Project Necro is an official initiative by Re:Library.

To finalize the plans for the assault on Tübahn, the officers of the Third Division gathered in Lüenheit.
We borrowed a room in the governor’s mansion and began confirming procedures and strategies.

“I wonder how thick Tübahn’s castle gate is.”

The vampire queen, Senior Merlene, tilted her head, resting her cheek on her hand.
Though she’s Master’s top disciple and an expert in necromancy—not to mention skilled in diplomacy and strategic planning—she’s nearly clueless when it comes to battlefield tactics.

“Senior, think about the gates at your own castle for a second.”
“Bernehainen’s gate? Oh, that’s just an iron grille.”

Bernehainen, known as a scenic and historical city, apparently had no real value for monsters, so minimal defenses had sufficed.
We’d have no problem if Tübahn’s gates were as flimsy as Lüenheit’s, but this is a city that’s long served as a Miraldian industrial hub, constantly developing new technologies.
It won’t be that simple.

Merlene’s real strength lies in her ability to turn humans into vampires and enslave them.
Frankly, outside of that, she’s not very useful.
Her only real win condition is to turn the enemy’s commander and make them betray their side.
In this world, vampires aren’t weak to sunlight or holy symbols, but they also can’t fly or shapeshift. Kind of underwhelming, actually.

“Veit, you just thought I was useless, didn’t you?”
“Of course not.”

“We don’t need to break down the gate. Couldn’t you just fly over and use… what was it? ‘Soulshaker’?” That cheerful suggestion came from Firniel, the new apprentice. The centaur girl was new to the city and currently obsessed with sniffing the window glass.

“That spell’s meant to give us an edge in magic combat. Its area of effect isn’t that big, and I can’t cast it repeatedly. Won’t work.”

Besides, I already know that Tübahn’s walls are loaded with fixed heavy crossbows.
If one of those spear-sized bolts hits a vital spot, even a werewolf like myself would die.

“So in the end, we’ll probably open with a crush-and-overwhelm tactic using skeleton soldiers.”

That murmured suggestion came from our master, the Great Sage Gomoviroa.
Able to endlessly summon the dead, Master is basically a walking logistics base.
Still, even if she ignores all her other duties, she can only replenish about 100 skeletons per day. Losing a thousand would knock her out of action for 10 days.
As one of our top leaders, she can’t just focus on pumping out troops.

Truth is, the Demon Lord’s army has no real experience with sieges.
Makes sense. We were just a ragtag group skirmishing with the humans’ monster-hunting squads on the frontier not too long ago.
No one’s ever laid siege to a fortified city before.
The same goes for the humans, honestly—Miraldia probably doesn’t have any real siege experts left either. It’s been a long time since the unification wars.

What’s troubling me the most is a problem common to all demons:
We can’t change troop types.
Take centaurs, for example. Yes, they make excellent cavalry, but once inside a city, they can’t dismount like cavalry. Not like they’re riding horses—they are the horses.

Meanwhile, Tübahn’s famed mounted archers can dismount and become foot archers.
That flexibility has always given humans the edge in war. Demons keep losing because of it.
Even in my past life’s games, monster units had low growth, equipment limitations, and fewer class options…

Tübahn, being an industrial city, has wide boulevards for transporting materials, but inside, it’s a chaotic maze of workshops, large and small.
Not ideal terrain for centaurs who can’t turn tightly. Fighting inside will be brutal.
That’s why we can’t afford to take too many losses just breaking through the gates.

Skeleton soldiers are expendable and maneuver well in tight quarters, but they’re basically automated combat dolls. They can’t make nuanced decisions.
They can’t tell citizens from guards, and don’t recognize surrender. Sending them into a city would lead to mass slaughter.
Our mission is occupation, not destruction or genocide.

If we had the Stone-throwers Giants from the Second Division, we could easily crush the gates. Or if we had the dragonkin soldiers from the First Division, urban combat would be no problem. But unfortunately, neither is available to us.
Powerful demons tend to be locked into their specific troop types, unlike humans, who are adaptable to any group.

My own werewolf unit is small, and the dogfolk don’t contribute much. Merlene’s vampire unit isn’t suited to front-line fighting either. Plus, all our units have post-battle governance roles in occupied zones.
It’s tough that we never get to fight under ideal conditions—but finding ways to win anyway is our job as commanding officials.
So… what to do?

We’ve drafted a gate-breaching plan, but we lack data on the gate’s actual strength, so reliability is low.
As for the urban battle… we’ll just have to commit the centaur unit and accept the losses. Firniel seems to understand this.

Still, she looked hesitant about taking casualties and cast a pleading glance at Senior Merlene.

“Um… Senior Merlene—would it be impossible for you to just turn Tübahn’s governor into a vampire?”

Her tone was completely different than when talking to me.
Guess she got chewed out earlier by Merlene
She’s rubbing the back of her head like it still hurts—probably got whacked the first time they met.

Merlene thought for a moment, then shook her head apologetically.

“Mmm… not really possible. The initial ambush worked, but now the humans are on high alert. Both Veit and I would get outed immediately using minor magic.”

Humans haven’t been fighting us for centuries for nothing.
Even a novice mage can use basic anti-demon charms. That’s enough to expose us.
That’s why our werewolf ancestors left the cities and hid in mountain villages for generations.

In the end, the meeting didn’t reach any solid conclusions. It started feeling more like a class reunion, and eventually everyone began reminiscing about their training days.
Not surprising—we’re basically the same as a group of students from the same lab. Still, I would’ve preferred to solidify the plan…

Then there was a knock at the door. Aylia entered quietly.

“Pleased to meet you. I am Aylia Rütte Aindorf, governor of Lüenheit. A humble dinner has been prepared. Please join us in the dining room shortly.”

At the sight of the handsome, cross-dressing beauty, the women in the room immediately perked up.

“Veit, why didn’t you tell me the governor was this pretty!? So cool!”
“Because every time you see a good-looking person, Senior, you try to suck their blood regardless of gender. That’s a problem.”

If Aylia were turned into a vampire, my entire governance model would collapse. I need her to stay human.

“Master, is Senior, like… popular or something?”
“Hmm, who knows? He’s a bit stiff, that one. Oh! That reminds me of this one story from training days…”

Our tiny Master and the centaur girl lit up like schoolkids. They look just like lovestruck middle schoolers.

“Aylia is a crucial strategic partner supporting our cooperation with the Demon Lord’s army! Please stop the wild speculation! Show some respect!”
“So she is your partner, Senior!?”
“That’s not what I meant, stop jumping to conclusions!”

Even after everyone left, I kept getting teased about Aylia.
Thanks to that, I missed my chance to propose a very important strategy—but I’ve decided I’ll just prepare it myself now. Having a bunch of mages draft a siege plan was always doomed to fail… Well, I mean, even I don’t have proper training in that area.
The army may be larger now, but we’re still critically short on specialists.

Next time I meet the Demon Lord, I’ll propose developing siege tactics tailored to the strengths of our forces. I swear it.
As I prepared to deploy, I made that promise to myself.