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Chapter 12 – If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles

With the monitor, we can see the fallen soldiers (about 100 meters underground). To be honest, I don’t think they look good down there, such a pity.

「Come on!? Where is your pride as a Dungeon Master?」

Seraria, after coming here, said that she doesn’t understand the reason. However, I’m the one who don’t understand what she’s talking about.

「Etto… Can you explain? What is the pride of the Dungeon Master?
「To arrange monsters, watch them as they develop, watch the war as the soldier reach this place!!」

I got a headache.

「Oriel, Doesn’t other Dungeons have any trap?」
「Of course they have, and it’s pretty common.」
「I’m sorry Seraria, I don’t understand why the previous trap from a short while ago was bad?」
「The soldiers of our country are brave and fight from the front!! To put a pitfall is to act as a coward !!!」
「The other party is attacking the Dungeon with a lot of manpower, is it any better?」
「It’s… !! No, it’s not fair!!」

Seems like the talk isn’t going well!?

「Sorry, because Seraria-Sama’s fighting force don’t like the dark side, with their principles, they fight brilliantly. They are the pride of our country, Rochelle.」

After Oriel said so, a question hatched in my mind.

「Your country… Do you have a strategist? Or an advisor?」
「Huh? What’s that?」

Seraria is looking doubtful, she tilted her head to the side.

「The strategist is the one who plan and win the war you know?」
「Even if a strategist appears on the battlefield, it would be useless. You should know that everything is based on the will of the heaven. How do you win against more enemy? If the enemy is stronger than me, I can’t win without getting help from heaven’s luck. Even if I would use cheap tricks, it’s wasteful, and won’t improve my chance of victory.」

That reminds me of the European middle ages civilization, where no “Strategist” or “Adviser” existed. This world should be the same.

「The words from Seraria are a bit over the top. Even if they all crash the same way, when a strong fellow appears, you need to take measures against him. Furthermore, a lot of unknown factors exist, skills for example.」

Oriel added, is a person strength defined by his level or skill? If a person levels up, then he’s strong. If he’s strong, then he becomes an absurd entity. Do you think an incomparable character like this will appear easily? With that much, isn’t a strategist unnecessary?

「The virtuous and righteous one, did they always attain victory in the past’s battles? Virtue doesn’t mean invincibility. I will show how you can always remain victorious in every battles」
「Victory within every battle… What?」
「There’s a saying inside a book from my world, 「Always think about the methods bringing the fewer casualties. I’ll explain it properly next time.」
「What? They already invaded the Dungeon!! And they’re on rampage!!!」

At least try to understand my explanation. She’s crying right now, Seraria.

「Ane-Sama don’t want to win? Are you feeling bad?」
「It’s alright Herge… Oriel, did you notice?」
「What’s the matter?」
「This fellow, he didn’t take any damage yet…」
「Aaa!!」
「!?」

The situation finally got noticed by Herge and Oriel. That’s right. Damage to the Dungeon, none. Damage to my followers, none. However, the injured enemies amount to around 200.

Both of them looked at me in surprise. Seems like opponent-san started to realize too. The signboard warning them that only 6 people can pass at the same time? Indeed, they found it.

The next room is 500 meters long hallway. If the number matches 6 people, the door open, and you can enter.
I used the DP from the past 10 days to summon [Bloody Minotaur]. According to its name, it’s a level 95 monster.

Soldiers, for an instant, the 6 of them shook.
But they aren’t the royal guards for the show, they started to act immediately.
On the other hand, the Minotaur didn’t move an inch.
「Why it’s not moving!? Quick, start the fight!!」

Seraria became confused and shouted at me. It’s not a mistake, though.

「It was an order. Don’t move from here ?」
「Don’t move…?」
「Hey – hey – watch the monitor, look, look!」

This room is quite wide, the Minotaur can rampage to his heart content. But… There is also another meaning.
A sound echoes from the monitor.

Gakun!!

『Nuaawaaaaa ーーー !!』
『Kiyaaaaaaa ーーー !!』

「Uh..Once again? A pitfall?」

The darkness from the basement spreads in front of the Minotaur.

『No, Everyone…!! Damned !!』

Oh! Only one person remaining outside the range or the pitfall. Times to change the setting.

『Don’t come!!! Uhwaaaaaaaaa!!』

I merely ordered the Minotaur. He did the job perfectly.
「…」
「…」
「…」

I’ll let the girls stare at the monitor.

What did you think? That because it was a boss room I wouldn’t put any trap? And especially this soldier, he did nothing and stayed here, watching. What were you trying to do without any aim?

