YN POV
Just as Gobta was reaching out to rescue Gabiru, I was checking out the battle from above with Rimuru.
It was a pretty fearsome sight. The orcs must've thought they had a massive advantage, and now we'd flipped the chessboard on them... Just us originals, a slime and a few ogre mages, really. I couldn't blame them for freaking out.
Past
After Rimuru sent Souei off to lizardmen, he looks at me.
Rimuru: "The one who will lead us in the war is Yn. So, we all will follow his orders."
I was looking at him with dumbfound expression. And before I knew it. Everyone agreed to it and hence I will be the leader during this war.
I decided to start assigning battle posts. We couldn't all head out there; I wanted a setup that could work quickly on feet. We didn't know what we'd be dealing with, so I had to be sure we could extract ourselves fast if need be.
That was my watchword as I gave the order to prepare for war. The construction effort across town was continuing to go without a hitch, but we still had no real defenses in place. Not even an outer wall, since it'd get in the way of the building boom. No way we could weather out a siege or anything. It was much more logical to picture ourselves bringing the battle to them.
Along those lines, I told the people not joining me to prepare to travel to the treants. They might have to set off before we made it back to town. Before any of that, though, I had to assemble all the monsters in town and tell them what we had decided on. I tried to act as kingly as possible.
YN: "The final battle will be waged in the marshlands. If we win there, we're good. If we don't, I'll let you know via [Thought Communication], so I want you to abandon this place and flee to the treants settlement. Rimuru will also ask the humans for help, if it comes to that, and you'll likely fight alongside them against the orcish army. I'll be honest with you; this isn't some gang of little kids. Me and Rimuru are planning to win this, but if we don't, don't use that as an excuse to lose your heads. You gotta stay calm and follow the plan!"
I was once again up on some kind of pedestal, like an offering to the gods and why in the hell is Rimuru standing down.
Rimuru: 'Yn do your best.'
He doesn't want to get embarrassed here and stood down. I hope he could at least stand beside me. Whatever. As I said my speech to the monsters in front of me. They all listened intently, picking up on the confidence I was radiating, and I guess it worked. Maybe that display was worth it after all.
YN: "Now, the people joining me in the primary force..."
The monsters slowly grew more excited, not knowing what to expect. I guess they all wanted part of the action---I didn't remember them being so warlike, but I should say it is as expected. Whatever I continued.
YN: "For this battle, we will deploy with a team of one hundred goblin riders with Benimaru as their commander. Hakuro will be his aide-de-camp, and Shion and Sarena will be our main point man on the field. Souei will be joining us, although he's elsewhere at the moment, and I suppose Ranga will be Rimuru's transport. While I and Sarena could fly. And I will observe the war and issue orders. That is all. Any questions?"
I could hear small commotions arise among the crowd. A hundred must have seemed like an awfully small number. I saw Shuna make her way to the front, serving as their voice.
Shuna: "YN-Sama isn't that far too few people? And I didn't hear my name called, either. What is the meaning of this?"
The meaning? I have a valid reason for making Shuna stay here. This whole operation was focused on speed. We'd only have a hundred and change on our side, although Ranga could probably command a few more. I wanted speed, and that meant infantry would stay home. Shuna and her lack as a tempest wolf's man would be a liability.
Plus, I was still only working with around six hundred hobgoblins, evenly divided by gender. Around a third were assigned to Rigur's security force, another third devoted to the construction effort, and the rest were women and children unsuited for physical labor. My force was small, yes, but how much could we spare, really?
YN: "Shuna, I'll need someone to lead the rest of the people here. If we have to negotiate with treants and dryads later, Rigurd's gonna have a hell of a lot on his plate, right? Your presence would do a lot to give the women and children some peace of mind, too."
Shuna: "In that case, I will live up to the role."
She said, which was a relief. She did have a influence over the town, I might even say that she is most popular only second to me and Rimuru and I thought it was a good role for her.
Shuna was still giving Rimuru and Shion glances, so I'm sure she still has a few questions, but she seemed accepting enough now. Which was fine by me.
Rigur: "YN-Sama, why did you not call upon me?"
YN: "Rigur, I want you to command the remaining security forces and beef up your patrols outside town. You know how crazy this forest is right now. If something happens after we head off, I'm leaving you responsible for them all. Make me proud!"
I had both Rigur and Rigurd nodding at my reply. A number of powerful magic beasts, the kind that usually dwelled deeper in the forest, had started showing up here and there closer by. With that in mind, it was pretty easy to have them see things my way. So with everyone on my side, we all began to prepare.
After the speech, I received word from Souei.
Souei: 'YN-Sama, do you have a moment?'
Rimuru had asked him to help us get an alliance going, but what happened?
Souei: 'I was able to meet with lizardmen chief. He seemed willing to accept the alliance, but he asked for you to personally come to see him, my lord...'
Hmm. That was surprising. It wasn't even half a day since our conference ended, and he had already extracted a promise from the guy. Talk about capable!
