During the march, Jack's regiment went forward as planned, acting as the vanguard troops. However, he didn't bring all 3,000 troops with him. From past experience, the monsters were scared away by the large army, except for the ones with more numbers in their pack.
He had 2,000 troops led by Bailey and Miller staying within sight of the main army, while he and the remaining 1,000 troops went ahead. He used Runestone of Marching so that their speed increased. He found that if he willed it fiercely, he could increase their movement speed up to 70%. He spread out his troops so they didn't appear too menacing to the monsters. It also allowed them to cover more ground.
His 1,000 vanguard troops vanquished the monsters as they passed through. Jack had to be within a certain distance when the monsters were killed so that he gained the exp points and souls, so he ran around along the spread army. The soldiers were rather confused why their leader went back and forth like that.
The monsters were rather low-level, so not many exp points and souls were gathered. They were still in the vicinity of the capital after all. Moving further, Jack could farm slightly stronger monsters. This time he didn't share the exp with others, so even when he farmed monsters that were below his level, his exp still increased at a faster rate compared to farming exp using the normal method.
On the second day after leaving Thereath, Jack's human age reached the eleventh month of age. His race's passive skill, Limitless Potential, was upgraded to rank 7. It now gave him HP +1500, Stamina/MP +200, and all attributes except luck +7.
As days passed, more and more players trickled in. They caught up to the army because the army moved slowly. Some of the new recruits decided to just teleport directly to Theneward to clash directly with the players who had joined Therribus. Killing players of the opposite side netted war contribution as well. Hence, before the two native armies clashed, the players had already had their mini-war in the vicinity of Theneward.
After three days, the number of players joining their camp grew to 40,000. However, the intel they gathered had players joining Therribus experiencing the same increase, to 20,000. These late joiners were mostly independent players or small guilds who were still undecided when the war quests dropped on the first day.
In terms of players, there were actually many more. In the capital alone, there were around a million. However, most lived common lives. They took up common jobs, worked for natives, worked for other players, focused on the auxiliary skills, or simply just lazed around. Only a portion who had adapted to this world or those who had gaming experience went out and leveled up. And amongst these, many were either not interested or were afraid of dying in the war. Many players had simply abused the Amulet of Rebirth wantonly and were now finding it too expensive to be bought, so they couldn't afford to die again.
On the third day, John arrived. He arrived in the evening when the army had set up camp. He met Jack first before he asked Jack to assemble all the players' leaders.
When the leaders were assembled, John immediately said without any courtesy, "All of you now answer to me during this war!"
"Damn, dude! You are even more vicious than me," Jack uttered.
The leaders looked similarly startled, but John didn't give any of them a chance to say anything. He went ahead with his first instruction, "David! Where is Serpent Boss?"
"He is at the enemy's territory, gathering intel," David replied.
"Ah, great men think alike," John remarked. He then took out a large piece of paper and spread it on the ground. "Send more of your guild members there. Your guild will be responsible for reconnaissance. I will need details on the ground for this part. I also need more information about the surrounding area and the enemy's movements."
John was pointing at the large piece of paper, which when everyone looked, was the drawing of the areas around Theneward.
"Where did you get this map from?" Jack asked.
"I asked a person who used to work as a cartoonist in our previous world to draw it up," John answered. He then pointed to someone, "Now, you!"
"Hm?" Prideful Josh was the one getting pointed at.
"We need your War Fire. What are the ingredients? We will share our supplies. Other guilds here will do the same. We need as many as you can produce," John said.
The other guild leaders looked at each other, 'We will?' Their faces said.
"War Fire?" Jack asked, to which John waved him off. Peniel answered Jack in his mind, 'War Fire is a tool that delivers fire damage over a very large area and will remain burning for a long period.'
"How do you know we have the recipe for War Fire?" Prideful Josh asked John.
"Is there a need to ask rhetorical questions? We all have spies in each other's guilds. Now, moving on. What do you need to produce more War Fires? If you need more alchemist players, we can supply them as well."
