“This time, it had better be the right one……”
Above a small valley, two liches were conversing in hushed voices. Even as they did,
their gazes kept flicking down toward the valley below.
Below the valley where they stood ran a fairly large footpath. It had been
built by human hands in the past, but now human footsteps had completely ceased upon it.
This place had long since become the domain of mid-sized monsters
and orcs. Of course, with no maintenance whatsoever, it had fallen into a terrible state,
but it still retained the general shape of a road.
And on that road, a squat shadow was strolling along at a leisurely pace. Though he stood
only about one meter fifty tall, he was an orc, a race with rather solid muscles.
The two liches carefully observed the orc trudging along with a large bundle on his back.
They had already been given the task of inspecting every wandering orc
who passed through this place.
“Do you see anything strange?”
“On the surface, not yet. This one is already the 127th wandering
orc to pass through here, after all. Just how many damned wandering orcs are there in Truvania……”
“The one we’re looking for is only an orc in outward appearance. He should be in a polymorphed state,
so for now let’s check for magical energy……”
“Shall we?”
The liches soon cast a detection spell (view magic force). It was a fairly high-level spell
that sensed magical energy from a target object, but to liches,
most of whom were masters of the 6th Circle, it was by no means difficult.
Once the spell was complete, the two widened the distance between them. If this was indeed
the being they sought, there was no way they would come out unscathed. Their target
was a high-ranking mage who far surpassed liches, and there was no way such a person
would fail to notice the signs of someone detecting him. Thus,
the liches acted this way in hopes that at least one of them might survive.
“Be careful. They said he’s a 9th Circle master who even surpasses Lord Gedenhide.
So no matter what, one of us has to survive until Lord Verkis arrives and report.”
“That’s how it must be.”
After murmuring to each other, the liches finished their preparations and immediately began casting.
A brilliant light arose from one lich’s hand and shot in a straight line toward the orc.
Papapapat.
Unlike human mages, liches did not use magic staves. That was because
their bodies themselves could be called magic staves. Since they had no
blood, flesh, or muscle to obstruct the flow of mana, there was no need for them
to use magic staves. With their hands alone, they could cast magic sufficiently.
The detection spell fired from the lich’s hand covered the orc in an instant.
“Chwik.”
As some strange energy swirled around his whole body, a bewildered look appeared on the orc’s face.
But the liches paid no mind and focused on detection. However, they could sense
no trace of magic whatsoever. Disappointment appeared on the liches’ faces.
“Damn it. It isn’t that one either.”
“Well, Lord Gedenhide said the fellow would probably head to a western port
in order to cross over to Arcadia. This place leads north, so there’s a high chance
he won’t come here.”
The liches exchanged deflated words and withdrew the detection spell. The orc, who had been
looking around in puzzlement, turned his gaze toward them, but the liches paid him no attention.
After tilting his head once at the sight of them, the orc started walking again,
shaking his head as though he had no idea what had just happened. But the liches’ interest
had long since vanished from that orc. Their gazes were already turned toward the 128th
wandering orc who had appeared on the horizon…… The wandering orc, hurrying along,
soon disappeared from sight.
“Kekeke. Stupid fools.”
Once he had completely left the valley, a sneer appeared on the orc’s face.
It was a sneer as if he found it so amusing he could hardly stand it.
“As expected, Verkis seems to have noticed that I’m alive. He must have summoned
an earth spirit and asked about the situation inside the cave, no doubt?”
Even while muttering to himself, the orc kept walking diligently. His short legs moved
somewhat unnaturally. It was because he still had not fully grown accustomed to his new body.
“Detection magic (view magic force), is it…… They must think I used polymorph.
Kekeke. There’s no way the Reverse Body Transformation Art would be caught by mere detection magic.”
The orc’s true identity was none other than Daimon. After escaping the cave, he had fled
all the way here on foot without using any magic whatsoever. He was now heading north.
He was going that way because there was something he had to see to first.
The destination Daimon had in mind was naturally Arcadia. There was no way he could live
in human form in Truvania, an orc den. Moreover, in this place, he could not
properly use magic either. The dragons, including Verkis, would surely be desperate
to find him. Since he would always have to live under the dragons’ surveillance network,
Daimon had no choice but to cross over to Arcadia. There, he had to continue his research
into black magic and build up his strength until he could stand against the dragons.
Having finished thinking, Daimon turned his head and looked around.
“The security isn’t as tight as I expected. Their surveillance network must be concentrated
on the routes leading west.”
