby towns and hurried to join in for a share, but as expected, all were driven off by the captain.

Seeing this, Dismas couldn’t help but look towards Lance. My Lord’s earlier judgment was correct. Under the temptation of Extraordinary items, the captain wouldn’t consider involving other bandits and would opt to monopolize the Wolf Faction for himself. He grew even more admiring of My Lord!

When the artillery unit first began its march, they maintained some semblance of order, but it wasn’t long before the formation began to spread out.

Apart from a few elite units that managed to keep formation, the rest of the troops went from a compact group to a straggling line.

It could be said that they had lost their status as soldiers and the associated military discipline. Consequently, a lazy and indulgent life had destroyed the last traces of their military identity.

Realizing this, Lance knew they posed no significant threat. As the artillery unit was about to enter the Wolf Faction’s territory, he finally spoke.

”How do you think the captain will approach the attack?”

Lance asked Laosan this question; he needed more information to assess the situation.

”The Barbarians’ camp is different from ours. They didn’t choose to set up in open ruins but in the dense forest. In such a case, I think the captain will definitely split his forces to constrain their space. He will have the musket squad form into two ranks for consecutive assaults and surround them from several positions. Then, he will drive the Barbarians to the front and bombard them with artillery.”

As a Non-commissioned Officer who had studied at a military academy, Laosan spoke knowledgeably about tactics.

But reality often doesn’t align with wishful thinking. As soon as the troops entered the thick forest, gunfire erupted.

Some Gunners didn’t even wait for orders or see the enemy before they started firing into the surrounding woods, white smoke billowing up from the discharged muskets.

Beyond that, nothing else happened. No enemy was sighted, but their own ranks began to suffer casualties, causing the troop to panic.

The captain at the front desperately wanted to command the men behind him, but the line had become too stretched out, and his orders were powerless amidst the deafening gunfire.

Just as the men were reloading, a series of wolf howls echoed through the forest. The next moment, over a dozen pure white-furred wolves charged into their ranks, tearing and clawing, creating even more chaos.

Fortunately, the captain finally managed to deploy his elite troops. Two orderly volleys of gunfire suppressed the shots from the forest, and at the same time, several sword-and-shield-wielding elites charged into the wolf pack.

These well-armored elites easily overpowered the wolves. Without covering fire, the wolf pack was forced to leave behind several corpses and flee back into the dense forest.

By then, the forest had quieted down, but the captain’s forces had already suffered heavy casualties.

The gunfire from the forest had directly taken down several men. Combined with the wolf pack’s attack, many others were injured and incapacitated. In total, over a dozen men fell, nearly one-sixth of the troop.

It’s safe to say that if the elites hadn’t reacted swiftly to control the situation, the chaos would have continued, and many more lives would have been lost.