I Planned a Su*cide Mission and Got Kicked Out of the Party

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Janis frowned at the goblin cavalry positioned across the plain. The goblin bandits mounted on powerful wolf monsters were a formidable army that even Jenis Harker couldn’t easily disregard. They were one of the elite troops of the Demon King’s Army, excelling in the advantages of cavalry while also embodying the brutality and sharpness of banditry.

In a previous battle, she had nearly suffered greatly from tactics that utilized them. Upon hearing the reconnaissance report, the Great Sage shook his head, his red eyes surveying the enemy’s formation.

“The enemy’s numbers are few.”

“What’s the problem? It sounds like good news to me. Shouldn’t we quickly crush them before they can concentrate their power?”

Koesernis asked, buzzing with excitement at the fact that they had marched all the way within 100 km of the Demon King’s Castle. Janis shook her head.

“The enemy may be few, but their formation and readiness are sharp. They seem to be under the command of someone unusual. If we had a flag raised, we could know who leads them, but as it stands, I can’t think of anyone besides the Succubus Queen who could present a formation like this…”

At that moment, Janis’s face hardened as she peered into the orb. A dark figure wielding a pitch-black flag boldly stepped forward among the goblin cavalry, waving it.

The legend of the black flag was ancient. However, it had been quite some time since this flag actually flew in battle. Only the Demon King Terkeon, since his first rise, had waved such a plain black flag while leading his army into direct combat. Violet, who had never once openly intervened since ascending to the throne, raised the black flag for the first time in a century. Janis bit her lip tightly.

“An open intervention. Who would have thought the cavalry would come charging from the plains, and with fewer troops than us, no less?”

“What do you mean? Is it the Demon King?”

“It is the Demon King. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem they have summoned many troops. That makes sense. A significant portion of the army has already been crushed by us, and it seems the Demon King didn’t want to lay siege to the Demon King’s Castle, urgently organizing forces to intercept us in the advantageous plains. If there are no major surprises, their forces seem manageable. However…”

“But what?”

“Encountering the Demon King face to face before joining forces with the Eramenia army was not in the calculations. I didn’t expect them to move so swiftly. This is a major crisis. We might not win, and even if we do, it will be hard to avoid significant casualties. For now, let’s set our positions. Dammit, it’s the Demon King…”

Janis concealed her fears as best as she could from the others beside Koesernis. Realizing that Janis and the Demon King would essentially have to face off in a one-on-one duel once the battle began, Koesernis arranged the infantry of nearly 40,000 in the formation he felt most comfortable with. As they noticed Janis’s army setting up from afar, the goblin forces began to draw near, waving the black flag.

Soon, as the eyes of the common soldiers landed upon the numerous bandits and the Demon King’s banner, the soldiers of the Southern Alliance realized with dread what kind of enemy they were facing.

“It’s the black flag!”

“The black flag that hasn’t appeared on the battlefield for a hundred years is here! This is the first open intervention! We’re going to become sacrifices!”

Strictly speaking, the first battle where the Demon King led his army himself was known as the Battle of the Eramenia Gorge, but in that battle, they had focused solely on surprise and did not bear the cumbersome flag. Even if they had brought it, the intimidating presence of the black flag would hold little meaning against the strong-willed Eramenia soldiers.

In contrast, this army of newly minted allies was being overwhelmed by the Demon King’s banner. Janis worried that with just one flag, her own army might crumble, and she stepped forward alone.

The goblin horde halted just within distance to charge. Stepping out from behind the cavalry was the Demon King, dressed in black, marching steadily forward. Two half-vampires stood facing each other about 100 meters apart.

“You look well, Moriarty!”

Janis shouted loudly, as if to promote to her soldiers that she wasn’t afraid of the Demon King.

“I won’t waste words. I cannot afford even a single second with you. I know very well that any moment wasted only benefits you.”

“How harsh. Is it customary for foes meeting on a narrow bridge to draw swords without exchanging words?”

“That would be the rational response, cousin.”

With that, the Demon King turned on his heel as if that was sufficient. Janis also acknowledged that her ploy to stall time with conversation would not work and turned back to Koesernis.

“Baron. It seems that troops are likely hidden to the left and right. They will surely be the Shadow Knights trying to flank us while coordinating with the goblins to envelop us with shock force.”

“Flank us? But our numbers seem four times greater?”

“Do you think she can’t do that?”

“It seems she can. I’ll prepare for it, my lord.”

“The bandits may be fast, but their shock force isn’t strong. They are likely to use their speed to disrupt our formation while buying time for the Shadow Knights to strike from the sides or rear. Strengthen the defense on the sides and prepare to not be disrupted by frontal attacks. If our ranks break, it will be a massacre. If divided, extermination awaits.”

“I understand.”

Just then, the goblin horde began to raise their spears and accelerated as they approached, having slowly advanced. The archers, ready to shoot at the goblins, were on edge, when suddenly Janis noticed something was off and raised her hand to halt the archers’ fire.

“Slow.”

“What?”

An officer asked, and Janis opened her eyes wide as she shouted.

“The goblins are slow! Damn it! Don’t worry about the sides, just stack shields thickly in front! With this current thickness, we won’t be able to withstand that level of shock—”

But before Janis could finish her command, the cloaked Shadow Knights disguised as goblins revealed their magic. Their breakthrough strength required the Southern Alliance’s heavy infantry to brace at least four layers deep to endure. However, Janis had made the error of focusing excessively on the sides and had left the front too loosely defended, expecting it to be relatively weaker.

