The Male Lead I Raised Is Obsessed With Me

After a while, they marched under a high cliff.

When Viscount Schtrim ordered to speed up the march, the junior knights who had just joined the army, carefully asked the senior knights.

“Um…Senior. In a place like this, shouldn’t we send an advance party to check if there’s an enemy ambush first?”

The senior knight glanced at Viscount Schtrim before he jabbed the junior knight with his elbow.

“Hey, take a hint. Can’t you see the Viscount is making a fuss about going faster? What if we delay the march by asking them to send an advance party for no reason?”

“But if there’s an ambush, we will be at a terrible disadvantage.” 

“What if I asked the Viscount to stop the march as you suggested, and there’s no ambush? Can you take responsibility for those words?”

The junior knight shut his mouth. 

It hasn’t been long since he joined the knights, but Viscount Schtrim was not a very good master.

He would often wield his whip to instigate fear and blame his subordinates for his faults.

“You know Senior Doris, who was exiled to the outskirts, right? Don’t you know why he was banished? He was kicked out simply for disobeying the Viscount’s orders.”

The senior knight tapped the junior knight on the shoulder and spoke.

“Besides, even if the Valfurga is a duchy, they don’t have any proper knights. You think they will have archers who can ambush a place like this?”

The junior knight raised his head and looked at the high cliff afar.

Certainly, it was impossible to shoot an arrow at such a long distance after only a day or two of training.

Without anyone saying a word, Viscount Schtrim’s army passed through the canyon.

It was then.

At the top of the canyon, the Duke of Valfurga appeared.

“Prepare for defence!”

In an instant, the Viscount’s army squeezed together like a pill bug and lifted their shield.

“March forward!”

At Viscount Schtrim’s command, the knights marched cautiously to refrain from disrupting the formation. 

A shield made of solid iron would easily block an ordinary archer’s arrow.

It should have been.

Schwick!

The arrow flew with a sharp whoosh and pierced through the shield.

“W-What on earth is this!”

It was not a normal arrow.

It was long and huge that it was suitable to be called a small spear rather than an arrow.

The arrow penetrated through the shield and pierced the stomach of the knight holding the shield.

“Aaargh!”

“Save, save me……!”

The next moment, countless arrows pierced through the sky and fell down like heavy rain.

The skills of the Duke of Valfurga were underestimated, so Viscount Schtrim, who never imagined that he would come out with such a destructive weapon, ran away in panic.

When one person collapsed, the arrow easily dug through the gaps.

“Closer! Get closer! Don’t give them an opening!”

Viscount Schtrim ordered, but the knights who were distracted, could not hear his command properly.

The knight commander, who was guarding Viscount Schtrim, appealed.

“Milord! We can’t go on like this! We have to leave our supplies and escape this canyon quickly!”

“How can we go to war when there’s no food!”

“But, milord! If this goes on, we will be annihilated! We’re holding on thanks to the help of my mana, but if I run out of mana……Ack!”

As the knight commander spoke while glancing back, a sharp arrow grazed his cheek and pierced a tree.

“Grrr!”

Viscount Schtrim slammed the armrest of the palanquin he was sitting on and gnashed his teeth.

Leaving the supplies behind meant giving up most of their food. 

However, it was better to take cover now than be wiped out while protecting the food.

Looking around, he saw the soldiers holding the shields falling down one by one.

Eventually, Viscount Schtrim gave the order, lashing the ground with his whip.

“Everyone, leave the supplies and exit the canyon as quickly as possible!”

When Viscount Schtrim’s army fled, the Duke of Valfurga’s troop did not bother to pursue them.

“Where on earth did the Valfurga get those guys from! I hadn’t heard that he brought in mercenaries!”

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A woman, with a huge bow on her back and her hair tied up high, approached Lucius and saluted him.

“Duke, reporting incident.”

When Lucius granted the permission with a nod, the woman spoke.

“Currently, there are no casualties of our troops. No victims. That is all.”

“Good work.”

“This can’t even be considered a warm-up. Compared to a monster that moves swiftly and sends people flying by knocking them with its foot, wasn’t that just a standing target?”

Lucius looked at the people straightening their bows behind the woman. 

The main contributors to this operation, the archers, were the monster hunters of the Valfurga duchy.

And the woman in front was Riya, the representative of the monster hunter.

Riya looked down at the fleeing Viscount Schtrim and sneered.

“I was wondering why the Valfurga suddenly formed a regular army, but if the job is like this, then it’s definitely welcome in the future.” 

