With the Ogrekin assault repelled, the Advance Force had successfully secured a victory in their opening skirmish.
Looking toward the fortress, Rest saw that the Winged Race and Lizardmen who had been besieging it were also retreating. From the look of things, the walls had not sustained any significant damage.
"We won for now, I suppose... Should we pursue them, though?"
"That won't be necessary, Count Clover."
"Captain Bareia?"
Bareia Catreia, who had been commanding the unit, stepped forward to address him.
"Charging in blindly is a death sentence. You would only find yourself surrounded and picked off by hidden reinforcements—it is their favorite tactic."
"Ambushes...?"
Rest immediately activated Life Search.
He narrowed the scope of the sensory magic, focusing all his perception in the single direction where the Foreign Tribes had fled to scout the depths of the forest.
His breath caught in his throat.
There, he realized that a multitude of presences were indeed lurking in the shadows. They were incredibly faint—the result of deliberate mana concealment. Countless humanoid figures were holding their breath, hiding among the trees or crouched within the earth itself.
What a weak signature... I never would have felt them with a standard Life Search.
Like his mentor, Dieble, most talented mages habitually kept Life Search active to monitor their surroundings. Normally, the absence of any enemy signal would lead a mage to judge the area safe. However, these signatures were so faint that even magic could barely detect them.
Had they let their guard down and entered the forest, they would have been slaughtered before they even realized they were under attack.
They are synchronizing their own mana with the trees to use the forest itself as a form of magical camouflage... I would have missed them if I weren't specifically looking.
"You noticed them, then? Those are the Insectman Race," Bareia explained, his eyes fixed on the treeline. "The Insectmen are masters of concealment, hiding within the foliage and the soil. If you venture into that forest carelessly, their Assassination Arts will harvest your life in an instant."
"...Is that why it's so difficult to launch a counter-offensive?"
"Indeed. During the invasion a hundred years ago, they reportedly dug mine shafts and infiltrated the fortress from beneath the ground. For a time, the defenders were actually forced to abandon the stronghold entirely."
"Could we perhaps... set the forest ablaze?" Rest suggested. "It would rob the enemy of their home-field advantage."
He felt a pang of guilt for the innocent flora and fauna, but if they put aside environmental concerns, it seemed like a viable strategy. However, Bareia slowly shook his head, his brow furrowing into a grim expression.
"That has been tried before. Those tribes have planted trees near the forest entrance that emit toxic gas when burned. If we set them on fire, our own army would be immediately engulfed by the vaporized poison."
"Poison..."
"Furthermore, not all the Foreign Tribes are hostile toward the Aiwood Kingdom. If we resort to such indiscriminate, desperate measures as burning the entire forest, we will only provoke those who have stayed out of the fight thus far. We would merely be multiplying our enemies."
"...It's a stalemate, then. Is there no path to peace? No way to reach a settlement?"
"That would be like advising a wolf to eat vegetables instead of sheep. It is a foolish question, Count."
Bareia turned on his heel, presenting his back to Rest.
"We enter the fortress now!"
With that, the conversation was over. Bareia resumed his duties as commander, shouting orders to the soldiers.
"Recover the wounded! Mages, use Healing Magic to provide emergency aid to those with serious injuries! Burn the enemy corpses and haul the remaining supplies into the fortress!"
Rest watched Bareia's retreating figure, feeling an indescribable weight in his chest.
It felt hypocritical to think this after personally striking down so many Ogrekin with lightning, but the fact that they couldn't reach a mutual understanding simply because they were of different races was tragic. Perhaps it was a sentiment lingering from his previous life, where racial discrimination was condemned—was it truly right to abandon the possibility of dialogue from the very beginning?
No... it's not 'from the beginning.' Dialogue and persuasion were likely exhausted long before I ever got here. This is simply the result of that failure. For now, I should focus on my own life and the lives of my allies over the enemy's.
War was a tragedy, but his priorities were clear. If he didn't return alive, he would never see his loved ones again. He certainly couldn't afford to make Viola and Primula widows before they had even married him.
"I'll help with the healing," Rest said, shaking off his sentimentality as he moved to tend to the wounded soldiers.