Chase

Charlie stared at the ginormous group of bandits in front of him. The thousands of bandits stood in front of him. Some held up bloodied swords while cheering out loud. While others laughed and jeered at the rose knight trainees on the other side of the field.

The group of rose knight trainees looked minuscule compared to the bandit army. The bandits and the rose knights were separated by a small field and for some reason, the bandits didn't cross the field.

Charlie gazed at the bandit army, well he wouldn't really call them a bandit army, they looked like they were actually disciplined. And he still didn't believe that so many of them were able to gather without them tearing each other apart somehow unless they had an extremely competent leader.

Charlie prayed to high heaven that it wasn't the case, but if it was, then it was going to be a hard battle. A nonchalant voice started to speak next to him

"sooo, its seems we are pretty outnumbered here"

Charlie turned around to see Jitsuryoku standing next to him with his arms crossed.

"so are we going to attack?"

"yes"

Charlie's stared at Jitsuryoku with a dumbfounded face

"I meant that as a rhetorical question"

"I don't care, we're attacking them"

"What kinda stuff have you been eating"

"the same meal as everyone else"

Charlie ran his hands down his face in an exasperated manner

"you know its suicide right?"

Jitsuryoku answered matter of factly

"not if we do it quickly"

Charlie then ran both hands down his face. He was getting fed up with this, having to handle people like Lyle and Jitsuryoku made him want to scream at something.

One of the bandits tried to throw a stone at them.

It pitifully flew to the middle of the field and plopped down like a person dropping it into an ocean.

Charlie and Jitsuryoku both turned to look at the 7000 bandits. Taking a deeper look aside from the shirtless guys who were screaming and taunting them, you could see some heavily armored people wearing full plate armor and holding up spears, like a regular soldier.

With his attentive ears, he could hear the familiar neighing of horses, which weren't the rose knights, and if the bandit army was going to assault the city of Muno they must at least be slightly confident in taking it down.

The city of Muno was a bit on the small side, it wasn't a major port like Herdita that Jason and Perseus had stayed in. It was on the edge of the kingdom nearer to the Baiseon kingdom.

The city of Muno could be used as a fortress to assault the rest of Earl Grey's territory so the rose knights definitely needed to defend that city well or it could spell a lot of trouble for the entire territory.

Jitsuryoku started to talk while the two gazed at the 7 thousand bandits that were screaming for blood, while the rose knight trainees just stared back at them from across the wheat field.

"so, me and the red barrack members jump in there and give them a bit of a beating, and then run back to the city for a defensive war"

A quiet and clear voice sounded from behind them, Ardem walked next to Jitsuryoku and said

"no"

Jitsuryoku looked at Ardem

"alright your' going to have to explain that"

Ardem pointed to Jitsuryoku and said

"slow"

Then he pointed to Charlie and uttered out an

"ehh"

like they were mediocre in speed.

Jitsuryoku old attitude from a few months ago started to resurface and he got up to Ardem and said in an angry voice

"ehhh whatchu talking bout, me and the red barrack members are faster than you and your green barrack dudes"

The two stared at each other, the tensions starting to slowly ramp up. Charlie sighed and stepped in

"aright, guys simmer down, we have a literal army of bandits out for our blood and we need to figure out how we are going to bait them to the city of Muno, while taking out as many of them as possible"

Jitsuryoku pointed to Charlie and said

"exactly! that's why we need to just jump in and kill as many as possible"

Ardem even nodded and said

"green go"

It seems Jitsuryoku was used to Ardem's speech and he replied like he knew what he meant

"no, heck no, red barrack is doing this"

Charlie started to reason with both of them

"i think, the blue barrack since we will have enough situational awareness to retreat when need...."

Both of the red and green barrack leaders interrupted Charlie with a "no" and refused to let Charlie let the blue barrack members go.

Charlie put his head in his hands, as he saw that both of them really wanted to go and attack the army. After a bit of thinking, and debating in his mind he raised his head with an answer

"Alright, all 3 barracks will go besides a few green members who will relay information with the city of Muno, we will go in an arrowhead formation with the blue and green barrack members in the front, while the red barrack members are on our flanks. Once we start to retreat back to the city of Muno, the red barrack members will shift to the back and defend the rest of the members from projectiles and the like, meanwhile when we retreat the green and blue members will unleash as many ranged attacks as possible, the blue barrack members only have a few magic swordsmen but I think its enough for now"

The two other barrack leaders listened to Charlie's plan and nodded at the end approving it.

Charlie sighed again

"Alright, we will attack at night or whenever this weird standoff ends which everyone comes first, I really don't think we need the element of surprise since we want to bait them"

The barrack leaders left and started to order the team leaders on what they were about to do. Excitement ran through the entire platoon as this would be their first and real big battle. They had been training for most of their lives for this. Most of the rose knight trainees had been hand-picked to be part of the countries strongest knighthood. Only a few like Jason who was let in by Lady Megra were the exceptions.

Charlie looked back at the rose knights that were preparing to fight, the bandits had already retreated back to their camp, and even from here, he could see the fires and the many guards that were keeping a watch on them. The rose knights were actually just as relaxed as the bandits, the green and red members were chatting or quietly cleaning their weapons and the blue barrack members seemed to be the only ones stressed over the coming battle.

Most of the wagons and horses had already been sent to the city of Muno after they had encountered the bandit army. Charlie had fully expected them to engage in battle but once they spotted each other, they just stopped and hurled insults instead of arrows or weapons.

They had been like that for a few hours and the sun was already in the afternoon phase, with tints of red on edge of the sky.

They currently had 20 horses and 1 wagon full of food, which the platoon was eating hurriedly. It was definitely a mistake to leave only one wagon, but the entire platoon once had a training exercise where they were virtually starved for a few weeks so a few days would feel like nothing to them.

He really did wish that Jason was here to cook some food for them. those skewers he made were enough to make his mouth water just thinking about them.

Charlie kept on gazing back at the bandit camp, something about them was bothering him, no bandit leader would be able to just gather almost all of the nearby bandits in the territory to fight right? Plus some looked sufficiently armed and almost all of them had some sort of weapon, which Charlie had learned in his early travels before he got recruited was not normal.

As the sun slowly set and the rose knight trainees started to gather their weapons and ready themselves, Charlie saw the fading sunlight glint on the bandit's weapons and on some armor.

It couldn't compare to the red barracks full platted armor or the green barracks thin leather streamlined armor or even the blue barracks standard cold metal armor.

But something in him told him to be cautious of this group of bandits. They weren't going to be a regular bandit group that was for sure.

In a central tent of the bandit camp, 3 hooded figures sat in the tent sharpening their weapons. One held a large saber its curved blade shone and gave off sparks as the hooded figure held it to a grinding stone another one flipped around a shining dagger and you could see a belt full of many more.

And finally sitting in the very center seat, sat a figure with no cloak on. He crossed his arms in a menacing way and his arms seemed to be made out of steel itself. He gave off a sinister smile as he looked at the rose knights sitting a field away from them.

The real campaign was going to begin.