Village Chief-Sama was waiting along with many swordmen around him.
When Jack went to fight Kampaku's minions, just as a last measure, he ordered all able-bodied men to gather and take up swords to help if necessary. He didn’t expect Hero-Dono to lose, but still, a wise man always keeps a backup.
Now, after around 15 minutes, already, around 50 men had gathered and were given swords.
The village is small, with only around 1,000 people; around 600 are women, so they are directly excluded. The birth rate of boys is slightly higher than girls, around 5%, but boys die at a much higher rate, resulting in overall more girls, especially at more senior ages. That was especially true in ancient times when it was the norm to send young men to fight for the local noble.
Of the 400 men remaining, 200 are either too old, too young, or too ill to fight. In effect, the village's fighting strength is at most 200 people if every single man who can fight responds to the call.
Now, after less than half an hour, 50 people, or 25% of the entire village's capable men, have come, which shows their reverence for Jack Sama. One must note that many men are not present in the village, either farming or hunting; If all were here, many more would have gathered.
Holding a sword, they were quite imposing, but they only had swords, with very little training and no armor. In front of a trained army of the same numbers, they stand no chance.
"Is that Hero Sama?" the girl with red hair shouted, pointing in a direction with wide eyes.
"Jack Dono!" the village chief hurried forward, behind him, the 50 citizen fighters.
"Get ready! They're coming!" Jack shouted while running. Behind him, many ninjas came into view.
The village walls were built in a strange fashion. The villagers' houses were far away from the walls, and the area near the walls was all farmland filled with tall fruit trees.
This peculiar design was not on purpose but kind of forced on the villagers; the farmland, along with all the houses, is technically not owned by the villagers but by the local noble, Lord Akai Hana. The Lord had the final say over where the wall would be built; when inspectors came, they decided to preserve the fruit trees and built the wall in a way that also covered and protected the trees.
The design was very bad, as no sane strategist would put a fruit farm between the wall and the village, but the village had a short wall anyway; it wasn’t for defending anything but wild animals. This is how they ended up in this situation.
Shortly after Jack emerged from the trees, the ninjas, in green and brown clothes, also emerged.
Black clothes in a green space is a terrible idea; ninjas are not dumb; they would wear black clothes at night while wearing green clothes in the jungle.
Counting, the village chief felt cold; there were around 70-80 ninjas, all running, looking very skilled.
Seeing Jack run into the citizen army, Kuro shouted, "Surrender, and we spare your and your children's lives!" There was no emotion in his voice as he threatened to kill innocent children.
The village chief came out and went forward. "Who are you?" he shouted.
The village chief is also not dumb. Sure, he is the chief of only a tiny village, but his position is not hereditary; he was chosen as chief because of his wit. Now, he sees that the more he delays, the better, as more villagers would be able to gather, and their chances would increase. Of course, he knows who the invaders are, but asking could give him a tiny bit of time.
As for surrendering, the village chief didn’t even consider it.
"I am a ninja under Kampaku! Now that you know, drop your swords; you have 10 seconds!" Kuro shouted. Of course, Kuro exactly knows what the village chief is trying to do; for the invading group, the sooner they attack, the lower their casualties. As for losing, he doesn’t even think of it.
Cursing secretly, the village chief showed a face of struggle.
"10," Kuro shouted.
The village chief visibly and loudly cursed and shook his head.
"9,"
"8,"
"7,"
"6,"
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"5,"
"4,"
"3,"
"2,"
"1,"
"Wait! Lord, please wait!" the village chief bowed deeply and shouted.
"What?" Kuro asked, annoyed.
"My lord, please give us some assurance! How can we be sure that you are sent by the great Lord Kampaku?" he asked, worry in his voice.
Thinking for a moment, Kuro was genuinely stuck; they had no evidence at all, so there was no way to prove it. Kampaku ordered them to kill Jack but only did it secretly; there was no way he would officially give them documentation.
If he wanted to do it openly, why did he hire ninjas? The truth was that Jack was very popular, even among samurai. If Kampaku wanted to kill him openly and admitted it or left evidence behind, it would have weakened his position and ceded the moral high ground. After all, Jack was a good guy and always helped the weak while punishing the evil; his way was very attractive to regular people.
Not able to think of anything, Kuro put the matter aside and ordered, "Attack! Kill them all!" He had already wasted enough time; in any case, he planned to kill them all, even if they all surrendered.
He wasn't worried about a few citizen warriors; his trained ninjas could kill hundreds of them without issue. All ninjas ran silently without shouting, unlike normal soldiers.
To begin with, the ninjas weren’t charging forward; they were moving in all directions, a few even back toward the fruit farm, in a weird formation.
