Tutorial (7): According to Plan
Thanks to the intel on the Orc Settlement gleaned through the sacrifices of the village youths, our march proceeded without a hitch. Better still, if everything had unfolded according to my designs, a drooling Ogre was currently scouring this very perimeter for prey—making our circumstances all the more ideal. All that remained was to reach the settlement and commence the subjugation.
"Haa... pant..."
Even though I was shielding my body with holy power as much as possible, the exhaustion from healing the villagers yesterday weighed heavily upon me. Had I overextended myself? Still, I had had no choice. I couldn't simply halt the healing merely because my strength was flagging; even as my body screamed that it had reached its absolute limit, I had been forced to ignore the agony and press on. Perhaps because my affinity for divine power was historically unprecedented, a single night's slumber had restored me enough to walk. Honestly, I ought to count that alone as a blessing.
"Are you well?" Danas asked.
I offered a faint smile and replied that I was fine. Admitting I was exhausted would utterly shatter the saintly persona, after all. Deep down, I longed to plead, I'm beat, can't we rest just a little? But for a Saint to whine about being tired and beg for a breather would be downright bizarre. Suffering agony and being worn out were two entirely different matters...
After what felt like an eternity, we finally arrived at the Orc Settlement that had seemed impossibly distant.
Though my blind eyes could not see it clearly, the Orcs seemed to be getting along quite well in their own crude fashion. If only they possessed the intellect to live like humans, perhaps they could have coexisted with mankind instead of constantly pillaging. It was a recurring thought whenever I stumbled upon an Orc village. Back when this had been just a game, Orcs rarely dropped worthwhile gear or items unless tied to a specific quest, so I had despised hunting them. In fact, because they raided so frequently, there were days when the guild board was completely clogged with Orc settlement subjugation quests, which used to infuriate me to no end. Meaningless memories now, of course.
"Everyone remembers the plan, right?"
Before initiating the assault, the voice of the man who seemed to be the party leader—Calt—called us to a halt, checking whether we recalled the strategy we had outlined earlier.
The plan. Truthfully, it was nothing elaborate. Stronger though Orcs were compared to Goblins, an Orc was still just an Orc, and their intellect was roughly on par. While their physical conditioning far surpassed an ordinary human's, their intelligence hovered slightly below that of a Goblin. A C-Rank adventurer could effortlessly dispatch one, and even a D-Rank could bring one down with sufficient grit. To higher-echelon B-Rank veterans, slaying a solitary Orc was something they could do in their sleep.
Even so, this commission had been graded at B-Rank precisely because the objective was nothing less than a "Settlement Subjugation." Trash mobs were trivial when facing one or two, but add a few more and the difficulty multiplied exponentially. A settlement housing dozens of Orcs posed a lethal threat capable of easily wiping out C-Rank adventurers who could take on single Orcs with ease. Compounding the issue was how tightly clustered the settlement was; if trouble broke out in one corner, the entire tribe would swarm in an instant, making a reckless assault suicidal. Hence the need for B-Rank adventurers.
So what, then, was this grand plan of theirs? As I said, nothing fancy.
"Are you ready, Mirna?"
"Of course! I had it Memorized beforehand!"
A tightly packed settlement where the slightest commotion would instantly alert the entire tribe? That meant they were exceptionally vulnerable to wide-area bombardment magic capable of wiping them all out in a single stroke. And the finest recipe for the occasion was none other than roast whole Orc.
"O mana of fire, pour down a rain of flames upon my foes!"
⟨ Fire Rain ⟩
As Mirna flipped open her grimoire and chanted the incantation to summon blazing rain, an enormous magic circle illuminated midair, and a deluge of fiery streaks poured from the heavens. It began to incinerate the Orc Settlement in the truest sense of the word. Because Fire Rain summoned thin, elongated streams of flame like falling rain, its concussive impact as an explosive bombardment was somewhat modest. However, it was unmatched when it came to immolating wooden encampments or razing expansive woodlands. For a settlement constructed entirely of timber, nothing proved more devastating than fire. Moreover, since this was not an attack of mere fire arrows but an intermediate fire spell cast directly by an accomplished mage, it was virtually impossible for lowly Orcs to mount any sort of defense.