It was extremely dangerous to hunt down huge and violent monsters. 

If they caught an expensive monster, they could make quite a lot of money, but if they were unlucky, they could lose their life.

Of course, even if the Valfurga formed a regular army, they had to continue their training and hunt down monsters, but on the upside, their salary was paid regularly.

Plus, if they catch a lot of dangerous monsters, they’ll be given a bonus!

There was no reason not to become a regular soldier.

“It’s all thanks to sister.”

Lucius recalled his lovely wife.

If Felia hadn’t made a lot of money from the hair loss medicine, the plan wouldn’t have even started.

It was impossible to make people work simply out of loyalty in the North, where everyone was busy surviving.

Hunters who used to roam through the harsh Northern wilds and hunt down monsters and demons will now be reborn as the knights of Valfurga.

Lucius gave out an order as he watched Viscount Schtrim flee in haste.

“Go and execute the second operation.”

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By the time they barely managed to escape the canyon, the number of Viscount Schtrim’s army had declined significantly.

“You lousy fools! You can’t even withstand that one attack!”

Viscount Schtrim swung his whip wildly.

The soldiers who were hit by his whip collapsed with a scream, but Viscount Schtrim did not stop taking out his anger.

“You can’t even handle an arrow from the Valfurga duchy! And yet you dare take money from me? When we get back, I will cut all of your salaries!”

Although the number of soldiers had decreased a lot, they still had more compared to the Duke of Valfurga’s army.

Besides, he had already spent a lot of money buying food for the war.

They couldn’t just surrender now just because their men died.

‘The archers were strong, but we’ll just wait. If the archers and knights fight one-on-one, in the end, the knights would win. We just have to avoid places like canyons where the archers can benefit. The more crucial problem is the food we left behind.’

Viscount Schtrim laid out a map and pondered.

Since he had been hit once, he avoided areas like the canyons and analysed the plains until he saw a village nearby.

And as he predicted, the Duke of Valfurga did not act as much when they moved along the wide plains.

The arrows of Duke Valfurga were fierce, but after going through it once, they weren’t so intimidated anymore.

They would sometimes appear abruptly and make surprise attacks, but he did not suffer any major damage.

‘Of course, they benefited from the high landscape. Hmph, try shooting so much. It’s only a waste of their arrows.’

Viscount Schtrim used to eat well, sleep comfortably, and unlike the other soldiers, rode a carriage.

Thanks to that, the long march was not too difficult for him.

But it was different now.

Since he left the food back at the canyon, he could not have a single proper meal every day, and because of the surprise attack from the Duke of Valfurga, he could not sleep well either.

At dawn, when he was exhausted from hunger and was about to fall asleep, Duke Valfurga’s troop appeared and shot arrows at them.

And when Viscount Schtrim’s people woke up and started chasing after the Valfurga, they disappeared, just like mosquitoes that would appear out of nowhere and buzz around when you were about to fall asleep.

When Viscount Schtrim finally arrived at the village, hunger and fatigue were already at their peak.

Of course, this would no longer be of Viscount Schtrim’s concern.

Viscount Schtrim laughed loudly as he entered the empty village.

“Wahaha! Looks like everyone ran away when they heard us coming! Did you find any food?”

Viscount Schtrim was in a good mood after seeing that the Valfurga had been weak for the past few days.

Without missing the opportunity, the subordinate beside him spoke.

“It’s certainly true that the Valfurga is overflowing with money, their supplies are full.”

“Could the people be hiding?”

“I searched everywhere, but there was not a single ant in sight! Seeing that the supplies were abandoned, everyone must have been busy running away after hearing the Viscount’s reputation!”

“Good. We shall rest here for today, and march again tomorrow.”

In a good mood, Viscount Schtrim showed generosity for the first time in a long while.

“The soldiers must be exhausted, so make sure to feed them at least one full meal. The Duchy has not much power left, hahaha!”

After eating the food the villagers had stored in their warehouse, Viscount Schtrim closed his eyes.

After a long break, the viscount quickly fell asleep.

“Yaawn, why am I so sleepy? Is it because I’m full?”

An hour later, the knights on night watch duty also began to doze off, yawning loudly.

And when they finally closed their eyes, someone hit the back of their head hard.

The knight collapsed and fainted without a scream.

Bircher waved his hand over the fainted knight’s face.

“Did I hit him too hard? He isn’t dead, is he?”

“Boss, please hit them lightly.”

A member of the secret organisation whispered.

And Bircher replied cheerfully.

“So what if they die? I’m going to kill them anyway!”