Volume 3 - CH 6

I would hold back a group of orc that included a rank 5 by myself for a month.

Anyone would surely consider me crazy or suicidal if they only heard that sentence. I thought that it would cause some argument in a good or bad sense when I announced that, but perhaps I had threatened everyone too much with my pressure, because everyone there consented instead.

The number of enemies based on the previously obtained information was more than fifty normal orcs who were equivalent to rank 3 each, four orc soldiers who were equivalent to rank 4 each, and then an orc general who was a rank 5. Militias with no combat skill wouldn’t even serve as meat shield if they fought such group head on. Even soldiers with proper training would need ten times the orc’s number in order to match them.

Thinking properly, anyone should think that a hundred or more adventurers and soldiers would be needed just to hold back such group of orc.

……That was based on “proper” thinking.

Perhaps I would be able to find the house where Gil and Shuri were living in if I searched for it but, I had no intention of looking after someone I didn’t know. If Gil and Shuri’s little brother and stepmother planned to run away then I’d at least buy them time to do that. But, it would be their own choice whether to run or stay here.

I had heard about the general location of the orc group from the guild’s receptionist lady, but the soldier who first talked to me told me about the location in more detail. I then headed toward the orc’s base right at that same day without staying for the night.

I was told that it was two days distance from here with the average adventurer’s speed, so I should be able to shorten it to around half a day if it was me.

The location had a village until around ten years ago, so there should be a road for carriage to there, but now that road had been reduced into animal trail now after ten years had passed.

I tried examining the ground when the road turned into grassy place midway. I found large footprints that had passed through there recently, so it seemed that I wasn’t heading to a wrong way.

After that I found several more spots that had similar footprints. From there I guessed that the orcs weren’t moving independently but in group of around three.

Orc’s intelligence was something like above goblin but below human, however higher rank monster had the tendency of getting smarter, so I could catch some glimpses even just from the footprints and trails I found that the orcs were under a leadership.

I wouldn’t say that I couldn’t defeat a group of orc that consisted of at least three orcs, but the opponents were still rank 3 monsters despite everything. It was possible that they would call for help if I failed to defeat all of them.

Monster’s strength wasn’t in their flexibility and adaptability from having multiple skills like human, but their brute force from their single skill and high status. An orc’s combat strength was only around half of mine despite also being a rank 3, but I would be in disadvantage if I faced more than one of them due to their high stamina point. I wouldn’t be able to whittle down their stamina completely in a protracted battle.

Besides even if I defeated some orcs, the other orcs could discover their corpses and learned that they were under attack. In that case they might attack the town as revenge.

The omnivorous orcs were staling the corps remaining in the farms outside the town, so they weren’t troubled for food until now, but just like human, surely they would get greedy after their basic need was fulfilled and they would want meat next.

Orc was omnivorous. And they liked meat more than vegetable. I guessed they were also hunting around the abandoned village, but if they ran out of game there, the orcs would definitely attack the small town for “meat”.

「……But」

I mustn’t misunderstand here. I wasn’t a hero or a saint.

What I had to do wasn’t “exterminating” the orcs. I mustn’t forget that in the end my objective was only to “buy time” until the town’s residences escaped. To do that, what I needed to do wasn’t hunting the orcs who were procuring food and driving them into a corner, but maintaining the current situation.

A self-deprecating smile formed on my lips as I was considering such strategy.

「……The’s no such thing as “proper” strategy at this point of time though.」

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I advanced through the forest while keeping myself hidden. Half a day passed before I encountered orcs walking inside the forest. As I thought they seemed to be moving in a team of three. It was very troublesome but they weren’t beyond my means to defeat.

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▼Orc（Ordinary Type）　Race：Beast Demihuman・Rank３

【Magic Power：72／80】【Stamina：３９２／４２０】

【Overall Combat Strength：２７９（With Body Strenghtening：３２０）】

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It seemed they were equipped with rusty spear or crude stone axe, but I should be warier toward their stamina parameter. It was possible that I wouldn’t be able to finish them off even with surprise attack when their stamina was that high.

They weren’t carrying any prey with them so these orcs were most likely patrols against external enemy that dared entered their territory. In that case I would only put the orcs in high alert pointlessly if this team didn’t go back. Even if I wanted to target them I could only wait until they were very far away from their settlement.

After that I encountered another orcs several times. I hid inside a bush to wait them to pass me or crawl on the ground to slip from their side. Then I finally arrived at the abandoned village where the orc group was living.

It looked like that village originally had logs driven into the ground to act as wall that surrounded it, but some spots had become very damaged or rotten now. The orcs only piled some rocks half-heartedly at those spots to block the hole.

I returned into the forest temporarily, then slathered my mantel with the soil and mud of the area to cover up my figure and scent. I also slathered mood on my face and hair.

From here, I couldn’t be discovered by them even once.

They mustn’t detect me even once until I had finished all my “preparations”.

I had a meal that only consisted of a bit of dried meat and nutrition pills that were made with alchemy. I hid myself by clinging on a tall tree trunk until it became dark at night.

