Published at 25th of March 2019 11:12 pm

Chapter 7: Day 61 to Day 70

Day 61

Since so many things happened today, it would be difficult to mention everything.

Thus I think I'll do my best to avoid the useless stuff, and write about it from start to finish.

First, the number of Hobgoblins increased by eight. Two of them became mages while one of them became a cleric.

The one who had become a cleric was already close friends with Gobuji-kun; he might have been drawn into becoming a cleric because of this. The number of clerics increased as expected, and I found myself grinning wickedly.

The next part concerned Gobumi-chan.

When Gobumi-chan woke up today, she had become an entirely different race called a [Dhampir - Variant ].

The change in her appearance cannot be compared to the time when she ranked up from Goblin to Hobgoblin.

Or perhaps I should say, it's unnecessary to compare them.

These were her features: her height is no less than 180 cm, a clearly charming body with a narrow waist accentuated by her breasts whose size would overflow in your hands, a moon-like beautiful face more fleeting than an Elf's, her glittering silver hair that flowed down to her waist, fine skin, and finally, red eyes with golden pupils.

Also it says that she acquired the ability [God of Ice's Divine Protection]; a wonderful ability that allows the user to generate and manipulate large amounts of ice with little risk towards the user. According to Gobujii, the blessing of a [God] is above that of a [Demi God], even when compared to the rare blessing that Gobukichi-kun possesses.

Moreover, it's hard to imagine from looking at her delicate appearance that her strength and agility was remarkably different from before. I dare say that she would be evenly matched with Gobukichi-kun whose base stats were higher than me.

Even with the [Blessing of God] in the daytime the undead body of a Vampire would carry a weakness to the sun. But because she is a [Dhampir-Subspecies], this weakness is not an issue.

As always, she was able to go out without any limitations even in the day time.

In other words, to get to the point, Gobumi-chan has become immensely beautiful.

If you understood that much, then, there won't be a problem.

But her appearance bothered me… I felt like I have seen that face somewhere before… like the adult face of a certain childhood friend.

I'll keep this story for the time being as it does not concern today. Let us focus more on the changes.

These changes are really hard for me to grasp in just one day.

Now, about Gobue-chan…

What Gobue-chan had turned into was a species of [Lord] called a [Half Earth-Lord]. Anyway, she was not *from a subspecies.

She was at least 240 centimeter tall, approaching my height with a stout and solid muscular physique. She also had two large horns that extend 20 centimeters out and curve back on her forehead while having short yellow hair and garnet-like eyes. Her skin appeared to be firm but also included all the softness that came from being a woman, and her breasts were comparable to the size of watermelons but had better shape to them. Lastly, a yellow looking stone, around five centimeter in diameter, embedded in her abdomen as well as under both her elbows. They appeared to be the same type of stone that Hobusei-san's [Lord] species had. Those stones, called "Ogre Orbs", were always imbued in a [Lord]'s body and contained the abilities and characteristics of their species

Abilities of her species included manipulation of the earth. One of those was particularly related to mining; the ability [Complete Geological Comprehension] was able to see the brittle points of the bedrock's areas. This aided the mining for more types of ore while, at the same time, strengthened her body.

As a trial, she attempted to dig through a wall with her bare hands acting similarly to a drill and the ground gave way. Barehanded, she dug more effectively than when she was equipped with a pickaxe as a hobgoblin.

There was no point in complaining about this; we could mine more ore and spirit stones faster than ever before.

Also, It seem that she can use lightning based magic, and it can occasionally be useful during mining to locate ores. She was able to obtain a variety of ores because of this.

What can I say, Gobue-chan has leveled her mining skill well. It is amazing to see the things that happen when you push forward with your all towards a passion.

In combat Gobue-chan is nothing to fool with either, she can easily break rocks with her bare hands. Imagine what would happen if a soft living thing was caught with one of those blows.

A body is frailer than bedrock, it would become like meat paste.

She sure is scary.

Now, moving on to Hobusato-san.

Because Hobusato-san has always been good with using the sword, she became a [Lord], specifically Hobusato-san turned into a [Half Bloody Lord]. Like Gobue-chan she is normal and not a subspecies.

[T/N: the half of 'half bloody lord' means she's a 'half'-'bloody lord', e.g. 'half'-'lord']

She is two meters tall, with clearly defined muscles; she has modest breasts, and in the center of her forehead a 15 centimeter ruby extended. She has carnelian coloured pupils, slightly red skin, and long red hair the color of blood, that was bound by string into a ponytail. A unique characteristic of hers was that she also had two bright red Ogre orbs about five centimeters in diameter embedded into her hands.

[T/N: a carnelian is a brownish red gemstone]

Although it was not likely that she would gain the ability to use magic, her physical capabilities had grown, compared with before her combat strength grew in leaps and bounds. It seems that the [Bloody Lord] species will excel in close quarters combat.

As it is with a race that includes the "Blood Sword" and blood in their name, they have the ability to manipulate the blood of themselves and others, although there are conditions to do so.

Even if she cannot use magic, these abilities made her strong. If we are talking about only direct combat ability she would probably be fourth or third place after me and Gobukichi-kun, and she will certainly be in the top five.

Although it seems that she falls behind Gobukichi-kun and Gobumi-chan in terms of physical power, in close quarters combat I expect that [Predict], [Precognition], and [Intuition] evens out the match.

At any rate, mysteriously everyone developed a black tattoo similar to mine like Hobusei-san, but differed slightly in the design and placement.

Hobusato-san had one on the back, Gobue-chan on the arm, and Gobumi-chan on the leg. The other Hobgoblins had them on the leg, arm or neck.

I am not worried about them, because I feel that a power boils up from these.

I expect that I will gain an understanding of these in the future.

As a celebration for Ranking up I passed out two magic items to each Hobgoblin.

Out of the magic items that had not been used yet, Gobumi-chan received a blue and white dress made with dark magic, and bound together with steel like thread, she also got glasses related to her new ability that is a trait of her race, the [Eyes of Bewitchment]. These glasses work to seal the effects of her eyes' ability, it is best not to look into her eyes for too long. As a present she got an enchanted claymore called the [Drop of Moonlight], the sword looks like a piece of artwork made with ice crystals.

Gobue-chan got two new weapons, the [Earth Goddess War Pick] and an enormous [Earth Goddess Shovel] as a set that have the capability to accommodate her new, larger, size. Also, because of the change in her size due to changing species, she was given a new set of clothes consisting of surplus magical items, and I also gave her a new towel to wipe away the sweat from her hard work made of my thread.

To Hobusato-san I gave a set of magic items consisting of full plate armor made with red iron, and a red cape which is a good match for physical and magical attacks.

On top of this I gave Hobusato-san an enchanted long sword [Blood Princess] that has the ability to suck blood, even though this hardly seems necessary with her abilities.

To the three people who became a race above and beyond that of a standard Hobgoblin, I supplied them with bracelets that have the storage ability, Gobukichi-kun and Hobusei-san already have these.

But, yeah.

Gobumi-chan has become like a noble's daughter, on her front side the zipper stops just short, liberating the rest of her top. Gobue-chan is dressed like a farm boss, she has the towel I made her wrapped around her body and tucked into her breasts, exposing the top of her chest and her navel. Hobusato-san has the composure of a knight with her whole body dyed in red.

Nevertheless.

Even though we had ranked up so much, we still call each other by our old names, like Goburou, Gobukichi-kun and such, and it was beginning to feel odd.

Well, we are not Goblins anymore.

I asked Gobujii, and it happened like this.

Goburou → Ogarou

Gobukichi-kun → Ogakichi-kun

Gobumi-chan → Dhammi-chan

Gobue-chan → Asue-chan

Hobusei-san → Supesei-san

Hobusato-san → Burasato-san

Gobuji-kun → Hobuji-kun

Gobufu-chan → Hobufu-chan

etc.

The individuals who had ranked up each received their new names.

Though I did not expect Gobujii to have good naming sense, this was terrible.

People just have to understand, since it is not like a person can decide his or her own name either, so I just let the matter go.

In addition, since this will likely be asked, I will go ahead and say it here.

If you take the average strength of the races and place them in order, it looks like this.

Dhampir ≥ Half Spell Lord = Half Earth Lord = Half Bloody Lord ≥ Ogre ≥ Elf > Kobold Foot Soldier > Kobold = Hobgoblin = Human > Goblin.

This is a list of only the races, it does not include skills and armaments.

Although an Ogre can beat a Half-Lord race in terms of physical strength, but since, unfortunately, their intelligence is usually lower, their tactics are simpler, and for this reason they are weaker.

There is not much of an opportunity for exceptional individuals.

Now, to go on about the Elves and Kobolds.

I decided to refrain from eating the kobolds since they decided to join us yesterday.

Well, even if I did decide to eat them now the flesh won't be able to strengthen any of my abilities, and it appears that having them around won't hurt, since their loyalty seems genuine. I am anxious to see what a Kobold will turn into after it ranks up. But, it is reasonable to assume that it could turn into a variety of things, and anyway having minions that can move freely as scouts in the future will be a great asset.

As for the war between the humans and the elves, I know that Father Elf-san will make a request of me again. But for now there is still time, and a messenger will be here soon without a doubt.

Then, if he does make a request, I am going to accept it.

A large-scale war will lead to me gaining new abilities, and it will be good for making myself stronger by itself, and I can also gain some knowledge about the military powers, tactics, and methods of battle in this world.

It will also serve to strengthen ties with Father Elf-san, and that Elven wine will become easier to get a hold of.

That sake is seriously delicious!

For that reason, having a large number of minions to be used for putting the humans in a trap, or constructing military camps, or launching surprise attacks would expand the range of strategies I can use if it comes to participating in the war.

That was the reason why I decided to not kill them but make them my followers, but of course, there's no way I'd trust them just like that. Even within the group there are only a few that I can totally trust, so there's no way I could have confidence in Kobolds who appeared out of nowhere.

So as insurance, I gave all the Kobolds new and improved cuffs that were enchanted with three abilities like the communication-device cuffs I distributed before, but further enhanced with a new ability [Enslave], and had them wear it.

With this, the immediate problem of wondering if the Kobolds who lost would defy me is solved. Even if they lost their loyalty, they could be used without any problems.

Then, the cuffs are also supplied to the elves, who were used for sex and breeding. However, these are superior objects, enhanced with [Conceal].

The purpose is to have them submit body and soul with [Enslave], while avoiding any unnecessary trouble with the other elves with [Conceal].

Somehow, it seems that the Elves had a culture or custom where cutting a hole in their ears for the attachment of ornaments is a serious taboo—By doing that, it seems their name will be struck from the clan forever, and they will be exiled as punishment; for that reason it seems that Elven slaves that circulate in the markets of this world had their characteristic long ears cut halfway—having these ear-integrated cuffs installed was mostly to try to deny them their last bit of resistance.

Other than that, it was fine to just install the cuffs, but in that case they could make up an excuse like "It was done against my will, I couldn't help it" to hide their real intentions, so I did this to strip off their remaining pride.

Well then.

As for the males, I put Ogakichi-kun, who consulted me beforehand about his relationship with Asue-chan, in charge of them, saying "Try doing it with them as practice before the real thing"—of course, I gave him detailed instructions to go easy on them so as to not break them—, and as a reward, left them to the goblins whose social standing were too low and had no chance. Despite being males, the Elves sure were pretty boys. They were satisfying enough. That goes without saying.

I have to ask myself, If the higher ranked Hobgoblins just take charge of the women for hours on end.

In the end I think it is better for them to live obediently.

Therefore, the elves who had all been imprisoned until now to prevent any chance of escape were taken out of the cave.

I then had allowed for them to participate in training with the Kobolds and the others. It could be said that to use an elite elf only for sex and breeding would be wasteful. It also seems that it is more difficult for Elves to get pregnant, so the numbers that will be bearing will strike a balance that is more ethically sound than what happened with the human women before.

Now that I no longer have fear of rebellion because of the cuffs, the sex and breeding program in the future will be more efficient. It might be good if the enemies that are captured are human.

The elves, being out of prison for the first time in ages, showed an expression of freedom in most cases. It seems that the change of scenery was a great success.

However it is time to train now, the point is to be able to organize into ranks quickly, and to be able to run for a long amount of time. It is the type of basic training that Gobukichi-kun and the others were made to do up until this point as well. Anyway this would be good for the Kobolds, but the elves being made of elite warriors could have skipped over the basic training, but since this was a new beginning they performed the foundation work too.

The ones who naturally knew how to do this had no problems, and the ones who had a thing or two to learn had some minor difficulties.

The training continued until they couldn't stand anymore.

After a break, there were apparently no Kobold out of them who could be chosen based on combat, strength, or character, therefore a Goblin supervisor was appointed to teach this new group the way to use logistics and how to be effective rear support in battle.

Those that remained now, were the Kobold children and the elves, they were given additional combat lessons through sparring sessions.

