Orc Defense (3)
“Kwooooooooor!”
Five slingers, ten spearmen, one archer. And then Jax and me. In total, eighteen defenders stood ready on the wooden palisade overlooking the Forest of Beasts.
“Kwooooooooorgh!”
The forest was already a cacophony of countless orc roars. Just from the noise, it sounded like a serious number had gathered.
They won’t all rush us at once.
It was the first wave, after all. They’d probably only send enough for us to handle. No matter how many times I repeated that to myself, it didn’t stop my palms from turning slick with sweat. It wasn’t even about whether we could hold them off or not. The real issue was that I had to take a weapon and shove it into a living creature’s body.
I kept wiping my damp palms on my clothes without realizing it until Jax, who was checking his war hammer beside me, spoke up.
“Nervous, rookie?”
“A little?”
“Haven’t you prepared enough!”
He wasn’t wrong. When I first arrived, the total fighting force in the clearing—including Jax and me—had been a mere ten. Thinking back on that, our current numbers were a remarkable achievement.
“It would’ve been nice if we could have upgraded the palisade, though…”
We’d kept farming right up until a few hours before the orc invasion and managed to gather the tools needed for an upgrade, but…
“Ha! Isn’t it a bit much to ask when we don’t even have carpenters or blacksmiths, rookie?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Unfortunately, we’d conscripted every single production-role NPC in the village, so installation was impossible. Getting too excited after discovering those guys hiding under the inn and unlocking the troop reinforcement feature had been a trap all along. Adding a sequential gimmick like that? What cowards.
“Trust me, rookie! Given how orcs behave, the first wave is basically just a scouting party. This is more than enough!”
“You think so?”
“The real threat is the main force led by the orc chieftain or shaman! But by the time they show up, this place will already be packed with knights and mages sent by the lord!”
Yeah, well. He had a point. In games like this, trying to do everything perfectly meant you’d never see the end of it.
“Honestly, if even one of those big shots shows up, a palisade like this is meaningless! The chieftain could leap right over this height, and the shaman would burn the whole thing to ash! Hahaha!”
“That… doesn’t exactly reassure me.”
“I’m just saying!”
I told myself it was just excessive worry brought on by too much tension.
Right then—
“If you’re that tense… I suppose I have no choice but to give you some strength!”
“Huh?”
“Once this invasion is over, I’ll give you a nice present, rookie!”
Jax said it with a sly wink in my direction.
Ah, Jax. You seductive bastard.
…Wait, isn’t that line kind of dangerous?
Stage 1: Pouring Orcs
- The user has reinforced the troops perfectly.
- The user has completed defense preparations excellently.
- The user’s stats and skills are excellent.
- Affinity with Jax is above intimate.
Calculating difficulty…
[HARD!]
The first wave is beginning!
Orcs 20/20
“Kuhiiuak!”
My first impression of an orc was… well, it was just okay. I’d spent most of the chaos holed up inside, so I’d never seen a monster in person before. But I’d watched plenty of them on YouTube live streams—orks, trolls, goblins, ogres, the whole lineup.
Still…
“Hoooo…”
The bloodthirst the orcs gave off—or maybe it was pure killing intent—made me flinch and shrink back for a second.
“Kwaaaaaagh!”
But once the actual fighting started, the excitement racing through my body put me in the perfect state instead. They didn’t come in neat lines like in a game, but the orcs charged out of the forest with zero tactics, simply rushing straight at us.
“They’re coming! Throw stones into zone two!”
Thud!
At Jax’s command, our slingers hurled rocks with perfect coordination, completely dominating the designated area. It created a kill zone.
“Nice!”
“Just like you said, rookie! This is way more effective!”
Of course it was. The idea had been mine. I never had time to learn how to use a sling properly while I was busy spearing and farming. So what else could I do? Might as well set up a fire net. Thanks, base defense. Thanks, tower defense.
But—
“Krrraaagh!”
Whether the orcs were just that tough or our slingers lacked spirit, only two or three went down after taking clean hits to the head. The rest kept charging straight at the palisade.
“Zone three!”
Another volley of stones took down one more, but that was it.
“Spearmen! Everyone ready!”
Nearly three-quarters of the orcs had reached the base of the wall.
“Kyaaaaaaaagh!”
There were only about fifteen of them, yet they felt overwhelming. Even though the palisade was two and a half meters tall, their faces felt right in front of us.
“Get it together!!! Stab them!!!”
Still half-dazed, I thrust out my very first spear stab in this life.
