The Grassland Giant 1
An ogre appeared beyond the grasslands.
So, much to Han Se-ah's misfortune, it wasn't a Mecha Ogre, a Ragged Ogre Golem, a Corpse Giant, or a Giant Suicide-Bomber Ogre — just an ordinary Frenzied Ogre lumbering about beyond the plains.
In short, the reason they hadn't run into an ogre until now was simply that Han Se-ah had the absolute worst luck and the greasiest gacha hands imaginable.
"Whoa, it's been a real long time since I've seen that face. By the way, that thing's gaze is locked onto something."
"Gaze?"
"Yeah. It looks like it's just ambling around, but something's got its aggro."
With that thought, I vaulted up onto the barricade wall. The others heard the shout and all came clambering up after me, but the creature wasn't looking our way.
Even with only a single hunting experience under my belt, its senses were roughly on par with ours. We were standing right out in the open on the wooden palisade, gawking at the ogre — so it should have noticed a bunch of tiny humans swarming up to stare at it.
Yet it didn't fly into a rage and charge the moment our eyes met. Instead, it was slowly walking at an angle that would skirt past the outpost, looking for all the world like a predator stalking prey. And since that predator wasn't targeting us, we could watch in peace.
"Hmm, what's over that way?"
"It's right on the edge of detection range… Ah, I see it. Looks like it's picked up on a unit of stealthed centaurs."
A nine-meter giant lumbering along. It was slowly closing in on some direction when it suddenly dropped into a crouch, then started creeping forward on all fours like a gorilla — the very picture of a predator about to pounce.
If the ones being ambushed had been humans, I'd have charged out to save them right away. But the ones about to get jumped without a clue were stealthed centaurs, so I could watch with a clear conscience. Seemed they were heading back to the outpost, because the ogre was gradually drawing closer to us.
An invisible unit of stealthed centaurs was making a beeline for the outpost, and a Frenzied Ogre was about to hit them from the side.
"It's not going to suddenly charge our way, is it?"
"Judging by how it hasn't even glanced at us, we could go out and greet it first."
"The second it turns this way, I'm bolting out there. If it wrecks the tents and sleeping bags we just set up, we're homeless. The grassland weather's nice and all, but sleeping on dirt with the clouds for a blanket? Hard pass."
"Ah, Roland's got a point. Nice weather or not, I don't want to sleep on the dirt."
Apparently the thing cared about numbers — it showed zero interest in our direction. We snickered and tossed jokes back and forth.
No matter how terrifying a Frenzied Ogre was, the worst it could do to us was turn the outpost Han Se-ah had carefully leveled with mana back into a mess.
Besides, it didn't look like we'd be fighting anything else today. Once the Frenzied Ogre jumped the stealthed centaurs, maybe I could sidle up and wipe them all out with the Holy Sword. The five-minute daily limit made it awkward to use on random trash mobs, but against a Frenzied Ogre? Worth it.
Last time I fought one the normal way, it was such a pain.
The Holy Sword lasts five minutes with a one-day cooldown. A pure tank who can't project aura outward, but pour mana and holy power into it and you get a defense-ignoring nuke with a range of over ten meters.
You couldn't waste a skill that broken on goblins, but named-tier Frenzied Ogres never showed up, so I'd never gotten to use it.
"By the way, not sensing a thing even at this distance — centaur stealth is no joke. How about it, Grace? Can you see anything?"
"…If I focus, I can feel something approaching. If I were on watch like a night sentry, maybe. But if I were doing something else, it'd be hard to notice."
The knights were chatting among themselves, Han Se-ah was talking with Grace, and Katie and Irene — eyes sparkling with curiosity — were deep in their own conversation.
In the middle of all that, the one who struck first was, of course, the ogre. Whether the stealthed centaurs had somehow caught on or not, the creature that had been creeping forward in a low crawl suddenly reared up and launched itself into the air, leaving a crater in the ground.
KRAAAAAAAGH——!!!
The simultaneous snarl, thick with mana, was less a roar than a Fear effect. Even at this distance my skin prickled — this wasn't just a tantrum. It was a hunting strategy.
The mana-soaked Fear swept across the grasslands like a sonar pulse, and the centaurs flickered into view like a video with corrupted resolution, their forms warping as the stealth broke.
Still, as befitting monsters of the 60th Floor, they immediately recovered their stance, raised their spears, and turned hostile toward the thing that had ambushed them… but the ogre was already overhead, both fists raised high.