In sparring, the opponent was not Gobukichi-kun. The opponents were not Goblins or Hobgoblins, and they are not between the elves and the Kobolds either.

This training serves the purpose of also being an experiment.

The opponent for the Elves, Kobolds, and the others will be a skeleton produced by my [Lesser Summon Undead] skill.

As I can generate them almost indefinitely, there is no risk involved, and I even gain experience if they are defeated. I gain experience for the ability every time I use it, and among the bones that remain after defeat there are a variety of materials that can be used for blacksmithing or alchemy, so this process kills three birds with one stone.

The practice is held in a cave, it is a little gloomy in this large room, but it needs to be because the strength of an undead wanes in daylight.

The undead appear from the ground forming from a black shadow. Like some sort of hallucination the bleached bones of a skeleton rise up from it.

But this time something unexpected occurred.

Unlike the common (Skeleton) that was normally formed, a black skeleton had been created instead, it stood at a height of two meters, and was equipped with a jet black mantle and (Full Plate Armor) that covered its entire body in brutally sharp looking metal.

It was armed with a curved saber, and had a crimson (Kite Shield) for defense.

This was not the same white skeleton as before, but instead was a (Black Skeleton Knight). I could clearly see that this was a higher rank compared to the past skeletons.

It would be comparable or even superior to a Greater Skeleton. The skeleton system uses "Soul Equipment" to arm the body according to the ability of the individual. This means that weapons and armor are expressed by the level of either [Greater Equipment Materialization] or [Equipment Materialization].

These high quality weapons and armor cannot be wielded by another person after the skeleton is destroyed because the armaments disappear into a fog at the moment of defeat. Since the quality of the equipment has improved to the point where it envelops the entire skeleton, this skeleton without a doubt is the strongest I have seen up until this point.

I examined it quickly.

According to the examination the [Lesser Summon Undead] somehow created it, even though my abilities should be too low to do this. Normally the performance of an ability is generally strengthened when I eat, but this time it is different, and to me it reaffirms that it is best to practice with the abilities too.

These reasons are why this black skeleton is to be fittingly called the Black Skeleton Knight .

The Black Skeleton Knight faced off against Elves equipped with Mithril short swords and round shields, but the skeleton ended its fight the victor.

I could tell at once by making it fight, this skeleton has the skill of a true knight, complete with the robust defense of the kite shield, and the furious waves and slashes let out by its saber, I can only say that it has brilliant movements.

The Black Skeleton Knight was resistant to slashing abilities, and fatigue, because of this it is well suited for drawn out conflict.

Even against the elves there was no major difference in skill, but in the end it lost to a difference in physical strength.

Yeah, this guy isn't usable.

Simply put, experience gain was a big factor, also trying to manage a number of Black Skeleton Knights, I let them be defeated by going easy. The normal experience gain was steadily decreasing in value once these were defeated. I'm not sure of the reason, but It must be something that was done though.

Later in the evening, the experiment with [Lesser Summon Undead] continued.

【Perspective of a male elf: Day 061】

Including us elves, species besides humans can 【Rank Up】 once they reach level 100 by amassing a huge amount of experience points.

The amount of necessary experience and how easy it is to level up varies from species to species, but the one thing they have in common is that ones that actually can evolve are very rare. Most can’t evolve and just stay the same once they reach level 100.

For example, in the case of the weak goblins who have a relatively fast growth rate, even if there were 100 of them, only 2 or 3 would be able to evolve to hobgoblins. Four at the very most.

I didn’t know much about those ugly goblins until recently so I don’t really know any details, but from what I’ve heard, this was the extent of their potential.

Additionally, the more you evolved into species that were stronger than others, the rarer that you could actually fulfill the requirements for evolving. Because of the extremely harsh requirements, the ratio should be around only one in several thousands to tens of thousands that could evolve into Dragonewts, Ogres, and Demons.

Despite that, in this group that had captured and enslaved us, in this group lead by a black ogre whose existence was beyond common sense, a large amount of members had evolved over one night.

A 【Dhampir Variant】, whose beauty overshadowed even us elves with our beautiful women and men.

A 【Half Earthlord】 who was filled with the strength to give a hearty, warm embrace.

A 【Half Bloodlord】 who was hiding an insane complexion within.

And, along with that, a few hobgoblins.

This was something that normally couldn’t happen. It was destroying common sense. This shouldn’t be allowed to happen. If a species besides humans were evolving this easily, then merely with their level as a species, humans wouldn’t have been able to spread their land this far, and would’ve been chased to the edges of the continent - without a doubt.

Just from that, the me from the past would’ve been shocked. But now, I’m not so surprised.

This is because the common sense that I had developed by being brought up in the depths of the forest, surrounded by longevity, had already been pulverised.

Ever since I was brought here, I have felt a burning lust in my flesh, stronger than I had ever felt before.

Despite it being a great taboo for us to attach ornaments or to pierce our ears, we were driven, through various techniques, into a situation where our only option was to willfully ask for ear cuffs to be attached to our ears.

A training so harsh that it made the training we had until now seem like child's play was forced upon us, and we weren’t even allowed to pass out from vomiting out all our blood.

The great fatigue I felt and the shock of encountering the unknown brought a constant change that an elf calmly passing the time would never have felt.

Since my mind, needing to face this extraordinary situation, was about to break down, I cast away what I, until now, had considered ordinary - and somehow constructed a new mental structure. As a result, it should go without saying that it was now much harder to surprise me.

Now, for today’s training, I participated in a practical spar against the knight type black skeletons that the black ogre-- he changed his name from Gobu-Rou to Oga-Rou-- had spawned.

At first, despite the opponents being knights, which were stronger than normal skeletons, there was a part of me which looked down on them, since they were mere skeletons.

This was because I had confidence in my weapon and armor; a short sword made of mithril, which was effective against undead species like skeletons, and a light and sturdy roundshield. I was also confident about the ability that I had fostered through training until now.

I thought that if even one of my attacks hit, the skeleton’s movements would be greatly worsened by the mithril’s effects, which would allow me to defeat it easily.

But the result - a tough fight. If you look at just the end of the battle, it was my defeat.

I was definitely not losing in ability. It’s just that I lost because of the black skeleton knight’s overwhelming stamina.

I was actually supposed to defeat it before it became a competition of stamina, but the black skeleton’s ability was higher than expected, so even if its attacks didn’t hit me, neither did my attacks land.

Once it ended I felt vexed, yet still, I somehow ended up feeling refreshed.

I was more refreshed than I had ever been before.

How do I put this, this kind of life might actually not be so bad. That is what I thought, somewhere in my heart.

Because of my ear cuffs, I could never again meet my family in my birthplace, and even if I met them, there would be no place for me back in the village. However, I did not feel despair. Rather, there were different emotions in my chest.

I had never held an interest towards the outside world, but maybe the feeling that I would like to see what is outside was also playing a role.

The only thing that I could say for certain was that this group was definitely strange.

While thinking about what would happen to us with a mental state filled with anxiety and anticipation, I will try living on.

Day 62

Using [Create Lesser Undead], I once again endeavoured to raise everyone's levels yesterday.

I could confirm that it's possible to alter the summoned monsters according to my will.

I could make different kinds of black skeletons; axemen, lancers, archers, and mages were all possible, and if I wanted to go easy on the opponent I could even make simple white skeletons.

It was even possible to summon moving, decomposing corpses called "zombies", frail clusters of souls called "ghosts" and other undead types.

I wanted to try eating the ghosts, but even I couldn't eat insubstantial creatures.

It appears that there are certain conditions that have to be met to eat a ghost in this world, so I swore in my heart that if I met someone who could do this that I'd eat his flesh.

Returning to the original topic, for the purpose of earning experience points, I created mainly zombies and the ordinary white skeletons; then I let them get defeated by the troops.

The Black Skeleton Knight is stronger than the others, and for this reason it was able to act as Gobokichi-kun's or Gobumi-chan's sparring partner, and was used as an instructor for the Kobolds and Elves respectively.

It was not able to talk beyond making rattling noises. It could communicate using rough gestures though.

Steadily strengthening this ability will make it terrifying.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that there were no problems with the undead.

Undead-type monsters have various restrictions like [Sunlight Vulnerability] and such.

Dhammi-chan is an undead, too, specifically a dhampir, but since she possesses a [God's Divine Protection] and is thus a subspecies, it isn't a problem for her, unlike for other undead.

Black skeleton class monsters could somehow last ten minutes, although they start emitting black smoke from all over their bodies, but their overall strength dropped so much that it couldn't even be compared to their usual power.

They got so weak that even the kobolds could defeat them so it should be easy to imagine.

That was what it was like for the Black Skeleton Knight Class of the Skeleton species, so weaker undead such as zombies or ghost and the like couldn't even last ten seconds before being purified.

Though the zombies were exorcised in the sunlight, their rotting bodies remain, and can be used to spread disease in enemy territory, or as material to fill up holes, or recycled as meat for Hobufu-chan who liked to eat them, but ghosts who leave nothing behind can't be used at all once the sun comes up.

Besides, it also hurts that they can be easily exorcised, specifically by using holy water or holy light.

Thinking about the forces that can fight during the day, the calculations went a little crazy.

Troubled over how we're supposed to overcome that, I stopped thinking about it for a moment. Today I was earnestly overseeing the training of the Elves and Kobolds.

The elves were originally hand picked elites, thus they could improve their skills simply by fighting Black Skeleton Knights and Black Skeleton Axemen one on one, so training them was easy.

For that reason, I concerned myself more with coaching the Kobolds .

The Kobolds, as a species, were about equivalent in power with Hobgoblins, perhaps higher, but anyway, here's our current composition:

Lord : 3 Females

Ogre: 2 Males

Dhampir: 1 Female

Hobgoblin: 6 Males, 4 Females

Hobgoblin Mage: 3 Males, 2 Females

Hobgoblin Cleric: 1 Male, 1 Female

Goblin: 14 Males, 16 Females

Elder Goblins: 4 Males, 4 Females

Elf: 10 Males, 7 Females

Human: 5 women.

Kobold Foot Soldier: 1 Male

Kobold: 18 Males, 10 Females, 4 children, and 3 elderly

119 total.

Including pets into this.

Three-Horned Horse: 5

Hind Bear: 3

Black Wolf Leader: 1

Black Wolf: 8

So, it is a large group of 136 in total.

Even with these large numbers, our residence was originally a huge mine, and in addition expansion work has been carried out so living space is no problem. However, with our current strength there's a large difference in our supplies of armament and food.

Weaklings and those with weak positions within the units are made to be gophers, they—The game that was hunted is primarily used as food. There are plenty of wild fruit and vegetables as well, since the sisters are in charge of the goblins making delicious cuisine, the nutrition balance is not bad — receive less food than others.

No, at the very least, they can eat.

But, all living things want to fill their stomach after strenuous exercise, those in low positions will only get to partially fill their stomach. It is simply hard.

The biggest problem is armaments.

In a world where the strong eat the weak, powerful weapons are important to increase the chances for survival.

You might be able to keep afloat by using fangs and teeth, yet, for the purposes of reach, the sharpness and durability - among other factors - of weapons used by humanoid races will give superior results.

But the weak remain weak, they get inferior weapons compared to others. As such they get viewed as weak by others and the possibility of them being targeted increases. Even though they're already weaker under normal circumstances.

Is it bad that I don't change this rule? Think about it, giving the weak good armaments would, to a certain degree, be a waste of treasure and most importantly the distribution will become unbalanced, leading to ruin.

I am aware of the merits.

In order to cultivate their abilities, from now on I will never change this rule.

Train them until they vomit blood, make them feel like they're dead to increase their individual power.

Well, amongst the kobold some are approaching level 100 and will rank up soon, biting into the higher positions and mixing it up.

Besides, truthfully, I carry some expectations for the young kobold children, since they are in their growth periods.

Their race already excels in nimbleness, so I put a policy in place to emphasize it in their training sessions.

Day 63

Today I am riding on Kumajirou, similarly Dhammi-chan and Redhead were mounted on their respective familiars, and walking behind us were the common foot soldier kobolds which comprise our 17 fighting members, to go to the cave of the kobolds.

The purpose is to seal the hole that was connected to the Velvet dungeon at the interior part of the cave, as well as to retrieve the little loot that was stored by the kobolds.

The kobolds' cave was a 40 minute walk away.

After retrieving the luggage, I ordered Asue-chan to destroy the cave as she is best equipped to handle the task.

With this the first purpose is finished.

Afterwards, I allowed the kobolds to hunt.

Armored Tanuki and et cetera were killed and brought home as food for the future. Lately the favorite target for hunting is the black wolf.

Though I still needed more familiars, I wanted to accumulate lots of linked experience; that's why I risked clashing with black wolfs that I aggroed into one big group.

While training is important, it is indeed necessary to pile up actual combat experience that places one's life on the line as quickly as possible.

