Legend

As the moonlight shone on the burning village, Rei and Set looked at the ground from the sky.

As the battle in the east continued as planned, as expected, the number of Orcs was reduced. And as several parties attacked the Orcs, fighting Axe of the Thunder G.o.d, from behind, the Orcs were caught in a pincer attack between Axe of the Thunder G.o.d and the other parties.

「It seems the pincer attack from several parties is same strength as Axe of the Thunder G.o.d. They certainly can be called an A rank party.」
「Guru~」

Several hours had pa.s.sed since the night attack began, but sounds of battle could still be heard from the east, held by Axe of the Thunder G.o.d.

As expected Min’s magic power had started to deplete and the intervals between magic casts grown longer. Still, ice arrows and fireb.a.l.l.s kept falling without a break, magic such as Lightning Rain and Gusty Wind could also be seen cast.

「Though the number of Orcs has been significantly reduced, why hasn’t the leader of the Orcs come out?」

Rei and Set alone had taken out 10 Orcs. Though he didn’t know how many the other parties had defeated, there was no doubt that it was a considerable number. Of course, Axe of the Thunder G.o.d, who had been fighting continuously since the start of the night attack, had the most kills out of the subjugation force, especially Elk.

In fact, judging roughly from the sky, the number of Orcs gathered at the east of the village was already less than 50. No matter how you looked at it, it was abnormal that the leader of the Orcs still hadn’t come out.

Feeling some doubt at that question and searching the ground while flying over the village on Set, his eyes caught a group moving west under the cover of darkness instead of the east.

If it were a normal human, it would have been impossible to see things moving under the cover of darkness. On the other hand, it might have been a different story if it were a race with good night vision.

Though the night’s darkness had weakened due to the flames burning the village and the moonlight, if you chose certain places, it was still possible to hide while moving. However, the reason the group caught his eyes was because as the subjugation force invaded from every direction, they were leaving the village. Several visible figures of adventurers that were part of the Orc subjugation force could also be seen nearby.

Basically, all the parties distributed to the eight locations had started their invasion almost at the same time as Axe of the Thunder G.o.d. In that situation, from what Rei saw from the sky, the group moving to the west was extremely unnatural.

As the Orcs were continuously reduced by the subjugation force, a group was hiding under the darkness and moving opposite to the east, where the fiercest battle was happening. The group in the west was taking a different action. The moment the thoughts gathered in Rei’s head, he directed a sharp gaze to the ground while smiling ferociously.

「Indeed, this Orc village is already useless. The number of Orcs is also dropping at an increasing rate, the village will burn itself out before long. However, I can’t accept Orcs running away for even a moment. Set!」
「Gururu~!」

To Rei’s voice, Set dived sharply to the ground while raising a brave cry. But rather than the Orc group that was running away from the Orc village……he aimed in front of the western adventurer group.

With the heat from the burning village, the gust from Set as he landed on the ground could be described as a true tropical night wind.

「Uwaa~!」

Naturally, the adventurers who saw Set suddenly appear in front of them scattered and readied their weapons while raising voices of surprise……however, they put down their weapons after seeing that they was familiar faces from the subjugation force, the G rank adventurer Rei and the Griffon, Set.

「Hey, don’t surprise us like that.」

The voice that came over was from a female warrior in her mid twenties……no, it was a female fencer. Holding a sword that shone sharply in her hand, she wore leather armour that didn’t inhibit her movement. Next to her, was a man aged in his mid forties holding a cane and wearing a robe. At the back, a young girl in her teens lowered her bow while giving a sigh of relief, it was a girl with short hair who looked to be a little older than Rei. She was also wearing leather armour that didn’t inhibit movement.

With the female fencer as the leader and the middle aged mage, who were both rank C, and the girl holding the bow, who was rank D, they made up the party Scorching Wind.

「Ah, are you doing well Set-chan?」

The female fencer Milein stroked Set’s head. The male mage, Sulunin, spat out a sigh while seeing that and called out to Rei.

「So, why are you here?　If I’m not wrong, your job is a mobile attack unit. As you can see, we’re on our way moving to the center of the village now, there’s no battle here.」
「Well, there were a few fights before you came.」

To Sulunin’s words, the archer Excel cut in, poking fun.

Rei saw the three people and got off Set before looking around.

