The legions had been assembled; there were not many preparations left to be made.
Mortal officers and scions were summoned. Al stood on the steps below his throne, with Misha standing at his flank, listening to the opinions of the generals.
There was little controversy; Al's plan received unanimous praise and approval.
The strategy was to hold key points to blunt the enemy's momentum, then concentrate heavy forces for a teleportation blitzkrieg against the Greenskins.
The tribe's mobilization capability was far from the exaggerated "every citizen a soldier" nature of the Greenskins.
Furthermore, out of consideration for the recently stabilized hearts of the refugees, and the increasingly strained human and material resources, the conscription of young and middle-aged men among the refugees had not been pushed on a large scale.
The six thousand men of the three Mortal Auxilia legions, after a period of continuous propaganda and recruitment, had only just managed to expand by another two thousand militia.
Their training and equipment were both concerning; whether they could even withstand a charge from half their number of enemies was a question.
Al equipped them with swords, shields, and short spears, intending for them to use the terrain for defense—they would be as useful as they could be.
His total available manpower rose from twenty-five thousand to twenty-seven thousand; the rest could be ignored.
However, he held the absolute advantage in monsters and magic, as well as the individual prowess of the Khorngors.
If Al personally took the field and the Blood River blessing was activated during the slaughter, coupled with the inspiration from Warlords and Vanguards and the auxiliary spells of the Sagegor Mage Corps,
there would be a massive gap in strength even against a Greenskin WAAAAAGH!.
With such military force combined with the suddenness of the ley line teleportation, as long as the Greenskin strength did not greatly exceed his original estimate of roughly fifty thousand,
and assuming the "accidents" so common in the Old World didn't occur too frequently...
Crushing the Greenskins would be no problem!
Al made the broad directional arrangements, leaving the detailed practical planning to his scions and officers.
The representatives of the Vanguard Legion observed the entire meeting. Afterward, they would take the tribe's decisions back, while handing over some intelligence to the diplomatic team stationed in the forest to report back to the Northern Council.
The middle and upper-level commanders of the Vanguard had already been corrupted through the same brutal methods Al used on the first mortal officers—using the Winds of Chaos exchanged with sacrifices to turn them into latent Chaos (Four Mother) believers.
However, this method of transformation was crude, extreme, and very dangerous.
If priests of Order gods, mages, or Witch Hunters sensitive to Chaos corruption were present, they could easily detect the anomalies.
The method of direct exposure to the Winds of Chaos remained stable under Al's control, but if they left the tribe's supervision and the influence of the Four Mother faith to enter human society, they would easily become radicalized.
They would either take a giant leap to the right and become old-school Chaos God worshippers—true dangerous subversives—or simply self-detonate into mindless Chaos spawn that couldn't distinguish friend from foe.
Al was already considering how to dispose of this five-thousand-man Vanguard Legion.
Previously, during the turmoil of the refugees' large-scale conversion to the tribe, the series of "pro-gamer moves" pulled by the Kingdom's side under Al's secret manipulation had led to this unit—the first official regular army in the Piña Forest—facing universal cold treatment instead of enthusiastic support from the local refugees.
They failed the Kingdom's orders and instead forced a massive number of refugees to commit treason and defect to the tribe.
Combined with the actions of the supply officers and refugee representatives—the councilor elites—the Vanguard soldiers, who also belonged to the lower classes, naturally couldn't stand it.
Yet they had to obey orders, not knowing what they were fighting for, having tried and returned in crushing defeat.
Due to these unpopular operations, their internal thoughts were highly chaotic, and they were in a state of low morale overall.
Al's ideas for handling this guest army in the future were roughly two-fold:
Annex them, or allow a portion to return north to Bilbali.
The corrupted leadership certainly couldn't be sent back; not only would they likely be exposed by the Estalians, but once out of Al's control, these crudely converted "True Chaos/Fake Four Mother" believers would be dangerous individuals to a man.
This was easy to solve, however.
Because of the improper handling and the forced suppression of refugee dissatisfaction, the plan to conscript and harass the Greenskin rear had failed, and a large number of refugees had been forced to join the tribe.
To avoid punishment upon return, the various commanders could use the excuse of "the general in the field need not obey every command."