A mage's chanting inherently wove thought waves into mana, meaning that for someone like me who perceived the world through mental resonance, missing the spell's activation was out of the question. In the game, Fire Rain was a summoning and area-of-effect spell. Whenever you cleared an Orc settlement, a single fire spell would typically spread on its own. However, because the AI would attempt to extinguish isolated fires, a wide-area spell was an absolute necessity; otherwise, the flames would merely alert the Orcs and send the whole camp into a state of high alert, ruining the commission from the get-go.
Fire Rain, however, bypassed that problem entirely. It may have been an intermediate spell, but a magic circle massive enough to blanket the entire village was more than sufficient. And to think Mirna, a mage in a B-Rank party, possessed the skill to deploy Fire Rain across such an immense radius! Though it was only an intermediate spell and didn't consume astronomical quantities of mana, expanding its area of effect to such extremes would have knocked an ordinary mage unconscious from mana exhaustion.
This is it! This will do it!
Yes...!
With this, the likelihood of the Ogre heading here had skyrocketed! Since Orc settlements were almost universally built of timber, I had anticipated they would employ fire magic, and my prediction had hit the bullseye. The scent of burning wood, mingled with the stench of roasting Orc flesh, would rise with the updrafts and waft toward the Ogre like the aroma of fresh barbecue. At this point, it would be stranger if the monster didn't show up.
While I rejoiced inwardly, Mirna caught her breath from the mana drain after her devastating opening strike had thinned the Orc ranks considerably. Taking advantage of the chaos, the two frontline vanguards plunged straight into the encampment. Cutting down the flustered sentries before the creatures could even register the sudden downpour of fire, Danas and the party leader, Calt, stormed inside, slicing through the panicked horde one by one.
With the settlement engulfed in flames and absolute panic, there was hardly any need to maintain a strict formation. In fact, taking the time to maintain formation while methodically advancing would only grant the elite Orc warriors time to rally, putting the party at risk. Maximizing the confusion to whittle down their numbers as rapidly as possible was the fundamental tactic against Orc settlements—and the most effective against beasts terrified of fire.
Indeed... even a whole settlement is child's play for a B-Rank party...
Sensing how effortlessly they cleaved through the Orcs reaffirmed their B-Rank reputation. Perhaps it was a mercy that my blindness spared me the sight of their gruesome deaths. Dissecting polygons in a game was vastly different from witnessing living creatures being roasted alive and hacked apart in real life. I had no stomach for slaughter. Even so, sensing the Orcs' thought waves fade one after another and feeling their limbs severed through my spatial awareness was far from pleasant.
At any rate, the extermination seemed to be progressing smoothly. At this rate, the Orc Settlement would be so thoroughly decimated that the quest would conclude outright. If the Ogre arrived without the chaotic three-way fray I envisioned, it wasn't even certain that anyone would be injured.
However—
Thud!
"What... what is this tremor...?"
The forest shuddered.
"An earthquake...?"
"No, it's not an earthquake. This is... footsteps...?"
The entire forest was screaming.
Craaaack—!
A towering tree that stretched toward the sky snapped under overwhelming force, and a gargantuan hand thrust through the foliage. With every heavy step, the earth groaned beneath its tread. Before long, an azure king of the forest—possessing monstrous strength and an overwhelming frame—emerged from the tree line.
"A-Aaah..."
Instinct sounded shrill alarm bells within everyone present. Run now or die. Don't look back—flee!
"I-Impossible..."
"That's... an Ogre... isn't it...?"
The apex predator that would devour everything in sight had finally arrived.
And...
All according to plan.
A smile of pure bliss bloomed across my face as I whispered to myself.