"You there, attack those on the right side! You guys, attack those on the left; the rest follow me!" Jack ordered. Of course, he was familiar with this formation; he himself wrote it. Once complete, the ninjas could easily win.
As someone who designed it, he also knew how to break it. If the right flank and left flank are not free, the center is vulnerable; this is an opportunity for Jack to end Kuro.
However, if the right flank and left flank are fortified, then anyone who attacks the center would get absolutely annihilated; that’s why Jack sent over half of the total citizen warriors to hold left and right.
The ninjas who turned back and ran to the fruit farm would use their poisoned arrows and shoot toward troublesome enemy soldiers, and in the event of a ninja's defeat, they could secure the escape route.
Any good army or group of warriors would always think of an escape route; those just attacking without thinking of escape routes would have a short life on the battlefield.
With his 20 citizen warriors, Jack attacked over 40 ninjas around Kuro. Swinging his sword, Jack killed one ninja in one move. For mortals, he was astonishingly strong, just not to a superhuman level. Before, he was surrounded, but now, with others to cover him, he could truly show his prowess.
One after another, ninjas began falling; every time they wanted to surround him, he fell back to the core group of citizen fighters and avoided the encirclement.
After 5 minutes of fighting, only 10 villagers remained, and even then, most were seriously injured.
But, ninjas were not better; Jack single-handedly killed over 30 ninjas, reducing the number of remaining ninjas near Kuro to only 8; the two other ninjas were killed by the villagers.
These untrained villagers were ordered by Jack to just keep together and defend themselves to survive for as long as possible.
The ninjas atop trees shot arrows, all targeting Jack, but Jack dodged the arrows; it was because of his amazing vision, which predicted the direction the arrows were hitting, and dodging before the arrows were even shot; that was the only way to dodge arrows; once shot, a normal human body cannot react in time; one must dodge by predicting the direction of the arrow.
Up to now, Kuro was wearing a black robe, with a black mask covering his entire face and body; he didn't wear green clothes like other ninjas.
But, just now, he shook his head, sighed, and took off his black robe, revealing his muscular and scarred body. On his shoulders, there was a tattoo shaped like a red flower; it was beautiful but gave the sense of a poisonous beauty.
Taking out two short blades, he attacked with quick speed!
"Fast!" Jack thought. Kuro is very close to himself in physical terms.
Using his superb sword skill, he tried dodging Kuro's attack and dealing the fatal blow all at once; in real wars, the sooner the enemy dies, the better. But Kuro was skilled, so when he concluded that Jack was going for his head, he stopped his attack midway and took out poison spikes, throwing them at Jack.
If any of them hit him, he would die immediately.
At the same time, the archer ninjas also took advantage and shot arrows, all poisoned.
Worse, the citizen warriors defending against left and right flanks were losing; the ninjas soon could surround the small group of citizen warriors.
Bitterly smiling, Jack concluded that there was no way to dodge all the arrows and spikes, so he used one of his trump cards.
Turning with astonishing speed, spikes and arrows all hit his back, but his back was covered by metal armor, which defended against all of them.
Picking up a corpse from the ground, Jack charged toward Kuro. Archers and Kuro both attacked with spikes and arrows, but Jack used the corpse as a shield and kept charging. Seeing Jack close up,
Kuro made a decisive decision: "Fall back! Retreat!" he ordered.
From what he saw and from his short encounter with Jack, he could see he was far behind him when it came to skill. It was unbelievable to him, but it is true.
A good warrior must be able to admit defeat. The village chief in the back wasn't just for show; he must have gathered other men for reinforcement. By now, there were less than 30 ninjas who could fight.
"There is no need to hurry" he thought, and ran back quick.
Jack didn't chase.
Kuro just didn’t expect them to be able to resist; now that he knows their strength, he can bring more ninjas and attack again.
The retreating ninjas hugged an injured comrade and ran away. The citizen fighters didn’t have the power to defend themselves, let alone chase, so the ninjas easily retreated.
Jack calculated and shook his head. The retreating ninjas took a lot of injured ones back, and the enemy's true casualties should be around 30.
On the other hand, the villagers lost at least 35; if it wasn’t for Jack, the villagers would have lost in less than 2 minutes. Still, the villagers displayed lots of bravery; they didn’t run away despite having no chance; every general would hope to have such soldiers who, despite being weak, wouldn’t run away.
Seeing the village chief, who was running with more men to 'save' them, Jack sighed.
"I made it too hard for myself," he sighed. He designed the script, but now, he feels it's so hard. In the next rounds, he would give himself some strong comrades. If he had two more warriors as good as himself, he could have won very easily.