Chapter 371: Chapter 120: The Beastmen’s Thoughts

The climate in the region between the Frankish Great Plains and the Beastman Grassland was rather strange. Rain usually lasted for several days at a time.

Mendes rose bright and early, squinting north into the morning light.

That was the path of their previous retreat.

"Mendes, you’re up."

Mendes walked out of his tent and ran right into Auric, the former Dwarf Officer.

"Yes. How are things at Bai Ma Ferry? Any movement?" Mendes asked, looking at Auric.

When Mendes first saw that phoenix, he’d thought the main human army had arrived. But in the time since they retreated, those humans had made no move.

Auric shook his head.

"None. That’s what I came to report. They only have a little over four hundred men moving about outside; we haven’t seen any other troops at all..."

"Frankly, I have to wonder... are we overestimating those humans?" Auric speculated.

This was the disadvantage of losing their aerial reconnaissance. The Beastmen’s only intelligence on Robson now came from cavalry on the ground. Blocked by the Largus River, they were completely in the dark about the humans’ movements on the north bank.

Mendes gave Auric a strange look. ’Overestimating them?’

Mendes started to wonder if beating a few pathetic human nobles had gone to Auric’s head.

An army on the scale of Prince Odoruo’s had been utterly crushed by those same humans.

True, they had defeated a few human nobles’ domains south of the Largus River, but why were they still there?

Seeing Mendes’s reaction, Auric knew he had been misunderstood.

"When I said ’overestimating,’ I wasn’t referring to their strength. I think we might be overestimating their level of unity..."

"If that human army from before had been fully redeployed here, we would certainly be no match for them."

"But that Commander’s own domain isn’t here. He has no obligation to dispatch his entire army to stop us."

"If the local lord here has some kind of conflict with that Commander, he might even welcome our actions," Auric said to Mendes, laying out his thoughts.

"Hiss... Given the nature of humans... what you’re saying is certainly possible." It dawned on Mendes after he heard Auric’s idea.

If things were as Auric suggested, it would explain the humans’ recent actions.

They had been so terrified by those humans before that they’d been assuming the worst in every situation.

As for why the phoenix appeared on the battlefield, that was also easy to explain. Even if the human army wouldn’t come to help with its full strength, that didn’t mean it wouldn’t help at all!

Weren’t they only able to regroup their forces because that human army had left the area and gone north of the river?

Of course, Mendes’s so-called "nature of humans" was rather ironic.

In the Frank Kingdom, when facing an enemy, the worst one could expect was to complain about allies being slow to send aid.

In the Beastman Empire, if humans invaded your territory, you could consider your allies virtuous if they didn’t stab you in the back.

"In that case, it all makes sense! Could those humans staying at Bai Ma Ferry be waiting for reinforcements from other nobles?" Mendes looked at Auric.

Mendes had traded with human merchants before and understood their ways.

It was true that when one of them was in trouble, others would come to help, but reinforcements take time to arrive!

The routed human soldiers were all gathering at Bai Ma Ferry, which made their intentions perfectly obvious.

"Highly likely!" Auric nodded.

Mendes’s brow furrowed as he mulled this over.

Knowing this was one thing, but acting on it was another matter entirely.

After all this time, had the human army finished assembling? Could they still attack Bai Ma Ferry?

"How about we have Blake and his men go to Bai Ma Ferry and test the waters?"

"He’s been quite restless lately, hasn’t he? This is the perfect chance to let him test the mettle of those humans at Bai Ma Ferry," Auric suggested, his eyes narrowing as he sensed Mendes’s hesitation.

Most of the goblins and Kobolds now in Sri County had come from Auric Province. They had never experienced Robson’s iron fist and thus had no sense of awe toward him.

Mendes’s previous retreat without a word of warning had only made the goblins and Kobolds more arrogant. ’So this is all the high-and-mighty Beastmen and Dwarves amount to,’ they thought.

Mendes didn’t want to argue with them, figuring they would quiet down once those humans eventually arrived.

But who would have thought that the humans would remain at Bai Ma Ferry, only occasionally scouting the surrounding area, with no intention of making a move against the Beastman Army.

This further fanned the flames of the goblins’ arrogance. Eventually, a portion of the goblins simply stopped listening to Mendes’s commands and led their troops out to raid on their own. Mendes, for his part, simply allowed it.

Recently, the goblins had ravaged nearly every place worth raiding south of the Laguchis River. There was still a human castle to the southwest, but its defenses were too strong for the goblins to take on their own.

Goblins, of course, can’t sit still. Unable to attack the castle, Blake had recently started loitering around Mendes, demanding to take his troops and raid the territories further north.

His intention was obvious: Blake wanted to break away from Mendes’s command completely.

Weren’t the Beastman Army so scared of the humans that they turned tail and ran? Now, they, the goblins, dared to advance and sacrifice for the Empire. What right did the Beastmen have to command them?

Mendes had plenty of use for these goblins in his future plans, so he couldn’t possibly let them run off. He had been reining them in recently.

"When the time comes, we’ll stay behind them and see what the goblins do. They look down on our actions, don’t they?"

"If they can actually break through Bai Ma Ferry, it will prove that the human army has no intention of providing support. If they can’t take it, then they’ll have to obediently follow our commands," Auric explained to Mendes.

After hearing Auric’s proposal, Mendes paced back and forth, pondering for several minutes.

He had to admit that, compared to an ordinary Gray Dwarf, Auric was indeed more intelligent.

The plan had merit.

"Very well, let’s proceed. Tell Blake to get ready immediately..."

"Right, have someone scout our rear. If that human army really is at Bai Ma Ferry, we’ll need a path for retreat," Mendes added with a nod.

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