When I saw that the surrounding had become dark enough, I placed rabbit leather on the bottom of my boots. It was a countermeasure to erase my footstep’s sound. I blended the magic particles inside my body with the surrounding using Magic Power Control that had become level 4. Using Stealth that had also became level 4 thanks to Magic Power Control, I became a “shadow” inside the darkness and started moving.

I didn’t touch the orcs. I didn’t put my hand on them even when there was a chance.

According to that woman’s “knowledge”, one should approach from downwind when moving stealthily. But that method was only half correct in this world.

If it was me who erased my “human” scent with sorcery Clean and blended to the surrounding using mud scent, rather than purposefully going against the wind direction and creating an unnatural flow of air, I should instead match my moving speed with the slow night breeze. With that my existence could completely melted into the darkness.

*Hyun…….*

I wrapped my pendulum around the wall’s rotten log and infiltrated into the abandoned village soundlessly.

Calculating based on the village’s size and the number of still remaining houses, this village’s population should be around 500 people. The farms that should have been outside the village had been swallowed by the forest, but there were also some places inside the abandoned village that seemed to be a farm with wild grasses covering them. Surrounded by those unattended farms were forty houses at the center, and another thirty houses spread out at the east, west, south. The orcs were using those half rotten houses as they pleased.

First I investigated the accurate number and positions of the orcs. I checked how many orcs there were in each section. And then I would search the locations of the orc general and orc soldiers. I wouldn’t be able to make detailed plan without first knowing that.

I investigated those until morning. The result was that at the west there were around 15 orcs and one orc soldier. At the east there were only several orcs who doubled as sentinels. At the south there were less than twenty orcs and one orc soldier.

At the center there were around fifteen orcs and two orc soldiers. I assumed that the general was also somewhere at the center. I only assumed that because I judged that it would be dangerous to approach that place that was emitting a strong presence.

I didn’t grasp the accurate number but just a rough count because there were several orcs that were patrolling at night. I couldn’t get the accurate count, but even so my count shouldn’t be that much different from the number of fifty orcs that was the result of the investigation of the adventurer that the baron hired.

I returned to the forest before dawn came and put some distance away from the abandoned village before I started picking some will grasses.

I picked herbs that could be used as medicine and poisonous herbs. Some of the plants that grew in this area could be turned into poison when combined with the ingredients that I had at hand. Plants that could be eaten raw would become my food.

Insects or frogs would be more poisonous when making poison using ingredients from this kind of forest, but it would be pointless if I couldn’t secure the necessary amount, so I limited the ingredients to only plants from the start.

I also found a rare mushroom that could be used for either poison or medicine, so I gathered as much vines as I could and hung the mushroom on a tall tree to dry it.

I wasn’t doing just that for the whole day. I also had to observe the orcs’ activity and the movement range of the orcs that weren’t outside for procuring food.

Letting my guard down would lead to exposing that town to danger seeing that I didn’t know when the orcs would change their action and invaded that town. I felt uneasy with my stamina if this turned into a long haul but, I would manage somehow if I could take multiple naps for that totaled to three hours of sleep per day, with each nap lasting for five minutes at maximum.

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After I continued living like that for one week, I became able to predict the broad action pattern of the orcs.

There were around ten orcs that would go gathering crops from around the town once every three days. I thought they were the orcs that attacked the town at the beginning but, from the two times I witnessed their departure, they were accompanied by an orc soldier once.

And every day when morning came, there would around ten orcs that went hunting for animal at the same time, but all of them were small and young orcs with lower combat strength.

As for me, although I was managing my physical condition using pills, I could only manage my perfect state of health for around one week that way. So I took time to consume the dried meats in my possession and the fruits I gathered inside the forest far from the abandoned village. I unexpectedly managed to find a lot of wild beans and yams, but as expected eating them raw wasn’t delicious at all.

I had collected all the required information in this one week, so I would begin taking action soon.

The first step of my strategy was 『hunting animal』, but it wasn’t for me to eat.

I understood from my observation that the hunting of the orcs wasn’t going well. They were a race with big body and unsuited for stealth, so even with ten orcs going hunting, there were some days when they couldn’t even catch a single prey. In such day they would grab whole branches of berry in the forest to bring home.

It was obvious but, the high rank orcs preferred meat rather than beans or vegetables, that was why the orcs were going hunting every day. And so in order to delay the orcs from attacking the town in search of meat, I hunted for rabbits and deers and placed them around the abandoned village.

Human wouldn’t lay their hand on some random animal corpse unless it was an emergency. They would be suspicious if they found something like that, but the orcs might be misunderstanding the corpses as something that their comrades hunted. The orcs would rejoice when they found the fresh animal corpse and brought them home in high spirits.

At the same time I was also starting to prepare the ingredients to create a poison that was suitable for the situation.

It was very difficult to create poisons for fifty targets inside a forest where I had no alchemical tool, so I was doing it slowly for now.

I dried the poisonous grasses and mushrooms, created a bowl and a pestle using Hard to process them, then used the medicine and ingredients on hand to create “poison”.

