Nateaser: Reborn As My Love Interest

Dio - Ch. 88

It wasn't our time to go home.

"That's the largest army I have seen in my life," Bastion noted, seemingly amazed by their numbers. Two whole battalions, six companies in total, about a thousand men, and some change. It wasn't that spectacular, but this continent rarely seen forces of this scale amassed.

"You probably didn't see much considering how old you are." Fang mirrored my thoughts. Still, I might have to lead these people, and I wasn't looking forward to it. I was supposed to be the chief of staff instead of a field commander. Plus, my rank wasn't adequate for this.

"Just why?" I asked myself riding towards the formations. And I was worried the Demon Lord would execute me because of my failure. Now I was put in command and potentially promoted too. Nothing made sense to me. And who were we fighting?

"I should be asking the same, Dio," Exagus complained behind us. For a moment, I thought he was reading my mind too. His mount could barely keep up with our splendid Nightmares though, and Hakim seemed to be the only one enjoying the situation. He stole a destrier back in that coastal city and was proud of himself. He was such a strange guy and was hellbent on joining the Twelve. "Why did I have to come out of retirement for this? What is this nonsense?"

"That's what you get for calling yourself a warlock. Now you will be heading to war." I turned back to taunt him. But yes, while we all wished the Demon Lord would finally leave that cursed and cold Ghell fortress, I didn't think it meant we would all march into battle.

"I thought we never had larger formations than companies before." I heard Bastion trying to grasp the situation, and he was slower than usual, like a little boy who was easily amazed by the most mundane things, which reminded me he was indeed very young. All of us seemed to be missing something: Fang his wife, Bastion his childhood, and me, I got away relatively easily, losing an eye. "This looks much more."

"In the Continental Wars, countries threw dozens of divisions at each other. Each division would be at least ten thousand people, usually more, so this is nothing compared to that." Fang belittled our modest army again. Yes, sure, everything was better in the old days, and bigger too, we all knew that but I found it somewhat comical.

"I know you are old, but you're not that old," I claimed, flashing a grin at him. His initial reaction was to roll his eyes. Easy for him, he still had both. A little education couldn't hurt for the old wolfman. "The Second Continental War ended nearly a millennia ago, the most devastating conflict in recorded history, not exactly a fair comparison numbers-wise. Never again did these lands witness armies that large."

"Well, that was the whole reason to fight them." Fang shrugged. He seemed in the mood, where he couldn't let an argument go. I didn't mind it per se, back in the day we would often kill time reasoning with each other, usually about things that did not matter, but it helped to get our minds off of the things we didn't want to deal with. "There was no need for big armies when the entire continent was united. Plus the Gates enabled them to travel quickly, so one elite company was all it took to keep the peace in the Cranta Empire. But that doesn't mean this is big."

"My point is, people don't have huge standing armies nowadays, so this is probably on the larger side," I explained as we reached them. The Nightmares behaved properly, so no panic waves should have washed across the soldiers, but they were abyssal monsters after all. The men became restless when they noticed us. "Ever since the Collapse, countries, and their armies kept on shrinking, so two whole battalions in one place would be probably the largest you can see."

"For what purpose though?" Fang kept pushing back. Well, it's not like I had an answer to that yet. But from what the warlock told us, we were summoned to meet with the Demon Lord, and there was no mention of why, just where and when. "These six companies were taken from elsewhere, which means our borders became more vulnerable."