"Village chief, gather everyone you can; allow old men and women to volunteer as well; we need as many as possible," said Jack.
Kampaku didn’t attack them publicly, which shows that despite the bounty he set on Jack's head, he still doesn’t want to be publicly held responsible. He also did not directly set the bounty but set them by proxy.
Kampaku paid the money, and some bandit groups set the bounty.
In this situation, the most important thing is getting out of this village to the Red Flower City. Red Flower City is much bigger, with a population of over 400,000 people. Once there, Jack can easily avoid ninjas; after all, there, ninjas couldn't attack at such a large scale as here.
Technically, if the Kampaku is willing, he can ignore everything and directly order Jack's death. He won't do it, though, because he wants to maintain plausible deniability.
This script is in hell mode, so Jack must use these abstract ways to survive. This is the first time he is playing this dream world, so he doesn't exactly know how to do it.
If he truly uses his brain, with its trillion years of experience, of course, it's very easy to design a near-flawless plan, but now, he is just using a tiny bit of his max capacity. Even as rank 11, most of his brain's capacity is on calculating different issues; he is only using a tiny percentage on this simple task of clearing a rank 9 dreamworld.
Rachel was busy calculating issues regarding the collision of Creation energy and gray energy, and to do it quicker, she long distributed parts to her hosts to help calculate. Now, after so long, she already has the answer to that question, but after relying on hosts for long, she decided to continue using other people's brains as help for computing; it can help one look at things from many different perspectives, which is actually very helpful in calculating very complicated stuff.
"Now, with limited resources, Jack must find ways to wrestle out of this situation.
"Jack dono, don’t worry; I already called up everyone; they'll soon reach here!" The village chief said.
"How many swords do we have?" asked Jack. Swords are illegal and can cause a lot of trouble, but the village chief has long bought and hidden swords just for such situations.
"We had a total of 100 swords; now, with those ninja pieces of equipment on the ground, all can add up to 130," he said.
"Collect all the bows and clothes that can be used as armor; sharpen bamboo and make spears out of them. We can do a lot of damage with spears; in fact, spears are better weapons for newbies," said Jack.
...
Soon, an 'army' of 236 men and a woman was formed; a few old and disabled men, along with one woman, volunteered, so numbers managed to reach this much. 130 of them were swordsmen, 26 were bowmen, and 80 were spearmen, all wearing the toughest clothes available as armor.
"Good; now, we have a chance of reaching the Red Flower City!" nodded Jack.
"Hero-sama, if we leave, what happens to our women?" asked one of the young swordsmen.
"Don’t worry! They don’t have extra units to send here; they would follow us. Us leaving here would lead the danger away from your women!" Jack said.
The one of the woman volunteer said with displeasure, "Don’t put us all in one basket!"
She was quite small, only 1.65 meters tall, but her courage seemed larger than most people.
Nodding, Jack said, "Create more spears and give one to all the people staying in the village; in the absolutely unlikely event someone attacked, they would definitely be able to defend themselves."
Jack wasn't as sure as he made it look, but he was quite sure; after all, now, with them having over 200 people, would that black-clothed ninja dare to split his troops? If he does, he is not worthy to be commander. Jack wouldn't hide himself; on the way, the scout ninjas could see and recognize him; the ninja's target was him, so they would attack where he would be. As for killing women and the old and young left in the village, that can be left for after ninjas take care of him.
After all, if ninjas succeed in killing him and the citizen soldiers, then the ones left in the village would be easily defeated; the ninjas can just drop the severed heads of the men and severely damage any desire to resist in the village.
On the other hand, if the ninjas can't defeat the 236 warrior group moving toward Red Flower City, then there is no point in killing the ones in the village; after all, the main group reaches the city and leaks everything, so there would be no point in killing the village. The purpose of killing the village is to prevent news from leaking and nothing else.
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Jack spent the rest of the day teaching some elementary training to the citizen warriors and let them sleep soon. They must move tomorrow morning.
It's best to move as soon as possible before more ninjas find the time to gather.
As for burying the dead, he gave this task to the old people; the young have more important things to do.
...
The next morning, the group set off as soon as the sun came up.
After moving a short distance, Jack nodded to himself; nobody in his group realized, but in fact, ninja scouts had been looking at them for some time now.
Fortunately, the road to the city is quite wide, so there is less space for a trap. But it’s a near certainty that ninjas would set traps ahead.
"Do it according to the plan," he ordered.
The plan is to have two groups first check the road ahead before the main group; this way, traps would be discovered sooner.
...
Kuro took a letter from his ninjas, read it, and grinned, "Gather everyone! We will attack them head-on!"
Jack miscalculated; Kuro had no plan to ambush; he just wanted to attack them in an upright manner.
