Dancing with Goblins (3)
The forest's interior barely saw the sun, and the gloom was thick enough to crawl under your skin.
"Still, it is a scouting mission."
"Hehe, that's what I'm saying. Let's keep it easy~ nice and easy~."
Ext seemed to have cranked his energy up a notch.
Fortunately, a good long while after we entered the woods, nothing in particular happened. All that talk about monsters multiplying until the place was in an uproar was starting to sound like a lie, and with nothing to feed it, our guard couldn't help but slip.
"Oh. Dung mushrooms."
"Gasp. I'm a little jealous, Mr. Babar."
"Keep your eyes open and you might find some too."
"Shut up, Raccoon."
Only then did the mood of the forest really register, and it was silent. Nothing reached us but our own voices and, now and then, the hush of grass stirred by the wind. And that, somehow, was what felt wrong.
"Hey. It's too quiet."
Raccoon said it. Normally, step into a forest and you got animals, insects, something. This time, no exaggeration, there wasn't a single sound. At most, leaves ticking in the breeze. It was like walking into a room so clean it felt off.
"Something's not right."
"Agreed."
"Hehe. Quiet's good, though. What's the problem."
We were walking with our eyes out for any crumbs that might fall our way when it came.
"...Chwik!"
"You hear that?"
"Oh, fuck."
"Our ears aren't broken, right?"
None of us waited for the others. Every face went white. An orc.
"Are you kidding me? An orc, this close to the edge..."
Raccoon had it right. Orcs lived deep—deep—in the forest. They didn't show up out here on the fringe. Nothing to eat. The fringe was goblin territory besides, and orcs generally preferred not to pick a pointless turf war.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why does this keep happening. Just stay holed up where you live, why are you crawling out here, you piece of shit, seriously."
If I didn't swear, I was going to lose my mind. If I'd known orcs wandered this far, I never would have become an adventurer in the first place. You go somewhere as close as your own front yard and run into the thing they call the grim reaper of Silver Plate adventurers? As a Bronze Plate? Nobody would take up adventuring. It was suicide with extra steps.
"This isn't the time. We have to get back and report this."
One sentence from Raccoon, and I clawed my way out of the panic. Right. Better to spend that breath on one more step than on another curse.
"Let's bail. This is more than enough to report."
We agreed fast. Orcs were a race with viciously sharp senses. We had to run before the distance closed any further. The quicker the decision, the better the odds of staying alive.
"Faster. Faster."
But even moving as fast as we could without making a racket, the sound seemed to be drawing closer.
"Ah, fuck it. This isn't working. Everybody just run!"
What had been a brisk walk broke into a sprint. The orc still gained on us.
"KWAAAAAAAH—!!!!"
"Son of a— it's right behind us!"
CRACK—! THOOM—!!!!!
A tree as thick as Raccoon's waist toppled, and the orc came through. Muscles fit to burst. Four fangs jutting sharp toward the sky. Skin a deeper green than any goblin's, and red eyes that looked ready to spill light.
"KRAAAAAAAAH—!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The orc roared. Sharp teeth packed all the way to the roof of its mouth. There was a reason it took four Silver Plate adventurers to handle one. If goblin subjugation sat in the realm of a fight, or a hunt, an orc was a raid. The thing didn't even bother with a weapon. The body itself was the weapon.
"Oh my god, we are so fucked..."
Every stride it took kicked up dirt. Thud. Thud. Thud. A drum announcing our death sentence.
That was when it happened.
"Everyone, step aside."
Eline dropped out of a tree. She must have fallen from a fair height, and yet her landing didn't make a sound.
"Eline?"
"Goat. Goat needs to get out of here. If you don't feel like dying."
"Th-thank you..."
With that, she drew the longsword at her hip and charged the orc.
"H-hey— that— isn't that dangerous?"
"She must have a plan. A Bronze Plate doesn't get to worry about a Silver Plate."
"Tch. Fair."
Stunned, we could only stand there and watch her run.
Whoosh—
That wasn't a sound from a mouth. The orc's fist made it. It had never learned martial arts the way boxers back on Earth did, drilled and systematic. In front of physical specs that reduced a pro boxer to a whatever, the distinction didn't matter.
"Uh... uhhh..."
"Hey, shouldn't we help her?"
Raccoon kept saying stupid things.
"Is our friend's head just decoration? What exactly are you going to do if you go over there."
Eline was slipping the orc's fists by a hair. It looked so close that my own heart clenched just watching. The way she shed each attack with the smallest possible movement was astonishing.