「Are you playing? Are you playing with the battlefield? To fight like this and mess with your opponent’s pride!! How is it called if it’s not cowardice!! All the enemies from the first pitfall were good peoples!!」

Seraria is angry.

「I’ll destroy anyone who wants to harm this Dungeon.」

So, If I aim to annihilate the foes inside the Dungeon, the Pitfalls set in locations where a lot of enemies accumulate, are the one with the best efficiency.

「Look, they sent help, after knowing a number of casualties, around 500 of them are coming from outside the Dungeon.」

As an army used to fight with numbers, they always leave men in reserve. And there is no exception for the Dungeon. From the 2000 persons, half of them entered the dungeon and half of them remained on standby.

「You… You put a big trap at the entrance to deal a lot of damage, and then, you deal with them, small group after small group, to draw them in?! How can you do such a thing?」
(TL : Seraria knows how to annoy me.)
「If suddenly, 1000 people die. Would the others come? No, they’ll withdraw. But if it happens a bit slowly, then they can save the face of their country.
「Amazing, you even considered the opponent’s feeling?」
[Know yourself and your enemy and you shall not lose one out of 100 battles.] 「What’s the matter? Those words…Putting that aside, we’re in trouble now, thanks to your pitiful tricks.」
「I expected them to attack. I wanted to use them as a mean of information gathering.」
「Data gathering? Is there a reason to consider this strange thing?」
「You know, I want to make them surrender to you. After all, sheltering a noisy princess like you is way too much trouble.」
「What did you say — !?」

「Ano, Yuki-San, how do you want them to surrender? They’re still number around 1000 outside…」

While Seraria suffered from the blow, Herge doubtfully asked a question. Naturally, it’s a good one.

Thinking about it… should I let the followers join as well?
There is a straight line after the Dungeon entrance. The pitfall remains open. What do you think? Soldiers invading the Dungeon have been completely isolated.

By the way, the pitfall is around 300 meters long. It’s impossible, in a short amount of time, to cut trees from the vicinity to build a bridge.

[Etto why would such a thing make them surrender, though?] [Herge, what do you need in order to live?] 「It’s probably foods?] 「In the Dungeon, there is no possibility for the soldiers to replenish food. Also, in the current situation only 6 of them can go at the same time and there is still the heartless Minotaur’s trap to beat. As long as this 2 settings exist together, Our foes cannot defeat us.]

「Furthermore, there is no water inside that floor. At most, someone can live 3 days without water. On the other hand, I don’t know if they took any supply like water with them.]

Herge might understand what I said a short while ago.

「In order to survive, they have to surrender.」

Seraria muttered with an astonished face.

「Winning without taking any damage…」
「… I can’t believe it.」

Let’s wait for our opponents to surrender.
As expected from Sun Tzu’s sayings. 「If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.」and「The the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.」

「Ah, someone fell once again.」

On his way to fight the Minotaur, the brave soldier fell. I’m laughing at the sight of the monitor.
The person was probably serious though. But what about it? In the end, even if I laugh, I don’t know how everything will end. Even if I want, there’s no way I can.

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22 Replies to “Chapter 12 – If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles”

  1. This world is even worse that medieval,medieval europe may not have strategist or tactician,but al least they got a basic understanding of troop maneuver and deployment

    This world is way worse,seriously how the hell did they evolve?

    • Even then it was mainly look for a fairly flat piece of land that can contain both armies, line them up against each other and capture/kill the nobles on the other side. Strategy was mainly about getting the other side to a place that would be unfavorable to them (bogs if your opponent mainly has cavalry for example).

      • I mean, even in Roman times the advantage was mostly in the terrain, and this was a good chunk of time before medieval Europe.

        Heck, even if the Romans were in an unfavorable terrain they would “create” the advantage by building fortifications out of wood and moats, they were the first to deploy engineers on the battlefield wherever they went.

        Ok ok, I’m nerding out, I just love Roman tactics because of how effective they were compared to EVERYTHING ELSE that existed at the time.

  2. Lets recap in the last chapter he dropped 200 soldiers to their death.
    An average 18 year old (see chapter 2 & 3) dying gives 190 points for him to mess with so even if half of them are still alive that means nineteen thousand points for him to mess with.
    The easiest way to deal with (most of) that army is to buy the land they are camping on (100 points for 1 square kilometer) then redo that pit trap seeing he could afford to make that one with just having a few hundred points.

    Still he should have talked to them instead of the princess.
    Argument 1: Can you afford to lose two thousand soldiers while at war.
    Argument 2: Want the princess back give me the prime minister, people working for him dropped that saint at my door, I’m not going to offend whomever she is a saint for. etc.