The impact from the cavalry breaking through the center sent allies’ infantry flying in all directions, and it was no surprise that the formation, pierced in the middle, could not be maintained. The archers, unsupported, were quickly annihilated, and Janis hurriedly divided the Southern Army into two groups of 20,000 then unsheathed her sword to personally block the Shadow Knight Order.

However, the undeniable dominance of the Demon King’s army allowed for no leeway for the overwhelming power on humanity’s side; the Demon King himself charged towards Janis, preventing her from even managing the allied forces properly. Janis tried to keep an eye on the situation near the battlefield while continuing her duel with the Demon King, but he forcibly pulled Janis from the battlefield, tossing her far away.

Janis screamed in frustration.

“It was just one misjudgment! Just one misjudgment and look at this!”

“One misjudgment is everything, rookie.”

The Demon King shot black lightning towards Janis. She deftly spread shield magic to block the Demon King’s spell, then counterattacked with a blue beam.

The Demon King dodged the beam with a flap of his wings and used a force pull spell to draw Janis back as she tried to escape. Janis could only watch in panic as her army was being crushed more and more.

“Where on earth did that army come from? This is impossible! I’m not possessed by a ghost or anything!”

Janis shouted as she looked at the goblin cavalry, who were already forming wings around her allies.

“They were there from the start.”

“But I didn’t see them!”

“Weren’t all the knights that pierced the center of your formation truly the Shadow Knights?”

Hearing the Demon King’s words, Janis gritted her teeth. In a moment, she gathered her strength and unleashed a starburst toward the Demon King, taking the chance while he was pushed back to return to her army.

Having finally defeated the dozens of Shadow Knights that were wrecking her troops, Janis grabbed Koesernis and screamed.

“Retreat! We need to pull our forces back somehow! The encirclement from the goblins to the sides and rear is slightly loosened. We have to set up a defense using the hill and buy ourselves even a little more time! All forces move to the northeast!”

Koesernis, who had also sustained many minor injuries and was disoriented, did not refuse Janis’s judgment. Soon, approximately 35,000 troops, finally ready, began to withdraw eastward in a solid defensive formation.

The cavalry of the Demon King’s army, their spirit diminished by the fierce counterattack, could not penetrate the well-structured infantry lines and circled around instead. The goblins, having been pushed during the ongoing battle, lacked the breakthrough strength to pierce through the heavily armored infantry sides. Fortunately, the few Shadow Knights with breakthrough power had mostly been repelled by Janis.

Janis felt the battlefield clear for her after just 30 minutes and moved her forces to terrain that could hold out along the hills. But while she was hastily directing her men, she soon felt uncomfortable with the current situation.

“Wait, if the leading troops that charged in first were all Shadow Knights, and the followers were the real goblin bandits…”

If that were the case, the force that charged in as soon as the battle began was roughly 200 Shadow Knights and about 3,000 goblins. While the goblin numbers were small, the number of Shadow Knights was worryingly low. Janis looked up at the hill, muttering.

“It’s a good place to block, but if the high ground is already occupied by the enemy…”

Just as she was about to finish that thought, dark figures revealed themselves atop the hill. Janis screamed as she tore at her hair.

“South! I’ll hold off the enemy’s breakthrough directly from the north!”

Janis spread a defensive magic circle and stood bravely to block the torrent of shadows that came rushing down the hill. But yet again, there was a powerful interloper.

The Demon King swooped down, spreading his wings, and effortlessly shattered Janis’s shield magic, seizing her robe and tossing her to the other side. Though Janis unfolded her own wings and managed to halt mid-air, it was too late.

The army, already retreating south in chaos, was abruptly ambushed by 2,000 cavalry, shattering like a glass plate.

One could hardly count how many soldiers fell to a single charge. Surprisingly, the number of soldiers who died might not have been that high. The enemy was focusing on injuring allies, pulling them out of battle rather than killing them outright, thus lowering morale and causing disarray. But ultimately, in a fight where all would die on the ground, there was little difference between getting injured and dying.

Paralyzed with shock and fear, Janis was struck by a series of the Demon King’s black lightning and fell to the ground headfirst. When the Great Sage regained his senses from the impact of hitting the ground, he could see his subordinates being ravaged by a cavalry force far smaller than their own. The Demon King persistently pursued Janis from behind.

Janis quickly scanned the number of enemy troops with her eyes. The next moment, the Great Sage knelt on one knee on the ground with a face filled with despair.

“We’re not even at half of our available forces.”

“There’s always a need for reserves, rookie. As a means to ensure a decisive victory moment.”

The Demon King whispered as if conveying a final lesson before he thoroughly obliterated Janis.

Black flags rose from all sides. Cavalry forces about double those that had just crushed Janis were lining up from every direction, preparing to charge.

From the brush, behind the hills, and even across streams. Enemies were appearing from everywhere. Although their combined strength barely reached 20,000, they seemed so much more overwhelming than the 500,000 they had faced at Febria Bay.

“We have to retreat…”

“But where can we go? No matter where we look, it’s all black flags!”

One officer, struggling to take down one of the Shadow Knights’ mounts with his sword, asked. Janis stumbled over her words.

“Somewhere… there must be a place with a weak encirclement. But where could that be…?”

She couldn’t make a judgment. This wasn’t a simulation or a board game. There was no clear numerical representation of where the enemy was weak, nor could she freely scout for information.

Harker had lost. Diving recklessly into the heart of the enemy, she was still just too inexperienced.