"Let the Kingdom rest easy; I am at the front lines with our tribal allies resolutely resisting the Greenskins!"
With such excuses, the Northern Council would find it hard to lash out or handle them.
Later, they could gradually report them as killed in action... though it probably wouldn't come to that.
If everything went smoothly and the Greenskins arrived at the walls of Bilbali, standing atop the North's highest peak, Al would lead his army out of Piña.
He would strike west to cut off their retreat, and march south to "liberate" lost territory for his ally.
The ally's nerve center would be besieged, severed from the inside and out. After liberation, the tribe would naturally manage the land on their behalf.
Then, he would select loyal and reliable people from the converted Piña refugees to complete the annexation and takeover of the local management systems...
After ending this Battle of the Piña Forest, he could release a portion of the soldiers to return north.
Along with those insatiably greedy, corrupted elites who only knew how to rack their brains to claim credit from the Kingdom and curry favor with Al...
Well, maybe he could keep those for a bit longer before packing them up and kicking them out of Piña, sending them back to the Northern Council.
The news that the Greenskins were invading the Piña Forest in force, intending to eradicate the nominal "Kingdom Ally" and remove this thorn in their flank before heading north, had already reached the North.
The previous vague rumors of a large number of refugees "abandoning the Goddess's teachings and accepting barbarian rule" had sent the Northern Council into an uproar.
Many people held conflicting views on the tribe. On one hand, they wanted to use its strength to deal with the Greenskins; on the other, they felt this tribe... might have ulterior motives.
Not only did they demand the Inara Mountains and the Piña Forest, but now they were set to annex a population of over two hundred thousand.
Even the most exaggerated treason wouldn't involve selling off nearly half the Kingdom's land (forests and mountains) and one-twentieth of its population all at once.
However, as Al used various hints to manipulate the leaked intelligence, the Northern Council's spearheads turned inward toward the Military Tribune faction, whose power was expanding due to the state of war.
"The refugees fled to our ally's territory to avoid war. A group of tribesmen in a big forest—how many people can they support? Not only did you fail to allocate supplies for relief, you issued such hardline conscription demands. You were forcing them to their deaths!"
"For such a shameful and embarrassing situation to occur (referring to the refugees converting and defecting to avoid the draft), someone must be held responsible!"
Influenced by the power of the All-Knowing One, their thoughts manipulated, the supporters of the Military Tribune—who were naturally hardliners but had made a few blunders regarding the Piña refugees—did not back down.
Both sides engaged in verbal warfare over this topic. While their focus on the front lines was unaffected, it was still a lamentable sight.
Factional fighting when the nation is in peril; it has to be said, it's the same everywhere.
Finally, it was the Greenskin invasion—specifically, the news that they were invading the "Ally"—that briefly mended the increasingly tense atmosphere of the Northern Council.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Ha!
You Greenskins, listen up! You can hit me, fine, but!
The Tribe!
Our Ally!
Our brothers!
The friendship between Estalians and Beastmen is indestructible and unbreakable!
The tribe is absolutely a resolute, firm ally that stands forever on the side of the Kingdom, with zero tolerance and zero compromise for the Greenskins!
You want to hit the North? Have the guts to try and get through the Piña Forest first!
Then they redoubled their efforts to reinforce the Bulwark of Saint Monna and the conscriptions across various regions.
The Northern Council's current consideration was to use this window where the Greenskins were attacking Piña and had briefly halted their northward march to consolidate and deepen the frontline defenses.
They would hurry to recruit and train soldiers to be fully prepared for the subsequent Greenskin offensive.
As for whether the tribe could hold out, or if the Greenskins would be pounded by the tribesmen... such a possibility was absolutely, absolutely impossible.
In a more sacrilegious sense, even if the Goddess herself descended to direct the war, it might not happen.
As for the problem of the tribe failing to hold out...
Once the counter-offensive succeeded and the nation was restored, they would leave a spot for the Beastmen on the memorial monument!
When even two hundred thousand of their own refugees could be used as discarded pawns to be stacked as corpses and share the Greenskin strength, they certainly wouldn't care about a "Piña Tribe" that had inexplicably appeared and vowed to ally with the Kingdom.