  3. Mhmmm~ IIRC Medieval Europe didnt have any strategist or tactician of note. The most famous would be Machiavelli but his tactics/strategies are mostly for political battlefield than martial. Possibly Late medieval and early modern era that a few names float up: Edward I’s Crecy and Agincourt, King Gustavus Aldophus of Sweeden… And I means names that attached with tacticful battles and strategical campaign. Earlier commanders are just noted for valour, example King Richard Lionheart and etc…

    • Machiavellis The Prince was satirical commentary on the politics between the different Italian city states.

      Crecy was a win by the English more due to a tactical blunder of the Genoese mercenaries. They left their portable walls (pavise) in the baggage train, possibly due to the rain directly before the battle making it difficult to move them over the battlefield combined with overconfidence. This resulted in the English archers actually having targets they could kill thus neutralizing the major ranged component of the French army.
      That in turn allowed the English to rebuild the defenses erected to prevent the French from charging up the hill they were based on after each charge of the French, since there was no effect ranged component to target the units tasked with replacing/rebuilding the defenses. Eventually the French army broke due to the mounting losses to lucky hits from the archers and the repeated decimation of the rearguard when retreating from another failed charge.

      I’d remove Agincourt from the list as well. About the only thing strategic about that fight was that the location selected for the battle prevented the French from flanking the English army.
      But if that would have been the only thing in favor of the English they’d have lost. However the other factors that helped them win were pure luck.
      The first one was the weather. Normally the location chosen, freshly plowed farmland, would be in favor of the French doing a cavalry charge. The weather turned it into a mudbath straight from hell, eyewitness accounts tell of the inability to charge or run through that muck. This combined with the frontline moving forward making it slightly easier for the troops behind it to move resulted in the entire formation bunching up.
      That still wouldn’t have been a problem as for the second piece of luck.
      Henry V was poor so could only induce a few nobles to join him for the campaign. Seeing that one of the main reasons to participate (by the nobles bringing their own units of men) on the French side was to capture English nobles to ransom back to their families most of the French converged on the English nobles who made up the center of the formation. So all those units already getting compressed due to the ground conditions got compressed even further because they all targeted the same small unit in the English army.
      The result was, as reported by the eyewitness accounts, that the French were so tightly packed together they couldn’t use their weapons.
      Worse this allowed the English to do something that should have been impossible; Flank the french, which the archers promptly did by entering the melee from the sides. Oh yes those longbows were so effective that their users decided to stab the French to dead instead. This also accounts for the high number of nobles that died on the French side. The archers weren’t there to capture for ransom they just killed.

      One final point. A bodkin arrowhead can pierce the armor used by a fully armored knight but in the process loses so much power that it would be stopped by the underlying layer(s) of armor (there was always at least leather underneath to stop the chafing). So to actually harm someone in plate armor you’d have to get in a lucky shot (most famous is probably the battle of Hasting where an arrow killed the English king by hitting him in the eye) that bypasses most/all armor.

      • Battle of Sterling, granted Edward II put himself in a bad position tactically but Robert (the) Bruce made an effort to mitigate the advantage of mounted knights (a charge by them would be TERRIFYING, and proven effective) by digging pits. Fortunately for him his plan pretty much got maximum effect.
        Tactics were very much alive, however the effectiveness of extensively trained, armoured, and mounted men was incredibly high as they combined mobility, a deadly reach with a lance, and significant defense.
        People sometimes forget that a head on charge is also a tactic as it intimidates the person who is being run at.

  4. ahahaha 😀 damn that was really nasty trap!! even in the boss room to!! ahahaha 😀

    thx for the chapter ^^

  5. I just have to say. “Not fear” is not the same thing as “you will win” Which is what that quote about 100 battles is often taken as.

  6. Error / Typo??

    Ane-Sama don’t want to win? -> Ane-Sama doesn’t want to win?

    Etto why would such a thing make them surrender ->Etto why would do such a thing to make them surrender

    Thanks for the treat.

  7. I am actually angry with this author, medieval european strategy was not bad at all and was developed according to the established weapons of the era. In fact the main times you see consistently terrible strategy is when new weapons are being introduced and they are either misused or not countered properly. WW1 is probably the biggest case of truly idiot commanders. These idiotic “modern” japanese authors who act as if people in history were idiots can go jump off a mountain of history books. I am SICK of them.
    I’ll continue reading purely because the genre of dungeon master is rare but I seriously am considering ragequitting.

    • Subnote:
      What really got my goat is just how careless and immersion breaking it is as a plot device.

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