「That’s a relief……though it’s a funny story, there is a group of Orcs coming just ahead.」
「Impossible. Surely all the Orcs have gathered in the east. There’s no way they would come here.」

Milein spoke while stroking Set’s back.

Though Set would usually give a joyful cry in these circ.u.mstances, as expected, Set only stared into the darkness as the enemy was nearby.

「I know right. In fact, when looking from above, most of the Orcs are fight with Axe of the Thunder G.o.d in the east, all the other parties have attacked from behind as part of the strategy.」
「Then, why are there Orcs here?」
「You don’t know? The Orcs are doing their best to deal with the night attack and the pincer attack between Axe of the Thunder G.o.d and the other parties. Incidentally, Set and I have also killed several high ranking species. In other words……」

He stopped his words there. However, Sulunin understood what Rei wanted to say and immediately looked at Set with with a serious gaze.

「The individual leading the Orcs realised that there’s no chance of winning and is running away?」
「Eh!?　You’re talking about the Orc leader, the boss, right?　Yet it’s escaping and abandoning it’s subordinates and companions?」

At the same time as Excel’s surprised voice echoed into the surroundings, Rei struck out sharply with the Death Scythe.

With a kin~ sound, an arrow was cut in two and fell to the ground.

「Tsu!?　Enemy attack!」

The moment they saw it, Milein gave a sharp shout and Sulunin and Excel immediately prepared for combat. Milein went forward as the vanguard with her sword. The archer and mage, Excel and Sulunin stood behind Milein. They smoothly fixed up their battle formation at once with Milein’s words, Rei was able to understand that this formation was the reason why Scorching Wind could win their fights.

While looking at them with admiration in their mind, Set and Rei prepared for battle as usual.

Rei readied the Death Scythe to slash or cast magic at any time. Set flew up to cover Rei from the sky.

「……They came.」

At almost the same time Rei and the others entered combat readiness, the Orcs showed up out of the darkness.

There were 5 ordinary Orcs, an Orc Archer with a bow and an Orc Mage with a cane. Slightly larger than the other Orcs was an Orc General wearing armour.

「Uwa~, not just normal Orcs but 3 high ranking species……we’re definitely saved because of Rei and Set’s reinforcements.」

Milein muttered as cold sweat covered her forehead. The reason was that she judged they wouldn’t have been able to defeat that group by themselves. However well the fight went, a couple of Scorching Wind’s members would have died. If it went badly, they would have been wiped out.

However, here was the figure of Set, an A rank monster, Griffon. In addition, although they hadn’t seen him fight, they knew that Rei had defeated the D rank party Claws of the Hawk by himself.

However, Rei kept looking further into the dark from where the 9 Orcs came from. When Milein followed Rei’s glance in doubt, one more shadow appeared from the darkness.

The figure was even larger than the Orc Generals, who were larger than other Orcs, exceeding 3m in size. In addition, it was wearing extravagant armour and held what seemed to be a magic great sword. And above all was it’s dignity, power and spirit. Such things were clearly different from the other Orcs.

Milein, who saw the figure of the Orc, half called out to Sulunin who was the brains of the party while almost being overwhelmed by the pressure.

「Sulunin, do you know what that Orc is?　It isn’t any type of Orc I know……anyhow, I have a bad feeling.」
「Impossible!?」

As Milein’s voice came out, Sulunin turned his gaze to the Orc and cried out involuntarily.

It was the first time Excel had seen Sulunin like this, he usually used polite words and was calm all the time. However, Milein, who had been in a party for a long time with Sulunin, had fortunately or unfortunately seen Sulunin like this several times before. For example, when they met the aquatic monster called Water Kelpie during a Goblin extermination. Or when they ran into a Aruraune Queen, which is a high ranking species, while doing a Treant extermination quest. In other words, whenever they ran into unplanned monsters or when the met with stronger monsters.

TLN: Okay some new monsters here that need a bit of explanation. The Water Kelpie is a Scottish shape s.h.i.+fting mythical creature. From google, a Aruraune is a monster from a game but is essentially a Mangadora, other wise known as a Mandrake.

「Sulunin, tell me. That Orc……what is it?」

Desperately calming the bad feeling spreading through her chest, Milein asked Sulunin about the Orc without removing her eyes from them.

Sulunin’s voice as he responded was somewhat hoa.r.s.e.