I had trained them in the basics of the basics for two days; the main thing now is to see whether or not they can leverage that. Well, I was aware that I was asking too much of them, but they had assistance from the cuffs, and if we didn't do this now nothing would happen.

Let's work to exhaustion.

Though I didn't really expect that much of them,the Kobolds tried their best.

They moved as I ordered, and the group of 12 black wolves were driven into a trap laid out by another division.

They were injured more or less severely since the unreasonable condition not to kill the black wolves was imposed on everyone, continued regeneration (Regen) was added on the cuffs so it was not a major problem because they easily recover from wounds of that level.

I considered it this time, it might unexpectedly be a good find, the kobolds that is.

The brains of the captured black wolves were tampered with quickly and turned into familiars.

Afterwards, the next group of Black Wolves we found were successfully herded in the same way, thus the «Familiars» we gained today were twelve Black Wolves. Only, neither of the heads of the two groups we captured today had the abilities of the ones called "Leader". Regretfully those individuals were just the same as the others.

That said, we were able to get them in sufficient numbers, so for now I'll call it a success.

As we were going back in high spirits, because of today achievements, we encountered a "Stamp Boar (Temporary Name)" with its characteristic rocky snout pierced with an iron nosering.

"Just in time for a test of strength!", said Asue-chan eagerly as she dismounted from her favourite Triple-Horned Horse to attack it from the front. Naturally, the opponent Stamp Boar, with its disposition to crush and eat anything that opposes it using its craggy snout, charged without any intent to run away.

Then, as the [Earth Goddess' War Pick] that was swung from right to left hit the Boar, it smashed through the boar's body.

The rock-like solid body of the Stamp Boar couldn't withstand one blow from Asue-chan, its front half was blown off.

Though it appears that I wanted to adjust things, but well, things turned out this way—it had a body that was hard as stone, so for Asue-chan who could break stones with her bare hands it would be a very easy enemy to kill—, that was what I thought, so I said nothing in particular and washed off the blood from her face using a water ball.

The carcass could become valuable food so I put it away into my Item Box, once I was back in the cave, we made it into hotpot and ate it.

At night, I was approached by Blacksmith-san while working on various work, she wanted me to come to the smithy.

I went with her, thinking what could she possibly want; what I saw there was the figure of a halberd, freshly repaired.

Though I had overused the halberd at that time of life and death battle with the Red Bear previously and as a result lost its usefulness, do I remember requesting Blacksmith-san to fix it?

In short, the repaired version of it has been completed.

Furthermore, Blacksmith-san applied some revisions on several areas, the blacksmith master proudly boasted.

First of all, the axe head is the feature of the halberd, it is made of an alloy produced by combining water spirit stone, wrought iron and mithril. Because a water spirit stone is mixed, water gushes out when it is shaken just like the spirit stone knife.

However only by shaking it will the exaggerated water tricks occur. I have already proven that moving it at a constant velocity will turn the water into a blade. When used, it seems the range of the attack expands up to 3 meters.

Since the sharpness has been improved from the time when the knife could almost have been called a blunt weapon, even if water does not go out it can be treated as an ordinary edged tool.

Then, there is the spearhead, it was made out of an alloy of spirit stone, wrought iron, and mithril just like the axe head. The spirit stone that was used was a lightning spirit stone that gives off lightning. When thrust at high speed, it can fire a bolt of lightning from the tip, hitting distant enemies with an electric attack.

I thought that perhaps by using [Triple Stab], lightning would also be fired from the invisible spearheads, firing three lightning bolts at the enemy all at once.

What a convenient thing.

The pick on the opposite side from the axe head was likewise made from a similar alloy, the spirit stone used was fire spirit stone. As a test I took out a log from the Item Box and stabbed it with the spear, and fire came roaring out from the place where the pick pierced the log.

Inserted at the butt end on the other side from the blade part was a tetrahedral polished earth spirit stone, stabbing the enemy with it becomes easier with the help of my Earth Control system abilities.

Above all, using the spirit stones in combination, the effects are greater than normal. It was probably equal to or greater than the knife I enchanted before, as I was thinking about why it was the case, Blacksmith-san told me this.

Somehow, it seems that she got a new Job. Surprised, she didn't tell anyone and kept it a secret until she had finished making the halberd.

Right now, the only one who knew this was me, I was a little bit happy.

The name of the job was [Spirit Blacksmith], it seemed to be a rare job she got by clearing some troublesome conditions such as regularly handling various spirit stones and becoming proficient at handling it.

This seems to be the main reason for the increase in the abilities of the spirit stones used for the halberd.

I was so happy I hugged her. Recently, due to one thing or another I had been able to adjust my strength, even unconsciously.

The smile that Blacksmith-san turned towards me in my arms was very cute.

I got a bit fired up.

Day 64

The number of Hobgoblins increased by three Goblins today. I'm a little disappointed that there weren't Mages or Clerics this time.

Well, Mages are usually one or two Goblins per group, although the current situation's abnormal.

As always I give them a congratulatory gift each.

After today's training, I let the kobolds go into actual combat in buddy pairs and secure food. Only fighting skeletons is good for acquiring experience efficiently, but will get you in a rut, people who fight a wide variety of races can develop practical skills.

I intend to come out of the forest one day, so looking at things to come, as expected we should gather experience facing various monsters while we're here so that we'd be harder to kill.

For that reason, with the spare time I had now, I made preparations for going out hunting alone.

The savoury taste of a Stamp Boar was unforgettable. What's more, these places had a fine likelihood of rewarding new abilities. Its about time that we tread on new habitats and ate new monsters.

I already searched for the habitat of the Stamp Boar, it'll be found immediately since I already knew the signs before this.

As I tried to depart I was stopped by Ogakichi-kun.

He wanted to talk somewhere private, so we went out the cave and walked for a while. We talked after I confirmed no one was around.

According to him somehow, finally, at last, in the end, he decided to confess to Asue-chan. His feelings became stronger with his rank up,

Only problem is, he doesn't know what to say. And wants my council.

So he expects cheap consultancy service, is what I'd like to think but Ogakichi-kun is my buddy.

So I suppose coming to me for council would be… obvious right?

So much for today's plans to go Stamp Boar hunting, huh. We shall dedicate the time from noon to evening for strategy and tactics.

And with that, Ogakichi-kun shall commence "Operation Confession" tonight.

The result of which we'd know in the morning.

Day 65

It was a success. What was? Ogakichi-kun's confession, of course.

Ogakichi-kun reported this to me, blushing, after I woke up today before the paired kata with him that had become my daily routine before morning practice.

[T/N: kata — it's a Karate thing. Practicing the 'form']

Well, I did expect it to be a success so I was not surprised. Perhaps Ogakichi-kun did not realize it, but Asue-chan had also fallen for him since some time ago.

The news that Asue-chan had consulted Dhammi-chan about it had fallen into my hands, so the rumor was not a mistake.

There really was no worry about him getting rejected; I even secretly shared all the details of yesterday's strategy meeting with Dhammi-chan using the cuff-type communication devices in order to buy time to orchestrate those two's relations.

The fact that things turned out this way was all a matter of course.

The only thing I was worried about is whether he got too excited last night and broke Asue-chan or not.

[T/N: He's an ogre, but Asue-chan should be just as big.]

Well, I already mentioned previously that I had put Ogakichi-kun in charge of the male elves as advance practice, but there was a precedent where he broke various things when he had his first time with a partner that had a 1 meter difference in physical size. He was assigned a 2 meter tall elf, the biggest of them, right now the elf is being healed by Hobuji-kun as practice and put to bed.

Asue-chan is currently the top miner of spirit stones that pop up around the area, because of the influence of Velvet's Dungeon, and also of various rare metals, so it would put a dent in work efficiency if she couldn't move.

See, the current Asue-chan is an excavator-like existence.

I wonder if I should regulate various plans in response.

That was what I thought, but as far as the reports I've heard, everything seems to be fine.

Because it wasn't Ogakichi-kun's first time, because Asue-chan is tough, and then because he honoured the promise I had him make last night at the strategy meeting, it seems he was able to do it in moderation.

Which was a pleasant thing.

At any rate, during today's kumite, Ogakichi-kun was so spirited he took several of my punches.

[T/N: kumite is similar to kata in that it's one of the three main sections of karate training.]

Even with trembling knees he was still smiling. His spiritedness was so annoying, I might have to allocate several black skeletons to let out my feelings on. I immediately put that into practice.

The sparring finished at noon, and as I was going to go capture Hind Bears with Ogakichi-kun, Dhammi-chan and Asue-chan said that they want to come along.

When I asked Asue-chan about how her mining operations were progressing, it seems that she had been steadfastly working all morning and had met her quota, so for the first time in a while the four of us went hunting.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to encounter the Hind Bears we had hoped for, but we succeeded in hunting five Stamp Boars, six Poison Mantises (tentative name) with 1-meter bodies and sickles dripping with purple venom, four Rhinoceros Beetles (tentative name) with 1-meter long horns and lustrous black iron-like exoskeletons, five Argiope, four Demon Spiders, three grey-shelled sixty-centimeter long Messenger Locusts (tentative name), and eleven Yellow Monkeys (tentative name) with yellow fur and strangely-growing tails.

As expected from an area that we haven't come to before, there were lots of monsters that I hadn't eaten before. Only unfortunately, I had to worry that shelled insect-types like the Poison Mantises and Rhinoceros Beetles would be poisonous if eaten by anyone but me, so the products of the land weren't so good.

Unfortunately. Yeah, Unfortunately.

As a result, as soon as I stripped the parts that seemed usable off them and tossed those in my item box, I crunchingly ate the remains. Feeling awkward that I was the only one eating, I had the other three eat two Yellow Monkeys each.

Ability [Molt] learned

Ability [Generate Insect Wings] learned

Ability [End Edge] learned

Ability [Silent Kill] learned

Ability [Horn Blow] learned

Ability [Dissonance] learned

Ability [Parasitic] learned

Ability [Improved Jumping Power] learned

Ability [Tough Vitality] learned

Ability [Exoskeleton] learned

Ability [Shell of Wrought Iron] learned

Ability [Limit Breaker] learned

Ability [Cold Vulnerability] learned

I became a Henshin Hero.

[T/N: ]

Well, I ate the rhinoceros beetle to obtain [Exoskeleton] and then the personal armor I was wearing that was created from the red bear was immediately taken the instant I activated it. The carapace had a unique red luster to it and came from a humanoid stagbeetle no less than 2 metres 50 centimeters in height. I was in was completely covered in armor.

I was second guessing myself about why it looks like a stag beetle when I ate a rhinoceros beetle? Surely my horns are to blame.

When I turned my senses towards the slightly curved, sword-like, pair of horns, I could get them to move. As a test I held a tree in between them, and slash, I was able to cut it. Furthermore, I did not feel the slightest bit of resistance, so sharp were the horns.

I could really get used to this

I inspected the exoskeleton for a little while.

Since I was doing that, I expected to understand the skeletal structure as well, which seemed to be awfully easy to move in yet extremely sturdy. I tested it by having Ogakichi-kun hit me and while the part that was hit was dented a little, I did not feel any pain. Somehow it seems that there was a mechanism incorporated into it that reduced damage by dispersing the impact throughout the exoskeleton.

Moreover, wearing it felt like wearing the armor from when I was deployed at work before my reincarnation, a power suit made from biometal. Eventually I got used to it until there wasn't even a slight feeling of my movement being obstructed.

Moreover, somehow the exoskeleton seemed to even have power assist, so I couldn't find any faults in it. Well, maybe being too conspicuous is one.

Yeah, well, this was an extremely good ability.

Only, after a brief investigation, I want you to excuse the fact that I become stark naked as soon as I dismissed the [Exoskeleton]. It's okay though, since I had the trousers I made before; I don't actually have a hobby of stripping.

It did hurt that the sentimental protective gear, full of memories, from my fight with the Red Bear disappeared.

Well, as I tuned my senses,

Ability [Exoskeleton]

Entry 1 [Red Bear Beast King's Prestige] registered

Entry 2 [ ] empty

Entry 3 [ ] empty

Entry 4 [ ] empty

Entry 5 [ ] empty

4 more form entries remaining.

Which entry number would you like to equip?

Was displayed inside my head, so it didn't completely disappear. I was thankful for that.

It looks like I was able to change forms depending on the course of battle. It was a handy ability for having such a good use.

Also, it was good that I could produce wings that enable me to fly, but the flight controls were more difficult than I had thought.

I should practice when I get home.

Being extremely pleased with this outcome, I grabbed my spoils, returned home and ate them.

Taste of Stamp Boar meat never disappointed.

Ability [Reckless Charge] learned

Ability [Tail Attack] learned

After that, I tried some flight practice, crafted a couple items and then dropped to sleep.

Mhm, excellent day.

