Not a single human shadow could be found in the village they passed through. Most of the residents had already evacuated far to the rear long ago.
This was a war not between humans, but with a race called orcs, so the nature of the war was quite different. In other words, were it a war between humans, there would have been no need for the residents to clear out the village and flee. On the battlefield, knights and soldiers would fight fiercely to decide the victor, and the residents only needed to pledge allegiance to the winning side and pay their tenant fees. If they kept their heads down, their lives were rarely in danger. But this time was different.
The orcs massacred all residents in occupied territories except for the slaves they needed. This was a common sight in orc-occupied lands. Even those who occasionally survived had to become slaves to the orcs for life. They were forced to work until they died in mines, farms, or weapon forges without ever seeing the sun. Moreover, the orcs who had invaded now were those who had been driven back by humans and forced to live harshly in the barren Felucia Mountains for as long as fifty years. Their hatred toward humans was bound to be immense. For this reason, the village was in a state of utter devastation. The wheat filling the fields had ripened yellow and was rotting away, and only flocks of migratory birds who had chanced upon the right season were enjoying an unexpected feast.
Damon and Dietrich were hiding themselves in the wheat field, cautiously advancing toward Felldrian.
“Be careful not to startle the birds.”
Spitting out those curt words, Damon moved forward. Dietrich stared at his back with a deeply displeased gaze. How was it that this man, despite knowing his status, insisted on using casual speech from beginning to end? Moreover, he acted as if he hated to converse, only uttering what was absolutely necessary in brief words. But knowing that his life was in this man’s hands, Dietrich had no choice but to follow in silence.
‘Damn it. Just wait until we reach Felldrian. I’ll ask Father and give him a painful lesson.’
Whether unaware of Dietrich’s scheming or not, Damon continued to push through the undergrowth.
“Let’s go together.”
Forgetting even the warning about the birds, Dietric hurriedly followed behind him. At that moment, an urgent and brief warning rang out.
“Shh! Keep low.”
“Wh-what is it?”
Damon had already hidden his body among the wheat. But Dietrich failed to properly understand the warning and instead asked back in a loud voice. Because of that, the birds pecking at the wheat took flight all at once.
*Flap-flap-flap-flap.*
“You damn idiot. Get down!”
The moment a low curse was heard, a huge black shadow rushed at him together with an ear-splitting tearing sound. At the same time, a ferocious roar rang out. It had happened the instant the birds flew up.
“Gack!”
Startled, Dietrich covered his head and threw himself flat on the ground. That was an immeasurable stroke of luck for Dietrich……. Long claws caked with dried blood and flesh raked across Dietrich’s back. At the terrible pain, Dietrich screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Aaaaargh!”
“Rawrrrrr!”
As if responding to the scream, roars were heard from all around. Medium-sized monsters revealed themselves one after another throughout the wheat field. There was one ogre and two trolls. Three or so orc infantrymen also appeared, seemingly controlling them. As if they had been hunting humans nearby, the bastards were drenched in blood all over. The creature that had tried to snatch Dietrich just moments ago was none other than a wyvern. The wyvern began another dive, targeting Dietrich. As if that were a signal, the orc infantrymen began charging furiously at Dietrich.
“H-help me.”
Dietrich soon fell into a panic. It was no wonder, as four medium-sized monsters displaying terrifying might were charging at him, not just one. The confidence he had shown toward Damon had already vanished without a trace. He desperately searched for Damon, the only being he could rely on. However, his figure was nowhere to be seen.
“H-he must have run away.”
His youthful face instantly darkened with despair.
“Rawrrr.”
One ogre was already right in front of him, lifting a huge club high into the air. Truly befitting an ogre famous for its speed. A club large enough to turn him into paste with a single blow came down at Dietrich. Dietrich stood frozen with his eyes wide open. The fact that he had not fainted in this situation was probably because his fear was too overwhelming. At that moment, something whipped past in front of Dietrich.
“Huh?”
Dietrich’s pupils suddenly dilated. The ogre that had been about to bring down its club stiffened—that was what happened next. Something was weaving between the trolls at a speed too fast to discern. The three trolls that had just arrived also froze in their charging stances just like the ogre. The unidentified shadow’s next target was the wyvern that had descended almost to the ground.
“Kerrrr.”
Thinking that something ominous was happening though it knew not what, the wyvern spread its wings wide and tried to take flight again.
*Pop!*
In an instant, its vision suddenly went dark and extreme pain came flooding in. The wyvern’s pupils had already burst apart, and blood gushed out like a fountain. Blinded in an instant, the wyvern desperately flapped its wings to fly. However, the wyvern’s massive body was already plummeting toward the ground. It had already lost its sense of direction.
*Boom.*
Dust rose thickly around the wyvern that had crashed into the ground with a deafening roar. Through the cloud of dust, the form of the object that had been weaving through the field was faintly revealed. The effect of Haste had worn off. Soon, Damon’s diminutive figure was revealed on the field.
“Tsk. It’s a human.”
“Kill him.”
The orc infantrymen, finally realizing the situation, charged with fierce killing intent in their eyes. They showed no concern for the fact that the medium-sized monsters were frozen stiff and unable to move.
“Hah, hah.”
Damon looked somewhat troubled. The ogre, who relied only on its tough skin and wore no armor, was rather an easier opponent for Damon. Although they were crude, the orcs covered their vital meridians with iron armor, so the points that Damon could target were strictly limited. He wasn’t confident he could accurately suppress the meridians in his current physical condition.