「The king of the Orcs, the one that rules the Orcs, in other words, an Orc King……it’s, a B rank monster.」
「Tsu!? ……I see. It’s natural for Sulunin to be like this.」

Milein took in a sharp breath at Sulunin’s description. A rank B monster, it’s difference with a rank C monster isn’t just 1 rank. Like there is a hard barrier between S rank and A rank, there is a similar barrier between B rank and C rank. As it soaked into her, she understood as she had gone past the barrier between D rank and E rank. There was a test to raise your rank, it wasn’t just for show.

「It’s troubling……we surely can’t expect Axe of the Thunder G.o.d, who are in the east, to come towards us in the west.」

In order to calm her restless mind, Milein deliberately spoke out in a carefree tone. Thanks to that, Excel, who had been trembling at the existence of a B rank monster, somewhat regained her composure.

Meanwhile, Rei set up the Death Scythe next to Milein and opened his mouth to speak.

「There’s no need to be frightened. After all, these guys are only failures of soldiers who decided they couldn’t beat the Orc subjugation force I mentioned earlier and are running away.」

The sneer he had left no doubt behind his words. Though they might not have understood his words, the Orcs got the meaning and looked towards Milein for a moment before getting excited.

「Hey, Rei!　Don’t provoke them so much. Do you think we can do this by ourselves!?　We can’t do anything now but buy time for reinforcements to come.」
「That’s right. It’s regrettable but we can’t beat the Orcs with our current combat strength……your Griffon, even if it’s a A rank monster, we’re still out numbered. Even if the Griffon can survive, it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t.」

Following Milein’s words, Sulunin also advised that they should devote themselves to buying time and avoid fighting.

However, Rei ascertained the enemy’s combat force while paying no attention to the words of the two.

(Orc King, I’ll a.s.sume I’ll do something about that, the problem is the high ranking species. Archer, Mage and General, one of each. ……It seems there’s no other way.)

Spitting out a sigh in his mind, he directed his gaze to Milein.

「Milein, there is 1 suggestion.」
「What?」
「To get out of this, Set and I will be using our hidden trump cards. However then, naturally, you guys will see our last resorts, please promise that you won’t reveal it to others.」
「……What if I say no?」
「In that case, Set and I will quickly leave this place. You can do something about the Orcs with just the 3 of you.」

Rei finished saying so quite bluntly.

Saying it with a natural expression was enough for Milein to understand that they would run without hesitation if she said no.

「Milein.」

Excel gave a small mutter. Even if you said that she had calmed down since seeing the Orc King, she still wasn’t able to completely remove the fear of the presence of the other party. One of the reasons why Excel could calm down was because there was a Griffon as an ally, an existence higher than the Orc King, who had an overwhelming presence as a friend. If Milein turned down Rei’s proposal, once Rei left with Set, it wouldn’t be possible for them to escape, she subconsciously called out to Milein.

Of course, Milein was the party leader and felt it immediately, spitting out a small sigh.

「I understand. We promise absolutely to not tell anyone about Rei and Set’s trump cards. Is that good enough?」
「Ah. Even if you say it here, it’s still only a verbal promise, isn’t it?　After the fight with the Orc King is finished, I would like to use Magic Oath. Is that okay?」
「Magic Oath?」

As Milein was unfamiliar with magic, she looked to Sulunin. Because Sulunin didn’t know this magic, he only shook his head silently.

「What will you do?」

Rei prompted for a reply. Though Milein was somewhat uneasy about the unfamiliar magic, she had already made up her mind. After all, the only choices available here were to receive Rei’s Magic Oath and survive or refuse and fight the group of Orcs including the Orc King by themselves. And if they chose the latter, at best they could die in battle, at worst……no, no mistake, she and Excel would end up as breeders for the Orcs for the rest of their lives. If so, it was better to survive even if they had to receive a strange magic.

「I understand. We will protect your secret and also accept the Magic Oath.」
「Good. Set, it’s okay now.」
「Guru~」

Set gave a small cry at Rei’s voice. The Orcs seemed to have been restrained by the A rank monster, Griffon, until Rei’s voice called out.

Even if the Orcs were in a situation where they couldn’t move, they instinctively felt that the Griffon in front of their eyes wasn’t a mediocre opponent.

Thus, the last battle of the village began with the Orcs, Rei, Set and Scorching Wind.