Elf Tensei Kara no Cheat Kenkoku-ki

Book 3: Chapter 12-3: The Gates of Hell

Our arrows pierced the leading soldiers as if it was natural.

My specially crafted poison arrows didnt have much killing power, but they took effect immediately and caused extreme nerve pain throughout the body for at least a week. Any soldier that was hit let out inhuman screams.

Huuurts hurrttss

GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

S-someone take it ooooout

We ignored those screams and readied our next volley.

The unharmed soldiers looked at the screaming soldiers in shock and confusion, they hadnt noticed us yet.

Second shot, third shotmore and more were wounded.

The Imperial Soldiers were slowed to a halt. They glanced around nervously, but were unable to spot us hidden within the trees many meters away.

After the fifth round of shots the Imperial Soldiers managed to identify the direction of our attacks and sent soldiers to investigate.

Over there! Those bastards are hiding over there! Get em!

Why are Elves out here!? Didnt they always stay in their village?

Cowardly bastards Ill kill all of you!

We had time to fire off two more rounds before we retreated quickly and safely.

*********

Our fast attack created 50 people worth of burden.

Thanks to our accurate shots and sneak attack, in a single sortie we were able to make 50 soldiers incapable of combat.

If you thought about how their army would collapse once a full third of them were incapacitated then we only had to do this 30 more times and we would winbut they would surely have countermeasures and things wouldnt go as easily next time.

However, our true objective was to slow them to a crawl so these issues didnt matter to us.

Those Empire guys are slow as hell.

Yup, if we didnt wait for them then they wouldnt be able to keep up at all.

Because they werent used to moving in the forest, the soldiers moved very slowly.

We were able to track their movements with Perception Expansion, but their movements were so slow that it was silly.

Our sniping rule was to maintain a standard distance of 150m, but within a forest we changed that distance to if there are not 10 enemies within 100 meters we would take them all down individually.

Cyril, there are some soldiers taking a detour to try and surround us.

So we take care of those first.

It kind of feels like hunting in the mountains. Hide in the trees and attempt to surround the prey from both sides. What a shallow tactic. Trying meaningless things despite being seen so clearly.

We just needed to move ahead of the soldiers taking a detour and catch them off guard.

We hid our presence, moved 20 meters behind them and fired our crossbows. Im sure they had never dreamed they would be attacked from behind. They looked around with horrid expressions on their faces.

It wasnt possible to snipe from long distances because of the tightly packed trees which made us lose one of the best features of the crossbowbut as long as we did a surprise attack from behind then we could attack safely.

Even for the members of Nettle, they couldnt snipe through the trees using small gaps like I could.

The enemies screamed as they tried to face us, but as they were trying to herd us there was quite some distance between the groups and it would take time for them to arrive. Until our Perception Expansion sensed the arrival of new enemies, we would make sure to poison every single one of this rear unit.

Our senses captured their direction and location so we were able to hunt them freely from any direction.

Movement and senses, we overwhelmed them in both categories so there was no way for us elves to lose in a forest.

Move through the forest to the other side of the highway, dont let your guard down.

Okay!

How could I? Chiefd kill me if I did haha

The successful attack raised the mood of Nettle. It was a good sign.

***************

Our group escaped the forest at a location ahead of the army and crossed over into the forest on the other side of the road where we hid.

Then we waited for the Imperial Forces to approach once more and once they were within 200 meters we took up sniping positions.

The soldiers were desperately searching the forest area that we had previously been in because the forces they had sent in were missing.

There were still soldiers on the road and they were clearly wary of the location where we had initially attacked from.

Seeing them move exactly like Id hoped felt amazing.

Loose!

Once again the arrows Nettle fired struck the soldiers in the forward ranks.

Im sure they hadnt expected an attack from the exact opposite side of the road as they seemed panicked and fearful.

From here it was a replay of what happened earlier. We shot them as much as we pleased and once they sent forces to pursue us we would escape once they got closer.

We would then move around them and defeat the forces we could. Today we were able to safely deal damage to the Empires forces without endangering ourselves.

************

The sky had grown dark.

Once the sun began to set, the soldiers who had desperately searched for us had to retreat even if they didnt want to.and they had to carry their injured comrades as well.

I was using a telescope to spy on their movements from about a kilometer away.

Thanks to the fact that the army had to wait for the forces that went into the forest to search for us, they had been unable to advance.

They had to begin preparing to camp out the night now.even while fearful of getting hit by an arrow from the darkness.

Despite this, the higher ups didnt seem to feel a sense of urgency. They were discussing methods to counter bows.

One of those seems to be making sure they kept fires to a minimum to reduce visibility. Were they thinking that we couldnt shoot them if it was too dark? They dimmed their fires so we couldnt snipe themhow amusing.

However, that was a bad move. All of us could use Perception Expansion and see them despite everything. What a wonderful situation.

Darkness dominated the surroundings and besides for a few guards left on lookout, almost everyone was in their tents.

Compared to daylight we were able to approach more boldly since they wouldnt be able to see us anyways.

I signaled with my hand.

Arrows struck the guards instantly.

They let out horrifying screams and caused the soldiers in the tents to run outside in a panic.

We obtained more targets.

The darkness caused the soldiers to move slowly and clumsily. The Nettles fired arrows freely into them.

Screams emerged one after another and despite that they didnt light fires. Did they think things would be worse if we could see clearly?

In the end, after a good number of casualties piled up they finally lit the flames.

Upon seeing that we retreated.

From now on, none of you will get the opportunity to rest.

When they advance they would be fearful of arrows from the surrounding forest, and at night they would be afraid because it was even more dangerous.

Fearful of arrows suddenly striking them 24 hours a day. Such mental distress would be unthinkable.

A parting gift for you

While withdrawing I took out a normal bow that I had taken from one of the Empire Soldiers we hunted. I covered the arrowhead with oil and tied a bottle of oil to it. I had Yukino light it aflame before firing it.

That arrow flew into a wagon carrying food supplies and exploded into flames burning the supplies to ashes.

Now, well slowly grind you to dust.

Today is only the first day since theyve entered the gates of hell.