Defending The Kobold Village (5)

The young lieutenant looked at the horsemen on the left side of the army and shouted,

"The ones that had fallen from their horses, quickly abandon them and come here to protect me! And the rest who's still on their horses, ride your horses here and protect me right this instant!"

The lieutenant said that as he rode his horse and moved to the horsemen on the right side that hadn't been visited yet by the unknown attacker.

The horsemen on the left side quickly opened up their formation and let the lieutenant and his horse come into the middle of them. The formation soon changed as the horsemen circled around the young lieutenant and facing outward covering all directions to protect their commander from the onslaught that's currently happening.

The other horsemen from the left side had already arrived by going around the chaotic mess in the middle formation of the army and proceeded to make another layer of protection to shield the lieutenant in the middle of the circle formation. While the horsemen who had lost their horses are still walking towards the right side of the army, ignoring the screams of their comrades in the main formation.

Matthew is still using the chameleon aura ability to go fully invisible and conceal his body from others, and after about 8 minutes of swiping his claws left and right, he succeeded in breaking apart the human's army middle formation and the horsemen on the left side.

The human's main formation consisted of 150 humans. Composed of the archers and the ordinary foot-soldiers that only carried swords on their waist.

The main formation used to look powerful and sturdy with their neat line up of swordsmen and archers are now nonexistent as about half of them had already become a bonafide cripple with one of their limbs unusable and the other half had decided to either run away or tried to defend themselves from the creature's attack only to fail and soon joined their comrades on the ground.

After going from the first line that consists of the ordinary foot-soldiers and went into the left horsemen formation to cause some trouble, Matthew went back to the middle formation and continued his troublemaking all the way back until the last archer line that had already been somewhat scattered after seeing their comrades at the front trying to fight back against the unknown attacker to no avail.

And most of them had decided to abandon the line and save their lives by running back into the woods.

Matthew noticed the people running away from him, but he didn't bother to give chase as he thought that there's no benefit in doing so, and seeing they ran so fast with faces filled with horror gave Matthew a sense of achievement as that means his plan to 'slightly' traumatize the humans worked.

And despite the chaotic environment, Matthew also noticed the young human commander had made himself a human meat shield that he thought would protect him from all directions.

Matthew had also let that happen without interfering as he wanted to deal with the army step by step and successfully dispersing the main army was only the first step done.

Matthew wasn't particularly worried about the human encirclement as he had thought of multiple ways to bypass the many horsemen around the human commander and go straight to the human commander.

So far, Matthew had attacked mostly the humans' limbs without applying his potent venom from the snake and the spider to his claws because Matthew didn't necessarily want to kill all the humans as a tribute to his past self that was also a human. He only wanted to cause some serious damage that will open the humans' eyes to not mess around as they please and be more considerate to others.

But of course, Matthew had also read a few notifications about him killing some level 8,9, or 10 humans while he was busy running around half-severing the humans' limbs.

But he didn't really feel that bad as fatalities are common in battles and considering the humans had also taken quite a lot of the kobolds' lives a few days ago, Matthew was sure that the humans won't mind having some casualties on their own.

'They would be a big bad hypocrite if they couldn't accept some of their men killed when they themselves killed the kobolds like hunting wild animals right?'

Matthew spent another 2 minutes completely dispersing the main army and now the middle and left side of the forest clearing is already clean of humans, at least the alive and healthy ones as the injured humans and the dead ones are still on the ground and Matthew doesn't have any plans to deal with them and just left them there.

Matthew then rested a little to appreciate himself after doing a well-done job before he placed his gaze onto the human encirclement, and particularly at the human on top of his horse in the middle of the encirclement whose face is literally filled with emotions such as panic, worry, and particularly fear.

'So much after that arrogant speech earlier.' Matthew quietly snorted.

After only spending only about a total of 10 minutes, Matthew had dealt with all the soldiers in the middle main army and after his third evolution, he still got more than 30 minutes left for his chameleon aura ability before his aura reserve is emptied out.

But he didn't worry too much since even though the meat shield is pretty tight and neat, he still had ways to get to the commander.

'Why did I particularly want to visit the commander you ask?' Thus Matthew began his inner monologue to justify and comfort himself for what he's about to do.

'Well, the first reason is that he is the one who is responsible for all of the humans here who currently attempted to attack the kobold village. If the soldiers under him had become a cripple and they had taken the consequences of their action, why won't the leader get the same treatment if not more!? He needs to be responsible for his actions. I need to be fair!' Matthew thought while nodding his head as if to signal that what he just said is common sense and it is the factually right thing to do.

'Second, The commander is supposedly the strongest out of the humans here, but after seeing he holed himself like a scaredy-cat behind his subordinates that he just ordered to be his meat shield, then I must be wrong about that. But still, he is a commander and he should be somewhat important to the humans. If I could make him meet the God above even with all those protections from the meat shields then wouldn't it be more shocking and unforgettable for the humans? And with that, the traumatizing effect will at least double for them!'

Yes, even though Matthew didn't really intend to cause casualties when he attacked the ordinary soldiers earlier, for the commander, it will be a different case. He will be coming with the intent to kill and not just injure or cripple him.

'And the third and the last reason, which is one of the most important reasons, is that I don't like him! He looked and acted too much like the stereotypical spoiled young masters from the stories I heard!'

Matthew then began to bring up one of his hands in front of his face before saying,

'Arrogant? Check. Underestimating enemies? Check. Innate cowardness?'

Matthew then glanced at the young commander's face that's still stricken with worry and fear before continuing,

'Also check!'

Every time Matthew said the word 'check' he would raise one of his fingers.

'Only cared about himself? Looking at the meat shield, it's a double check! Have a slightly handsome look that I obviously wasn't jealous about? Also double-check!'

Matthew wanted to continue listing the things that he didn't like about the young human commander, but seeing that all the fingers on his left hand are already raised, he decided to stop since he already got himself enough self-justification that he needs to erase the human from the surface of the planet without feeling guilty.

Now that he already got into the right mindset and had the motivation, Matthew began to look at the remaining 50 soldiers, about 40-ish horsemen still on top of their horses, and the remaining soldiers who lost their horses because of Matthew's prior attack were all there.

'Now, how should I deal with this.'

From glancing at the formation earlier, Matthew had several ideas to get past the encirclement starting from the loud and rowdy one by creating another chaos by randomly attacking the horses so that they went out of control until the most careful and covert one by silently crawling under the horses' bellies to get into the middle of the formation.

Matthew started thinking of which one of his ideas he should implement to best reach the goal that he wants from his attack.

'I don't think causing chaos will be a good idea since the commander could just run away in the middle of it all and if he ran through a slightly wider path rather than back to the woods, I don't have the ability to catch up to the horse.'

'But slowly crawling under the horses' bellies is even riskier since there's a chance that the horse would step on me and being stepped on by at least thousands of newtons of force isn't a good experience for me and my still fragile body.'

Matthew was still thinking about his next plans of action, but his thought was suddenly interrupted as he heard the humans talking.

"Is it gone? Are we safe?"

Matthew then soon heard the young commander's voice saying,

"You, hurry up and see if the creature is really gone or not!" He said while pointing to one of the soldiers at the frontmost of the formation and commanded him to walk forward, away from the encirclement.

Seeing this, Matthew then said to himself,

'Alright let's tell them that I'm still here.'

Matthew said as he started walking towards the group.