"Where's that vanguard?" Konrad panted, having climbed a nearby peak that overlooked the Halaima Pass. He saw nothing but the royal garrison getting into formation down below.
Two hundred well-armed men, knowing the surrounding area better than their birthplaces.
No sign of nomads on the serpentine leading to his checkpoint so far.
And here he rushed with all his might to show Helena how dependable he was.
After a quick round with his fresh new wives, that is—but that didn't count. Gabrielle stopped the flow of time, so he only needed a few moments to catch his breath afterwards.
He had Maple patrol the skies in the meantime, reporting in via telepathy.
'Their scouts split off five miles back,' she thought, flying overhead. 'It seems they're looking for alternative paths to the north and south. The main force stopped and is waiting for their return.'
He let out an annoyed sigh.
The Green Mage wasn't an idiot after all, knowing exactly what he faced.
Konrad still hoped they'd try a frontal attack and throw away all the numerical advantage.
If only life were that easy—
'Anything to worry about?' he asked, scanning the distance through an illusion of a spyglass.
There was still nothing to see.
The army must have waited behind the next valley to stay hidden.
'A few old shepherd trails,' the dragon thought, and he could almost see her shrug. 'Abandoned. The king's men barricaded them years ago. Not something their horses could traverse anyway.'
'They can always dismount,' Konrad noted, getting a mental echo of an amused laugh back.
'Crossing them would take days, single file—after they've cleared the path, that is,' she claimed. So far so good. 'But if you're worried, my wyverns can hunt them down right now, and—'
'No, keep them out of sight,' he cut her off, his voice firm.
The dragon was about to complain; he received her annoyed feelings before her words.
But he had his reasons.
'If we ever need your familiars in battle, I want my air support to catch the enemy off-guard,' he explained. 'For now, shadow them from a distance. Keep me posted on what they find.'
And with that, he returned to his own scanning.
The Halaima Pass was the easiest way to cross the mountains, but it wasn't the only one. Sure, when he spent some time studying larger-scale maps, he found nothing else in a huge radius.
Unbroken mountain ranges for a hundred miles.
The closest pass to the south was in Lord Schwertburg's territory, but it was much smaller than this. Carts and horses couldn't cross it, and its defenses were ready.
There was another large strait to the north, at the very edge of his own lands.
But to cross that one, the nomads would have had to invade the neighboring kingdom.
'And what stops them from doing so?' Gabrielle asked, reading his mind from their tent down below. 'As far as we know, this Demon Lord wants to conquer the entire world anyway.'
'Kasserlane is his best bet to start,' Konrad thought with confidence.
The area north of them was full of dense forests and sparse roads.
'It's all about logistics,' he explained. 'Maou has a huge army, and he has to feed them somehow.'
If they came through here, his supply chain would have had a direct and easy route.
Continuing his conquest from the Kasserlane Basin would have been trivial. But go the other way, and the horses would bog down, their riders starving before the next kingdom's border.
'Taking this pass is the only hard part; beyond the mountains, he'd become unstoppable.'
So he hoped there was no way around him.
There could always be smuggler trails or small paths people had forgotten to mark.
But if Maple said there weren't—
'In case you forgot, or are still drowsy, we have a thousand men waiting at the foot of this mountain,' Lily reminded him. 'Don'tcha want to call them before the enemy comes?'
'No,' Konrad thought, shaking his head, even if he was alone. 'That'd be a terrible mistake.'
'A mistake?' the demoness repeated, genuine curiosity and annoyance tinging her voice.
Where did he even start?
'This pass is narrow enough that the garrison could hold it forever,' he claimed. 'It's the perfect chokepoint against a mobile army like the nomads. Their numbers don't matter here.'
To have more than two hundred men waiting in the pass would have been a waste.
'So?' Lily pressed on. 'Why did we have all our forces rush here then?'
Konrad sighed.
'How'd you break through this checkpoint if you had to?' he asked.
'Hah, can think of a million ways,' the demoness scoffed. 'Like, flying over the entire mountain, or punching a hole right through. Burn the pass—it's not much of an obstacle for me.'
'Yes, exactly,' he agreed. 'Even if Maou Midori is weaker than you, he's a powerful sorcerer.'
Konrad could've glassed the entire pass, too.
Or have the nearby peaks collapse and bury all the defenders.
And then? The nomads would have had a clear path into the heart of the kingdom.
'I see,' Lily pondered. It was a good thing he didn't have to spell everything out. It was enough to think about things. 'Bringing the entire army for a last stand would only make his job easier.'
'It'd make sense against conventional forces,' he said. 'But we don't know what we face yet.'
A magic duel up here would have been brutal.
Especially since his haremettes—no, wives, he kept forgetting—were weak against Maou.
'Against his banishment spell,' Gabrielle corrected him. 'Not weak against the man.'
'It's the same,' Konrad groaned. 'Up here, you're useless. And more men would be, too.'
That said, he could've imagined a few archers covering the approach from the peak he was on.
'We need to hold with what we have, figure out what the enemy has, and then counter it. We have options, reinforcements, and eyes up in the sky. But he might've seen the future already.'
And for all they knew, these nomads could have been all Maou Midori from different times.
'That'd be useless,' Lily noted after a short pause. He needed a moment to figure out what she meant. Seeing the future. 'You know I have future sight, too.'
He forgot about that a long time ago.
'Can't blame you,' the demoness giggled. 'It's been so messy lately, I stopped paying attention to it, too. The future is a mess. It's undecided. A peek into it would only confuse me more.'
That sounded good on paper, but—
'It only means this next battle could go both ways,' Konrad noted.
And if he took inventory of everything he had, the odds were still stacked against him.
The enemy had more men, a more powerful wizard, and who knew what else?
'If I see a clear vision, I'll let you know,' the ginger promised. 'But in the meantime, you're right. We should pull back. Running into this Meow Midori while he's punching through here—'
Not much trust in him, after all.
But, well, he didn't marry to have his wives protect him anyway.
If anything, now he had even more things he wanted to protect instead.