Day 66

Today was the first time it rained in quite a while, so I decided to go bother Redhead, Blacksmith-san, the Sisters and the Alchemist-san.

Well, they're usually asleep together at nights and running errands during day and noon, this gave me very little time to pamper them.

After having earned [Noire Soldier], Redhead's attacks were relentlessly brutal. Up until now, she was equal in terms of physical capabilities but fell short in terms of raw strength. She really is beginning to catch up.

Lately, she's been coming to me saying "Come train with me, I wanna spar" which I find adorable. Hard to explain it.

You know that feeling when puppies come over to play showing their adorable faces? Oh and a miniature toy dog at that, with that tail wagging all over the place. Something like that I suppose.

To most, she might resemble some kind of fierce doberman, I on the other hand see a little puppy running up to me.

And that's how I spent the morning, playing with Redhead.

I'm gonna bother Blacksmith-san next.

Lately the elves Kirue and Arue ? these were the ones guarding the fool, anyway I'll just refer to them as "guard elves" for simplicity ? have been enthusiastic about crafting mithril alloys, the workshop was littered with knives and shortswords.

Mithril crafting is something only the guard elves could do, so among those captured, these two were the only ones capable of it. Giving the task to them is what I'd call having the right man for the right job.

Those two really seem to be daughters from a good family with a splendid lineage.

By the way, not all elves are familiar with Mithril crafting. Blacksmith families passed the technique down through the generations; that is why most elves aren't familiar with the process and can't craft. These two were elites who not only received training but also had crafting passed onto them by their lineage.

Well, although there is a drawback about the quantity two people can make, it can't be helped since only the best is made.

Since I requested for someone to make a repeating crossbow, Blacksmith-san and the guard elves are contributing opinions concerning the new production. I'm wondering if the development was a success? Tell me when it is.

The repeating crossbow loses out to the conventional bow in range but who cares, it rained havoc on the opposition.

It seems Blacksmith-san's been doing great lately. Prototypes of many new weapons have been made and tested by trainee goblins.

Results of which seem promising. We now had many new weapons in our arsenal.

I requested for the mass production of the repeating crossbow. Taking the opportunity, the guard elves begun acquiring the made mithril, as it is extracted from my silver arm as an ingot. Though the composition of the mithril taken from my silver arm is close it's still a counterfeit, with this my personal products will be made as I request them.

I understood, a blushing Blacksmith-san, with her chest puffed out in pride is too lovely. Without realising it, I couldn't close my mouth and it just hung open.

After that, we exchanged various opinions.

I went to the Sisters place in the evening.

Recently they have been working hard at their new job [Chief Cook], being in charge of preparing food for the Goblin commanders.

Since several of them ate frequently, if the Sisters didn't start cooking early there wouldn't be enough. Fortunately the utensils, since they were looted from Blacksmith-san's work, could be put to multiple uses; at any rate, the kitchen had become similar to a battlefield.

Moreover, I had also joined in. I started chopping the food. Even if I look like this, I can still cook fairly well.

While I was glad she was cooking, despite being able to study and exercise, among other things, Aoi was useless at it; that's why I had the pitiable experience of eating her food.

That Aoi, I wonder what became of her after I was stabbed.

After the rice preparation was finished I worked until evening came. Together with the two sisters, we had started our food research.

The goal was the reproduction of food from my previous life. Right now, potato chips could be made among the other foods. Since the ingredients were completely different from my previous existence, I thought it was going to be a rough time, but when I consulted the two sisters, it looked like they finished it relatively quickly, so I did not worry.

The food quest was interesting

After the meal I went to Alchemist-san.

Recently Alchemist-san had devoted herself to manufacturing an original magical item using skeleton bones; the result of which I had not yet learned.

I thought I would find out about it now… So, I went to check out the situation and ask her about it. She informed me, without hesitating, to conceal everything. It was anti-climatic.

However, I had a surprise after that.

She presented to me the whittled bones of a black skeleton she had made into rustic, black stakes. There were 10 of them, supposedly their ability was "a person stabbed with this is unable to leave for a fixed amount of time".

"Amazing, I'm really impressed with these; I'll make sure to cherish as them memorabilia," I said.

It seems like Alchemist-san also gained a new [Job], although she seems to have kept silent about it.

Nevertheless, I think that lovely way of speaking attached to the smiling face is foul play; an ordinarily cool girl that displays impish behavior.

While flirting stealthily, just like before, the intruders started coming in one after another.

After that I definitely won't say what happened afterwards.

Day 67

A little past noon, six messengers from Father Elf-san arrived. Though they came without having a appointment, I let them through for the sake of listening to their story, and because I understood they were not trying to be discourteous.

The elite elves were participating in the training in the great hall when we entered and spread out immediately. However, the messenger and the others never said anything about this matter.

Only for an instant did they turn their scornful glances towards them.

Right now the elite elves, because of the [Conceal] added to their cuffs the elves possessed darkish bodies — since they look like that they should be referred to as dark elves. I think by only glimpsing the elf messengers you would not realise that they were from the same elf village.

As for the scornful gaze the elf messenger turned towards the elves, in fantasy it is often the case when communicating that elves and dark elves relationship is bad. Considering this result I'm sure I'm right. This is a favourable situation.

When the elite elves were practicing, it looked like some of the elf messengers wanted to say something, but in the end nothing was said. Now, afer such a long time, they could no longer return.

Afterwards, the elf messenger and the others went through what was both my workshop and private room, the tea that I received from Father Elf-san before was served. Unfortunately, since there is no sofa they are going to have to sit on the single chair made from my thread.

Although among the six, only one was sitting on the chair. This one probably had the role of war negotiations; the others seemed to be escorts.

And then their side started the conversation.

Although I already knew it from the beginning, the human army seemed to have arrived at last. In addition, arriving from the routes I taught them about before, it seemed that the military forces were of a splendid scale.

Even with the magic items I offered, the Elves are still anxious about the fight with the human army. The hole left behind when I made the Elite Elves my subordinates was quite large now, they came to our place to request assistance for that reason.

If the elite elves heard that, they showed no signs of knowing anything about it. They all went missing as a result of the idiot who mobilized the elite elves without stating the purpose.

Their whereabouts are unknown even now. We were searching for any signs of them but because nothing has come up even after such a long time they were given up as dead.

At any rate, I wonder if that carefree Father Elf-san is manipulating the information in some way, though I'm honestly grateful for that.

After exchanging light gossip, we started to talk about the job.

So our mission in a nutshell is to either repel the Human army, or possibly destroy them? It would be good if it's within our capabilities to destroy them. However we can also strategically retreat, but won't allow running from the enemy. Although I don't think the meaning will change much.

The reward was 40 sets of mithril short swords, round shields, and chain mail, 10 mithril ingots, 3000 mithril arrows, general magic items that produced light, etcetera.

Based on my achievements, it seems they would give me even more among the other stuff. Any items we plundered we could keep for free.

They asked whether I would accept it, of course I readily complied with their request.

However, our conditions are that we are able to operate freely then we will let them include us. Instead of fighting from the front, guerilla tactics will definitely bring us victory. Fighting from the front is a last resort.

For the sake of smoothly exchanging information, the bracelet with the communication feature installed into it was handed to the messenger elf; I am sending it to Father Elf-san.

After seeing off the messenger elf who was returning, I dispatched a part of my body as a scout. Since confirming and collecting information on the war situation is a big deal.

At any rate, the mercenary corps << Preparation for war (Parabellum) >> had their first job.

Day 68

Three in the morning. We ran in the forest still shrouded in darkness.

There are a few members because I put an emphasis on mobility; I sat on Kumajirou at the lead with only 36 people riding «Familiars». The others are waiting in the cave.

The reason for moving now is simple, the scout that came from my body discovered the human army's garrison, for the sake of commencing a surprise attack.

The scale of the force we were attacking was about 800 people; their numbers were much too different from us. With the <> included, I had 73. If we were to attack normally, the result would be our death.

Even for me, attacking an enemy who not only is large in numbers but whose combat abilities I do not completely understand is just too rash.

However, at night the situation belonged to us.

If I continue summoning Black Skeletons and Zombies we're unlikely to lose because of their physical superiority. But since it wouldn't help the situation if I exhausted my magic creating undead, I'm absorbing the magic accumulated in the darkness so I won't run out.

If it became dangerous we could escape immediately. Our mobility will be assured since it would be difficult for humans, who don't have night vision like we do, to chase us.

Therefore, we commenced the surprise attack; we didn't even need to run. It took around an hour to completely wipe them out.

The operation went smoothly,

Approaching secretly.

→ We had detected the lookouts from within the semi-transparent barrier around us.

→ We had scattered about in order to encircle their surroundings.

→ After confirming everyone was at their assigned placement, right after I destroyed the semi-transparent barrier with a javelin made from my Demise magic, Asue-chan surrounded them with a four meter high mud wall.

→ Signaling them, the magic of Dhammi-chan, Supesei-san, and the tops of the mage corps that the two were leading created explosions all over the enemy lines. In an instant, several hundred units of the humans were dead.

→ While I was generating approximately 10 undead every single second, I had changed my left arm into a ballista and was firing spears created by my Demise magic

→ After brutally killing small-fry in ten seconds a silver female knight accompanied by a white clergyman, a crimson swordswoman and a jet black magician, plus some others, conspicuously exited the large tent in the center, clearing a portion of the zombies and plain skeletons.

→ That group's concentrated attack kept the Black Skeletons at bay.

→ During the time the surroundings were being annihilated, the women were taken prisoner. Though this wouldn't apply to them if they were ugly.

→ I rode on Kumajirou with my halberd to the remaining elite forces. I was being accompanied by Kurosaburo, as well as the heavily armed Ogakichi-kun who was followed by a Hindbear and Supesei-san who sat atop one while chanting. Also following me was: Dhammi-chan wielding [Drop of Moonlight], her claymore of ice, in one hand while spreading [Eyes of Bewitchment], Asue-chan smiling with her gigantic War Pick, and Burasato-san who changed into a red knight , simultaneously releasing 30 blood swords into the surroundings.

→ An unrivalled stampede; a perfect subjugation.

→ The fight has ended.

Even if I look back, it's just another cruel battle. No, this might have been a one-sided humiliation.

Well, I'll put that aside.

The undead shouldered all of the injuries; that is why we went without casualties. It looks like those women, besides for the exceptional ones, will be forced to die. I think it's likely that after the surprise defeat most of them will be gone. But just in case, I'll let the black skeletons scatter throughout the surroundings.

They have until sunlight before they are purified, but even if they vanish, since they are merely an insurance for now, there won't be problems.

The gains gained from this surprise attack are prisoners that will become necessary breeding persons; in addition there is a large amount of army provisions. I got a lot of things, especially women and magical items.

Moreover, since a decrease in the degree of freshness decreases the chance of securing an ability, I selected the superior specimens and ate them then and there.

Ability Braveheart learned

Ability Trip learned

Ability Army Leadership learned

Ability Job-Captain learned

Ability Job-Heavy Swordsman learned

Ability Job-Minstrel learned

Ability Speed Reading learned

Ability Job-Strategist learned

Ability Smithing learned

Ability Improved Evasion Rate learned

Ability Large Spin Slash learned

Ability Cross Slash learned

Ability Hard Qigong learned

Ability Soft Qigong learned

Ability Job-Spearman learned

Ability Job-Slave learned

Ability Job-Farmer learned

Ability Job-Monk learned

Ability Unilateral Sense of Justice learned

Ability Pure Faith learned

Ability Mindless Acceptance learned

Ability Chain-Soul learned

Ability Job-Heavy Warrior learned

Ability Job-Light Warrior learned

This is gre~at.

I'm so glad I did this.

Afterwards, the captives, who were put to sleep with toxins, and the loot were taken home. Stimulants similar to the ones the former elfs were administered were brought into the prison.

However, as expected, the human males we had applied stimulants to were not as attractive as elf males. The plan is to have the men labour as slaves and information sources.

Since men are different than women, they will be put in slave collars immediately.

My compassion is to "not kill them". Should I have them work until they die?

Well, I wonder how many days the women can endure despite the pleasure. A report by Father Elf-san detailed our gains from this battle.

I was very surprised about the hourly report just before noon; if this inspection really is the case, then five barrels of Elven wine will be brought here directly by an escort and will arrive at approximately 3pm.

"I see, cheers."

After a light alcohol gathering, Father Elf-san had gone home.

Well then, how are the prisoners? I think I'll go and see; my patience is at it's limits. I only reacted to the courageously fighting Female Knight-san that I had come into contact with; her haughty manner was amazing.

Huh? a great nobleman's daughter? hee~, hmm. That's not a big deal for me right now.

After all, I'm not human, I'm an Ogre now.

The circumstances of a human are irrelevant to monsters. But, I'll allow it for now.

Afterwards, I loaned the male prisoners to Goblin and Kobold females who requested them because the men's reactions were amusing.