YN: 'Sounds good. We're gonna fight this at marshes anyway. So, you're already there?'
Souei: 'Yes, my lord. [Shadow Motion] made the voyage to the marshes rather smooth sailing. It allows me to immediately travel to any individual I personally know, but tracking down the chief's exact location took me some time...'
As he put it, Souei used [Shadow Motion] to reach the marshes, then deployed his army of [Replicants] to scope out the area. Gobta could only travel via [Shadow Motion] for as long as he could hold his breath, so Souei outpaced him. It appeared that his physical corpus was already back. I wondered if having a Replicant contact the lizardman chief was really the best thing. The mere fact he could control multiples at once still astonished me.
Souei: 'So when would you like to hold the discussions, sir?'
YN: 'We'll probably need time to prepare, and the goblin riders will need a few days for the journey. A week from now, maybe?'
It'd be more like two weeks if we were going on foot, but a goblin rider wouldn't need five days. I reckoned we'd take around two days to prepare, so a week should be fine. Gabiru had his own transport beast, but it didn't look nearly as fast as a tempest wolf. If we arrived at the lizardman caverns before he and his men returned, we might wind up getting caught in... whatever he was planning. I wasn't completely sure it was a coup yet, but it always paid to watch your back at times like these. We needed to stay on top of the situation if we wanted to keep the initiative on our side. A little late, in this case, would be just right. So, seven days.
Souei: 'Very well. I will work to make it happen.'
He ended the link.
I wanted this alliance to be firm, in writing, as soon as possible, but I knew it'd be hard to trust someone you'd never met before. But if we waited to prepare until after we shook hands and declared the alliance done, the orcs would be knocking on our collective doors in an instant. If the whole thing fell through, I was planning to pull back our forces at once and let me alone face the orcs and use my [Dark]. If they weren't willing to work with us, we'd wait for the orcs to swarm them, then hustle off to the treants' sanctuary. It sucked for them, but I wasn't here to give them lip service. This was war, and I had people counting on me. There had to be a line in the sand. They sounded open to the idea, though, so maybe I was just catastrophizing again... Either way, though, I had to hope it'd work out.
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Rimuru POV
Kaijin already had my next order--- a hundred sets of goblin rider weapons and armor, as soon as possible. Benimaru and Hakuro needed some, too, not to mention Shion, but they could wait. Souei would be home soon anyway; they could get it arranged then, together. Kurobe was taking care of our weapons, Shuna and Garm our armors, and they'd be done with it soon enough.
Yn and Sarena didn't want any armor or weapon. They could summon or create their own weapon and they also said that the armor will only get in their way. And above all we have less time on our hands so they both didn't request anything. Yn also shared the information he got from Souei to me.
So, while I waited for Souei, I decided to organize our goblin riders. Their leader, to start with. I inadvertently locked eyes with Gobta. He was second in-command with the security forces. It seemed suitable enough.
Rimuru: "Hey, Gobta, are you free?"
Gobta: "Nhh?! Whenever you say that, I have a feeling it never works out too well for me..."
Rimuru: "Ah, you're just imagining things. You're going, too, right?"
Gobta stopped short before replying. I smiled at him. He froze.
Gobta: "Of course!"
I didn't appreciate the weirdness of that act, but I chalked it up to the ominous aura I could feel behind me. Well, huh. Guess a smile from Shion was more effective than anything I could cook up in slime form. She nodded at Gobta's reply, looking down at me as I mulled over the power she wielded. So Gobta was our goblin rider leader. No one had any complaints--- despite his occasional wobbles, they recognized how capable a hobgob he was. Yn didn't seem to have any problem, so we agreed to make Gobta is the leader of Goblin Riders in the war.
Gobta: "By the way, have you asked Kurobe about the weapon you promised me yet?"
Rimuru: 'Boy, I sure didn't, huh?'
Rimuru: "Oh yeah, of course."
Gobta: "Really? Because you look kind of like you forgot."
Rimuru: 'Damn, he's sharp.'
Rimuru: "Ha-ha-ha! You're such a worrywart, Gobta, my boy! I've got the most wonderful short sword coming your way, so be patient!"
Gobta: "R-Really?! Ooh, I will be!"
Nice. Dodge that bullet. Good thing Gobta is so easy to work with.
Rimuru: 'Better tell Kurobe before I forget again.'
I thought as he merrily skipped away.
That left 100 members to select. Which Yn just selected the original goblins who were already paired with their rides opposed to the relief members in security force. Yn handed their names over to Kaijin, asking him to get their equipment ready.
Just as Yn was done wrapping this up, Souei came back.
Souei: "I apologize for the delay,"
He appeared from Benimaru's shadow like some master ninja.
So, let's get started.
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AN: With this the chapter is finished. Yup there will be preparation arc before the war. And the events related to Treyni and Gabiru will be as same as anime. I hope you all like it. Tell me your honest opinion until then good bye.