Multi-Race Alliance 4
The deeper they pushed into the Western Wasteland, the more visibly the land itself withered.
Shrubs and undergrowth had vanished entirely. Tumbleweeds straight out of a Western rolled past their feet, and every gust of wind kicked up dust that swallowed the horizon. The air felt so dry it cracked their lips, and even the sensation against their heightened skin was completely different from before.
"Maybe we should've brought horses after all."
"The orcs said they made the round trip in a day, so they can't have gone that far. If it takes them half a day riding wolves, we can catch up in a full day at our pace. …Well, we'll still have to camp out, though."
Han Se-ah had ended her stream, promising to turn it back on once they found the orc base, and was now walking the wasteland in solo-play mode, moistening her lips with water droplets conjured by magic.
It could have been a tedious, exhausting trek — but the women were burning with purpose. Having witnessed bandits who had joined hands with orcs and raped people, traitors to humanity, their sense of mission had flared back to life.
"How could a human bow their head to an orc? No matter how hard it is to make a living…"
"I always thought the west was a rich region full of merchants, but the gap between rich and poor must be worse than I imagined."
"In the north, if you run outside the village you freeze to death, so you don't get scum like that… Being barren doesn't mean everyone turns rotten. Those bastards just deserve to die, that's all."
Among the party members each offering their own remark, Lily kept a quiet silence. She seemed relieved that the orcs hadn't touched the prisoners, yet unsettled by the sight of humans tormenting other humans.
Irene quietly stepped up beside her and gave her a gentle pat.
"You must be very worried about your companions."
"Mm, yeah… something like that."
"Come to think of it, I haven't even heard about them. What kind of people are they?"
"Three of them. All Intermediate-grade adventurers. One woman, two men. So our party was half and half."
Whether to forget the monotony of walking or to settle her restless mind, Lily spoke without hesitation. The others, who had been chattering as they walked, pricked up their ears to listen.
Lily was an Upper-grade adventurer like Roland, someone who traveled the west like a peddler and moonlighted as a mercenary. It was only natural that her less experienced companions would hang on her every word.
"We were all Intermediate-grade at first, you know. But during a mission with Roland, I gained a bit of insight and hit Upper-grade first. Still, my companions are right at the edge — it won't be long before they reach the same level as me."
"People like that… ah, I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine. Mercenaries and adventurers are that kind of profession. And honestly, with their skill, there's a real chance they didn't get taken by the orcs. I'm not just saying it — they might have wiped out the orcs, headed west, run into money trouble, and be scrambling through some rush job right now."
"Has that actually happened to you?"
"Once, when I went to assist on a large-species hunt and we got separated. I lost my coin purse and all my rations, left with nothing but my weapons and adventurer's badge. Had to take jobs like some bottom-rung wooden-badge mercenary, earn the money, and then get back in contact."
The threshold right before drawing mana outside the body — the very edge of Intermediate-grade. In game terms, her companions were stuck against the level-cap wall of X9. That was probably why she put so much stock in the possibility that a mere twenty or so orcs couldn't have taken them.
And so the mood never sank into gloom. If wolf cavalry and bandits were all the enemy had, there was reason for hope. The odds of them dumping their gear and running were higher than the odds of being captured by orcs and brutalized by humans.
Because the victim herself — Lily — wasn't particularly dark about it, the rest of the party seemed to lean toward hope as well. To villagers, orcs meant preparing for death, not mere goblins. But to Intermediate-grade adventurers and above, orcs were just orcs.
Lily had been uneasy about her companions' silence and the orcs' strange behavior, but the ease with which the wolf riders had been handled — and the fact that the enemy was so short-handed they needed to use bandits — seemed to put her somewhat at ease.
"Grace, how is it? Can you still pick up the wolf tracks?"
"The wind's strong, so they've thinned out a bit, but luckily I can still spot them here and there. The captives said a few people were dragged off two nights ago — these look like those tracks."
The enemy's strength was weaker than expected, and the trail of where they'd gone was laid out plain as day. Still, the vast wasteland had seen the sun set and the moon rise, so they stopped to pitch tents and manage their condition. In a wasteland with nothing whatsoever, you simply stopped walking, pitched a tent, and that spot became camp.
Following wolf tracks that ran in a single direction with no sign of wandering, they eventually set up beside a boulder that would block the wind and looked up at the moon.