But Female Knight-san and the others' first partner naturally has to be me…

【Female Knight perspective】［Timeline： 68th day］

The Sun set and, illuminated by moonlight, the forest turned into a world of monsters.

Walking through the forest at night would be a suicidal act, even for a large army. There had been several cases in the past where a certain country’s army’s attempt to march through the night forest ended in complete annihilation.

All that, because of attacks by monsters, who could move freely in the darkness.

Therefore, we pitched our tents in a large clearing in the forest and lit campfires to establish camp and rest for the night. Of course, vigilance was not neglected. In addition to patrolling in shifts, there were magic barriers set that would drive away monsters that are weaker than the caster.

The magician who cast the barrier was an adventurer friendly with our house, and his competence was guaranteed. As long as an elven army, several of the strongest monsters of this forest - Hind Bears, or the red Hind Bear know as the 【Lord of the Mountain】 didn’t approach the barrier, it would not be broken.

Feeling at ease, I removed my armor, set aside my estoc-shaped magic sword «Wind of the Moon (Lune-Vent) » and got into comfortable clothes. Since this clothing exposed my thighs and my shoulders, one of my male attendants once told me that he wanted me to cover myself more, but since opportunities where I could put on clothes that were easy to move around in were hard to come by, and putting something on would be too troublesome anyways, I didn’t change.

Still, why would he say such a thing? Tilting my head, I thought back on that conversation and as I did so, the magician who set up the barriers, Wesley-dono came into my tent.

“Thank you for the good work, Therese-dono. Your command today was splendid.”

“Yes. Thank you, Wesley-dono.”

“However, you seemed to be a bit impatient. Persistently overworking yourself might lead to a mistake in crucial moments.”

“It may be so. But, in order to cure the princess’ disease, we must end this war swiftly. Moreover, I want to minimise damages to both the elves and our allied forces. I want to avoid having to spill blood as much as possible. Spilling more and more blood only amasses even more anger and resentment.”

I said so while gazing directly into Wesley-dono’s eyes, which were embedded in his deeply contoured and masculine face.

Wesley-dono smiled and looked right back into my eyes.

“Therese-dono sure is kind.”

“Since I have already taken lives, I can’t say that I agree… But I will take that as a compliment.”

I smiled.

Suddenly, there was a deep rumbling from my stomache. For an instant, I couldn’t grasp what had happened.

“…………”

“…………”

For a brief moment my gaze locked with Wesley-dono’s, and I realized that my face was gradually getting redder because of that silliness earlier.

My face flushed and I started sweating. Panicking, I changed the topic.

“S, Speaking of which, I haven’t eaten supper yet. We, Wesley-dono too, if you haven’t eaten yet, wo, would you like to eat together?”

“Kukuku… Indeed, I would be grateful to.”

After confirming that Wesley-dono, who was still laughing a little, nodded in agreement, I controlled my embarrassment and instructed my subordinates to bring food into my tent.

Although I was the commander of this unit, we were, in a sense, already on a battlefield. The food that was brought in wasn’t the normal luxurious, spiced meal; it consisted of simple soup with tons of vegetables and hard bread, ham made from jaarou cows, and rangudo fruits with their distinct sourness; a rather simple meal.

Before eating the meal that had been brought in on a simple table, I dampened my lips and moistened my throat with black tea. Then, I started stuffing bread that had been soaked in the soup into my mouth.

Because I was tired, although the dishes were simpler than what I usually ate, I bit into the meal and felt the food soak into my body as I savoured the taste. Yes, this tastes delicious.

As I ate, driven by my appetite, the first piece of bread disappeared from my hand and I reached out for a second piece.

Noticing that Wesley-dono was looking at the situation in amusement, I threw him a question.

“Wesley-dono, what’s so funny?”

“No, no, nothing really. I was just fascinated by the sight of a usually firm Therese-dono eating so cutely.”

“To be fascinated by the sight of a human eating a meal, does Wesley-dono, perhaps, have a bit of an unusual hobby? I didn’t notice that.”

“No, that’s not what I wanted to imply…”

“What was it then?”

”Ummm. How should I put it? As expected, it would be ungraceful to say this from my position…… However, assuming I explained it in a roundabout way, would the meaning be transmitted?... Really, how should I say it... What a difficult problem.”

I finished eating my second piece of bread as I observed Wesley-dono’s face, who, smiling wryly, seriously began pondering this problem. I intended on eating eight more pieces, but I can’t just neglect Wesley-dono, who had yet to touch his first piece. Besides, I was the one who invited him for a meal.

Just as I was about to drag him off of his train of thought, a dry crack, the sound of something fracturing, rang out through the air.

The sound may have resembled the sound of a mirror or glass breaking.

“Hm? What was that sound?”

“Ridiculous!!!”

Before I could ask a question about that sound, Wesley-dono stood up and interrupted me.

A shocked expression floated up on Wesley-dono’s face.

“W, What’s going on Wesley-dono?”

“My barrier has been broken! I do not know who has come, but it’s certainly an enemy. Please put on your equipment in haste!”

Just as Wesley-dono finished speaking, the roaring sound of an enemy attack reverberated through the air.

The impact caused the ground and the tent to shake violently. I heard a flapping sound as something crashed into the tent. Fortunately, the durable fabric of the military tent didn’t tear but it suddenly became tumultuous outside.

To gather information, I listened carefully.

“Enemy attaaack!! Enemy attaaaaack!!”

“All units, prepare for battle! Move quickly if you don’t want to die!!”

“Ooooouchh! Aaaughh, the paaain!!”

“Arm! My aaaaaarrm!”

“Magic bombardment confirmed! There are Mages on the enemy side. Magicians, quickly set up magic defences, anything at all!”

“Medic, MEDIIIC!!”

“Enemy confirmed! It’s an Undead race! I repeat, the enemy is large army of Undead!”

“Don’t die, DO NOT DIEE!”

“Cold…… It’s cold, mom...”

“Don’t crowd together too much. You'll be targeted by magic!!”

Hearing voices outside of tent, I hurriedly equipped my armor and picked up my magic sword «Wind Of the Moon (Lune · Vent) ». Finally, I don a cloak I had a specialized Blacksmith forge and enchant for me. Because I don't wield a shield, this cloak was meant to protect me instead.

Just as I finished my preparations, somebody jumped into the tent from the entrance behind me.

Judging from the sound of their footsteps, there were two people. Their presences were ones that I recognized easily.

“Excuse me, Captain!”

“The enemy is an army of black skeletons! Also, a few hobgoblin mages have been confirmed.”

I turned around quietly while listening to the report and simply gave an order.

Towards the two Adjutants -- Bane, who became a 【Bishop】at the age of 22, and Rebias, a knight of the same gender who wore a crimson suit of armor.

“The enemy will be annihilated. Follow me. Wesley-dono too, come with us.”

“Of course. Let us win.”

“Yes, naturally.”

I wanted to avoid spilling blood as much as possible. There was no falsehood in those words.

However, if I did not take the initiative here, my subordinates would die. If that is so, I would kill my compassion, so that I could kill the enemy. To save the lives of my subordinates, I would steal the lives of the enemy. Once again, I embraced that resolution.

Thus, we headed to the battlefield. Determined to attain victory.

In this moment, a determination to fight dwelled in Therese’s eyes. Her appearance was beautiful and noble, and was giving off more than enough of the charm needed to lead her troops.

However, at this moment Therese didn’t know. Outside the tent was an enemy unlike any she had faced before; an Ogre that had accumulated enough “Arts of War” to make any man of war drown in despair.

■

The moonlight and the crimson flames consuming the tents didn’t give us perfect vision, but it wasn’t as if you couldn’t see anything. It was sufficient for a battle.

Still, it was a bit troublesome that the enemy’s body color was black. And since there could be reinforcements hidden in the forest’s shadow, where light didn’t reach, we could not grasp the enemy’s number. Just thinking that we were currently engaging only a fraction of the enemy army was enough to make my fighting spirit wither, but I shoved that thought away.

In addition, the strength of every black skeleton was abnormal. They were tough and highly skilled, making it difficult to kill them.

A skeleton’s level could be roughly guessed from the “Spirit Armor” surrounding its body, and since these had armor that almost completely covered their bodies, there was no doubt that they were high level. I couldn't help but wonder why Skeletons of this level were in such a place, especially in such numbers.

I advanced nevertheless. I had to advance.

It was because my position didn’t allow me to stand still on the battlefield.

Fortunately, the moon was out tonight. In the moonlit night, my magic sword «Wind Of the Moon (Lune · Vent) » manifested its maximum ability.

A skeleton ran towards me from the front.

It was holding a gilded two-handed battle axe, forged from black iron. Although it was a weapon that could deal massive blows in exchange for being heavy, it approached at a high speed, due to the monster’s brute strength. A skeleton doesn’t have any muscles, but it has higher physical strength than one would expect, due to being moved by magic. Really, quite troublesome.

But, fortunately, it wasn’t like its speed was beyond my expectations. If it was only to this degree of speed, it could be easily dealt with.

I stepped forward while thinking only about landing a thrust. Faster, sharper, and without any useless movements. My killing intent resided in my blade.

【Therese E. Ekkerman used Arts【Heiligtum Rose】】

【«Lune Vent» Unique Skill【Lune Vent】activated】

The blade of the magic sword ⟪Lune Vent⟫ emitted a pale red glow when I used the Arts. Furthermore, it absorbed the magic power flowing from the moon and surrounded itself in a self-generated cyclone.

“---Shhi!!”

The cyclone surrounding ⟪Lune Vent⟫ forcibly changed the trajectory of the black skeleton’s two handed axe, causing it to pass by my side and leave a slash mark in the ground.

In exchange, my attack was only able to slightly pierce the skeleton’s skull. I intended for it to penetrate, but, as expected, piercing attacks didn’t seem to have that great of an effect on skeletons.That aside, the skeleton was already done for.

The red light that dwelled in my blade invaded the skeleton and, in the next moment, a red rose pattern spreads over the skeleton’s entire body.

The red rose pattern generated by the Arts 【Heiligtum Rose】, which could only be used by a 【Temple Knight】, possessed a 【Divine】attribute that is deadly for most undead species.

Once the black skeleton’s entirebody was covered in the red rose pattern, it began losing its power to exist because of the 【Divine】attribute. It started smoking and its bones scattered all over the place once their binding force dissipated.

While tramplingand kicking away the remains, as well as taking on a new skeleton that began attacking me, I shouted out,

“Baaane! Is the area effect divine purification spell ready yet?”

“Please wait just a little more, Captain.”

“Captain, your back is full of openings.”

“ ...Tch. Thanks, Rebias.”

“Speak for yourself, your back is wide open as well.”

“Uwa! Hot!! That was too close, Wesley-san!”

“Wahaha! The one who is careless on a battlefield is at fault.”

Balls of flame were emitted from Wesley-dono’s hands, burning three skeletons at once. However, the ones that still don't stop moving are then smashed by Rebias' blade.. They must have become brittle after being burned.

If we helped each other, we could fight. However, in the overall battle, our side was being overwhelmed.

By gathering the surrounding soldiers and giving them instructions, we were somehow fighting them back, but even so, on top of being great in numbers, the enemy was too strong individually.

TL Note: “Merutor” is a fictional measuring distance, possibly comparable with our meter.

So I thought. However, reality was not so sweet, but rather cruel.

“■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■!!”

“――”

“Wh...”

“Uoo”

“Kya!”

A roar reverberated through the battlefield, where allies and enemies were mixed. No, can I really call this a roar?

The ground was trembling and shaking my body. This imposing attack method closely resembled Howling, an attack that some monsters, such as Dragons and Giants, could use.

I covered my ears reflexively and looked in the direction that the roar had come from.

And there it was.

A black demon with a silver left arm, its entire body engraved with red tattoos, and astride the strongest monster of this forest, a Hind Bear. He gave off the attitude of being the master of the skeletons around him and was staring directly at us.

The demon was an Ogre. Ogres were known for their superior physical ability and supposedly preferred wielding simple weapons like clubs, but that Ogre appeared to be holding an enormous Halberd which matched his massive figure.

Wearing leather pants, his upper body was naked, which was normal. However, judging from the way he was handling the Halberd, I could see that he was no amateur.

From his appearance, I was convinced that he belonged to a subspecies, rather than a common species. Instead of the brown skin of a Mine Ogre, this ogre’s skin was completely black.

Black skin meant that he must have received 【Divine Protection】from one of the gods related to the ⟪Great God of Origin and Demise⟫. Judging from the depth of the color, it was likely a considerably high ranked god. He must have received 【Divine Protection】from a god around 【God of the Dead Sea】or 【God of the Netherworld】’s level.

I couldn’t help but to judge him as a troublesome opponent. However, I could now understand the power behind this black skeleton army.

The skeletons were probably being produced by that Ogre. Although making a judgment while lacking information was, perhaps, rather hasty, my 【Intuition】 was also telling me that the Ogre was the cause.

