26: Forced Alliance

As a result, of the Gnoll tribe's million-strong population, eighty percent were combat-ready soldiers, with only two hundred thousand being juveniles!

In contrast, the Fierce Lion Counts Fief had a population of nearly two million, yet only two hundred thousand combat-ready soldiers.

There was no other way; after all, for humans, a ten-to-one military participation ratio was already considered somewhat militaristic!

However, humans were not without their advantages. Compared to the Orc Kingdom's population of twenty-eight million, the Kate Kingdom's total population reached over eighty million.

That was more than three times the size of the Orcs.

Furthermore, the ten-to-one conscription ratio was only for times without war; if the situation became truly critical, ratios of five-to-one or even three-to-one were possible.

In terms of individual physical prowess, the average Orc's physical fitness was more than double that of a human, but human weapons and armor were more advanced.

Overall, the two sides were evenly matched, with both wins and losses.

All this was merely to illustrate that for development territories like Arthur's, the Gnoll tribe was truly a formidable force.

According to statistics, there were over two hundred lords who had come to develop the land, but their total population was less than three million, most of whom were just untrained commoners.

Excluding Arthur, all the development lords combined could not defeat a single Gnoll tribe.

Everyone was aware of this gap, but they had previously harbored a sense of wishful thinking—what if the Orcs just ignored them?

But as more and more territories were wiped out, in just three days, over a dozen territories and nearly a hundred thousand people had vanished.

Meanwhile, the Gnolls seemed to have lost only ten thousand, a nearly ten-to-one disparity.

Of course, such a massive gap was largely due to the fact that among those hundred thousand humans, only ten thousand were warriors.

Being able to inflict ten thousand casualties on the Gnolls with ninety thousand commoners and ten thousand warriors was already quite remarkable.

As for why they had vanished rather than all being killed, it was because humans were also a resource to the Orcs; humans could help Orcs forge weapons and cultivate farmland.

Therefore, defeated humans would be captured by Orcs as slaves... With over a dozen territories overrun all at once, the remaining development lords began to feel a sense of personal danger.

Many members of small Alliances who considered themselves weak began to seek refuge with larger Alliances. Three more days passed, and the messy array of Alliances among the development lords was reduced to just two.

Or rather three, because Arthur remained independent.

This was all due to the pressure of Arthur luckily obtaining the help of two Mountain Giants, giving him exceptionally strong military force.

This forced the two Alliances to acknowledge Arthur's special status.

As for the other two final Alliances, their Alliance leaders were both scions of Ducal families, and neither was willing to serve under the other.

Thus, this situation was created.

During those three days, the Gnolls overran several more territories.

To deal with this situation, the two major Alliances prepared to jointly build two large cities capable of holding hundreds of thousands of people at the very front lines facing the Orcs.

These would be used to consolidate the power of both Alliances and form two allied armies to hold off the Orcs first.

Regarding this, Arthur remarked that his previous guess had been wrong!

He had originally thought an allied force was impossible, but under the pressure of external forces, nothing was impossible.

However, cities weren't something that could be built just because one wanted to; the Gnolls wouldn't let them have their way so easily.

Building new cities required time. Even if they only built the city walls and used tents instead of houses inside, it would still take a week.

With no other choice, the two major Alliances pooled their money, gathering two million gold coins to hire the border army to block the Gnolls for one week.

With the tacit approval of various factions in the kingdom, the army accepted this windfall.

Arthur also contributed five thousand gold coins because, according to the two Alliances, this also helped him.

Not wanting to offend the two major Alliances over such a small matter and lose public support, Arthur paid the five thousand gold coins.

After all, if the Gnolls really invaded, the civilians would suffer the most. Arthur was willing to pay these five thousand gold coins.

Another week passed. As the two giant cities named Northern Bulwark City and City Stabilizing the Wasteland respectively completed their initial construction, Arthur's three thousand recruits had also finished most of their training.

Of course, this only meant they had practiced their accuracy with the gale repeating crossbows; other aspects still required more training.

Meanwhile, the two giant cities had each gathered a hundred thousand regular soldiers and a five-hundred-man knight order, totaling two hundred thousand troops and a thousand knights.

This was already the result of over two hundred territories doing their utmost; the local soldiers guarding their homes were almost gone.

But this was clearly not enough. Left with no choice, everyone began a massive training campaign.

The last war against the Orcs was over twenty years ago, causing many development lords to misestimate the Orcs' strength. With too few soldiers, they could only try to mend the fold after the sheep were lost.

Even Arthur, who hadn't sent any troops, also began training more soldiers. As Arthur put it, four thousand men were still not enough.

He needed to train six thousand more to make a total of ten thousand!

...As Arthur's Initial City became lively again with recruitment, the atmosphere in the two newly built giant cities became extremely tense because the kingdom's army was about to withdraw.

Building new cities and gathering troops only gave them some capital to resist the Gnolls, but as for winning, not a single lord dared to say they would.

At this time, the lords in those two giant cities had already begun their respective meetings to discuss measures for dealing with the Gnolls.

In one of the giant cities, over a hundred and thirty lords gathered together. Looking closely, there were two of Arthur's acquaintances inside—the neighboring lords who had visited him, Butler and Martin.

As scions of Marquess families, their strength was decent, and they were currently sitting in the front row.

However, their expressions were not good today, because after gathering and discussing for half a day, the hundred and thirty-plus people had failed to find any way to counter the Gnolls.

After a long while, Butler said:

"I didn't expect the Gnolls to send an army of three hundred thousand right away. Even if our Northern Bulwark City only deals with half and leaves the other half to the City Stabilizing the Wasteland..."

"With our strength of a hundred thousand warriors and five hundred knights, it's likely going to be difficult to stop a hundred and fifty thousand Gnolls."

"Can we spend more money to hire the army to stay for another week or two? By then, our new batch of soldiers will have barely finished training!"

"Our Northern Bulwark City could add another two hundred thousand soldiers, and we might even be able to recruit many knight-level experts."

Someone suddenly voiced his thoughts.

Hearing this, the faces of some poorly informed minor lords immediately showed expressions of hope.

Regarding this suggestion, the scion of the Ducal Family sitting in the primary seat explained:

"You must understand that the Royal Family's purpose in issuing the development decree was essentially to weaken other factions, most importantly the power of the nobility, to strengthen the Royal Family's own authority."

"Therefore, the result the Royal Family would like best is for the Orcs to take care of all of us development lords while suffering heavy losses themselves!"