Harun

《The Lump Orcs Ritual》

 Haroon escaped the mineral lands within two hours after returning to Beyond . Thanks to his deeper understanding of Mana, he was absorbing larger amounts of mana through his feet .

 As he’d gotten familiar with the mineral lands, he could easily locate where Ko-M guild set their temporary camp . He found the stream of water where he left Ko-M guild, the one that’s water color was red because of the iron substances it contained .

 “Ah!”

 Haroon made a gasping noise before he knew it as a disastrous sight entered his vision . The campsite that seemed big enough to contain a thousand people was in total chaos; camping equipments, weapons, torn clothes and armors were scattered all around . There were traces of magical attacks used . There were huge craters in places, and inside the holes there were torn clothes and weapons that were discolored to black .

 ‘It must have been a raid of ironsnakes,’ Haroon thought .

 He scanned the place and found a few snakelets dead . Some were half-skinned, and some were burnt to death .

 ‘Did ironsnakes attack them because of their snakelets?’

 He thought it was possible . The adult ironsnakes were just trying to protect their snakelets, or simply their territory . Only users who were in the area when the ironsnakes attacked would know the truth .

 Haroon took the dead ironsnakes and put them into the subs.p.a.ce . Now that he found out ironsnakes’ were the most expensive medical materials, he had to see if he could sell them .

 ‘But what are these craters? They’re not made by magic . ”

 He inspected a few and found they were made by a strong impact .

 ‘Could it be their tails? Well, that’s a possibility…… . ’

 The ironsnakes had tails that combined the properties of both snake and lizard tails, and their tip were shaped like spiked b.a.l.l.s, just like huge morningstars .

 Searching around, he collected the items that users dropped on their death . Most of them had ironsnake poison on them, but Haroon didn’t get poisoned as he took an antidote that old man Kaltz gave him . There were about two to three hundred items, but he wasn’t sure he could sell them because of the poison . Not bothering to check their information, he stored them in the subs.p.a.ce as soon as he found them .

[You are poisoned! You are receiving 10 damage per second . ]

 ‘d.a.m.n it! It’s not like I got attacked by them, and I still get poisoned? The antidote didn’t even last thirty minutes!’

 Haroon quickly took another antidote and tried to finish collecting the items . It wasn’t until he’d taken yet another antidote that

he finished collecting the loot .

 He left the site and headed back towards Baron Thaust Castle .

 He had a Teleportation Scroll that Seryu gave him, but he couldn’t use it . He still had a quest left to complete . He’d almost forgot that he agreed to bring orc lumps to Tarim the leathersmith .

 ‘I’ve been delaying things too long . It’s fortunate that my guild members are enjoying training themselves . ’

 He was expecting the journey to be a month, but he’d already spent a month . He thought they wouldn’t be to hard on him for being a few days late . But it was better returning sooner than later .

 He decided to use Flying Walking, the third tier of Messenger Walking . It allowed him to travel fast at the cost of not acc.u.mulating mana .

 He began walking leaning his body forwards . Then his body shot forwards at an insane speed . He had the route in his head, as he had to move slowly escorting Ko-M guild . Now that he was moving alone, he expected it wouldn’t take long to get to the lump orc tribe .

 He ran for about thirty minutes, then suddenly stopped upon hearing loud shouting .

 ‘Who was that?’

 He looked in the direction the sound came from . There was a cliff below the saddle of two mountains, shining as it reflected the sunlight in the distance . A waterfall in it’s center, formed by a huge amount of water thrust up through the thick layer of stone was falling for hundreds of meters .

 The cataract waterfall, shining cliff and several rainbows created by the sunlight as it pierced through the the clouds and mist created a fantastic scenery . This wasn’t something he could observe last time he was pa.s.sing through the area as the fog blinded him . But he couldn’t waste any time admiring the view . There was a vast field under the cliff, and there were a lot of living creatures there but he couldn’t tell what they were .

 ‘Who are they?’

 He could hear some sort of drumming and something that sounded like wind instruments . He didn’t think they were humans, considering that he was in the middle of the Huk’ran Mountains . That lead him to think that they were monsters, and since they were able to play musical instruments, he figured that they were orcs, one of the more intelligent monsters .

 He was in hurry, but he had to take a detour .

 He couldn’t use Flying Walking on a path he didn’t know . It took quite a while to reach a place he could see the field clearly .

 “What, on, Union!”  He gaped, looking down the field .

.

 Countless lump orcs were gathered in the field . Most of them had armor on with well polished weapons equipped, seemingly well trained . They were standing orderly in line like well disciplined knights .

 There was a huge rock in front of the tens of thousands of lump orcs . On top of the rock there were specially dressed lump orcs doing something, and by their costumes it looked like they were tribal chiefs and priests of some sort .

 “Huh? Are those…… . ”

 It looked as if the rainbows were surrounding the rock, and on one side there were humans bound by ropes . There were more than fifty people, and they were all NPC knights, not users .

 ‘Why are they here?’ Haroon thought .

 The lump orcs’ band started playing instruments in front of the rock . At the same time, the orcs shouted out loud .

 “Ch-chaeeeek!”

 The shouting of thousands of orcs spread out, echoing around the cliff and valleys . Haroon got gooseb.u.mps and his hairs stood on end . Fear crawled down his spine .

 But that was only the beginning .

 As the orc priest with colorful leather clothes gave a signal, the lump orc warriors dragged the human knights to the round stone plate that looked like an altar . The stone plate had a large hole in the middle, which seemed rather exotic .