In that case, I should aim only for black ogre. Kill the creator and the skeletons will self-destruct.

“We will kill that black ogre. Bane, after invoking the area of effect purification magic, cast buffs on everyone”

“Roger that, Captain.”

“Wesley-dono, keep them busy with your magic. Rebias, you fight with me on the front lines. The others are to follow us as well. This is an enemy that must be killed in one fell swoop!”

“ “ “ Understood!! ” ” ”

I ran ahead, leading my subordinates.

The skeletons that attacked us before we reached the ogre were either annihilated or became sluggish due to the area effect purification spell cast by Bane, right as we started running.

While crushing or shoving away weakened skeletons, we approached the black ogre until we were close enough to attack.

At the same time, I heard something that I hadn’t thought was possible.

“Well, the ability to assess the situation is so-so, but the magic being used is pretty high class.”

The black ogre was speaking the human language fluently. It was said that even mages with high intelligence could normally only speak brokenly, but this black ogre was speaking as if he were a human.

Even though I was genuinely startled, I couldn’t stop now. No, I didn’t even intend on stopping. We charged right in. Just then, Bane casted buffs on us from behind and our running speed increased greatly.

My body became as light like as a feather.

When I observed that the ogre showed a surprised expression at our sudden rise in speed, I sensed a good opportunity.

I jumped into the air in order to match the height of the black ogre’s heart, since he was mounted on the Hind Bear, and crushing the ground below me, I kicked myself into the air. I jumped with enough force to crush the ground; This was no ordinary leap.

My body whizzed through the air at the speed of an arrow when released from its bow,.

I reached a similar height as my opponent, giving me the speed and position I needed to aim for its heart. In the same way I had slaughtered the skeletons, I charged my blade with killing intent, causing it to let off a red glow.

【Therese E. Ekkerman used Arts 【Heiligtum Altar】 】

It was the strongest attack among the arts that I could unleash.

Since it was an Ogre, 【Divine】 damage wasn’t as critical as with the undead. Therefore, I chose the Arts with a 【Soul Light】 attribute, 【Heiligtum Altar】, which damaged the victim's soul directly.

If I penetrated his heart with this, no matter how tenacious the ogre’s vitality might be, he would receive a fatal wound. I knew from the several Ogres that I had slaughtered until now. Even if this one was from a subspecies, there shouldn’t be a significant difference.

A lethal flash flew through the air.

The enemy would not be able to react to my movements. Even if it could react, I wouldn’t receive fatal injuries, because the cyclone of wind had the ability to divert the attacks of the opponent. Therefore, with this single blow, I could penetrate the black ogre’s heart.

That is what thought. I was convinced.

But, as for the outcome, my attack didn’t connect. My body was soaring through the sky before I knew it. My consciousness couldn’t catch up with reality and I wondered how the situation had turned out like this.

“Captain!!”

When my subordinate, who was standing where I was going to fall, caught my body, the impact snapped me back to reality.

When I thought back on what had happened and looked at the black ogre’s posture, I somehow understood what had taken place. I was scooped up. Using the butt end of halberd instead of the axe-head, at a speed that I couldn’t perceive, I was gently propped up and launched into the skies without causing damage to me.

The instant I comprehended that, I broke out in an unpleasant sweat.

I couldn’t even see when it moved the halberd. There was no doubt that I would’ve been cut and killed with the previous attack if the black ogre had been serious. Despite that, why was I spared?

The reason was announced immediately.

“Alright, I will catch you alive. It looks like you will be useful in various ways.”

The black ogre was appraising me. Whether there was any value in keeping me alive or if killing me would be a waste. Because I attacked before it could decide, he didn’t kill me, in order to determine my value.

When I arrived at that conclusion, rage welled up inside of me. I was born and raised as a daughter of a noble household but I was still a solitary knight and my conceit as a warrior came first. I had pride.

Either way, I could not tolerate being looked down upon by the opponent.

I couldn’t stand it. I was furious.

“Don’t sputter nonsense, you are just an ogre. I will cut you down!”

“Hmm. I approve of your determination. You seem to be an even better woman than I had thought.”

“My name is Therese E. Ekkerman. I am a knight serving under the Princess of the Sternbelt Kingdom. If you desire me, then prove your strength. If you can defeat me, you may do with me as you like.”

“My name is Oga-Rou. For the time being, I’m the leader of a mercenary troop. I’ll allow myself to say just one thing: come at me with all of your strength.”

“That goes without saying. No other words are necessary, since my only wish is to cross blades with you.”

“Right, let’s do it.”

We exchanged names with each other.

And then, the halberd was swung down at my head with lightning speed.

So fast. Just a simple attack is so fast. Its speed is incomparable to that of the black skeleton’s axe.

Moreover, I saw a thin stream of water spraying from the edge of the blade. There might be some kind of modification made to the axe-head.

Still, without panicking, I tried to deflect the Halberd with the cyclone, but then I finally noticed it. The cyclone of wind had disappeared before I had realized it.

Before wondering about the cause, I reflexively jumped to the side. Without the cyclone of wind, I could not possibly parry this slash. Since I didn't have the time to catch myself, I clumsily roll across the ground. The earth gets my armor dirty.

In the end though, getting dirty was the only thing that happened. It was a cheap price for managing to avoiding that earth shattering strike.

“You have good reflexes. I want you even more now.”

“You sure have a strange power.”

“Why would you say that?”

“Because you are abnormal!”

The black ogre fixed its eyes on me. In that opening, Rebias swung her scimitar-shaped magic blade at the black ogre, intending to cut through its flank. The timing of the surprise attack was perfect, so I thought that this Arts enforced blow would surely slice the black ogre’s flesh.

However, it didn’t hit. Without even glancing at Rebias, the ogre blocked the blow with the halberd’s handle.

Panicking, Rebias tried to take distance, but, nevertheless, the butt end of the halberd was strongly thrusted into her abdomen. Fortunately, her breastplate reduced the damage dealt but it was punctured, creating a small hole, and blood was flowing out. The butt end of that halberd was apparently sharpened.

Rebias’ movements became duller due to the pain. In this moment, the silver arm stretched towards her.

At this rate, she would be caught. Feeling that this was the case, I moved spontaneously.

I absorbed the moon’s power again and reactivated the cyclone around my blade. I aimed for the head of the Hind Bear facing me. If I took away its footing, it would possibly lead to a small opening.

However, my expectations were betrayed yet again.

“Naive.”

A sphere of water suddenly appeared in front of my sword.

I accidentally pierced the levitating, swirling sphere of water, which spun in the opposite direction of my cyclone surrounding my blade and completely dissolved the whirlwind.

“Wha--”

This was not magic. I couldn’t sense the characteristic waves caused by magic. Then, what was this sphere of water? Before I could discern an answer, the black ogre moved.

“At least your aim was good.”

The black ogre held Rebias’ by the torso with its silver arm as it looked at me.

In that instant, my heart was eaten away by fear. My body froze and I couldn’t move anymore. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the gaze that was piercing right through me.

I thought that I would be killed. Those were the eyes of a predator looking at its prey.

“--- Ruido Phalanx!!”

TL Note: “Ruido Phalanx” = Line of spears of blue fire

30 Spears burning with a blue flame quickly passed by my frozen body. They all headed towards the black ogre that was staring at me.

“Ruido Phalanx” was a third tier spell. The caster could only be the 【High Wizard】, Wesley-dono.

The blue burning spears held more than enough power to kill a mere ogre. They held enough heat to burn even above average black skeletons and would immediately turn them into charcoal if it got a direct hit.

This spell could easily kill the ogre, even if it belonged to a subspecies.

But, shockingly, it was crushed.

“So slow.”

Since I was so close, I could hear the black ogre muttering those words under his breath.

Simultaneously, every spear of the “Ruido Phalanx” that was heading towards the black ogre flashed brightly and lost their forms one after another, leaving blue embers.

All 30 blue burning spears disappeared in three seconds, without burning anything. The only things remaining were the Hind Bear and the black ogre.

When I looked at him and thought back on its words, I somehow comprehended that the black ogre had smashed them all.

But how? The question naturally crossed my mind.

“Therese-dono, fall back quickly!”

Wesley-dono’s sharp words flew towards me from behind. Those words broke my trance.

The Ogre had probably needed both hands to block the blue flame spears because Rebias, who had been captured in his silver arm, had already stepped back and was being healed. Right now, I was the closest to the black ogre.

I hurriedly stepped backwards and widened the distance.

I prepared for a pursuit, but the black ogre, for some reason, looked at the empty sky and said something.

“Oh, those magicians look useful. -- Oga-Kichi, you guys try to capture that troupe.”

“You, what are you muttering to yourself!”

“Hmm? Oh, I was just confirming the target a bit.”

“What--”

My voice was interrupted as the torsos of the troops positioned to flank the black ogre on its right side were chopped off. A huge amount of fresh blood sprayed out of their stumps, their entrails flew through the air, and the severed upper bodies spun violently as they rolled on the ground.

And then, the corpses were swallowed by fire.

When I reflexively looked around to see what had happened, I saw a second ogre. Its skin was not black, but bronze, and it had an even bigger physique than the black ogre. It was holding a huge, double-edged war axe that matched the ogre’s size and a huge, sturdy tower shield, which had a big enough frame to cover three fourths of the ogre’s body.

At a glance, it gave off the impression of a bulwark.

The sight of it with the accompanying hind bear gave off a feeling of great danger, although not as strongly as the black ogre.

“Oga-Rou, can I kill and eat as I want?”

“Well, if you restrain yourself. Sure.”

“Alright. I will capture the formidable ones. The others I will eat.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s fine, so get a move on.”

Replying in affirmation, the bronze ogre and its hind bear ran together to some soldiers fighting a distance away from us.

So fast. They immediately covered the 30 merutors distance between us and the ogre swung the battle axe horizontally. The torsos of the nearby soldiers were severed, as if they were blades of grass being mowed down. Flames burst from the separated corpses, just like before.

There was no mistake, that battle axe was a magic item. A fairly high ranked one at that. Pondering how it could’ve obtained such a thing, I returned my gaze to the black ogre.

The bronze ogre was also an existence that I couldn’t afford to let out of my vision, but the black ogre was even more dangerous.

As I concentrated on the enemy, I heard a voice close to my ear. Judging from its unique vibration, it seemed to be a voice being transmitted through magic.

“Therese-dono, please buy some of time. I will kill that ogre with my trump card.”

“Understood. How much time should I buy?”

“I know this is rash, but I would like to wish for about two minutes. And, if you can, I would like you to stop that silver arm. Chop it off, if possible.”

“It will be hard, but I will try.”

“Thank you.”

Wesley-dono’s voice disappeared and I heard an aria from behind me.

Simultaneously, I sensed a magic power rising. It was being refined at an incredible speed. It inflated rapidly and the scale of the results that would occur once the whole process was completed flashed through my mind.

This was most likely one level higher than the previous spell-- It must be a tier 4 spell. A destructive spell with enough power to smash castle walls.

The black ogre got off of the hind bear, possibly in response to that. It then started walking in this direction.

Its gaze was pointed towards Wesley-dono. It must be planning on interrupting the aria.

I positioned myself in front of it, blocking its path. I won’t let that happen.

“From here on we will protect Wesley-dono with all our strength and cut down the ogre. Rebias, you guys go from the left, you guys from the right, you from the back, and I will go from the front. Bane, you guys continually cast buffs on us and debuffs on the black ogre.”

“Understood, we will continue casting until our odo is spent.”

TL Note: Odo=Mana

“That fucking bastard! I will definitely cut him!”

“That’s the spirit!”

Matching our timing, we launched our attack.

All in order to buy some time and to protect Wesley-dono, who was hiding our last chance of killing the black ogre.

■

Only one minute had passed of the promised two minutes, but the price we had payed for that time was not low.

Those who were sliced vertically by the water blade emitting from the axe-head of the halberd. Those whose torsos were pierced by the silver arm, those whose heads were eaten. Those who were pierced by the horns on the ogre’s forehead and crushed with their comrades. Those who spontaneously combusted, burnt to a crisp and crumbled away.Those whose guts were fried when they were pierced by the lighting spear that came out of the halberd’s tip.

A heap of corpses were born from just our attempt to stop the black ogre.

Counting those who were severely wounded, the number of casualties caused by the black ogre was immense.

I was now the only one standing before the black ogre.

Rebias, whose scimitar had shattered, had collapsed onto the ground, and Bane, who had used up too much odo, was now unconscious due to “magic deficiency”. The other soldiers were also lying on the ground and groaning.

Despite that, the black ogre was standing there unscathed. There wasn’t a scratch on it. All of our attacks were knocked down by moves and techniques we had never seen before.

“Your commands were suitable. As one would expect, scattered offensive troops attacking simultaneously from all directions is hard to counter. That’s why it took so long. But now, this is the end.”