KWAANG—!!!
Kii-hiiiiiiing——!!!
Call it a Power Slam if you want — those massive fists, raised overhead and packed full of mana, came down like a meteor into the middle of the centaur herd.
The ground flipped. Shockwaves rattled even the palisade, and the aftershock alone turned half the centaurs into magic stones that sprayed in every direction.
The moment I saw that, I vaulted down from the palisade and hit the earthen wall running.
"Roland? Where are you— Kyaah?!"
"The magic stones are flying everywhere — what a waste!"
They were just normal monsters — and stealth-only centaurs at that — getting jumped by a Frenzied Ogre. Of course they never stood a chance.
The jump attack was strong enough to earn the skill name Power Slam; the ground shattered, and the aftershock alone turned roughly half of them into magic stones that went flying every which way. A bunch of fragile stealth characters clustered together and hit by an AoE ambush — the result was inevitable.
But those magic stones — their corpses — spraying in every direction? That was not supposed to be inevitable. The whole reason I'd been watching in silence was so I could scoop up both the ogre's magic stone and the centaurs' for free. Now half the profit was about to vanish into thin air.
Thank god for the chant-skip function.
Honestly, watching that kind of thing over and over is a bit much for the viewer too.
In an instant, the mace and shield melted into the air, saturated with holy power. I offered a silent thanks for being able to skip the whole "bloodline of Hector" whatever-whatever, and as I drew up the holy power, a message slid across my vision with uncanny timing.
…Goddess, intervening through the game system costs energy, but sending little messages like that is fine? Lately she's been dropping one-liners more often.
"Whoa! Is that the Holy Sword, Hero?!"
"Looks like he wants to wrap this up and rest already, Roland."
Listening to the Goddess's cute little remark, I felt omnipotence flood every inch of my body. The camera diving in overhead and the knights' gasps of awe from behind rang out with crystal clarity.
When holy power reinforces the body, the secondary effect is that everything around you snaps into sharper focus than ever. Ahead, the ogre snarled and locked eyes on me; behind, the knights gazed at me with a reverence that bordered on actual faith.
But sorry to the knights hoping for a spectacular fight — this battle was going to end very cleanly.
KRAAAAGH—!
Sensing the terrifying power riding the Holy Sword, the ogre slammed its fists into the ground again, trying to keep me from closing in. Unfortunately for it, the Holy Sword — already drinking in holy power — had stretched to nearly fifteen meters.
The fists that hammered the earth sent a wave of dirt surging toward me like a tidal wave, but the body of a natural-born 6-star tank was nothing like those centaurs that got flung around by mere aftershocks.
I drove my lead foot into the grassland like planting a pillar, then used the rebound from that planted foot to twist my hips and wring every muscle in my back into a full rotation. With my body pitched forward as far as it would go, I swept the fifteen-meter mass of holy power in a horizontal arc.
The dirt wave that would have physically shredded an ordinary person was brushed aside like nothing. At the tip of the swinging Holy Sword, I felt the faintest sensation — nothing like smashing a zombie's skull with a mace. More like a red-hot knife gliding through butter.
I was thinking that even cutting soft tofu with chopsticks would have more feedback than this when the ogre's scream of agony tore through the air.
"Whoa, that giant thing in a single stroke… Now I get why he doesn't use it on regular monsters."
"Khh, so this is Sir Roland at full power?"
That faint sensation was the feel of both of the ogre's arms — still planted in the ground, not yet recovered from the slam — being sheared clean off. Two massive hunks of flesh more like support beams than living limbs tumbled across the ground, bone and all.
Grrk, graaagh, KRAAAAAAAGH—!!!
It immediately entered a Frenzied state… but pumping up its muscles and swelling its bulk didn't bring the missing arms back.
The only resistance a two-armed-less ogre could offer was stretching out a leg and kicking, as if to say don't come any closer. But in my hands, the Holy Sword still had over four minutes and forty-five seconds left, and it was still holding that full fifteen-meter form.
No technique, just pure brute force — another swing. From the left-to-right finish of the last cut, I stepped forward and swept the Holy Sword right to left. A clean shhk of sensation. The leg muscles were thicker than the arms, though — the feel went from soft tofu to firm tofu.
While I was having that useless thought, the ogre — both arms gone in one stroke, right leg gone in the second — let out a pitiful sound and rolled across the grassland floor.
Its HP really is high, I'll give it that. Still alive after losing three of four limbs.