Chapter 86
Chapter 86
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 86
Chapter Title: Twin-Headed Ogre Assault
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“Better to pay the compensation! Everyone, r-run—gahk!”
A sharp fire spear pierced the man’s chest and embedded itself in the massive tree ahead, exploding on impact.
The mercenary, peppered with shrapnel like it had burrowed into his flesh, began bleeding profusely. The giant tree, its trunk shattered, groaned with a creaking sound as it toppled across the path and burst into flames.
The other routes were the same. Acrid smoke rode the wind, flowing like a river to obscure their vision.
“Grk.”
“Keeek! Kyarak!”
Goblins wielding crude weapons pounced on the mercenaries scrambling in the blocked path.
Kicking them away and slashing with swords, only for a massive ogre to lumber in, snatch someone up, and crush their head between its teeth with a sickening crunch.
“Fuck, two ogres? And one’s not just any twin-headed ogre—it’s a mage ogre!”
Someone screamed in desperation while slicing off the head of a goblin lunging from behind, as if to cut off their escape.
Ogres, the strongest among humanoid monsters in raw physical power. Lacking in intelligence but topping the charts in brute strength.
“Krarak!”
But if it had an extra head capable of thought, granting it high enough intellect to instinctively wield magic.
“Don’t engage it head-on, no matter what!”
I gritted my teeth, clutching the codex and redeploying patch shields that had torn and vanished multiple times.
A pair of twin-headed ogres—were they a couple or what? And while one was a standard warrior type, the other was a mage.
We never should have charged in with such meager forces.
‘If I’d known beforehand, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’
We were still a day’s travel from the predicted ogre nesting area.
That’s when Kane and Siren, who were supposedly en route back, contacted me.
‘Who’d have thought the ogres would strike first. And with a goblin horde to boot.’
I averted my gaze from the ogre crushing a person into the dirt with one hand like squeezing juice, flipping through the codex pages instead.
No big spells for now. Not just our party—civilians were mixed in here too.
Plus, regular ogres resisted magic despite not casting it themselves. Fail to one-shot it, and what I used now would just backfire.
“Hah!”
Thwack!
Rachel blocked an ogre’s hand as it swung down toward a tripped mercenary.
Zero nocked arrows into his bow, firing mana-infused shots at its eyes whenever it blinked. But its tough hide shrugged them off with just closed eyelids—out of its four eyes across two heads, they’d only destroyed one per head so far.
Even those regenerated after it yanked the arrows out, visibly healing before our eyes.
Leaf was handling the non-mage twin-headed ogre to avoid draining his mana heart reserves on magic defense. I’d sent Luna to back him up out of worry, leaving two on the warrior ogre and three on the mage.
Our party was split.
“If we keep worrying about them, we’re all dead. Clear this side first, then regroup.”
“Yes, understood.”
Zero stayed on my guard detail, firing suppressive arrows that couldn’t pierce its tough skin.
“Draw your sword. That’ll work better than arrows.”
“But then... I can’t protect you from your side, Lord Adelian.”
“Aegis is here! Just go!”
At the mention of Aegis, Zero reluctantly drew his blade.
He ground his teeth at the warrior ogre’s roar as it charged and swatted people aside in the distance, then coated his sword in aura and leaped forward.
One of the doppelgangers attuned to him wielded a sword well enough that even Kane had been wary back then, so he’d be fine.
The invisible Aegis orbited me in a protective circle, batting away incoming debris and nullifying exploding fireballs.
“Kee-ek!”
Even goblins charging me were blocked by Aegis’s round body, letting me blast them back with magic missiles while retreating.
Even as a twin-headed mage ogre, it was inherently distant from magic—each spell had an enormous cooldown.
“Kraaaah!”
Maybe nullifying its magic had drawn serious aggro, because the ogre—missing fingers to Zero’s sword—ignored him and stomped toward me.
Its outstretched hand regenerated fingers in real time, tips bulging out anew.
“Uncle, go join them! Stop getting in the way!”
Just then, Rachel, having lured most mercenaries to the warrior twin-head, dashed my way and punched a hurled tree into splinters.
“Buy me a moment!”
At my words, Rachel swiftly closed in on the ogre.
Pow!
She wrapped her fist in aura and smashed down with her knee.
One knee buckled backward, ruining its stance. Zero slashed its wrist and fell back, firing a close-range arrow to burst another eye.
From 6th class onward, spells favored wide-area effects with delays, so against single targets, I went with instant-cast 5th-class magic.
I flipped through the codex, shielding Rachel and Zero, then unleashed dozens of magic missiles for suppression.
Meanwhile, one mana stone embedded in the codex shattered from full depletion. I swapped in a fresh one and placed my hand over a spell.
A scaled-down 7th-class Fury of Heaven.
5th-class Thunderbolt.
“Rachel, Zero! Fall back!”
They hurried to me as the ogre groped for its severed wrist.
“Let there be light from above!”
Like lightning from a clear sky, a bolt streaked down from empty air.
Vision flashed white. Nearby stones scorched and popped. At the center, the twin-headed mage ogre bellowed.
“Krarararak!”
Surrounding goblins charred in the aftershocks, and two codex mana stones exploded—permanent page loss averted.
‘I’ll complain to the guild when we get back.’
Grinding my teeth, I opened my subspace for replacements. The charred ogre shuddered, pointing a finger at me.
