Two days later. The wasteland at the frontlines against the Demon King Army.

“Spread out! The enemy numbers aren’t that high!!”

“Don’t let the Hero’s party take all the glory, push yourselves!!”

“Don’t push too far forward! You won’t be able to fall back, pull back more!!”

Even though the positioning is somewhat coordinated at the squad level, there’s still a fair amount of distance between us and the kingdom’s units.

The commanders shouting orders are even farther away, and their voices should be partially drowned out by the noise of the soldiers, yet their instructions and yelling still reach us clearly.

“Hmm, this really feels like a battlefield. Scary, scary.”

We are positioned roughly in the middle of the Silverion Kingdom army, which is lined up north to south along the front.

While keeping our eyes on the Demon King Army to the east, there’s still about 100 meters between us and the enemy forces.

It’s not a perfectly tight formation like a true battle line, but the units positioned to our north and south happened to make contact first with enemies that advanced, starting today’s battle.

“The enemies ahead are still testing the waters, I think. Seti-chan, you can fall back a bit more.”

This man, whose sentence endings have a slightly unusual intonation, is Bumdrason, a member of the Hero Party with the rare job “Schemer.”

That said, he’s not some legendary master strategist from history.

He’s just someone with better-than-average large-scale awareness and strategic thinking.

Even so, in large-scale battles like army vs army, having even one person like him is incredibly useful.

Because—

“Oh, the enemy’s started moving. Hero-kun, the frontline, stay sharp! At a rough estimate… you’ll make contact in about 12 minutes!”

“Understood, thank you, Bum-san!”

This.

Apparently, due to his job-based ability, Bumdrason can observe from a slightly elevated, bird’s-eye perspective.

In other words, it’s almost like viewing the battlefield from the perspective of a strategy simulation game, allowing him to grasp the positions of both allies and enemies.

In large-scale real-world battles, there’s hardly a more useful job than this.

Moreover, when the enemy is moving, he can quickly estimate their direction, movement and even the time it will take them to reach a point.

It’s not perfect, but it’s highly accurate.

'If he actually studied tactics and strategy, he’d never lose in command unless facing a genius. That’s way too strong…'

That said, there is a limitation.

His bird’s-eye view can’t reach very high altitude, so he can’t see all the way to the horizon.

He can only clearly grasp an area of about 500 meters to 1 kilometer from his current position.

But even that is more than enough for maneuvering at the company to battalion scale.

“Alright, the initial movement should go well with this. Seti-chan, can I rest a bit?”

“Yes, please rest your body. Would you like me to cast a healing spell?”

“No, I’m fine. The day’s only just begun, save your mana.”

And his ability has a clear weakness too.

Its terrible energy efficiency.

Even just observing causes heavy fatigue to accumulate, and if he moves while using it, it’s even worse.

Because of that, Bumdrason almost never uses this ability for scouting or reconnaissance.

He only uses it in large-scale battles like this.

Apparently, before joining the Hero Party, he overused it, collapsed and didn’t wake up for over ten days, nearly dying.

Because of that, Aleid is always careful to tell him not to push himself.

“There’s some cold tea in the tent, help yourself. I’ll call you if anything happens.”

“Got it. Seti-chan, you don’t push yourself either.”

His pronunciation might be a bit odd, but his personality is very gentle and gentlemanly.

If anything, he’s so reserved that you’d think he should be a bit more assertive.

Basically, he’s just a really good guy.

“Alright, while Bum-san is resting, I need to stay focused too.”

The current composition and formation of the Hero Party is heavily skewed—almost entirely frontline-focused.

The reason is that a separate unit, made up only of midline and rear-line members, has been sent to deal with the group of Big Worms we discovered in the forest to the south.

A single Big Worm is relatively easy to defeat regardless of attack method.

But when they’re in a group, it’s a completely different story.

When their bodies are cut by physical attacks, they release an acidic fluid.

When other Big Worms smell it, they all start spraying acid at once.

The acidity itself isn’t that strong.

Even if it gets on your skin, it can be treated.

The real problem is the volume.

In large numbers, they can flood the area and turn it into a swamp of acid.

With the ground turned into an acid swamp, it becomes extremely difficult for frontline fighters.

On top of that, Big Worms move as if swimming through the acid.

Dealing with numerous Big Worms rampaging around while spraying acid everywhere becomes incredibly difficult for frontline fighters who rely on close-range physical attacks.

'—Which is why the ideal setup is rear-line fighters who can attack from a distance and agile midline fighters who can protect them while avoiding the acid… Well, we’ve got the kingdom army backing us here, so we’ll manage somehow, but it’d still be nice if we had at least one offensive magic user on our side.'

Battles against monsters in party-based combat and large-scale warfare are fundamentally different in how you move and fight.

In party combat, individuals have some freedom to act on their own judgment, though cooperation is essential.

In contrast, in large-scale warfare, you’re required to fight while maintaining formation as much as possible.

If you act independently, you’ll quickly become isolated and die.

‘Even as rear-line support, I have to watch my allies and surroundings carefully. I can’t let my guard down… Fighting the Demon King Army on the frontlines is mostly like this, so it can’t be helped, but it’s exhausting in a different way.’

Even though it’s called a journey to defeat the Demon King, most of it is actually this kind of battlefield warfare.

It really makes you realize how convenient the typical RPG scenario is—where just four people advance, defeat monsters, level up, clear dungeons and finally reach the Demon King’s castle, surrounding the final boss and defeating them in a one-versus-many fight.

“Ah—can’t zone out. That soldier’s in bad shape—are you okay?! I’ll heal you, come over here calmly!”

Allies with serious injuries but still able to retreat on their own are sent back.

My role is to heal their wounds.

Alright—time to work.