Pioneer Lord: I Have Conquering System

And just like that, a whole day passed.

Levi eventually couldn’t be bothered to go back, so he simply crashed on the grass for the night.

He didn’t wake until the faint light of dawn, stirred by the subtle sound of footsteps. It was Hog, returning from his watch.

He had tried to be quiet so as not to wake Levi, but he hadn’t expected his Lord to be so alert.

"Any sign of the Giant Dragon up in the sky?" Levi asked.

The so-called Giant Dragon Corps was of no concern to the Lord. The only thing he cared about was the Giant Dragon.

That was why most of the Scouts sent out had run to high points to survey the distant sky.

"Nothing, Lord," Hog replied honestly.

’How strange. This Giant Dragon only just arrived here. Even if it doesn’t care about its subordinates, it’s just starting out. Logically, it should at least show up to support the battle.’

The Lord scratched his bird’s nest of a hairdo, completely baffled.

Given the Giant Dragon Corps’s movement speed, the two sides should have met in battle around dawn today. Usually, the Giant Dragon would be lingering within a fifty-kilometer radius by now, ready to deliver a devastating blow at the opportune moment.

But even now, the Scouts still hadn’t found the slightest trace of the Giant Dragon.

If not for the fact that you simply couldn’t raise a Subordinate Corps of this size without the reputation of a Giant Dragon, Levi would have long suspected these country bumpkins were just bluffing with a big name.

This outcome made the Lord both happy and anxious. The Giant Dragon’s absence was good, naturally, but he also feared this was some ghost-like, cunning old dragon, holed up somewhere brewing a nasty scheme.

In any case, the only thing to do was be even more cautious.

As the Jackal Wolfman Scouts continued their investigation, the information about this Giant Dragon Corps grew more and more detailed.

It numbered around four thousand in total, half of which were Goblins and Kobolds in tattered clothes, wielding nothing but stones and wooden clubs.

The core fighting force was a group of Jackal Wolfman Cavalry, plus Lizardmen and Leopard-headed People, totaling around eighteen hundred. Compared to the Goblins and Kobolds, who were on average as short as Dwarves, the adult Warriors of these three races were all powerfully built and stood over 1.9 meters tall.

These Warriors, at least, wore complete sets of clothing and wielded rusty iron weapons. The Leopard-headed People even had a squad of Archers.

A few hours ago, when the Scout Squads were changing shifts, these Leopard-headed People had tried to use their black fur to hide in the night and fire arrows from ambush.

Fortunately, the Burning Corps Scout Squads had a keen sense of smell and discovered them in advance, immediately creating distance and causing their Arrows to fall uselessly into the grass.

In truth, to the Lord, these three races were no different from the Goblins—all were thoroughly unremarkable opponents.

The real bruisers were that group of Minotaurs. Zat, who stood 2.7 meters tall, had already bulked up to over eight hundred pounds of pure, sinewy muscle. He was High Cliff Castle’s most stalwart Warrior, aside from the Giants, but compared to these brutes, he looked like a malnourished adolescent.

As the horizon turned the color of a fish’s belly, the anxious defenders of High Cliff Castle finally saw the dark mass of the Giant Dragon Corps appear against the morning light.

At the very front were, without a doubt, the Goblins and Kobolds, serving as cannon fodder. The vast infantry force in the center was made up of Lizardmen, Leopard Headed Warriors, and their Archer squads, while a Cavalry Team of some two hundred Jackal Wolf Scouts patrolled the flanks of the main army.

All in all, they were a considerable improvement over the ragtag outfits the Lord had faced before.

But placing Goblins and Kobolds in the front to serve as cannon fodder and wear down the enemy’s stamina seemed to be a standard tactic among the Wilderness Natives.

Crude as it was, it had to be said that it worked to some extent.

After all, unlike in his past life, even if this mob of Kobolds and Goblins were to rout, they wouldn’t affect the Warriors in the rear ranks at all.

"Hog’s wolf pups hadn’t even been born when I first started waiting."

Zat smoothed the weeds tied to his Horned Helmet with both hands and twisted his stiff neck from side to side, letting out a series of CRACKS.

He was standing in a half-man-high trench to the side of the main battlefield, one of the positions the Lord had prepared.

A force that appeared to be High Cliff Castle’s main army was stationed on a gentle slope, drawing the attention of the Giant Dragon Corps.

He, in turn, was sneakily hiding in this trench with fifty veteran Beastmen who had followed him in campaigns from the very beginning, all fully armed and clad in Three-Layered Heavy Armor.

Thanks to the weeds worn on their heads as camouflage and the dense wild grass around the trench, it was hard to spot the ambush, even when looking down from high in the sky.

When the two sides were locked in fierce combat, the Lord could lead his men to hammer into the enemy’s flank, delivering a decisive, final blow.

"This bunch of paupers is truly pathetic." The Lord lay prone in a grassy patch by the trench, a wreath of grass on his head, holding a telescope and scanning the area. His voice was filled with disdain.

"What is it?" Zat crawled up, his rear end sticking out, trying to get a look. But alas, there was only one telescope, and since the Lord outranked him, he could only cup his hands into circles over his eyes, as if that would have the same magnifying effect.

"This group of Milotheus just has a piece of Iron Armor on their chests, with only ropes on their backs to hold it in place. Their lower bodies are completely bare." The Lord hooked the telescope onto his belt, a mocking look on his face. "It’s like they’re trying to cover their head but not their ass. A pathetic method, but I suppose it’s better than nothing."

"I could smash their chests with a single swing of my Axe," Zat said, not paying much mind. His gaze was locked onto a giant black boar that had antlers like a deer.

"What the heck is that thing? It couldn’t be a Magical Beast, could it?"

"Definitely not. It’s just a mongrel," the Lord answered after a single glance. "It only inherited the size of a Magical Beast, not its Talent Magic."

Thanks to Orak’s arrival, the Lord had done some intense cramming on the subject of Magic and now knew a fair amount about these kinds of Magical Beasts.

This Black Mountain Deer Boar is a type of Fierce Beast that lives deep in the Wilderness. Although both of its parents are Magical Beasts, it only inherited their colossal size.

Compared to the beast, however, Levi was more interested in its master. It was unmistakably a Kobold, but it was about the same size as the Beastmen who had just joined High Cliff Castle.

Its body was a mass of knotted muscle, exuding a sense of Power. Its hands were wrapped in gray cloth strips, like a southern boxing Apprentice, and it carried a giant Broadsword on its back.

Even more striking, thumb-thick horns grew from the left and right sides of this thing’s forehead, curving with its skull to point toward the sky.

’Whoa, I didn’t expect to see a Dragon Vein Dog-man.’

’These Kobolds are always shouting about how they’re Dragon Descendants, possessing the Bloodline of Giant Dragons. I can’t believe I’ve actually met one. It makes you wonder, tracing it back to the source, which member of the Dragon Race was so indiscriminate that they’d let Kobolds inherit the Bloodline of a Giant Dragon.’

’Rumor has it some Goblins have mixed with Dragon Blood, too. Thinking about it, the Lord could only lament that those members of the Dragon Race must have been truly starving.’