Unconcerned, the black ogre spoke to me.

That voice didn’t have any trace of mockery but, mysteriously, the color of praise.

“You, why are you so strong?”

Just like Rebias and the others, I was not without wounds. My body was covered in countless fine cuts, there was a rather deep laceration on my dominant right arm, and there was a small knife stuck in my thigh. The knife was something the ogre had taken out of somewhere and thrown at me.

As this was beyond my expectations, I was not able to block it.

Since this happened after Bane’s priest troupe collapsed, I couldn’t expect it to be healed. If I had spare strength, I would have removed the knife and healed myself, but I had to accept that I didn’t have this flexibility. The black ogre would surely try to attack the moment I tried to heal.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the force I was leading had already crumbled. Around me, the battlefield was already being cleaned up. No, it may be better to call it a “feast”.

This is because our current encampment was saturated with the sound of weapons, screams, and war cries, as well as the smell of blood.

Once the black and bronze ogres appeared, the tide of the battle was completely turned. This all happened in just a minute.

This was too overwhelming.

“Why, why are you so strong?”

I was laughing and throwing questions at the black ogre without even realizing it.

The reason I was laughing may be because that was the only way I could maintain my sanity.

“The reason you feel that way is because you are weak. Your daily training was lacking and your way of fighting, depending on muscle strength and fancy techniques like arts, made you this way.”

“Our discipline was lacking? Are you saying that the days we spent shedding sweat and being smeared in dirt and blood was for naught!!”

“Yeah, it was futile. It was all meaningless. You were merely wasting your time. Besides, are you guys, who fundamentally depends on others, the strong ones? Are those who fight while depending on others the strong ones?”

Hearing those words from the black ogre made my smile disappear and filled me with anger.

This was because I thought that if I didn’t get angry here, the days we had spent in order to get stronger would be looked down upon, the people we had asked to teach us how to get stronger would be looked down upon, and the thoughts that we had piled up would be looked down upon.

It would’ve been bearable if it was just me, but I couldn’t stand that the people that I admired were also being looked down upon.

My fading strength and vitality were recharged by my anger.

“Shuuut UUUUUUUUUUP!!!”

I pulled out the knife in my thigh. Pain ran through my body.

Blood spurted out. Pain ran through my body.

I ran. Pain ran through my body.

My thigh muscle that was almost cut through tore. Pain ran through my body.

Because I forced myself, the crack in my thigh bone grew even bigger. Pain ran through my body.

I ran, ignoring the pain. Even if my leg were to break, I needed to run.

The silver blade of the magic sword in my hand 《Lune Vent》 and my body, which was creaking with pain, were filled with my burning intent to kill.

A red light lit my blade and my body was surrounded by a white light.

【Therese E. Ekkerman unleashed Arts 【Heiligtum Altar】】

【Therese E. Ekkerman unleashed Arts 【Vent Überfall】】

【Magic sword 《Lune Vent》’s unique skill 【Lune Vent】activated】

I combined my strongest attack with the physical ability strengthening arts 【Vent Überfall】, which increases my speed significantly.

Because of the injury on my thigh, my speed wasn’t nearly as fast as my maximum, but the arts allowed me to move as fast as the wind.

Due to my abnormally high speed, the surroundings in my field of vision seemed to fly towards my back, and the figure of the braced black ogre was standing in the middle. Seeing his eyes again, the flame of my hatred flared up even further.

Being urged on not by just a simple thought that I would kill, but a thought resembling a threat that I must kill, I ran. I didn’t even need a second to cover the 10 merutor distance.

I thrust my magic blade 《Lune Vent》.

The black ogre carelessly casted aside its halberd and grabbed the sword with its silver arm.

Facing this reality, I felt the sensation of something draining out of me quickly.

But, this didn’t mean that my momentum was completely stopped, and the tip of my blade slightly pierced the breast area of the ogre.

Blood trickled out. The same red blood as us. This was, this was, this was...

This was the evidence that my attack, my fastest strike, definitely did connect. Seeing this, I felt relieved.

The light of the 【Soul Light】didn’t seem to have been enough to kill the ogre, but still.

“It seems that I need to take back saying that it was meaningless. Because, at the very least, the things that you had piled up managed to reached me.”

Forcing my body, which felt heavy because of it being exhausted of willpower and strength, I looked up at the black ogre’s face and saw a smile.

The face of the black ogre was scary. It had the appearance of a vicious man-eater. But that smile, for some reason, was friendly.

“Therese-dono, please get down!”

Wesley-dono’s voice vibrated through the space around the black ogre and me. It seemed that the promised two minutes had passed. At some point, I had forgotten about it.

I somehow understood that there was a spell hiding an enormous destructive power coming from behind me.

Wesley-dono was telling me to duck. That meant that the spell was adjusted so that if I got down, the damage dealt to me would be kept to a bare minimum. Normally, this wouldn’t be possible, but since it was Wesley the 【High Wizard】, he could accomplish it.

However, I no longer had the strength or willpower to move quickly. Therefore, I might get caught in the blast and die. No, eight or nine times out of ten, I would die.

But I wonder why I thought that it was alright like this.

I didn’t know myself. I didn’t know why, but rather than regret or remorse, my chest was filled with satisfaction.

A funny story indeed. My subordinates were killed and I was also about to be killed, but there was only satisfaction in my chest.

I looked at the black ogre, who was still holding onto the magic sword 《Lune Vent》 with its silver arm.

The words that it was only natural popped up.

“How was it, did you see, you monster. That wound is a present from me.”

“Yeah, I saw. And I received it. Therefore, I have no intentions of letting such a fascinating person die.”

Before I could raise a question, its arm wrapped around my waist.

Because of the sudden movement, I couldn’t grasp what had taken place, but this movement felt familiar. Yes, it was like the movement of a dance. Although there was such a big difference in size, the movement was very elegant.

After the black ogre turned with me, the spell that was coming from behind me was now approaching from behind the ogre’s back.

It was then that I saw the spell that Wesley-dono had created, despite it being almost completely hidden by the black ogre’s frame.

Created out of white flame was a dragon with a thin waist, like that of a snake.

This was beyond the fourth tier spell I was expecting. A fifth tier spell, “Weiss Flammen Drachen”. I grasped why this could be called a trump card.

TL Note: “Weiss Flammen Drachen” = White Flame Dragon in German (Grammatically incorrect, but don’t get me started on that…)

The fifth tier spell “Weiss Flammen Drachen” was one of the synthetic spells created out of 【Flame】 and 【Dust Wind】 magic and, if I remembered correctly, had the special characteristic of the caster being able control it freely for a certain period of time.

I would probably never forget the sight of it mowing down a thousand enemies within seconds on a battlefield my father had taken me to.

And that was heading towards me.

It was not a bad thing for the last thing that I ever see to be such a magnificent spectacle, I thought.

It was an honorable spell to die to.

“Why does your face look like you’ve given up. Are you thinking that you will die?”

“Huh?”

“I told you. That I have no intentions of letting you die. Sorry, but I won our match. I now possess the right to choose whether you live or die.”

Saying that, the black ogre turned its head and looked backwards.

I was in its arms, unable to resist, and giving myself up was the only available option.

The white dragon wouldn’t stop. Wesley-dono must’ve judged that it was now impossible to save me. Without faltering, the dragon plunged towards us at maximum velocity. I thought that this was the right decision. If he were to hesitate now, I would not be able to stop myself from despising Wesley-dono.

The white dragon, holding a temperature that even the black ogre won’t be able to withstand, opened its jaws and bared its white hot fangs. The black ogres flesh and blood would evaporate in an instant and disappear without leaving so much as a bone.

If that happened, I would obviously disappear from this world as well. Normally, that would be the end.

Even if it was a subspecies, this level of destruction was something that a mere ogre could not do anything against.

However, or rather, as expected, this black ogre surpassed my expectations by far.

I wasn’t able to understand what had happened in that moment.

But the reality was that the white flame dragon that was coming at the black ogre from behind was completely extinguished by the black ogre’s attack. That sight was something that was impossible for me to express in words.

It’s just that the black ogre did something while still looking backwards, and there was no mistake that, as a result, the white flame dragon exploded.

The only three humans who saw this spectacle were me, Wesley-dono, who was staggering from “magic deficiency”, and Rebias, who had raised her face.

And then I lost consciousness, so I don’t remember what happened afterwards very well.

The only thing that is certain is that the battle between me and the black ogre ended in the black ogre’s victory.

■

This is what I heard directly from him afterwards, but how he defeated the white flame dragon was by unleashing an attack that combined many techniques, like one called “Tenzankou” -- Also known as “Tetsuzankou”, 【Demise】type spells, and 【Back-attack】.

TL Note: “Tenzankou” is the name of a martial arts move IRL, whereas “Tetsuzankou” is a replacement commonly used in video games and mangas/animes.

To go into details, he first used 【Hydrohand】 to stretch a film of water over his body surface and, manipulating the wind with 【Aeromaster】, he prepared vacuum layer right next to the layer of water.

He used a third tier 【Demise】 spell, “Oldo Kuta Meide”, to cover these two layers and used 【Attribution Echo】, one of the silver arm’s abilities, to amplify its power, creating a pyramidal shield.

TL Note: “Oldo Kuta Meide” = (lit.) My darkness destroys all. - CookieWhale

These three simultaneously served as a shield and a spear, I heard.

Then Oga-Rou pushed forward these three shields at a great speed using “Tenzankou” strengthened with 【Back-attack】, etc. in order to smash the white flame dragon from the front, apparently.

I think he is a monster, through and through. No, there is no other way to describe him other than as a monster. Because he isn’t anything close to normal.

Nevertheless, I lost. Then, this body belongs to Oga-Rou, as promised. A knight never breaks her promise. At the very least, that’s part of my chivalric code.

Therefore, I will devote myself to Oga-Rou until my life is extinguished.

We-, well, at first, I wasn’t expecting it to be done so intensely, so I got agitated and stabbed his heart with a knife, but it seems that an attack of that degree wasn’t a problem, and now I don’t feel bad about being with Oga-Rou.

This is because after feeling and exchanging words with Oga-Rou, I’ve come to understand that he’s a nicer guy than I previously thought.

【Female Knight’s perspective - Finished】

TL Note : This is author’s notes. - rei_hunter

Redhead first admired the strength she lacked and her love gradually awakened.

Female knight lost her fight and swore loyalty, and was gradually charmed.

As for the two men thinking dearly of those two, on top of one being cut down and the other having his loved one snatched away before his eyes, they met the tragic fate of being assaulted by kobolds and hobgoblins...

That goes without saying.

So, this is the gist of their story.

There may be some doubt on whether a knight would swear loyalty to their opponent just because they lost, but in medieval Europe, they seemed to have the right to choose a worthy leader themselves, so this is a result of adopting this system.

Originally I was planning on including Rusty Iron Knight’s story as well, but since this became so long, I’ll stop here for now.

I do think I was maybe being too redundant.

【Oga-Kichi’s perspective: Day 68】

Straddling my beast-mount, a hind bear called Kuma-Kichi, we dashed through the dark night.

This was because Oga-Rou said he would strike one of the enemy’s parties. Since mobility was essential this time, only those with mounts were proceeding to the battle field, so our number was pretty low, only around 70, but since Oga-Rou said it would be fine, it must be alright like this.

I didn’t want to think about the reason too deeply. I am not suited for thinking too much.

That’s why I will execute Oga-Rou’s orders. It’s as simple as that.

We found the enemy after a while. There seemed to be something like a spell erected around them, but I didn’t know what it is. This was something I had never seen before.

But since Oga-Rou said he would break it, I proceeded to the position I was instructed to take. If I did as Oga-Rou said, there was almost never a problem.

Oga-Rou informed us through the ear cuffs that the preparations were finished. After standing by for a moment, Oga-Rou threw his black spear and started the battle.

The black spear broke the spell-like thing with a cracking sound and, shortly afterwards, my beloved Asue constructed an earthen wall around the enemies, surrounding them. This was so that none of the prey would escape.

I fell in love anew, thinking about how awesome she was.

Once the earthen wall, which exceeded my height, was completed, our magic was shot into the enemy camp. Among them, Spe-Sei’s magic was especially violent and radiant.

The threat-level of Oga-Rou’s black spear was higher, but Supe-Sei’s magic’s attack radius was huge and it was shot in continuously.

While I was being dazed, the magic bombardement weakened and the command to charge in came from Oga-Rou.

I charged in. I charged in without hesitation.

I ran with Kuma-Kichi

I found an enemy. I chopped with my axe. The shield was bent and flesh was torn apart.

I found an enemy. I smashed with my shield. Entrails flew out of their mouth with great momentum.

I found an enemy. I unleashed a head-butt. My horn pierced flesh and the enemy’s face was soaked in blood.

I found an enemy. I ran it over with my momentum. A cry of anguish came from beneath my feet and I felt the sensation of crushing bones.