Moreover, because he had activated Haste with an incomplete body, even his mind was growing hazy. It was due to accumulated fatigue. Damon bit his tongue hard to regain his senses, clenched his gauntlet, and plunged between the charging orcs.
Seeing Damon charging head-on, one orc thrust its glaive in a straight line.
“Hah!”
Slightly leaning back to evade the glaive, Damon then tucked the glaive’s shaft tightly under his arm. And he plunged the spike attached to his gauntlet into the exposed throat meridian of the orc infantryman.
“Kerk.”
Along with a faint groan, a fountain of blood spurted from the opponent’s neck. Urgently pulling out his gauntlet, Damon sensed killing intent and reflexively crouched low.
*Swish.*
Two sharply bladed glaives brushed past his back. Maintaining his prone position, Damon fired off a Magic Missile he had created. He had exhausted most of the mana he had gathered to subdue the medium-sized monsters, so this was the last Magic Missile he could shoot.
*Pop-pop-pop.*
It burrowed right between the helmet of the orc infantryman before his eyes. It was the one who had arrived last and was driving his glaive down. Because it had been fired point-blank, he could not avoid it.
With a heavy thud, the orc infantryman was thrown far back. Damon quickly rose to his feet. In that instant, he felt a pain in his thigh as if it were being branded with fire. He had nearly screamed, but Damon suppressed the pain and endured it. Clenching his left hand into a Cat Paw, Damon spun his body around and struck the philtrum of the orc infantryman who had stabbed his thigh. Unlike human soldiers, the orc infantryman’s helmet had its lower face completely exposed, so Damon’s attack struck true.
*Thud.*
The orc, his front teeth falling out in chunks, covered his face and fell backward. Without even time to catch his breath, Damon pressed in on the last remaining orc infantryman. His approach, blood dripping from one leg, was reminiscent of an evil spirit.
“Urk, tsk.”
Intimidated by his momentum, the orc infantryman swung his glaive fiercely and retreated. However, Damon’s body had almost instinctively slipped into the glaive’s blind spot. The two soon became a tangled mass and rolled on the ground.
*Shhk.*
The spike on the gauntlet plunged deep into the throat meridian. The orc infantryman collapsed backward, gushing blood profusely.
“Hah, hah.”
Damon, catching his breath for a while, finally began to take steps. It was exactly in the direction where Dietrich stood. Dietrich was still frozen in that spot. He looked as if he could not possibly muster the will to move. Damon looked Dietrich up and down and spat out coldly.
“Finish them off right now.”
“Huh? F-finish them off?”
“I mean cut the lifelines of those still alive. If you don’t want to die, do it immediately.”
At Damon’s growl, Dietrich had no choice but to take up his sword and walk over. Two orc infantrymen were still breathing. They were the ones who had been struck by the Magic Missile and the Cat Paw. He tried to thrust his sword into the chest of a lying orc infantryman in a very awkward stance. However, orcs were not a race that would die meekly.
“Gack!”
As the orc infantryman suddenly lunged and sank its teeth into his shin, Dietrich let out a scream filled with agony. The longsword fell powerlessly from his hand. While his mind was hazy with pain, he desperately stretched out both hands to pry open the orc’s mouth biting his leg. However, the orc’s tightly clenched jaws refused to budge. As its tusks dug into his flesh and blood flowed out in streams, Dietrich’s face turned deathly pale.
“Truly a useless man.”
Along with a cold sneer, a sword flash gleamed.
*Shhk.*
The orc infantryman’s head fell off while still biting the leg. A spurt of blood sprayed Dietrich’s face. Without realizing it, Dietrich frantically wiped his face with his sleeve.
“Are you afraid of being covered in blood?”
After growling at Dietrich once, Damon trudged toward the remaining orc. In his hand was the longsword Dietrich had dropped, radiating killing intent.
*Shhk.*
The second orc’s neck was also easily severed. Damon showed not the slightest hesitation in taking lives. Of course, the medium-sized monsters whose acupoints had been suppressed by Magic Missile were no exception in meeting their deaths. Damon first cut their leg tendons to bring them down, then ruthlessly thrust the longsword into their eye sockets. The medium-sized monsters, their brains pierced through, could only end their lives without so much as a whimper.
Damon finally finished off the blinded wyvern. First, he threw a stone to divert the wyvern’s attention to the other side, then plunged the sword deep between the scales beneath its ear, an exposed vital point. The wyvern, too, drooped its head.
*Clang.*
Damon tossed the longsword at Dietrich’s feet and muttered as if pitying it.
“It has met the wrong master.”
Having finished speaking, Damon plopped down on the spot and began treating his wound. Orcs had no inclination to maintain their weapons, so the glaive blades were caked with old blood and flesh dried and stuck to them. If left untreated, the wound could fester, so he first lit a campfire. Then Damon cut the shaft from a glaive dropped by an orc infantryman and heated it in the fire.
*Tssss.*
As the red-hot metal dug into the wound, veins bulged and throbbed on Damon’s forehead. His tightly closed lips trembled as if convulsing. But not a single groan escaped his mouth. Having already been trained to the extreme in the Sevenfold Tempering Technique, Damon was a man of considerable endurance. At that sight, Dietrich forgot even the pain of his own wound and merely stared blankly at Damon with his mouth agape.