Holy fuck, she won't quit asking me questions. Every single question is about my "magical powers" as she describes them. I could see the glint in her eyes. While she asked me questions about my "magic", I asked her about the kingdom itself.
"The Kingdom of Arca is a beautiful kingdom filled with exquisite architecture and a massive army!" You could see the pridefulness in her body language.
"A massive army, you say?" I looked at Alice. "What type of command structure does the army have?" I asked Alice. I have to get at least something valuable out of her as she was asking me about the summoning since we rescued her.
"Command Structure" Alice looked at me puzzled, "What is that"? I looked directly at her eyes, "Alright, let me rephrase that. Who leads the army?" I spoke a little bit slower this time.
"Ohh" Alice answered, "When a war is declared, the king authorized the attack and everyone who volunteers rushes towards the battle." Alright, that is pretty much medieval combat, but when I asked her about who commands the army IN battle, then I got shocked.
Apparently, this continent has advanced in a relatively standard way. Architecture and civil technologies are pretty much in feudal ages in Earth's terms. The only exception is the military, while everything else has developed in a standard way, the military hasn't changed for millennia. Why? I don't know. But this allows me to do something big as soon as I get more troops. There is magic in this world, but the kingdoms heavily regulate it, and anyone found being a wizard without being affiliated to a kingdom would probably get burned on a stake as a heretic.
"I think we need to call it off now." I told Alice. We were here for two days already, and I get sick whenever I need to summon food and supplies again. "I guess you are right." Alice sighed as she decided to head back to the carriage where the princess was resting.
It was depressing that she would have her whole life changed just to make an otherworlder join their kingdom. But that isn't my problem, the only thing I care about is to get my legs fixed up and improve my system.
Oh, and that man who ran away during the heat of battle? His name is Royce. He is some kind of young noble who used his father's influence to join this expedition and get closer to the princess, and by the look of his face, it looks like he was unsuccessful.
I didn't care about politics or romance at this point in my life. I had much more serious matters to handle, such as getting the princess back to the capital safely.
"Leader!" Zero roared at me. "I am right behind you Zero, you don't have to scream, my legs don't work, but my ears do."
Zero said to me that one of our warriors scouted ahead and found out a company of warriors who are getting ready to ambush us just 1 km ahead of us. I thanked Zero and ordered my squad to prepare for battle while also informing Alice about the ambush.
"No, it can't be real Alice. You shouldn't trust foreigners like that." Royce told Alice smugly. "But what if something is going on, Royce," Alice replied. While all ordinary people have to refer to nobles such as Royce as Sir's being a royal guard has its privileges.
"You worry too much, Alice. We have the best warriors in the country with us. Do you think that they would notice something first rather than a group of a disabled man and three warriors with stone tools? Oh, please, Alice. Besides, I am above you in the political hierarchy, Alice. Remember that." And Royce exited the room, just like that. Alice never liked him, but the political landscape of the continent was complex and filled with skirmishes between noble factions. In contrast, the military side of the continent was severely underdeveloped due to numerous reasons such as culture and traditions of only brutally charging towards your death with no tactics.
"Leader, they aren't taking our warning seriously. Mister Royce just looked at me with disgust." Zero said in a complete poker face as if what anyone thinks besides me doesn't matter. I thanked him and patted him on his shoulder while also thinking about how I am supposed to win against an ambush with three warriors and a disabled person while also protecting the princess and the convoy.
I decided to ambush the enemy themself, the warriors and I will proceed to hide behind the convoy. When the ambush happens, we will ambush them instead and hope to whichever gods exist here that they don't have too many warriors with them.
We went to the last carriage and entered it, the princess carriage which stood off from the rest of the convoy was plated with gold and had a massive royal emblem on it. Yeah, they will probably know where to strike.
This will be easy, my friends. Just ambush the princess, kill all their guards, get a ransom and get rich from this. I laughed with my comrades as we talked about our foolproof plan, which will bring us quite an amount of money from the royal family.
And then I saw it, the small convoy with a carriage in the middle which stood out like a light in the night. "What a dumb princess she is," I smirked and told my men to prepare for the ambush at this small dirt road. And just as the convoy passed right in front of us, I fired the first arrow which signalled for the attack to start. I then screamed at the top of my lungs. "FOR THE COMPANY" as I ran towards the convoy with my other twenty comrades.
We were even in numbers, but those bastards didn't even have time to prepare their armour or weapons before we attacked. While some of them were lucky to grab their sword or a helmet, most of them just wore cloth, and we quickly cut them down with our bronze axes. The only real challenge were the royal guards, while there was only five of them, they always were prepared to protect the royal family members. But as the number of ordinary soldiers decreased, we were able to put much more pressure at the royal guards, but this one woman was impressive. She could take on several of my men combined and was a great commander. But it didn't matter as the number of soldiers on their dwindled our advantage became more and more apparent.
But then, I saw them—three muscular warriors equipped with stone spears and a man piggybacking on a warrior. Wait, a man on piggybacking? I looked at them again and what I saw made me piss my pants. A stone spear was directly in front of me. My pupils widened as I could feel as the spear penetrated my head and flew right through my head. The last things I could see and hear were the shocked gazes of my comrades and a voice which made me vomit blood. "Bloody hell, Zero! That was fucking amazing!"
It didn't take long before the rest of them started to rout. Well, I understand why, their Leader was lying in the dirt with half his head missing while three warriors handled the spear so well that anyone would crap their pants if they went against them. The battle ended with a decisive victory for us. We counted the casualties and were shocked to find out that ten ordinary soldiers died while a royal guard died as well from internal bleeding.
Well, it has excellent experience for all of us, including me.
//Bandit killed (E-) x8 5 Experience//
//Bandit Leader killed (E+) 15 Experience//
//Leveled up to F//
//Soldier count increased to 5//
Two more soldiers? That was perfect for replacing some of the casualties and making a trip safer. I immediately decided to spawn one axeman and one archer. But, just as I decided to spawn them in, I thought. "Wait, didn't a light beam follow when you spawn a troop and otherworlders come in light beams too?"
Oh fuck.