 “Chual! Chual! Chual!”

 The lump orcs started chanting dramatically to the beat, it was an enthusiastic reaction from them .

 “What!”

 The orc that was standing by the plate grabbed a knight and put them on it, then severed the knights head with a giant axe in a single strike . The knight head rolling off the plate had an incredulous look on his face as if he hadn’t realized what had just happened .

 “Chuenurada . Chwek’gwe . Chukrakwe!”

 As the priest chanted some words in a strange-melody, the cloud of blood pumping out of the knights neck, began getting  sucked into the hole in the altar . It happened in a very short amount of time, and every drop of liquid in the body of the knight that was almost naked was sucked into the hole,losing its shape the body shrunk down to look like a dried mummy,

 “AAAAGH!”

 The knights who saw the first victim panicked and tried to escape the ropes, but they were too tight . One after another, they became sacrifices and had all their liquids sucked into the hole .

 When the last knight was being sacrificed, the orc crowd was fanatical . There were orcs shouting, crying, dancing and attacking each others . They were in a state of disorder .

 “Cherak!”  The lump orc who severed the knights’ heads shouted .

 That shout that could have made the mountains scream

mountains scream woke up the orcs from their fanatic state . Considering its three lumps, it was the tribal chief . Unexpectedly it shoved its fingernails into its own chest . Blood pumped out like a fountain in an instant, but the orc seemed to not feel any pain .

 “Chual! Chual! Chual!”

 As the orcs broke into chants, the tribe chief took out its own heart . It walked up the altar as if it was bewitched by something .

 “Chuecherada . Chwekcuaee . Chukrakwe . Chual!”

 With the spell of the priest, the tribe chief dropped its heart into the small hole .

 Light faded away from his eyesight and everything went dark . When his vision returned to normal, he finally saw that the sphere of light was gone before he knew it .

 The field was in complete silence when the priest stopped reciting . Every orc was looking at the sphere of light .

 It moved side to side as if it was looking for something, then it suddenly and rapidly moved toward the direction Haroon was at, leaving a trail in the sky . The orcs chased its trajectory with their eyes .

 ‘Wait, what? It’s coming at me!’

 Startled, Haroon tried to jump and hide under the shadow of the rock he was peeking from . But the sphere of light was faster than he thought . It sucked him in before he could jump off . Then it wrapped around his body, shining brightly .

 He wanted to scream, but he couldn’t move his body at all, as his body was stuck inside the sphere . It was hot but refreshing .

 Haroon was blinded by a flash of light . When his vision returned to normal, he finally saw that the sphere of light was gone before he knew it .

 “Where did it go?”

 He checked his body several times without finding any changes to his armors and body . The sphere of light was long gone . After checking his body several more times just to see nothing changed, he climbed up the boulder to peek at what was going on .

 “Wh-what the…… . . ?”

 The scene that came into his eyes was a ma.s.sive number of lump orcs running toward the mountain he was on, as if they found him . The front of the mob was the orcs that had three lumps on their heads . What was even more shocking was that the orc priests were levitating as they came toward him .

 Without thinking, he ran for his life, instinctively using Flying Walking . The lump orcs climbed up the mountain as best they could, but they couldn’t surpa.s.s Haroon’s speed .

 He ran for two hours . He wentHe went over two high mountains and valleys, even swum across a thin river . He was twice as fast as usual, but Haroon hadn’t realized he’d run that far . At first he was overwhelmed by the thought that the orcs were chasing him, but before he knew it he’d begun to enjoy the sensation of the wind wrapping around his body

 He stopped in front of a canyon .

 “Oh, G.o.d . ”

 Haroon knit his brows . There were countless human corpses in the narrow, high canyon . It was hard to find a corpse with limbs on, and there was armors and weapons scattered all over the place .

 They were from different factions but strategically united under the attack of beasts and monsters, and finally the lump orcs . He could see a few lump orc corpses among the corpses . The knights that had been sacrificed must have been caught here, though Haroon had no idea what that sacrifices were for .

 He looked back once instinctively, and took out his Katrat Knife and cut out the lumps from the corpses . It was not a hard task to cut out the lump from dead bodies .

 “Welp! I gotta take these too . ”

 Haroon started taking useful weapons and items from the dead knights .

 He got some potions and a magic pocket full of money from the body that seemed like the leader of the knights, and three enchanted magic bags with blood stains on them .

 ‘Something must have happened to me . ’

 He realized he wasn’t fearful nor shocked by the scene of dead bodies just lying around missing limbs or with their innards out . He felt they were pitiful and was disgusted by them .

 ‘Is it because they aren’t real humans like me? Or is it because I’m playing a game?’

 There were more items than he could take, but feeling disgusted by himself, he couldn’t reach out his hands .

 Haroon prayed for the souls of knights and lump orcs who left precious things for him, and summoned Lifey to bury them all .

 As soon as Lifey had done his job, he heard a horn .

 ‘s.h.i.t! Are they already here?’

 He noticed the lump orcs running at him . At this rate he could get caught if he didn’t run non-stop to the Seine River . He could be surrounded if there were any lump orcs ambusing on the way .

 ‘I have to use it!’

 Haroon took out the teleportation scroll and ripped it . He disappeared into thin air with a flash of light .

 A moment later, the lump orcs arrived at the entrance of the Canyon . They kneeled toward the point where Haroon disappeared, and deperately cried .

Translated by Channy
Edited by Kmatt