That is because, in one day, he managed to gather 206 ninjas! All are trained, completely outclassing those new citizen warriors; this time, Jack can no longer single-handedly turn the tide.
The larger the battles get, the smaller the roles of individuals become. In a battle of 100, one person may still affect things, but in one of ten thousand, no matter how much bravery, one person cannot change things unless they are a commander or have critical responsibilities. A generic soldier can't affect things when numbers exceed a certain point.
Bravery is still important, though; if a good number of an army is brave enough to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of their side, it can affect things. This is why countries often spend so much time on propaganda, to increase the share of selfless soldiers in their camps.
Having gathered everyone, Kuro ordered, "Let's go!"
...
"Hero-sama! The enemy is approaching!" someone shouted.
"What? no ambush?" he shouted his thoughts out loud.
This is illogical; no matter how few, an ambush can still decrease their casualties. Jack had plans for dealing with an ambush, but when facing an enemy attacking right in the open, he would have few options to plan things.
There is also no time to set up his own ambush.
"Archers in the back, spearmen forward, swordsmen on the sides!" he ordered.
Spearmen are most useful when in the front, while archers can shoot arrows without being hassled when in the back. Swordsmen can be used for attack and need space to run, so they are best at the sides. There is no cavalry, so no need to worry about them being vulnerable against cavalry.
As ninjas came close, Jack ordered, "Archers!"
The archers, mostly skilled hunters, shot arrows and killed 3 ninjas in the first round. If the ninjas just stood there, the archers could eliminate them all quite quickly.
Unfortunately for Jack, the enemy won't just stand there.
A group of ninja archers appeared, around 60 of them, and all shot their arrows. Their arrows were of much better quality, specially designed to kill, all poisonous, and the archers themselves were skilled.
60 arrows fell, instantly killing 37 citizen warriors!
Seeing how terrible the casualties were, before giving any further chance to enemy archers to shoot again, Jack ordered, "Attack! All attack!" All citizen swordsmen and spearmen were on edge from the fear the next arrow hit them, so hearing Hero-sama ordering them to attack, all ran without hesitation.
"Archers also charge!" Jack ordered. The archers looked at each other with doubt; they only had bows, so they didn’t understand how they could fight on the front.
"This is an order! Charge!" Jack ordered. The archers reluctantly obeyed Hero-sama and charged; as for how they were supposed to fight, who knows?
Seeing the meat shield delaying the enemy, Jack turned around and ran away!
"I would die if I stayed!" he thought while doing his best to hide his traces. Jack is not afraid for his life; hell, he cannot die here, no matter what. It's just that if he died here again, his efforts and time would go to waste again; sure, he plans on easing things and lowering the difficulty of the script the next round, but he would still do his best to survive this round as long as possible.
...
"That shameless bastard! Why do they call him a hero? Go get him!" Kuro furiously ordered his ninja. But the road ahead was completely blocked; unless they killed all the citizen warriors, they could not get Jack.
...
Jack had amazing physical fitness, so when he wanted to run, nobody could reach him.
Directly ignoring the poor citizen army, which he used as a meat shield, and ignoring the poor women left behind in the village, using a detour, he ran toward the Red Flower City.
There is no way ninjas could get him before he reaches the city; before, because of having so many soldiers, his speed was slow, but now, while alone, he can run with amazing speed.
After 3 hours, he reached the city, which had a tall and thick wall, paid the fee, and entered.
He entered and sighed with relief; he survived. Now, he has to rack his brain to find a way to kill Kampaku.
The first stage of this dreamland is the Hero's battle with Kampaku; once done, the dreamland advances to rank 10.
It sounds easy, but it is very hard; Kampaku basically controls the army, has near infinite money, has spies everywhere, controls the borders, and is personally very powerful. The hero, on the other hand, has basically nothing.
This hell difficulty is one of the reasons that he can jump from rank 9 to 10; of course, the other reasons include having endless dream resources that make up for any shortcoming. If Jack makes the plot easier, then only killing Kampaku would not be enough to reach the Dao collection of Dreamworld to rank 10, which would reduce quality; still, reduced quality is better than wasting time, so he still could do it if he fails this time.
...
Looking at the woman whom he captured, Kuro asked, "Why do you guys trust him?"
The woman said, "Because he is Hero-sama!"
"These guys are brainwashed!" thought Kuro.
Jack abandoned them and used them as a meat shield, yet this girl still defended him.
Fortunately for the girl, every ninja here, with the exception of Kuro, is either sterilized or a woman, so she wouldn’t be abused.
Unfortunately for her, she would most likely be killed unless Kuro has other plans.
"Take her to our great village; also, send people to that damn tiny village, and capture all children and young women; as for old people, kill them all!" Kuro ordered coldly.