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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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It seemed like we were offering ourselves up for slaughter, approaching their village with only a handful of humans and undead.
But then, I summoned the Bone Golem, and my companions unleashed their auras.
A grey mist, hindering movement and slowly draining vitality, spread across the area.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A metallic sound, signaling an emergency, echoed through the orc village.
Orcs who were preparing for their hunt, led by their warriors, rushed out to defend their village.
But they were immediately caught in the faint mist.
‘It’s not that thick.’
Honestly, orcs with their vision could easily see through the mist.
The purpose wasn’t to obstruct their vision anyway.
It was a mist infused with demonic energy, meant to hinder their movements and drain their vitality.
They might not feel its effects immediately, but their stamina would deplete faster than usual, and when that happened, the mist would start to feel sticky.
In other words, it had the effect of turning time in our favor, even though they outnumbered us.
The agitated orcs, oblivious to the true nature of the terrifying mist, charged towards us in a straight line.
Whooooosh!
The Bone Golem initiated the attack.
Its massive body drew their attention, and its long reach, thanks to its size, allowed it to strike first.
My buff, activated at the perfect moment, enhanced the Bone Golem’s strength and durability.
Boooom!
Crack!
Nearly ten orcs were pulverized by a single blow, their mangled bodies crashing into the ranks behind them.
But the enraged orcs, undeterred, continued to charge at the Bone Golem.
No. 1, who hadn’t been upgraded yet, the knighted No. 2, and Cereo, the high-level undead with a will of his own, intercepted them.
Already strengthened by my magic, they were more than a match for ordinary orcs.
‘My enhancement magic is stronger now too…’
At my current level, I could use several layers of enhancements, buffs, and curses to make even ordinary skeletons hold their own against orcs.
It was difficult to cast on a large scale, but since I wasn’t controlling many undead right now, I had enough demonic energy to spare even after multiple enhancements.
And thanks to the staff amplifying my magic, they were able to form a formidable front line without being destroyed, even as hundreds of orcs attacked them.
———!
Cereo’s will screamed in resistance against my command.
But he couldn’t defy my order.
Ignoring his scream, I commanded him to focus on eliminating the orcs attacking the Bone Golem.
Taking advantage of the orcs’ attention being drawn to the undead, Athena began to move.
Slice. Slice.
Using the mist I had summoned as cover, she skillfully evaded their senses and struck their vital points one by one.
Baldur joined the stable front line, preventing the undead from being easily surrounded, while Kayla silently observed the situation.
Kayla’s intentions were clear.
“Krrr…”
The warrior orcs who could manipulate mana.
According to the request form, there were at least ten of them.
Kayla was targeting them.
‘Honestly, I could handle it myself…’
A large-scale battle ensued.
I refrained from using any magic except for the initial curse and focused on renewing the enhancements on my undead.
Hundreds of orcs, driven by madness, clashed with the undead and humans, led by the Bone Golem.
I sensed Annelise freezing at the sight of this violent spectacle.
‘They’re late.’
I shifted my gaze from Annelise to the battlefield.
Nearly a hundred orcs had already been slain, yet the warrior orcs were nowhere to be seen.
‘Why aren’t they joining the battle? They should have appeared by now.’
They seemed to be wary of something.
I started to think that the orcs in this area might be more intelligent than I expected.
Of course, they were still orcs.
‘Then I’ll make them come out.’
Enough corpses had piled up.
I raised the staff and slowly began to approach the battlefield.
Annelise seemed to reach out to stop me, but she quickly retracted her hand.
An Elite Living Armor urged her to move, and she reluctantly followed me.
As we neared the battlefield, the aggro that had been diverted away from us due to my lack of offensive actions began to shift towards us.
Kayla, noticing my approach, looked in my direction.
I met her gaze and smiled faintly.
And then, I immediately raised my staff.
A black aura instantly spread around me, and the movements of the undead under my command became lighter.
Half of the dead orcs around me rose to their feet.
All of them in the form of zombies but they weren’t ordinary zombies.
‘Enhanced zombies.’
This was the result of my increased demonic energy reserves after reaching a higher class, along with the amplified power of the staff.
They were resistant to most ordinary weapons even without further enhancements.
In fact, when one of them was struck by an orc’s attack, it only received a shallow scratch.
Considering the strength of an orc, their durability was absurd.
And the zombie orc, after being attacked, took its revenge by biting the attacking orc’s neck.
Finally recognizing me as a threat, the orcs targeted me, but…
The three Elite Living Armors didn’t allow them to get close.
The heads of the orcs trying to flank us were crushed like watermelons by the Elite Dullahan’s mace.
The orcs’ movements began to slow down due to the effects of my curse magic.
