Matthew is still sitting comfortably on top of a large tree branch while the long-awaited humans had finally arrived near the kobold village.
After Matthew heard the sounds of hooves coming in his direction, he jumped off the tree that he was sitting and started to go closer to the source of the sound and he finally saw the human army coming with his own two eyes.
Matthew kept about 100 meters distance between him and the human army as he continued to observe them by climbing onto another tree and looked at the army that was slowly but surely going through the woods and marched towards the kobold village.
Because the surrounding terrain is filled with trees everywhere and their thick roots coming out of the ground making the ground uneven as well as the many other vegetation blocking the way, the human army couldn't march in a tidy and neat straight line while moving through the forest.
But regardless of that, they are still an army and they still looked somewhat orderly as there are still some forms of rows and columns that the soldiers followed instead of just randomly walking with each other.
To get a better look at his enemy, Matthew used his chameleon aura ability and fully went invisible on top of a tree branch that is directly on top of the proceeding army.
He could use the blur mode of the chameleon's aura ability to save his aura expenditure, but Matthew didn't want to take any chances and by going invisible right on top of them, it could also serve as a way to see if the humans are capable of dealing with his invisibility which will be his main weapon in this battle against the humans.
Matthew stood still and patiently waited for the human army to come and walk under him. He stayed focused and peeled all his senses open to be able to feel if there is even a tiny slight of danger that will come to him.
The human army walked closer and closer and now that there's only about 25 meters distance separating the both of them, Matthew could clearly see the human soldiers that were marching in front of him.
The human army looked organized and with the same metal armor that covered their important joints and chest, they looked pleasingly uniform for Matthew's eyes.
Although the armor was not the ones that were usually depicted in 'Knights in shining armor or a full-body armor, the metal helmets that fully covered their heads other than the front part, the sheet of metal protecting the front of their chest and back, while chain mails are used for covering the other areas are considered plenty of protections if compared to no protection at all.
Besides that, Matthew could also see the army's line up which consists of foot-soldiers walking at the front most of the march, followed by archers, and behind the archers are the source of the hooves sound as horsemen can be seen both carrying swords on their hips with a bow on their backs and arrow quivers hung on their horses.
'They do look quite intimidating when you're standing right in front of them…'
Matthew stood still as the army continued on marching below him and as they passed Matthew used some quick maths by multiplying the rows and columns of the army Matthew could vaguely guess the number of the army which is about slightly more than 200 people.
Precisely Matthew counted 65 foot-soldiers at the front of the army, 85 archers to the rear of the foot-soldiers, and the 50 horsemen following right behind the two of them.
At the very back of the formation, there are also 3 people riding horses and they are wearing full knight armor that covered all parts of their bodies, but the three of them didn't wear their helmets as Matthew could clearly see their faces.
'Hmm…'
'The person in the middle looked like a proud and arrogant young general that I usually saw in movies while the 2 men beside him looked just like any ordinary uncle that liked to drink booze and play cards.'
This is the first time Matthew had seen real humans in the flesh in this world and if he had any comments about the humans is that they are exactly the same as the humans back in his world, well at least appearance-wise.
'Remember Matthew, don't judge a book by its cover. But if the cover looked like a stereotypical arrogant young master and an old uncle that liked to lure children with candies then I supposed, I could judge them a little…'
But Matthew didn't know a single thing about their abilities and how strong they are compared to ordinary humans back on earth.
Remembering the creatures in the forest so far is somewhat a slightly gigantified version of the animals back on earth, Matthew kind of had an expectation that the human will also look like giants or as big as a bigfoot, but that turned out to be just his wild imaginations as the physical appearance of the humans is exactly the same so far.
Matthew continued to observe the humans walking under the tree branch that he was sitting on and from this quick intelligence gathering, Matthew had received important information regarding his enemies today and the composition of their army.
But more importantly, he got a very crucial piece of information that already guaranteed that his strategy will have a success rate of above 90% which is the fact that none of the humans had noticed him silently observing their army and judging the heck of their commanders regarding their appearance.