Shaking his head, Daimon set out again. In truth, the place he intended to go
was so far away that he had no idea how long it would take on foot. But since there was no hurry,
he moved at a leisurely pace. First of all, he had the mission of becoming accustomed to
the body he had newly obtained. Because of Verkis, it seemed he would be unable to cast magic
for the time being.
Therefore, in order to protect himself during that time, he first needed to restore
the powerful body techniques that had been forgotten in the past. If it was to be a long journey,
that would be entirely possible, so Daimon nodded.
“If I combine the power of mighty undead warriors with 9th Circle magic,
beating dragons to death won’t be impossible. Just wait, dragons. I’ll make you feel
to your very bones what a powerful enemy you have created.”
His clenched fist trembled. After shaking for a moment and calming his surging emotions,
Daimon silently moved on. The direction he took was north. It was a journey
whose length he could not know, but he did not care.
Boom!
“You damned…….”
Verkis was exploding with fiery rage. He had released all of his guardians, but he had still
failed to find the fellow’s trail. It had already been over a week since the fellow killed Zikrate
and stole the magical treasury, Increcia. And yet the fellow’s whereabouts were
utterly unknown, as if he had sunk into the earth.
“Where on earth did he go? I definitely didn’t sense any sign of spatial movement.
If there had been any, only my guardians would have. Then that means
he clearly used some other method……”
Verkis had already been broadly detecting every kind of magic. The 9th Circle and
the Circles below it differed completely from the very level at which mana gathered.
Since there was also the possibility that the fellow had fled using Aviation (flight magic)
or invisibility (invisibility magic), Verkis had raised his detection magic
to an extreme degree. But not the slightest presence was caught by Verkis’s senses.
The fellow had clearly not cast any magic at all.
Moreover, it was hard to imagine that he had escaped on foot. All the guardians
who protected the lair had already been mobilized and sent out to search. The roads leading west
could be considered completely blocked. As if that were not enough, Verkis had browbeaten
nearby orc tribes into providing large numbers of troops. They had all been mobilized
to completely block the roads. In that case, the fellow’s trail should have been revealed.
But contrary to expectations, the fellow was not found.
“Could he have hidden deep inside a nearby valley or cave? Waiting for the search to end?”
That possibility seemed quite plausible. In the end, Verkis resolved to search
every corner around the lair.
“No matter what happens, I must recover the magical treasury Increcia from his hands.”
To Verkis, that was not particularly difficult. Since the orcs had sworn a thousand years
of loyalty to the dragons, securing troops to conduct the search would be easy enough.
The problem was that the fellow might already have escaped this area.
Since that possibility could not be ruled out, he had the absurd thought
of capturing every wandering orc roaming the continent.
“They said the fellow was clearly dressed like a wandering orc. In any case, those ones
are all fellows driven out of their tribes for being weak. I’ll have to issue
an order to the orc tribes across the entire continent. An order to capture every last
wandering orc. Since his trail may reveal itself in the process, it wouldn’t be bad
to try it once.”
Astonishingly, Verkis resolved to massacre every wandering orc. Alongside
a large-scale search of the area around the lair. In truth, if he gave the order,
it would be carried out without fail. After all, to orcs, wanderers were nothing more
than utterly useless beings……
There was a reason for that.
It had already been some five hundred years since the continent of Truvania fell into the hands
of the orc race. That period had caused the number of orcs to increase tremendously.
The crops and livestock humans had raised were more than enough to handle the orcs’
enormous productivity. Thus, the orcs who had taken over the humans’ vacant place
prospered again and again, and before long, their numbers nearly reached
the scale they had possessed during the First Race War.
But the problem began after that. The uncivilized orcs had no wisdom for farming
or raising livestock. Because they simply devoured whatever they saw, they soon had no choice
but to face the crisis of food shortages. It was a phenomenon that arose because their numbers
had increased far too much.
Of course, a few wise orc tribes were able to secure food by making human slaves
farm and raise livestock. They were cases of literally overcoming the crisis with wisdom.
Sadly, however, not all orc tribes were like that. Most orc tribes did not possess
the wisdom to think of tomorrow.
The food problem soon came to the fore. Not content with devouring even all of their human slaves,
in severe cases, tragedies in which they ate their own kind occurred frequently.
After starting wars between tribes, they used the dead and prisoners in large numbers as food.
Of course, the corpses of their fallen comrades also had to enter the tribe’s stomachs without fail.
In that way, the orc race of Truvania entered a state of natural equilibrium.
The law of the jungle. The ancient principle that the weak were weeded out and only the strong
survived once again came to rule the continent. Of course, there were also artificial methods
involved.