Thanks to this, the Elite Living Armors, already stronger than the orcs, were practically slaughtering them.
Annelise, who had been terrified by the orcs’ approach, began to calm down as she witnessed this.
And finally…
A shout, different from before, filled with mana, echoed through the battlefield.
Soon, new orcs appeared.
Orcs with larger builds appeared at the front.
They immediately blocked the Bone Golem’s attack, then three of them pulled No. 1 out and quickly destroyed it.
Athena tried to rescue No. 1, but unlike the other orcs, they easily blocked her attacks as if they had anticipated them.
“Tsk.”
Athena quickly gave up on No. 1.
Instead, No. 2 and Cereo stepped forward, successfully rescuing and repairing No. 1.
However, the hard-earned front line began to crumble as a result.
The orcs who could manipulate mana were indeed different.
They shattered the tough durability of the zombie orcs with their strength, and the orcs I had raised started to fall one by one.
I could have raised more of the piled-up orc corpses by supplying them with additional demonic energy, but…
‘There are… more than I expected.’
I had only anticipated about ten.
However, I could see that there were nearly thirty orcs who could manipulate mana.
At that moment, Kayla, who had been inactive until now, joined the front line.
She single-handedly reorganized the crumbling front line.
Overwhelming strength.
It was no wonder I had sent her to the front line.
‘…Something’s strange.’
But my attention wasn’t focused on that.
‘There are already thirty orcs who can manipulate mana at this stage? But why are there only this many…’
They could have easily expanded their territory several times over.
The orc tribe near Baron Owalan’s territory in the past had only a dozen or so warriors, yet they had commanded a much larger force.
I could understand the lack of orc numbers due to limited time, but there was no reason for their territory to be this small.
‘Something’s going on. Is there another force nearby that I don’t know about?’
“…Master!”
Kayla’s urgent voice made me look up.
——————!
A bizarre sound echoed out.
The orcs immediately reacted to the roar.
‘…So that’s why.’
That explained why the ferocious orcs, especially the warrior class who could manipulate mana, hadn’t joined the battle right away.
And why they only had such a small territory despite their considerable strength.
The mystery was solved in an instant.
“…Basilisk.”
A new monster had joined the battlefield.
“Why, why is a Basilisk here…!”
Annelise let out a bewildered cry.
Come to think of it, Cereo was the one who first told me about the Basilisk in my second life.
‘…….’
I immediately strengthened my connection with Cereo to figure out what was going on.
However, I couldn’t obtain any clear information, perhaps due to the missing parts of his memories.
So I asked Annelise.
“Was there a Basilisk nest nearby?”
“…I don’t know. There were rumors of one appearing…”
Annelise said she would have told us if she had known.
Well, she would have desperately tried to stop us.
Because Basilisks weren’t ordinary monsters.
‘Petrification.’
A monster that used petrification, a type of curse.
That meant it was a monster that could manipulate mana.
And its massive size.
Its skin wasn’t weak either.
The places they inhabited inevitably became hardened terrain due to their breath, so their skin was as tough as steel.
‘It’s huge, can use mana, and has high defense.’
A high-level monster.
Even Wyverns, the natural enemies of orcs, avoided Basilisks.
The same went for Trolls and Minotaurs, classified as medium to large monsters.
Trolls were nothing more than food for Basilisks, and only Ogres, known as tyrants of the forest, could put up a fight against them.
‘If there was a Basilisk nest nearby, it would be difficult for them to expand their territory with this force.’
But considering that the orc forces would grow stronger in the future, it meant that the Basilisk would eventually be subjugated or leave its nest for some reason.
‘It seems it was attracted by the smell of blood…’
Ironically, the Basilisk didn’t touch the dead orcs.
It glanced at the Bone Golem, then started moving towards the mostly empty orc village.
‘It’s avoiding a fight, isn’t it?’
Or maybe it was intimidated by the size of the Bone Golem.
Its massive size was enough to crush the Basilisk, but there was no reason for it to fight the colossal Bone Golem when there was easier prey available.
The orc warriors, seeing this, glanced at us for a moment, then started charging towards the Basilisk.
“…What should we do? Chase after them?”
The situation had taken an unexpected turn with the Basilisk’s sudden appearance.
The regular orcs, seeing their warriors heading off to fight the Basilisk, stopped mindlessly charging at us.
The madness that had filled their eyes had faded.
It seemed like the Basilisk’s roar was the cause.
“Wait for now.”
They were giving us an opportunity to reap the benefits of their fight, so there was no reason to refuse.
But…
‘We need to be prepared.’
And if possible, I would eliminate the Basilisk as well.
It was a valuable trophy, and above all…
‘It’s worth a lot of money.’
It was useless to me, but I could sell it to the magic tower for a hefty sum.
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