Orc Hunt

The forest orcs were infamous for their viciousness. They were not the dim-witted brutes movies and novels liked to pretend they were, and set down in a list, their traits made for grim reading.

Intelligent. Fond of hunting in packs. Flexible. Bodies that snapped back like sprung steel. Strength that simply did not give.

So they were just monsters, then? You could think so, but every judgment is relative. The answer was level.

That was the condition written into the certification posts for the Tower's fourth floor: a recommended level of 35 or higher. Look closer at those posts and the condition split even finer.

Hunters who cleared the third floor headed for the Labyrinth. The reason was simple. Raise your level. Improve the body. Only then could you kill the orcs of the fourth floor.

"......"

In that respect, my luck was absurd. Kill a single monster and you hit the level cap on the spot. Even the talented needed months. Someone without talent could spend a lifetime and never reach it.

On top of that, every skill I learned shot straight to maximum the moment I learned it. I was even starting to feel grateful to Lee Hee-ja. Eight straight years as her emotional trash can, and it had finally paid off. Something like that.

For a first meeting with orcs, the number I had to kill was on the high side. My level sat well above the recommendation, but I was tense all the same. Orcs were infamous enough to earn it. And there was another problem.

The setting was a forest — the same situation as the detached house in Chuncheon. There were simply too many living things. I had to narrow my senses.

Wind shook the branches with a dry rustle, and even that sound felt like a threat. On the black panel, the sense that ought to have lit a full kilometer and a half had to be drawn in to about eight hundred meters.

I walked slowly deeper into the trees, footsteps soft against the undergrowth. Red dots rose across the panel, one and then another. I studied them with care, and after a while I let out a breath of relief.

Thank goodness.

It was better than I'd expected. I had thought eight hundred meters was already tight, but an orc's actual range of awareness was narrower still. I could feel them. They could not feel me.

Even so, I needed to be certain. I moved toward them slowly and did not cast. I had to confirm the raw edge of their awareness, and nothing else.

Seven hundred meters. Six hundred. Five hundred.

The instant the distance closed to four hundred, a red dot twitched. Its outline shivered. I felt the thing turn toward me.

"......"

I brushed the Mithril Protector Bracelet and remembered what Hans had said.

Recalling it settled me more than a little. I didn't believe it completely. Still, a measure of calm was necessary.

One orc closed the distance on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠its own, and the gap kept shrinking. At a hundred meters it kicked off a thick branch. The limb shivered. Leaves drifted down. For a body that size, the movement was weightless.

In the next instant an orc dropped out of the air above my head. The double-bitted axe in its hands flashed, cold and ugly. Only then did a chill of killing intent crawl up my spine. Its breath roughened, already certain of the kill.

Close enough.

Blue force erupted from my palm. Hundreds of mana threads bloomed through the empty air, seized the orc in a heartbeat, and drove it into the ground.

The impact slammed it flat. It thrashed and got nowhere. Hundreds of threads, each one carrying the strength of level 60, crushed it without mercy. A thing already pinned didn't need a grand spell. I didn't even have to reach. A fireball leapt up and drove straight for its skull.

The head burst. The body caught fire, crumbled to ash, and the wind tore what remained apart in an instant.

...Easier than I thought.

My detection reached eight hundred meters. The orc's reached four hundred. Sharp, by an animal's measure. Nowhere near mine.

I let a little of the tension go. There was nothing special about an orc. The fight itself was proof that my specs had already left them behind.

That was when it happened.

It was the same as last time. One orc's worth of experience, and I reached level 80. The change moved through my body at once.

Beneath the skin, bluish mana churned through me like a whirlwind. A clean, bracing current climbed my spine and raced the length of my body. A liberation I had no words for washed over me.

"......!!"

It ended at the crown of my head. Blue fire kicked up inside my skull the way a hammer strikes heated iron — except what it forged was not iron.

Mental strength. Every time I pushed magic to its limit, those nerves had drawn wire-tight, and in a single instant they went slack. I knew it by instinct. I could use magic far more than before, and for far longer.

I extended a hand slowly. The mana threads moved smoother than they ever had. I caught the double-bitted axe the orc had left behind and whipped it into a tree.