In most orc tribes, dozens or even hundreds of orcs are born in a single day.
Naturally, since there was not enough food to feed them all, most of them were
naturally weeded out. Literally, only the strong ones grew into adults.
But that was not all. The so-called coming-of-age ceremony of the orc race. Through the ceremony
held when they reached one full year of age, only powerful and strong warriors
would go on to continue the race’s line. Those unable to endure that process died
or were expelled from the tribe. Along with orcs too old to participate in the hunt.
This was the background behind the emergence of wandering orcs.
Orcs expelled from their tribes. Since most of them were sick and powerless orcs,
they could not endure long in the harsh wilderness and met their deaths. Nevertheless,
it was not as if there were no orcs at all who overcame all sorts of trials and hardships
and survived. That was because the number of orcs expelled was simply so large.
They were the wandering orcs. Orc wanderers who belonged to no tribe and roamed
the continent without destination. Ironically, their enemies were not mid-sized monsters
or wyverns that lived by eating orcs. It was their own kind, orcs, whom they had to fear
even more.
The orc race were vile eaters who would not refuse any kind of meat. Even that of another orc’s
They were not the sort to refuse to eat something so long as it was meat. Moreover, a wandering orc was far
easier to hunt than a swift-footed herbivore or a powerful mid-sized monster.
For that reason, most orc tribes, whenever they spotted a wandering orc, invariably regarded it as
prey and attacked. Because of this, it was no exaggeration to say that the lives of wandering orcs were
as fleeting as flies.
Even so, countless wandering orcs existed in Truvenia. Many
wanderers were eaten by monsters, or by their own kind, but even more
orcs were once again expelled from their tribes. Verkis was now thinking of
wiping out those wandering orcs entirely.
“Tribes that use human slaves to farm have an abundance of food, so they rarely hunt wandering
orcs. I’ll have to send orders to all those tribes. Tell them to kill every
wandering orc they see.”
A triumphant smile formed at the corners of Verkis’s mouth. They were going to die anyway, so there seemed no need to concern himself with the lives of mere wandering orcs. For Verkis, the best course was to capture the one called Damon by any means necessary.
“If he doesn’t want to die, he’ll have no choice but to use magic. I’ll have to dispatch Guardians to the orc tribes on a large scale.
So they can contact me the moment they detect any sign of magic being used.
Even if an orc tribe is annihilated by him, that has nothing to do with me.”
Having made up his mind, Verkis summoned Gedenheid without delay.
“You mean to kill every last wandering orc?”
Gedenheid’s eyes filled with shock upon hearing Verkis’s command.
Damon was walking along the mountain path in an extremely leisurely manner. It had already been a fortnight since he had
escaped from Verkis’s grasp. His destination still lay endlessly far ahead, but since there was no particular
hurry, he enjoyed the journey at ease. Dragons had astonishingly long lifespans,
and they would surely still be alive by the time he gained power. The only one he worried about was
Daphne.
“If Daphne dies, the dragons will have no choice but to be in trouble as well. So they will keep Daphne alive with an Absolute Petrification Command,
not simple petrification. There’s not much need to worry about her life,
but the problem is dispelling it. Since the Dragon Lord personally cast
the spell, there is absolutely no way for me to undo it.”
There was only one way to return Daphne to human form. Kranus, the one who had turned her to stone,
had to personally release the magic. Even if Damon somehow managed to reach
the 10th Circle after all manner of hardships, it had to be considered impossible for him to undo the petrification magic. Truly, there was no other way to describe the road ahead but as layer upon layer of mountains.
But Damon did not bend his will under any circumstances. His persistence could already be said to be widely acknowledged as tenacious beyond measure… Damon, who had been lost in thought, suddenly narrowed his eyes.
“Hmm?”
He had lived for five hundred years in the body of a lich, but fortunately, it seemed his old senses had returned.
Feeling killing intent focused on him, Damon quickly adjusted his stance.
“Judging by the very simple form of this killing intent, they don’t seem to be human… Probably some orc rabble.”
Just as he had expected, six or seven orcs suddenly rushed out from the road ahead and blocked his path. When Damon stopped walking, three or four more orcs ran out from behind and cut off his retreat. Faced in an instant with a situation where he could neither advance nor retreat, Damon first carefully examined their appearance.
Every one of them was infantry clad in heavy armor. They were far larger than the figure Damon was disguised as,
and seemed much stronger as well. At a glance, they were undoubtedly
raised as warriors. Compared to them, Damon looked almost like a child.
With Damon, who had stopped walking, at the center, the orc infantry formed a circular encirclement and began closing in.