Kuro no Maou

Chapter 41 Human and Demon

In the Pandora continent, other than Elf or Dwarf, Goblins, Orcs, Golems and other races similar to monsters also coexisted with the humans. But with the same appearance, those that lived according to their instincts like the stray goblins were categorized as monsters.

For the residents of Pandora, rather than appearance, the ability to understand others, intelligence, and reasoning was more important. But in the Arc continent ruled by humans, especially the region ruled by the church, ‘whether you are human or not’ was more important.

In the first place, even if it was the same human race, but their God was different, they would call each other heretics and start killing each other. If they didn’t allow a different faith, permitting a totally different race was completely impossible for the current Church at least.

And thus the word [Demons] was born, a word that put monsters and different races together without any distinction.

For those who believed in the church, [Demons] were the same as monsters and had no problems in killing them. In fact they were happy to have killed the ‘enemies of god’.

So, with this over discriminatory ideology, the Daidalos invasion was done half a year ago.

Officially, that was the first time the humans of Syncrea Republic fought with the demons of Daidalos.

But the battle between the 2000 knights and Daidalos defensive forces was not something that could be called a ‘battle’. They were knights in name only. All they could think of was to cross the walls of Daidalos and take their gold for themselves. Truly a bandit-like thinking. Thus they underestimated the demons and therefore their attacking style was also similar to bandits.

But it was different this time.

With the Apostle and the Archbishop at the head, there was a proper chain of command and the soldiers under them were not people who had crossed the seas to earn riches but they were devout believers who were here to offer this land to their God as their duty.

Here onwards, the true strength of the army of the Syncrea Republic that controlled half of the Arc Continent was shown while fighting the demons.

In the sky, the 7th Apostle Sariel and the Dragon King Gaevinal faced each other, and on the ground, the 15,000 Crusaders clashed with the 20,000 man army of Daidalos.

“——–Hold your formations!! Hold them until Her Excellency kills the evil dragon no matter what!!”(T/N:- Her excellency is used for Sariel here by Maxwell.)

Handing over the Armament Scripture and seeing off Sariel, Maxwell was fighting in the front row of the army.

The [Formation] the he spoke of was the tactics humans came up with to surpass the Demons.

Humans and Demons both used the same language, and fought wearing armour and swords in their hands.

But there was a clear distinction in the fighting style of the two.

The most striking distinction was seen during massive group battles like this time.

Demons who were fundamentally stronger in terms of physical ability as well as magical energy, put emphasis on individual strengths. During team battles that involved few number of people, some level of coordination was possible but in a group that had more than 100 people, they had no way to lead and command such a big army easily.

No, in the first place, fighting in such big groups was already beyond their way of thinking.

That is why, even Gaevinal who had built up a country, without trying to command his 20,000 subordinates, challenged Sariel to a one-on-one battle. Gaevinal who did not know humans other than those already living in the Pandora continent, thought that even humans would not find it abnormal.

That is because it was normal for the strongest to become king and during wars it was also normal for the Commanders to face-off each other in a one-on-one battle.

That is why he did not doubt the fact that Sariel was facing him alone.

But, in the world of humans where it was not necessary for the strongest to become the king, one-on-one battles were nothing more than a source of entertainment.

After all, for the commander who is meant to control the army to go and face the enemy commander alone was in no way logical. Because in human wars, the one who becomes the commander of the army is not the strongest but the one with the highest commanding abilities.

Of course, there are many generals who themselves are also strong but then they also have brilliant commanding capabilities as well.

Thus, though Sariel was the Supreme Commander of the Crusaders, for her to fight with the enemy commander after giving all commanding authority to the vice commander Liuchrome, was simply a clever strategy.

Whereas, the only directions the 20,000 man army had were – attack, defend and retreat, just those three.

Similar to this time, as long as the king gave the order to attack, all they had to do was just assault with full strength, and even though it’s called assault, all they did was that every individual just charged towards the enemy.