Prideful Josh frowned. Spies? He was indeed not delusional to think his guild was free of spies. Yet, War Fire was a secret known only to the important members of his guild. Did john just imply that he had a spy inside the upper echelon of his guild?
He would deal with that later, the war quest at the moment took priority. "We don't have a problem with the common ingredients nor the alchemist players. What we are lacking are two rare ingredients, Fire Grass and Erupting Berry. If you can give us your stock of these two ingredients, we will be able to produce sufficient quantity."
"All right, I will send people to deliver them to your guild headquarters. Tell your man to be ready to receive them and your alchemists to be ready to get to work at once. I need three hundred war fires ready within one week," John said. At the same time, he sent a message to Dylan. He had ordered Dylan to be ready at a moment's notice, Dylan would mobilize his traders to start accumulating the required ingredients from all seven countries.
"Three hundred? Are you nuts?" Josh uttered. "If you want that many, then I will need your alchemist players to help out as well. Even then, I don't think it will be faster than two weeks to produce that many. Not to mention, war fires are not things that can be put into our storage bag, we need to transport them manually."
"That's why we need to hurry. I will send the alchemist players," John said. He then addressed the rest of the guild leaders, "All of you will do the same. Send your stocks and alchemists to Sins Lair!"
Sins Lair was the name of Crowd of Sins' guild headquarters.
The guild leaders again looked at each other with weird expressions.
"Do not try to cheat by saying you don't have any. I have spies in your guilds as well. Those that do not send their available stocks and alchemists will have their war contributions deducted by the end of this war quest," John threatened.
'You can do that?' Jack sent John a message.
'No, but they don't know that. Now, stop distracting me," John replied.
"Next, Black Cloak!" John called.
"Present," Kill Order responded.
"You are a famous assassin guild. Do what you do best. Send half of your guild members to this forest, preferably the strongest one. I want this forest sterile of enemy's presence. I don't think the native army will enter this forest, so the ones who do so will only be players. Assassinate anyone who enters. Once you take control, you can have some members roam around the vicinity and assassinate enemies who had wandered away from the army."
John was pointing to a forest not far away from Fort Garadhor where Prince Alonzo was holing up. That forest was also the area where he had asked David to do a detailed reconnaissance. The forest was not close enough to the fortress to influence the war. John was right, there was no reason for Therribus' army to go to that forest. So, why did John have so much interest in it? Jack wondered.
"Now, the rest of you, we will organize everyone to practice tactical formations," John said.
"Tactical formations?" Fat Gregory asked.
"Yes. First of all, you should start dividing your troops into groups. Guilds with members over a thousand number will divide into two battalions, these battalions will further divide into companies of three hundred troops. These companies divide again into platoons of eighty troops. And finally, each platoon is to be divided into squads with a maximum of forty troops. The class arrangement within each squad I will leave for you to decide, but my suggestion is to diversify the class. You should have a balance between melee, ranged, magic, and healer.
"The members of the squad should always stay near each other at all times. Have them create a party for shared buff and the like. The squad leaders should be in a party with each other and one of them has to be always near their platoon leader. Hence, they can receive orders verbally from the platoon leaders and then relay those orders to the other squad leaders, who then relay the orders verbally to their squad. The same thing applies upward. This way, we will have quick broadcasting of orders. Let's start doing it right away!"
Jack had already created a party with the guild leaders, so John simply entered the party. The guild leaders were now sending instructions to their members.
"Chop, chop! People. We don't have all night. We need to start training right away?" John urged.
"Right away? Are you saying right this minute? Tonight?" Fat Gregory asked.
"Do I need to teach you vocabulary?" John replied.
"John, everyone is tired after a long day's march," Jack said.
"They can sleep later after we are done practicing. Starting tonight, we will have a routine two hours training starting from after dinner until before we sleep. Everyone has to be adept enough to get into formation once an order is given. We need to be able to at least do that before we engage the enemy. Otherwise, all the players here joining this war will just be cannon fodder."