That instant.
Bang!
Aegis, circling nearby, intercepted something, flung back by the impact. I reflexively tore a patch shield.
Not a standard spell—a mana cluster shot?
Sizzle. Sizzle.
Bang!
Another mana cluster flew my way; Aegis zipped in to block it again, bouncing farther off.
With each movement, the mage ogre’s charred skin flaked, exposing pale muscle splits and bleeding red flesh beneath.
Near death.
Yet it wasn’t dead. It stomped a goblin reduced to mush by thunderbolt aftershocks and devoured it, slowly recovering.
Teetering on death’s door, yet it healed—and mana began gathering around it, rising like heat haze.
“What the hell? Since when do ogres awaken?!”
Rachel yelled in disbelief.
I felt the same emptiness. You’re no protagonist—why cross death’s threshold and awaken?
Mana swirled around the ogre like a storm.
“Hah!”
Zero’s arrow bounced off the mana vortex. Rachel’s strikes rebounded from the repulsive force.
Mid-awakening, normal aura attacks wouldn’t land.
Who knew how much stronger it’d get once finished.
“One more...”
I steeled myself for permanent loss and identity exposure, hand over a high-circle page. Rachel shouted.
“No! Its awakening’s concentrating ambient mana—mess up the spell, and it rebounds on us.”
“Then what do we do, junior?!”
Zero returned to my side, blocking ahead. Rachel glared at the mana-shrouded ogre.
“Kruaaaah!”
“It’s gotten even more ferocious!”
“Save me!”
Worse, the mage ogre’s awakening stimulated the warrior one—screams erupted from the other side again.
They’d held so far, but the subjugation team had prepped for one ogre. Two was impossible.
Many had fled on learning the truth, only to die.
“Better to regroup there and take the regular ogre first!”
I shook my head at Rachel’s shout. The mana vortex was slowing slightly.
More time on the awakening would’ve made it targetable, but now it was a trap.
“Regrouping’s not—”
It’d wipe both sides the moment we did.
As I started refusing, a voice pierced my mind.
[Come to the signal flare.]
Kane?
* * *
“We need to finish this warrior ogre here fast.”
“Leaf, I can sense what you mean.”
She didn’t know why. But Luna was certain Leaf felt the same urgency to kill this ogre quickly.
He followed Adelian too, after all.
“I don’t want to die...”
“Just clear this tree!”
While panicked mercenaries clung to the broken, burning tree blocking the path—thrown into chaos by two ogres instead of one—Luna kicked off the ground and soared.
An eye bigger than her leg. She stomped to burst it, twisting midair to pivot off its shoulder, knee driving into one head’s jaw.
Aura-clad, the jaw snapped shut wildly, a tooth cracking off to graze her cheek.
She grabbed an ear, headbutted, then whipped it like shooing a fly. Kicking off the hand grasping for her, she launched behind the ogre, rebounding off the ground into a shoulder tackle at its waist.
“Krooooh!”
Leaf amped his mana heart output, infusing fingertips and accelerating his elbow. His fist pierced the ogre’s gut.
He yanked out entrails, but they sealed up, dangling briefly before slurping back in.
A monster through and through.
Taking one that size in one hit was a pipe dream.
“Kreeaah!”
A goblin hurled a knife at a mercenary exposing his back to bait the ogre. Leaf caught the blade barehanded, then smashed the goblin’s skull with the hilt.
“Hoo, haa. We can do this!”
“Kraaah!”
A mercenary dodged a swinging tree trunk by a hair, coating his weak aura briefly on his sword to slash the ogre’s instep before retreating.
Standard subjugation wore them down via rotation until mana aiding their hide and regen ran dry.
‘But that needs everyone piling on!’
Large monsters required traps restricting movement, dozens of mercenaries rotating in teams, burning mana nonstop until regular blades could finish it.
Here, they were ambushed instead—movement restricted on their end, half the mercs fleeing or dead, no rotations.
Luna and Leaf had dropped their power concealment. Late-awakening mercs and diehards from the start barely held, chipping at the warrior ogre’s strength.
Stalemate, but they gained ground bit by bit.
At this rate, they might take it after a while.
‘Young master!’
The problem was that mage ogre!
Even with Rachel, three against a trickier foe than the warrior type?
‘Can’t rely on Rachel too much.’
Luna knew her true nature. Adelian and Rachel didn’t hide it from each other.
Yet Luna and others didn’t fear her for one reason.
‘It’s all just a game to her.’
A dragon’s fleeting dream amid long eons. Everything as martial artist Rachel was hers alone.
Bound to the limits, conditions, and settings dragon Rachel imposed.
Even if she found love, bore children, gained something dearer than life—or accumulated hate and rage—the game ended with the dream. All love, anger, everything forgotten.
So even if Adelian neared death, Rachel wouldn’t exceed her set power to save him.
‘Please just hold on!’
Luna gritted her teeth, targeting ankles to force a kneel—then a sound erupted behind.
Phewww—pop!
A signal flare?
Red smoke bloomed far off, and Rachel sprinting this way came into view.
“Why are you here?!”
“Kill this bastard quick and regroup there!”
Rachel, who should be with Adelian!
“Adelian headed for the flare! He ordered me, so I had no choice!”
Luna bit her lip raw as Rachel, aura-flaring on her fist, charged the ogre with a roar.