The only time they will withdraw would be when either their king dies or they clearly become disadvantageous.

Basically, the battles done by demons depended on the individual strength of each soldier and that’s it.

But, humans were not the same.

In this different world, magic existed, and beings like Sariel with overwhelming strength also existed.

But the rest was fundamentally similar to how things were in Kurono’s original world.

Alone, humans had lesser strength than wild animals, but with wisdom and working in groups, they reached the top of the food chain.

Here, the culture may be at the level of Middle-ages, but the humans were similar to Kurono’s original world. Strategy and tactics were used always.

So, the best one to battle huge numbers was to use [formations].

In the current battle, the reason why the Crusaders were able to deal with the attack of the Dem9ons who were stronger as well as had 5000 more soldiers, was due to the use and deployment of [formations] developed through heavy training and accurate commands.

“ثلاثاء نار متقدة عصا الشعلة سبيرز بيرس―― Chanting complete, firing!”

“Now, do it!! Flame spear – Ignis Crisagita!!”

Standing in a single straight line, the troop of magicians wields their staffs and fire magic.

To buy time for them to complete the chants, they were protected by the soldiers wielding long spears.

The army of Daidalos was burnt with the simultaneous firing of the fire magic – Flame spear – Ignis Crisagita. On top of it, a rain of arrows was launched as a finishing blow.

“Shit! They are still alive! Those damned monsters!!”

Burnt with fire, stabbed with arrows, yet they swung their swords but they were finally killed after being pierced by the long-spear wielding soldiers.

Their incredible life force was clearly made visible, but still that was not enough to break through the solid defence of the united Crusaders.

In these front lines of the war, the Daidalos army was being suppressed by the [Square formation].

No matter which direction they are attacked from, they would be able to deal with it. Although it lacked mobility, it made up with the overwhelming defensive ability.

This square formation was made of spear troops, bow troops and the magic troops, these 3.

The spears used were Pikes that were 6m long pole type weapons which were used in the Arc continent as the Anti-cavalry weapon.

It was currently playing a major role in intercepting the Daidalos army infantry that showed assault strength similar to an actual heavy cavalry.

These spear troops were densely packed in the square along with Long Bow and cross bow users as well as long range magic users.

If Kurono had seen this deployed square, he would have thought that it was similar to the Spain Square. If these magic warriors were replaced with musketeers, it will be exactly same as the Spain square.

Of course, in a world where magic existed, magicians did not just replace musketeers with same strength but also possessed ability enhancing Boost magic and restorative Heal magic, truly an all-purpose support unit.

But still, even though the soldiers and magicians of the Crusaders were able to draw out their maximum strength and were fighting hard, they were still one-sidedly defending against the extremely powerful Daidalos army.

Even if demons were unaware of formations, against their individual strength and their larger numbers, even with the defensive strength of the square formation, holding them back temporarily was the most they could do.

“Lord Sariel, please grant upon us a miracle........”

The Archbishop and the vice commander of the Crusaders, Liuchrome looked towards the sky where Sariel was in fight to the death with the Dragon King and quietly whispered.

Both Ars and Liuchrome had liberated an area at the border of the Syncrea Republic where Heretics had run rampant once. That achievement was recognised, and Ars became Cardinal and he became an Archbishop at a very young age.

The experience of attaining victory against heretics of Liuchrome was clearly seen in this battle against these demons as well. But even with experience and brilliant commanding skills along with the elite 15,000 Crusaders, Liuchrome was still did not have the strength to win against the immense strengthof the Daidalos army.

To lead the Crusaders to victory, it was necessary to slay the commander of Daidalos, the Dragon King Gaevinal.

The Crusaders were currently struggling, no, they were inferior. The one able to overturn this condition was only Sariel, and again the only one who could face the dragon king alone was only the 7th Apostle Sariel.

Will the Crusaders achieve glorious victory or will they face a tragic loss, what will be their fate, all had been entrusted to the small white girl called Sariel.