"CHWIIIIIIK—!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The orc was furious. A fairy it could snap clean in half the moment it got a hand on her, and all she did was dodge this way and that. Of course it was losing its mind. Eline picked her moment with perfect calm, then swung the sword like lightning. A thin cut opened along the orc's flank.
"...Tch."
It hadn't bitten as deep as she'd expected.
"Terrifying."
Mr. Babar had the right of it. Eline, slipping punches that made your flesh crawl just to look at, and the orc, reacting to a slash my eyes could barely follow—they were the same kind of monster.
Up until a moment ago the orc had been in a frenzy. The wound changed the air around it. It had realized the wisp in front of it was a real opponent. And then, amazingly, the thing showed a flicker of sense and tore a tree as thick as Eline's waist straight out of the ground.
KRRR-CRACK—
"Whoa... it's folding that thing in half."
"Heh..."
The orc swung the tree, snapped down to a usable length. The sound was every bit as awful as the fists. Round two.
It had a weapon now, but the shape of the fight didn't change. Downward smashes she bled off with a light shift of angle. Horizontal sweeps she avoided by leaping, elegant as anything.
"That's not Silver Plate level, is it?"
"I was just thinking the same."
I'd never actually seen a Silver Plate or a Gold Plate fight. Even so, the idea that someone toying with an orc alone was merely Silver Plate was absurd.
A log club, and still nothing to show for it—the orc's lid blew clean off.
"KWAAAAAAAAAAAH—!!!!!!!"
The clubbing got faster and faster. The tree pulverized everything in its path as it came on. Wind off the weapon raised a choking cloud of dirt.
"No way. The numbers keep climbing...?"
Power enough to pop a scouter.
"The hell are you on about."
"It's a thing."
An orc that had class-changed into a butcher of humans. Eline, who had been sidestepping that thing's attacks with light, dainty footwork, answered a full-power overhead smash by striking up from below. She split the club in an instant, then rose into the air with perfect grace. The orc was a dog that had lost the chicken. Toward that sorry creature, Eline drove her sword with a face that gave away nothing.
Shhk—
The orc's arm flew into the sky.
"Krgh..."
Whether it had lost the will to fight or not, it clutched its shoulder and dropped to its knees. It must have felt a wall in her. However deep the despair ran, it didn't even think to pick the severed arm back up. At the same moment, Eline landed.
"Hah..."
The flip had thrown her hood back. Everyone but me had no choice but to stare. Her ears were pointed.
"A fairy...?"
Only when she heard Raccoon did Eline seem to realize the hood was off. She felt at her head, and her expression hardened.
"You know what happens if you go and talk... yes?"
She lifted the bloodied longsword, just a little, and met each of our eyes in turn. A silent pressure: open your mouth anywhere, and she would erase you. Raccoon must have folded, because his head bobbed like mad.
"Goat. Come over here."
"Huh? Me?"
"Is there any other goat here besides you?"
I hesitated. Wasn't this the woman who hadn't spared the others a glance? It felt like I was the only one she found interesting.
"Why only this bastard..."
I left Raccoon's grumbling behind and went to her. The orc was still heaving for breath. It didn't look like it had a counterattack left in it.
"Sing."
"Eh?"
"A song."
So she must have caught me, last time, putting on that ass-clown routine in front of the goblins. That was why she'd seemed so interested in me.
"Hurry, hurry."
The moment she said it, the smell of a fellow countryman came off the words so thick I couldn't hesitate any longer. Fine. I'd give her a bar of whatever.
"Don't do this, please! Don't! Don't do this, please! Don't! Don't know why— don't know why!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Is that directed at me?"
"Nope."
Anyway, the effect was incredible.
"Chwek? Chwek, chwik..."
The orc fainted. A creature that looked like it wouldn't drop even if you hit it with an elephant tranquilizer had gone to sleep.
THOOM—
The huge body fell, and the ground shook.
"Hm. Different from last time."
Eline clicked her tongue and cut the orc's throat. She'd wanted the monster to go berserk, or that was how it felt.
"...Shame."
She carefully collected the orc's fangs, pulled her hood back up, and left. She was so fast she was gone from sight in a few seconds. What remained was the rest of us, standing there dumbstruck, and the orc's body pouring blood that steamed in soft curls.
"...Let's go back."
Nobody objected, so we hurried home. Who knew when another man-butchering orc might show up and grind a Bronze Plate adventurer named Goat into paste. Not green light. A forest glowing red with my blood. I had no interest in meeting a scene like that. Not until I went red-green colorblind, or until dirt went into my eyes. Not a chance.
We rushed back to the guild. Before we went in, I chambered a round in my voice.
KA-BOOOOM—