The crowd dispersed in preparation for the fight immediately as the siren blared constantly.
"The boss is on vacation, so it's on us, lads," Luis said, his tone shifting to a commanding one. "Assemble in five minutes."
The group cursed and grunted, but they had no other choice but to comply.
"The same goes for you two, new guy," Luis told him as he brought out a longread to communicate with another infantry.
"I'm mostly prepared," Warden insisted. He brought out [The Divider] from his subspace and draped it on his waist. "Now completely."
With his legendary light armour and cloak, Warden was in his A-game.
Luis shot him a gaze, but as the call connected, he didn't bother with him. He moved on, communicating to know more about the attacks.
The infantry took exactly five minutes to prepare. They were still in their mismatched outfits, along with the armour and jerkin they draped on. However, they were much better formed, assembled like soldiers ready to be deployed.
A shout from Luis — who was probably the officer in charge in the absence of the boss — reminded Warden that he had to join them in the march.
"We're fighting orcs and trolls today," Luis informed as the infantry of five dozen convicted marched on, even though they let out a growl hearing about trolls and orcs. Their body language told them that the fight wouldn't be easy.
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As they marched on, Luis explained what he had received through the longread. The closest mining zone, Audime Valley, was attacked by a horde of orcs and trolls. A few groups of infantries were already present there to smooth the process of transferring the ores.
They attacked the orcs from behind, taking advantage of the chaos. They put down a few opponents quickly, but within a couple of minutes, they understood it wasn't going to be any easier. The number of orcs present was similar to the number of soldiers, perhaps fewer, with the addition of the 16th infantry.
However, your average orc was far better than your average soldier, making it very difficult for humans to make any progress without suffering terrible losses.
Their numbers were already dwindling. Warden felt sick finding over a couple of dozen corpses of soldiers lying in the wake of the battle. He forced more energy into his blade and met the attack of a furious orc.
"Come on, you limp-dick humans," the orc roared, gutting his battle axe into a soldier nearby as Warden leapt at him. "I'll cut your heads and hang your limp—"
Warden's blade cut through the orc's battle axe and ploughed into his chest. The orc wasn't even sure the blade had struck him until he saw the head of his axe falling.
"—dick! AHHHHH! Human, you!"
Warden didn't even bother to listen to the orc and severed his head with another swing of his blade.
"Nice going, newbie," the spearman said as he fought with another orc. He was holding himself well against the jagged orc, which was double in muscle mass. "But don't break the formation."
Warden narrowed his eyes at the others in his group. None of them were as good as the spearman. Two barely holding on, one already on the back foot, for the guy who lost all his faith even before the fight began tumbled into the ground, blood dripping from the helmet he wore. An orc stood tall in front of him, prepared to strike his war hammer into the poor guy's face...
Warden intervened. He struck from behind, cutting off one of the limbs that held the war hammer. Before the orc could spin, he pierced [The Divider] into his head.
"I'm alive!" the poor guy screamed. "Oh, by the gods, I'm alive."
Warden leapt to his next opponent.