Cooking, at least, was something Roland had no part in. Most problems that could be solved with raw strength were his domain, but when it came to cooking or pitching tents, the party never gave him an opening to step in.
It wasn't that they didn't trust him — more an expression of will, that they wanted to handle at least these things themselves. Since he naturally took on the dirty work like interrogating bandits, they were looking out for him in their own way.
"Mmm, that rich smell. It smells even better than usual."
"I added some of the adventurer's preserved rations the innkeeper gave us. These aren't the rough kind — they must have roasted really high-quality grain."
A savory aroma drifted across the darkened wasteland. It felt like they only ever ate stew or soup, but there was no helping it. Put water in a pot and boil it — thin, it's soup; thick, it's stew. A hot broth filling your stomach beat chewing hard bread or cold jerky any day.
In a large pot, she crushed preserved biscuits into powder and fried them with butter, filled it with magically created water, stirred in crumbled grain rations, tossed in some jerky, and let it simmer.
Watching the process, it couldn't have looked simpler — but the result filled the mouth with a rich, faintly sweet grain flavor that warmly filled an empty stomach, and gratitude toward Irene rose unbidden.
"We'll need a night watch, right? We don't know where the orc pack might be."
"I'll take the watch. You all get some proper sleep."
"Huh?"
Huddled together filling their stomachs with stew, the party startled at the sudden announcement of a solo night watch. Lily nodded, but the others looked at him with worry or confusion.
Night watches had only ever been for training inside the Tower. They didn't seem to realize that an Upper-grade adventurer — a superhuman — could stay up for days straight without issue. Still, with more wasteland walking ahead, he shooed them off to sleep, and one by one they slipped into their tents.
Even a wasteland that held nothing but wolf and orc footprints received the sunrise equally. No wolves catching their scent, no orcs spotting the campfire glow and charging in — a peaceful morning.
The only notable event was that Han Se-ah had logged out overnight and reconnected to match her stream schedule.
"Their base should be coming into view soon."
"How do you know, Unnie?"
"I can see the tracks overlapping in layers. Looks like there's a place where they gather people kidnapped from multiple locations."
Trusting Grace's words, she seemed to expect the story to advance within a few hours. Glancing at the stream window that hadn't started yet, Roland secretly tapped at a hologram panel.
She hasn't grown at all since she stopped thinking about Magic Tower support… so sad…
She clearly saw while doing quests that the knight order maintains security
She's planning to find every last orc without even thinking of just rescuing her party members and bailing… even sadder…
A short post to soothe viewers who were starting to get bored of wasteland and orcs — and to set the direction of Han Se-ah's stream.
They might be climbing the Tower in the Goddess's name to defeat the Demon King, but that didn't mean they had to personally uphold every scrap of the world's peace. Confirm and find Lily's companions, and the rest was the knight order's job.
The Royal Knight Order was protecting the Blessed Forest under their name — and orcs that had slipped past the knights' eyes from that very forest were now plundering the kingdom's merchants? If they didn't want their name dragged through the mud, they'd come running with fire in their eyes.
"Ah, shit, what the hell…. Is that it? Should I ask Roland to move the knight order…? The viewers were starting to look bored anyway."
What, she already saw it?
Among the party, who had warmed yesterday's leftover soup for a quick breakfast and started walking again, Han Se-ah's muttering drifted faintly over. Being an out-of-game matter, the NPC party members couldn't hear it — but it reached Roland's ears crystal clear.
Apparently Jjanhae-jwa's advice had been so helpful that she'd set an alert for anything containing "jjanhae." Judging by how she reacted to a post written in secret less than three minutes earlier while walking at the front beside Grace, it was no coincidence.
"Roland, up ahead!"
"What is i— …t?"
And that was how they found the orcs' base.
Or rather — what had been their base.
"……Isn't that Miss Rebecca?"
A massive tent made from large-species hide had been trampled flat like paper. Mana Stones rolled across the dust-choked ground. Far in the distance, a cloud of dust was pulling away from the site — the smarter ones must have fled.
Among the ruins, the former hostages crouched like people who had witnessed the end of the world, wetting themselves as they hid among the wreckage.
The ones who had created that carnage were four people.
A man with a shield. A woman with a staff. A man with a bow.
Is the star stuck to Rebecca some kind of misfortune star? Or a star that picks fights with orcs?
And Rebecca.
Apparently her mercenary company had gotten cleaned out by orcs again.