The blow landed with a heavy crack, and the ground shuddered. Two orcs prowling nearby flinched, looked at each other, and nodded. Detection read every one of those movements.

Whether it was the higher level or the stronger mind, even at a distance every motion of an enemy came through finer than before.

The orcs were not stupid. One slipped up into the trees. The other moved in secret behind the brush. From a line-of-sight standpoint, it was flawless. Unfortunately for them, I don't rely on sight.

A fireball tore toward the orc leaping from tree to tree. I threw it on will alone, and it matched the speed of the ones I used to seize and hurl by hand. The orc's eyes flew wide only when the flame was already in its face. Far too late to dodge.

"Krr—"

Before anything like a scream could leave those green lips, the fireball punched through the heart. Not a hole the size of a head. A hole the size of four. Then the whole body went up, burning hard.

I threw my left hand out at once.

It was not only Detection and the fireball that had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠advanced. Mana threads slipped from my palm with a whip-crack. The number was the same. The power was entirely different.

Four hundred threads lanced at the orc, vicious and fast.

"Krr...!!"

Sensing the danger, the orc changed everything. The moment it judged that closing in was a losing move, it hurled its axe and broke into a wide circle through the brush. Useless.

The tips of the threads, spread in disorder, split fine. A web opened across the air. Thousands of strands swallowed the axe in a single gulp.

In the same breath, threads cast from my other hand raced toward the orc. They dove beneath the brush without so much as a whisper of presence, caught the running orc by the legs, and hauled it up.

Balance gone, its head slammed into the dirt. A strange crack sounded in the neck — muscle tearing. The bone held.

Then a thread came over its head in a long, high arc.

With a sickening crunch, the thick bone of the neck shattered. The double-bitted axe, gripped in mana thread, had chopped through its owner's throat.

The orc's eyes flew wide, as if it could not believe it. The lids trembled. The breath thinned. Blood gulped in the throat. I felt every one of those things, whole and exact.

"Kereh..."

Tongue lolling long, the orc died where it lay. A message rose in front of my eyes.

The commotion must have been loud enough this time. Several orcs closed in. I checked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠each presence in turn and put the situation in order.

The fireball's penetration had expanded a full four times over. Maybe that was only natural. The experience required from level 40 to 60, and the experience required from 60 to 80, were not even on the same scale.

None of that meant anything to me. One orc, and I had stamped the level cap in a single stroke. Experience, as a thing, had no meaning.

Honestly, it was starting to unsettle me. A thought surfaced unbidden. What if the trait I had gained was a kind of error?

An awakening in a moment of certain death. Because of that, an ability that should never have existed might have been carved into my body.

The mana threads were the same. Some spread like a net and stopped the orc's axe. Some seized its legs and broke its balance. In the middle of all that, I caught the axe, swung, and smashed its neck. Linked to Detection, the whole sequence was calculated in my head and carried out exactly.

Once my thoughts reached that far, the situation had already settled clean. Magical ability far past anything I had expected. I shouldn't get careless — but I also had no reason to fear the Tower more than it deserved. And that would hold from here on.

The threshold the Tower demanded, I would clear in a single bound.

Which meant there was only one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thing left to confirm.

Flame roared up, compressed, over my palm. I grew it. Impossible until now. I thought it might be possible at last.

Heat surged into the expanded fire like a wave. Flame that had rushed into the sphere thrashed on its own and howled like a beast. Mana drained out of me in a rush of weakness — but it refilled at once, and my mind could bear the strain.

Then, at some moment, the thrashing flame went still. I took hold of that enormous fire and threw it straight at the orcs charging in.

The explosion was enormous. It swallowed everything. The red dots vanished without a trace — and not only the dots. The forest that had filled my vision was torn away whole.

"......"

I checked the size of the crater. Nine meters. No — ten? That was only the radius gouged into the ground. The blast in the air had been far larger.

I sketched a rough circle for a long while before the numbers settled.

Insane.

A radius of fifteen meters. A blast thirty meters across, drawn clear in my head. A light dizziness shook me, and the hardened mental strength held it off.

A message surfaced before my eyes.

The fourth floor was clear. Now it was time to learn a new skill.

The third flame spell. The one that governed expansion.

Crimson Flame.