Squelch!
A crunchy, wet sensation like cutting raw meat with scissors traveled up the shaft into both my hands.
“Guooorgh.”
From top to bottom, gravity and all the time I’d spent training drove the spear straight through the space between the orc’s eyes, piercing its forehead. In that slowed moment, I saw it clearly—the light vanishing from the orc’s eyes.
In that instant, I realized something. This app was trying to turn me into a Hunter.
And unlike games, taking someone’s life in a real battle didn’t end there.
Crunch—
“Ugh!”
The moment it registered its own death, the orc hurled its crude axe aside, grabbed the spear shaft, and yanked. My center of gravity suddenly pitched forward. Before I could even make a sound, I was being dragged over the outer side of the palisade.
Crack—
“Rookie! Drop the spear!”
“Y-yes!”
If Jax hadn’t swung his hammer in time and shattered the shaft, I probably would have—
“Kwoooooooorgh!”
Whew. Focus. I had to focus.
After nearly dying the second the battle began, I stopped trying to one-shot them. Instead I chose short, repeated jabs to wear them down. Like using quick jabs instead of a heavy straight punch. If they were tough, I’d just make them bleed out. Simple.
Of course, the moment they got wounded their eyes would roll back and most of them would keep slamming their axes into the palisade while blood poured from their necks and shoulders.
“Hup!”
But if I drove the spear in deep and hard at exactly the right moment, I could feel them die nicely. Like, they literally died from how good it felt. Since they were a warrior race, they’d probably head off to Valhalla or Planet Saiya or wherever when they died.
Anyway, that was how I steadily reduced their numbers in the safest way possible.
“Haaah!”
Crunch!
In contrast, the red-haired sexy genius Jax was leaping nimbly across the palisade. Every time an orc’s head appeared above the wall, she swung her war hammer and crushed one in a single blow. Each time that torso-sized hammer came down from above, another orc’s head was instantly turned into paste.
“Hup!”
Our NPC spearmen were also working in twos and threes, steadily trimming down the enemy count.
Overall, the situation could be summed up as: This is manageable.
The second wave is beginning!
Orcs 25/25
“They’re coming again! Second wave! Second wave incoming! Get up here! Hurry!”
After we finished off the twenty orcs from the first wave, the second wave arrived before we could even clear the corpses piled at the base of the wall.
The interval is way shorter than I expected.
It was still better than all of them coming at once, but still.
“Kwoorgh!”
“Haaah! Rookie, your spearmanship is getting pretty good!”
“Thank youuu!”
Because of the piled bodies, Jax had to move around even more during the second wave. One of the NPC spearmen took a bad injury to his arm, so we swapped him out with one of the slingers who had been on standby.
The third wave is beginning!
Orcs 30/30
“Orcs! More orcs are coming!”
Then the third wave. Then the fourth. Then the fifth.
The fourth wave is beginning!
The fifth wave is beginning!
“Huff… huff.”
If Jax hadn’t risked his life to go down and clear the corpses midway through, it really would have been dangerous.
“…”
From that point on, Jax’s gaze started lingering longer and longer on the Magic Beacon at the center of the village.
Stab—
“Kugh? Kwoooooooor!”
The frequency with which my spear found its way through the enemy’s body increased dramatically as well.
Crack—
Fortunately, nearby NPCs or Jax covered for me every time… but I could feel goosebumps rising across my skin more and more. Especially when I looked toward the distant forest.
Something’s there.
Right then—
“Rookie! Fall back!”
“I’m fine!”
“If you’ve got eyes, look at your own arms!”
“…Huh?”
I only resisted Jax’s order for a moment. The second I looked down at my arms like she said, I finally noticed the uncontrollable trembling running through both of them.
“Go down, rest even a little, grab some oil, and get back up here! You can do that, right, rookie?”
The spear shaft—already broken three times and on the verge of snapping again—
“…Understood. I’ll come right back up.”
Continuing the fight right now would be nothing more than a burden to my allies. Actually, worse than that.
“Hoo… hoo.”
After climbing down from the palisade, I used every stretching technique I knew to coax life back into my fingers that refused to move. That was when the thought suddenly hit me.
Jax had said it was only scouting-party level, but was that really true? Why were there so many more orcs than we’d anticipated? There had to be a reason for the change.
And then—
“Ah.”
As if to prove my suspicion right, goosebumps exploded across my entire body.
“Kwoooooooooorgh!”
“It’s an orc shaman!”
Together with the appearance of the orc shaman.