BXBX NOVEL Chapter 152: Conventions? More like suggestions!
\'This is not as bad as I was worried they were,\' I thought, sighing to myself while raising my eyes to the nearby celestials. \'They are far fucking worse.\'
I took a deep breath before turning my eyes back to the girl and contemplating her face for a second.
"Take her away and keep her safe," I ordered, ignoring the fact that I wasn\'t really in the position to do so. "Those two might be necessary for later, so don\'t bully her too much," I added some clauses to my request and took a moment to give the three celestials that moved ahead a long, stern look. "And by not bullying her too much, I mean, don\'t bully her at all."
One could expect that someone from Earth, like me, would follow the rules of conventional warfare… But that wasn\'t actually the case. After all, whether the Geneva Conventions were just suggestions or not, they didn\'t apply to other worlds.
None of the countries here have signed them, so they were the ones at fault for giving me the right to commit all the war crimes I would fancy...
If I wanted to completely close the narrow window of opportunity for putting a stop to this war. And to that end, I had to keep both of the prisoners safe.
"We will lock her up away from the forest edge," the celestial that was the first to move announced. "So that if the humans attack, she won\'t get swept in the fighting."
I gave the man a short look before silently nodding my head, allowing him to pull the girl up before relatively gently dragging her away. Once she moved far enough for me not to worry about sharing the news not designed for her ears, I heaved a deep sigh and looked over at Loraz.
"Does her words check out with what you know?" I asked.
The look of satisfaction has long vanished from the man\'s face, now replaced with somber determination.
"Pretty much, yeah."
Once again, I sighed. Then, I leaned my head back and rested it on Fay\'s shoulder while ignoring Loraz\'s furious stare that followed. Closing my eyes, I held my breath and took a moment to sort everything that I\'d learned.
First thing first, the army that stood outside of the forest consisted of only mercenaries, all sources from the nearby city, and was tasked with merely preparing the way and supplies for the armies that would follow. That\'s why the camp they made was so massive despite clearly lacking the numbers to warrant its size.
And that\'s also why, after happily burning several of their supply areas… we barely put a dent in the supplies they have prepared.
Namidia, Sulean, and all the others at the camp were just the front guard of the total force that was currently converging on this area. And the true bulk of the human army was set to arrive in pieces, as all the forces from different countries, factions, and nations were scheduled to arrive one by one, in the span of the next two months.
\'If I were to trust her estimates, we are going to face no less than fifty thousand people,\' I thought, taking a moment to absorb this information.
Fifty thousand. A number that I hardly came by, even when it came to spending money.
In fact, I don\'t think I\'ve ever done anything that many times in my life, save for the number of breaths I took.
\'And it\'s possible that her estimate is nowhere near the true number,\' I thought, taking in a deep breath and silencing my thoughts.
"Okay then," I muttered, pushing my head forth and looking at the group of celestials and divines weirded out by my way of relaxing and gathering my thoughts.
Their stares didn\'t matter, thought. Only the fact that Fay was more than happy to offer her chest for my head to rest on was within the limits of my consideration on that matter.
"Don\'t tell me you\'ve come up with another plan," Loraz sighed, somehow already getting to know me well enough to recognize the tells of a disaster from my face.
"That\'s exactly what I was going to say, though," I replied, leaning my head over my right shoulder while giving the golden man a puzzled look.
"Let me guess, you will try to kill them all? Or better, you are going to kill them all… all on your lonesome?!"
\'And here I thought he was getting to know me,\' I thought, inherently releasing yet another sigh.
"Not at all. This option is too damn costly and I\'m not even sure I have the means to get the weapon necessary for that," I replied offhandedly while several pictures flashed before my eyes.
The easiest way to fix the problem of a massive, several tens of thousand men strong army… was to just drop a nuke on them, erasing them from their existence.
But doing so, at such close proximity to the forest, would likely deal severe damage to the trees, and that was while assuming the firestorm following the nuke wouldn\'t consume the entire forest in one go.
No. As fancy and on the point as nuke would be… I simply had no means of obtaining it. Not even with Makary\'s full dedication and desire to help.
Given how the entire world basically crumbled under the weight and costs of its arms race… and how this arms race happened in the first place before humanity gained the self-preserving instinct of not using the nukes…
Obtaining a nuke for personal use might\'ve been possible back in the twenty-first or second century, not right now when even neuweapons were strictly controlled by every government that existed!
No. The nuclear option wasn\'t valid, simply because I couldn\'t get my hands on a nuke. And even if I could, using it came with way too many risks.
But I would be ashamed to call myself a human if I, even for the shortest of moments, assumed there were no other weapons capable of streamlined, mass destruction.
\'Maybe I should try to get some combat gases?\' I thought, raising my eyes and looking at the nearby camp. \'But what if the wind comes and pushes them all off to the forest? Would the celestials and divine even be affected by them?\'
The First World War weapons, as effective as they could be for clearing trenches and the masses of people stuck in the open field… They didn\'t seem like a good choice against people who could use magic. Especially not when I saw a single human summon a powerful storm all on her own!
"Anyway. Killing them all is the most drastic of options, one that I will save for the last. For now, though, there is one way to deal with this invasion, regardless of the number of humans."
Up until this point, Fay didn\'t care all that much about my rambling. But, sensing that I\'ve now reached the climax of my thoughts, she prickled her ears and even leaned a bit closer, not to lose a single word.
On the other hand, Loraz was first flabbergasted by the very idea of me considering the option of killing the entirety of human force in a single strike. His face grew a mocking smile when I analyzed what weapons I could possibly get my hands on and turned into an annoyed grin once I spoke out.
"Oh, and just what sort of magnificent deed will you perform to save us from this certain defeat?" Loraz asked, still set on provoking me for some reason.
Was it because I was low-key usurping his right to lead? Maybe he simply didn\'t like me? Or maybe it has something to do with how Fay, his daughter, clung tightly to me while sparing the man absolutely no mind?
"There\'s no magnificent deed for me to do," I straightened Loraz\'s misunderstanding. "I just need you to split your forces between those who can hide their aura and those who cannot. Then, while the latter will attack openly from one side once the ground settles a bit, the former will attack the camp from the other side."