'Volunteers? Haha, no,' Lily told him via telepathy. 'Shepherds, merchants, slaves, and bandits.'
The nomads he had to face were only ordinary people after all.
'Why do they follow the Green Mage then?' Konrad asked, overlooking his men picking the battlefield clean. They butchered the dead mounts, collected weapons and armour—
And he had them carry the dead back to cremate them further down the road.
He made sure they'd treat them with respect.
Like fellow human beings.
'Because they had no choice,' the demoness said. 'There are some who worship him, sure. He hired lots of mercenaries, too. But most follow him out of fear—and hope for a better life.'
These people were no summons, dungeon spawns, or monsters.
They were regular men who lived their harsh lives on the unforgiving steppes. For most, their only sin was to be born on the wrong side of these mountains.
And as Bor put it, they had good equipment. Uniforms. Horses.
If he had to guess, they had proper meals in their bellies, too.
Something that was a luxury even in Kasserlane, giving him so many headaches these days.
No mind tricks or grand magic needed here. The Green Mage only had to offer them a better life than they could've lived on their own. For a man of his powers, it wouldn't have been hard.
And that was more than enough.
All his earlier plans—to whittle them down, kill as many as he could—felt barbaric now.
'Aww, see? This is why I like him,' Lily gushed to his second wife—inside his head. 'Your old boss would be like 'A man sinned in a city? Burn it all down with everyone in it.' But my Konny cares.'
Her impression of God was anything but flattering.
'For the record, I won't stop him if he wants the nomads rape and pillage Kasserlane.' Gabrielle showed no empathy towards the people of this world. 'As long as he deals with Maou Midori.'
Sometimes, Konrad had to wonder which one of his girls was the angel or the demoness.
Not that he could stand aside and let the enemy have his way, of course.
But the archangel made it clear she cared not about either side.
'This place does not belong to us,' she said, and he could almost see her shrug. 'But thousands of worlds do. Millions would suffer if this Demon Lord succeeded here.'
But what did that mean exactly?
What was the Green Mage's endgame?
He talked to him once in that strange time loop, but Konrad was none the wiser.
Why conquer this world? Why leave it afterwards? And why defeat God?!
'Get your head out of the gutter, sweetie,' Lily warned him. 'I have to agree with the angel on this one. We're here now, and they're the enemy. They win, you die—I can't have that.'
Kill or get killed. It couldn't have been that simple, but it usually was.
Wars in this life were no different from any other in his previous one.
Leaders might have won or lost, but the soldiers on the ground?
The civilians caught in the crossfire?
No good or evil, no winners there, only death and suffering.
Whether the Green Mage was the final boss or not, he couldn't show mercy to his men, either.
'Unless you have a genius idea,' he asked his first wife, almost pleading.
No response, at least none that could calm the storm inside his head.
'I hate to remind you, but in the end I'm a greater demon, too,' she noted. 'A conqueror of worlds. Enemy of mankind—according to your second wifey. I'm no expert on eternal peace.'
He'd rather not ask how much of this was her usual exaggeration.
Thinking that she might not have been a chunibyo after all worried him more than anything.
If everything she said was true—
He would have had to deal with things he wasn't ready for. And he was already overwhelmed.
'Any way we could capture them alive, or stop them without killing?' he thought, asking more to himself than anyone else this time. If he could keep his mind straight, he could still win.
Or at least keep his conscience clean.
'Well, you could always cut the snake's head off,' Lily offered. 'If you know where Meow Midori is, and how to defeat him. But a subtle reminder that the king banned slavery before he died.'
'Disappeared,' Gabrielle corrected her. 'He might be alive. A hostage somewhere right now.'
'Wha—what does it have to do with anything?' Konrad asked, dumbfounded.
'I mean, what'll you do with tens, or hundreds of thousands of nomads?' the demoness asked.
That question was a low blow. He couldn't let them go, nor could he feed them.
The more he thought about all this, the less he knew what the right answer was.
'See, now you stuffed his head with unnecessary doubts,' Gabrielle complained. 'I don't want him to hesitate in a life-or-death scenario. He's my last line of defence against Maou.'
'Whoa, I put nothing in there,' Lily protested. 'I only answered his questions.'
And now they were arguing. Again. Inside his mind, even though he was sure they were in the same tent somewhere below, a few miles back. What a way to tell him not to get distracted.
'Hate to intrude, but a dozen horsemen are riding up the road again,' Maple interjected.
She was his saviour.
But that was another problem, a more urgent and tangible one than the rest.
Something he had to—and could—deal with, right now.
'Good luck with that,' the dragoness thought. 'They're getting smarter. It's four small groups with a hundred yards between them. You can't catch them all without a few getting away.'
Why would it ever be simple after all?
"Enemy scouts are approaching," Konrad announced to his men first. "Get ready to catch them."
He was trying to focus and rack his head around this new problem. Setting up an illusion as a diversion was a given. But his tribesmen only set ambushes two switchbacks down.
Going any further, and they would have risked their lives too much.
Now, the best he could do was to capture—or kill—three of those groups.
Meaningless if even one got away to report back on the situation.
'I still have the wyverns, you know,' Maple reminded him, and he spotted her flying above.
Konrad let out a long sigh.
Right after establishing how they were regular people, he was to send monsters after them.
'At least make sure nobody spots you. Not even our own troops,' he thought with a heavy heart.
'Got it, bossman,' the dragon said, her thoughts sounding way too enthusiastic. 'They'll be like ghosts. The ridge between the switchbacks will cover them anyway.'
Well, at least she did not hesitate. Konrad also had to make his choice soon.
In this world, he reincarnated as a citizen of Kasserlane. Heck, he was a duke now, with lands and vassals and subjects to care for. Only he could protect them, whoever the enemy was.
Humans or monsters, attacking them by their own will or forced by a Demon Lord—
He had to stop them all, here and now.