I found an enemy. Breathing fire, I incinerated it. Screaming, it performed a mysterious dance.

I found an enemy. I bit its head and devoured it. The flavor was reasonably good. It tasted like brains.

I barely thought anything as I was fighting.

The abilities I obtained through training with Oga-Rou came out naturally. My body moved before thinking. Moving without thinking, to a certain extent, I only thought as I fought tough opponents.

The training with Oga-Rou replayed in my brain. The advice that flew around and the memories that were engraved through pain.

If I fought while remembering those things, I was able to kill with ease, even if the enemies were stronger than the others.

I thought this was fun.

The more I trained, the closer I felt I became to Oga-Rou. I still have a long way to go, but I think that I’m getting closer.

I wanted to be closer to Oga-Rou. Rather than being an admirer, I wanted to stand by him as a friend.

That’s why I killed the enemies. I decided on killing many enemies in order to grow stronger.

In order to grow stronger, I needed a lot of experience points and I needed the experience of fighting, in addition to still needing a lot of other things.

That was why I swung my axe, bashed with my shield and trampled with an empty heart.

Even then, the flesh I ate on the battlefield was very delicious.

Day 69

While I was sleeping, I felt a slight pain in my chest.

When I awoke, it seemed that my heart had been pierced by someone. The culprit was the one who hadn't been cuffed yet; the aforementioned Female Knight-san, who was clothed only in her birthday suit, was already wet in many places.

Even though she was really perturbed yesterday, I thought that she would eventually regain her sanity. Fortunately, the stray wrought iron knife (Blacksmith-san's work) that she had picked up and used on me, was one only meant for chopping food.

While leisurely thinking about that, I grabbed the handle of the knife embedded in my chest and pulled it out. You should not underestimate the survival power of someone from the Ogre race. I won't die from just a shallow wound to the heart made by a simple wrought iron knife. It only hurts some, merely stopping my movement when I heal my wounds.

But, as I dislike pain, I used «Fast Healing». The wound closed right before my eyes.

Then, as I looked up, I saw Dhammi-chan stark-naked. She was holding Female Knight-san down while grabbing a bunch of her hair with quiet, simmering anger.

Unable to fight back against the inhuman physical strength, Female Knight-san looked up at me with a hateful look.

Hmm, it looked like it wasn't enough yet. Therefore, I injected a drug into her that I created myself and punished her together with Dhammi-chan.

[T/N: punish = sexual innuendo]

I know I'm exaggerating, but in the afternoon I personally cuffed Female Knight-san!

We gathered the male slaves and made them spit out all of the information that they knew. As a result of [Enslave], they could not lie or withhold information from us. We will pass all of it on to Father Elf.

Because increasing our feats seriously affects the Elven morale, yesterday we received 10 barrels of Elven Wine from Father Elf-san in exchange for information. It was a good deal.

Also, as of today there are 4 four more Hobgoblins today. Mixed within them, was a Cleric.

As usual, I will send them a celebratory gift.

Day 70

Today we set up various traps on the human army's invasion route to ambush them.

The human army was planning to take advantage of their greater numbers to attack the Elven army from multiple directions. That's why we are lying in wait on separate routes to defeat them one by one.

Because this is one of the many routes that are currently being watched, it seems likely that one of the units of the main force will pass by here.

While I think I would be able to gain a lot of experience points from this fight, I devoted myself to dividing the hunting ground together with Asue-chan.

The road that looked like a game trail was slightly lower than its surroundings, and as we moved forward we altered the terrain to make a little slope.

We set pitfall traps at the base of the trees, which grew thick on both sides.

Then we dug a trench to hide at the base of a certain tree that was a little farther from the road. To make it safer here, we installed a shield made out of wooden boards and placed fauner near the trench to make it inconspicuous. Blacksmith-san had worked hard to make enough repeating crossbows to equip the long distance attack troops, , who were stationed inside the trenches

We also placed <<Red Charge>>, the light infantry, inside the trench as an insurance. So even if they jumped over the pitfalls and got close by slipping their way through the rain of arrows, it would be easy to buy ourselves some time… or make killing them easy.

However, they ought to have been dealt with by our kobolds that were hiding in the pitfalls before that.

Soon after we finished the general preparations, the scouts from my squad reported that it would take our enemy approximately 30 minutes to arrive here with their current marching speed. So, all we could do was hold our breath and wait.

Then, they came.

The Rusty Iron Knight, who was equipped in a rust-iron colored full-body armor, advanced while astride his war-horse. He paid close attention to his surroundings as he led an orderly army that did not break ranks while it marched behind him. Certainly, each of them seemed to have relatively high fighting abilities, I guess there were about 700 of them.

Amongst them were magic users? 'Magicians' is a general term to represent them, describing those whose job involves achieving miracles by using magic. There were Summoners, Arcana, Sorcerers and more? Probably about 100 of them.

Considering the annihilation power of magic, even with only 700 of them, they had an tremendous fighting potential.

But it didn't bother me, it made me feel they were a delicious opponent.

Coordinating the troops through the cuffs, firstly we felled a tree and cut off the enemy's path for retreat. Despite the loud noise of the falling tree, it didn't crush a single person. However, it diverted the attention of our enemy and gave me the opportunity to shout out the next command.

With their retreat cut off, it was time for our first assault… We rolled over and pushed down multiple boulders that had been carved out, from the hill above our enemy on them. The recessed area that was the enemies' foothold, caved in on both sides and became a disaster to those who didn't get away in time. They were either crushed or they were trampled to death by their comrades who desperately tried to get away from the falling boulders.

Within them, there were those that took up their weapons, others used their magic to try and pulverize the boulders. Unfortunately for them, I had placed an enchantment on the rocks so that they wouldn't break easily and maintained their momentum and rotational force when rolled down. Their resistance was in vain and they fell prey to the boulders.

Of the 700 enemies once standing, more than 200-300 were crushed to death or were left unable to fight. Many others had suffered injuries from the aftermath as well, it would be difficult to immediately re-organize themselves again.

Of course I had no intention of giving our enemy a break, so we barraged our enemy with our repeating crossbows, sending a rain of poisoned arrows at them.

We had sealed off their escape by gruesomely crushing their comrades with a surprise attack of falling boulders which was followed up by a rain of arrows that came flying in. It was a nasty method that was fearsomely powerful, especially since we used numerous repeating crossbows.

Moreover, because I smeared the arrowheads with a poison I made, even the slightest touch was deadly. Thus this attack instantly cut down the number of enemies.

In an attempt to fight back, some of them tried storming the trenches but ended up falling into the pitfalls that were skillfully hidden. They were met with a wretched end as they got beaten to death by the hidden kobolds.

Of course, this alone was not enough to kill them all. The commanding power of Rusty Iron Knight was not something to be taken lightly.

He raked together the few that survived and arranged a formation using the bodies of their dead comrades to shield themselves from the poisoned arrows. We tried to bring them down with the boulders, but those were destroyed by rapid blasts of magic that were shot from between the crevices in the shell-like formation. With the poisoned arrows being blocked by their shield of dead bodies, we could no longer decrease their numbers.

We plunged into a short stalemate.

Just as I was thinking that he did well with barely 100 left, I felt a surge of interest in the Rusty Iron Knight.

Because I wanted him as my pawn, I stopped their annihilation by magic attacks for now and had the heavy armed unit, led by Ogakichi-kun, charge at them from the top of the hill.

To prevent shooting our own by mistake, we had to stop firing the poisoned arrows. So I just watched over Ogakichi-kun and his men as he readied his 'Tower Shield' and they advanced forward.

Magic attacks spurted from the enemy line at Ogakichi-kun, but all of them were blocked by the magic item 'Tower Shield' and were dispersed to no purpose. Our enemy judged that it would be useless to aim for Ogakichi-kun and started targeting the others. However, most of them were protected by the Tower Shield.

As both armies closed in on each other, the enemies desperately jumped out from the enclosure in a sink-or-swim resort, but were not able to break through the defense of the heavy armor unit, and were instead cooperatively slaughtered by the members of the heavy armor unit, one by one.

Though Steel Crowback struggled against Ogakichi-kun, there was no real contest as Ogakichi-kun had improved his skills in a fight against the Black Skeletons recently. The reason why he was 'struggling' against them, was because he was simply playing around since I ordered him to bring Rusty Iron Knight back alive.

Then after 30 minutes when Ogakichi-kun had enjoyed the fight to its fullest, Rusty Iron Knight was knocked out, captured and enslaved.

And so the meat was distributed and were munched on, crunch, crunch.

Ability Job-Sorcerer learned

Ability Job-Shielder learned

Ability Job-Sentinel learned

Ability Shield Bash learned

Ability Combat Technique Aptitude learned

Ability Sword Proficiency learned

Ability Guard Proficiency learned

Ability Job-Archer learned

Ability Job-Hunter learned

Ability Job-Item Creator learned

Ability Shield Wall learned

Ability Greater Tool Appraisal learned

Our military achievements this time were quite outstanding.

After we collected the useful-looking equipment, we transported the spoils of war, useful-looking prisoners and food just like last time.

We drugged the captured women and put them in jail while the men will be put to work as slaves immediately.

After that, I reported to Father Elf-san.

If they could no longer restrain themselves and sought after the captured women, at that time I shall give them as a reward to individuals that had performed well.

I replied when I was asked what will become of them. Father Elf-san said 'not to force them against their will', but to have your way without drugging them, what are you talking about?

Since they are enemies, we should at least be allowed to drug them.

Now, shall I going to ask various questions of Rusty Iron Knight? Just as I was thinking of doing that, Dhammi-chan embarrassedly tugged on the hem of my bottom with flushed cheeks.

Huh? She wants a… child?

I got fired up in various ways.

【A kobold’s perspective: Day 70】

As commanded by my liege, I hid myself with several brethren within a cavity on the side of a pitfall.

Within my hands were a short horn-spear and a dagger soaked in my liege’s poison. Our duty this time was to immediately finish off the enemies we were ambushing today, shouldst they avoid the barrage of poisoned arrows and fall into this hidden pitfall as they retreated towards the main body of the army.

Although this was a crucial mission, I could only describe this as a safe mission.

Compared to the troops on the surface, who were shooting down the enemy troops with the weapons called “repeating crossbows” that my liege invented, we did not have to worry about a counterattack from the enemy.

If no enemies fell down from the surface, we wouldn’t even receive a scratch.

So, in other words, there was a possibility that this would end without us having to work.

In light of this, I, no, we kobolds who were stationed within the pitfalls were all grinding our teeth.

We were assigned a mission in such a safe place, because our lord didn’t have enough confidence in us.

But, there was nothing that we could do about this.

We had only sworn fealty recently. Our only option was to earnestly work on our missions with all our strength and a deep loyalty, in order to strengthen our lord’s faith in us.

Strengthening my determination, I concealed my presence and waited for the enemy.

Eventually, the enemy arrived, just as planned.

My liege’s plan -- cutting off the retreat, rolling round boulders, poisonous arrows, etc. -- was to cut down the numbers of the confused enemy, and I could start hearing their shrieks.

After a while, it seemed the number of troops falling for the pitfalls increased and I could hear the excited voices of my brethren.

After eagerly waiting for the enemy to fall into the pitfall we were lurking in, the time finally came.

Surprised by the sudden drop, the enemy fell without being able to react and injured his leg. Judging from the dull sound, he must have fractured or broken a bone. The enemy was also confused by the pain and the sudden change in his field of vision.

I stabbed him from behind with my short horn-spear. However, since it was obstructed by the thick sturdy plate armor, despite my spear leaving a wound, it was not fatal. It made an unpleasant scratching sound and sparks flew.

My first strike was a failure.

But, despite the enemy trying to react quickly, his movements were slowed by the heavy full body armor, the leg injury, and his confusion, so there was no counterattack.

Taking the opportunity, I latched onto his back and somehow managed to successfully slip my dagger into the gap at the nape of his neck.

There was a sensation of cutting flesh, fresh blood spraying out, and the rich smell of blood.

The feedback from cutting away a life and the joy of absorbing such a huge amount of experience points that it could clearly be felt.

While in a state of experience point drunkenness, a rare occurrence that was said to happen when you killed something far above your level, I somehow returned to my cavity while feeling enhanced.

The reason being that this is what my liege had ordered me to do.

I quickly figured out the reason why. It was not very difficult to comprehend.

It was simply because some of them were falling. The enemies, from the surface.

Since they were wearing full body armor, I might have been crushed to death if I had lingered in the center of the pitfall. I see, as one would expect of my liege. As I thought that, I cut down three more enemy bodies.

And so this time also, the fight ended in victory and we obtained a huge number of prisoners.

As a reward from our liege, we were allowed to eat the bodies of enemies that we had killed.

Trembling in thankfulness at those rewarding words and shedding tears of joy, we stuffed our mouths with meat.

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