'No Matthew, you can't do face-shaming like that! What if God gave you a punishment and made you look uglier than them!?' Matthew thought in his head.
But after remembering that he now looked like a bald wolf that stands on two legs and covered in unorderly, coarse, slightly pointy scales on his back, he could only smile as he rolled his eyes.
Matthew then returned his focus onto the marching human army that is now only a small distance away from the kobold village and he even noticed that the village already noticed the humans' army coming their way and the kobolds had gotten out of their homes, bringing their crudely made beast bone weapons and lined up at their village directly facing the incoming humans.
Matthew was considering when he should strike to achieve the best effect that he wanted, which is to shock the humans and scare them away from the fear of an invisible enemy running rampage on their army.
If he went in too early, then the effect wouldn't be traumatizing enough, but if he went too late then there might be unnecessary casualties from the kobold village.
And regarding his stance against the humans, Matthew decided that he will only give them a scare and not try to massacre all of them, a few traumatizing scenes here and there should suffice to get the humans to think twice or even thrice to mess with the kobolds again.
'But when should I attack them? Will they just start running and sieging the village right after they get out of the woods?'
There's a decent-sized clearing in front of the crude and basic wooden fences that the kobold erected to protect their village, and now the human army is starting to get closer and closer onto the clearing and Matthew is considering whether he should just attack them the moment they set their foot onto the clearing or not.
'But that is too early and the chaos wouldn't be too impactful… I need to cause a grander and unforgettable scene that the humans will remember to their very bones…'
Matthew is starting to hesitate whether he should just do it or not since a third of the army had arrived at the clearing and they can start charging any second.
And the kobolds inside the village also realized this fact as they started to hold their weapons more tightly and their faces seems to be tense, but none of them had an expression of despair as they started to glare at the humans coming their way and they didn't remove their eyes from the human army even for a second.
Matthew had almost jumped from the tree and started attacking the humans right away, but in the last second, he discarded the thought as he saw an opportunity when he saw the humans didn't start charging towards the village right away, and instead they lined up and got into a formation in front of the entrance to the village.
Their foot soldiers stood in 2 neat rows with 30 soldiers standing at the front row and the other 35 stood right behind them with their swords still resting on the scabbards on their hips. The archers are divided into 5 rows, with an equal 17 archers each row standing right behind the foot soldiers.
While the ordinary foot soldiers are using a standard formation forming neat rows, the horsemen are divided into an equal 2 groups consisting of 25 horsemen each and both of the groups standing beside the main formation respectively on the right and the left side of the main formation with the two uncles wearing full body armor split up, each one of them goes into the front of each group of the horsemen.
After arranging themselves, the human army finally stood still like the 3 men wearing full body armor that used to walk at the back most of the formation started to walk towards the front of the group.
While the humans are busy, Matthew didn't just stand still and start preparing himself to do his best on this battle as he started to get down from the tree branch carefully and get into the best possible position to commence his plan.
The young master-looking human now had already stood in between the kobold village and the human army, with his helmet still off, he looked back to the human army and exposed his back to the kobolds before he started his speech.
"Men of Felidae Kingdom! Today we will conquer this village and give it to the second prince as he started his grand conquest to conquer this forest! Fear not as this battle had already been settled the moment we set our foot here! This will be an easy morning warm-up that will bring us merits that the second prince will remember. Do well in this morning exercise as your effort securing an outpost for the expedition will be remembered and rewarded!"
The soldiers could only chuckle and their expression was relaxed as they saw the remaining tens of kobolds bringing their made-up weapons using beast bones with them, and their confidence could only shoot up as they looked at themselves, 200 men wearing protective armor on their bodies and weapons made out of steel. Even they couldn't even imagine there's any chance for the kobold to win.
The young man in full body armor then raised his sword up high then followed by the front foot soldiers also brandishing their swords, 65 people simultaneously producing a metallic sound as their blade went out of their sheath.
The young man then turned back, facing the kobold village as he kept his sword up in the air. He then inhaled a lot of air as he started to shout,
"Men, CHARGE!"