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It was the second week now but, the orcs still hadn’t made any movement. Perhaps it was because I was continuously providing them meat. All my preparations until now would be wasted if they took action now, so I moved to the second step of my strategy.

What was important for that strategy was the fact that despite being monsters that attacked humans, the orcs were still “living things” that ate food and drank water.

The well in the abandoned village had been buried by the accumulation of dry leaves that rotted into soil for these ten years, but there was just one reservoir inside the village where water welled up. Even so the water there was dirty and muddy, but monsters like orc could drink it with no problem.

I split the finished poison into unglazed jars in small portion to preserve them. I infiltrated into the abandoned village when night came and mixed the poison into that reservoir bit by bit.

I mixed the poison bit by bit, to familiarize the orc with the medicinal “taste”.

Half-assed poison wouldn’t work well against orc that could consume even muddy water or rotten meat. It also wasn’t just a matter of taste, the orcs would be on their guard if I suddenly mix a lot of poison and their physical condition worsened. They would stop consuming the poison like that, so I only increased the amount of the poison bit by bit to a degree that the effect was faint.

That wasn’t the only thing I did. I also sneaked into the houses where the orcs were sleeping and mixed poison into their scattered foods. Of course I was also gradually mixing poison into the animal corpses I provided them.

Other than that, I also had a bit of acid. I slathered it on the joining points of the weapons that the orcs carelessly placed outside the houses in order to weaken their weapons’ durability.

Patiently and thoroughly……the 『malice』 that was 『me』 was permeating into the orcs.

I didn’t do anything foolish like getting impatient and lying my hand on them.

I wasn’t someone powerful like Feld or Grave. I didn’t overestimate myself so much that I thought I would be able to continue defeating them bit by bit in group of two or three until they all died by my hands.

My failure would directly lead to the death of many people. If I carelessly took action and the orcs’ action surpassed my expectation for even just a little, that would become the place where I died.

Failure couldn’t be permitted. I couldn’t give even the slightest chance for the orcs to counterattack.

That was why facing this large army of the orcs that was like a giant rock, I didn’t use a great sword to split it open or breaking it from the sides using hammer, instead I whittled a hole into it using a needle to pour in “malicepoison”.

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But, even that would reach the limit soon…….

The poison that I used wasn’t anything significant. In the first place it was just 『medicine』 that couldn’t even be called poison. What I used was just common “medicines” like laxative or medicine to treat nasal inflammation.

There was no need for me to explain what laxative was. It was originally something that was used to eject poisonous substance from inside the body, but it would cause dehydration when it got used for long period and lowered the stamina.

And then the nasal inflammation medicine had the effect of reducing snot when someone caught fever. However, it would make the throat became abnormally dry as the side effect. And then it would make the orcs drank the water more and more, bringing in more of my malice to gnaw inside the orcs…….

After three weeks passed, almost all of the orcs were starting to get dehydration symptom.

It was then the orcs finally started to consider that something was causing this. It seemed that they thought the cause came from eating the dropped meats.

They were half correct because I had also mixed the poison into the meats. There the orcs that were in charge of hunting and made to rest because of the dehydration symptom and the orcs that were in charge of stealing crops from the town were sent outside the abandoned village in order to look for foods other than meat.

But they soon ran out of food with just that. The higher rank orcs that preferred meat should choose to attack the town after this.

There was one more week until the evacuation of the residents who could run away was finished……I sensed that my effort to buy time in this way would reach its limit soon, so I started with the last step of the strategy, which was me directly stopping them.

Three orcs were walking inside the forest. They were carrying furs that they used as bag instead of large weapon, so they were most likely planning to gather fruits and wild plants that seemed edible instead of hunting.

But, their condition was different from three weeks ago. They seemed lifeless and it looked like just walking through the undulating ground of the forest was a difficult task for them.

……I would manage somehow if it was like this.

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▼Orc（Ordinary Type）　Race：Beast Demihuman・Rank３

【Magic Power：54／82】【Stamina：117／39０】

【Overall Combat Strength：154/283】▽45％DOWN

【Status：Weakened】

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*Tan* I kicked on the branch and leaped down from the tree where I was looking down on the orcs. I readied Galbas’s black dagger and put my whole body’s weight to the stabbing the blade into the skull of the orc whose combat strength had been halved.

*Gatsun-!*

『BUMOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!!』

Even then it didn’t die instantly and let out a death throe. The other two reacted and yelled in warning. But, their voices wouldn’t reach the other orcs from this location.

The remaining orcs yelled while attacking me simultaneously with their rusty axe and hatchet.

*Hyun-!*

『Buoo!?』

The blade of the pendulum that I made to circle around grazed an orc’s eye. I kicked up the rotten leaves under my foot to the face of the other one, blocking its sight. I readied the black dagger and a thin knife with both hands and stabbed them together toward their brains from below their jaws.

『Buboo……』

It was a bit hard but, even I could stab through the relaxed muscle of orc. When I pulled out the blades that pierced the orcs from below their jaws, *blob* blood spilled out as though they were coughing it out and the two collapsed at the same time.

「……I don’t hold any grudge against any of you.」

You all had simply, become “our” enemies.