Soaring Wolves (3)
No fewer than four chests came into view.
They had brought more than enough—enough for every mercenary present, and plenty left over to equip the hunters as well.
The moment the other chests appeared, the mercenaries who had been scrambling for a sword froze as one.
"I prepared more than one blade for every man, so form a line. You bastards!"
"Waaaaah!!"
The mercenaries roared with joy as if they had just won a war.
No explanation was needed. Every last one of them still remembered, clear as day, the performance of the magic dagger Galbert had used two years earlier.
It had long since lost its power and its blade was broken, but for a full year they had put it to use without restraint—against thick-skinned beasts like orcs, that dagger had been little better than a single-use weapon.
"Baron Greenhilt sent these to honor our hard work, so use them with gratitude!"
"If you were going to hand them out, you should've done it sooner."
"These can't be cheap, and our company searched high and low without finding a single one. They must've been damn hard to come by."
"That so? Either way, free suits me just fine. Hahahaha."
Men turned the swords over in their hands and tossed out remarks. One fearlessly ran a finger along the edge, sliced himself, and stood there sucking the blood from the cut. Another channeled mana into the blade and stood gaping.
Padec watched his men celebrate for a long moment before speaking again. His voice carried a fierce confidence that had been missing for the past year or two.
"Starting tomorrow we go on the full offensive. Shortly I'll hold a meeting to reorganize the teams. Squad leaders, prepare!"
"Yes, sir!"
Padec shouted once more.
"We'll distribute the coin from selling the spoils in the city right now!"
"Waaaaah!"
"With these new weapons we'll kill far more of the bastards than before and make even bigger money selling them!"
"Waaaaah!!"
"Especially the byproducts from orc giants and trolls—the Baron has promised to buy every last scrap at the highest market rate!"
"Waaaaah!!"
They had thoroughly tested the swords the day they received them. Padec had no intention of waiting for autumn.
The swords' performance surpassed every expectation.
It was already the third day since the mercenaries had entered Wolf Forest. In the past two days alone they had taken more orc heads than they had hunted in an entire year before—enough that people had started joking about it.
There were so many orc corpses that carrying them all back was impossible.
"Damn it. After all that work we're just throwing a feast for the wolves."
"If it bothers you so much, why not cut off a leg and roast it yourself?"
"Just watching the skinning makes me want to puke. Eat it? Not a chance."
Besides the hunters and the dispatched priests, the company also included specialists whose job was dismantling monsters. These men located the magic stones inside the beasts' bodies, stripped usable hides and tendons, and earned their living that way. Mercenaries sometimes did the work themselves, but whenever possible they left it to the experts—it was that grueling and filthy a task.
They had hunted so many orcs, however, that even the specialists could not keep up. In the end Padec was forced to decide: extract only the magic stones from ordinary orc corpses and abandon the rest, recovering byproducts solely from the orc giants.
"You all saw that just now, right? Me taking an orc giant's head off in a single stroke!"
"That wasn't you cutting it. It was the sword."
"You little shit. Then why don't you try it yourself?"
Thanks to the new blades, two men could now handle an orc giant that normally required three or four fighters struggling together. Cutting through those thick hides had once been impossible without wrapping the edge in mana; now slicing through bone was easier than chopping a pig's neck. Even after discarding the ordinary orc corpses, the haul of loot remained substantial.
"Doesn't it seem strange, though? Orc giants showing up left and right like this."
"You're right. Hunters used to go a lifetime without seeing one..."
Padec had found it deeply suspicious as well, but he had no good way of learning the cause. Such investigations were the proper work of mages, yet among the mercenaries currently assigned to the branch there were fewer mages than he could count on one hand—and those few were of such poor skill that entrusting them with the task was out of the question.
"In the nearby villages they're saying the Demon King must have returned."
"The Demon King? The one the famous hero Karl supposedly defeated? That story's more than a thousand years old."
"Enough nonsense. On your feet. We've come deep into the forest today—if we want to reach camp before dark we need to move out now."
"Yes!"
The mercenaries who had been resting while the orc giant was dismantled rose one after another. Once the sun set inside the forest, even a magic sword would be useless. No matter how fine the blade, you cannot cut an enemy you cannot see.
On the way back, the innards of the abandoned orc corpses had already been torn out. The wolves and other wild animals of the forest had descended on them in no time. The beasts had fled at the sound of men for now, but if they gathered in a pack they would become another threat. Ten wolves could be far more dangerous than a single orc giant—a sword can only cut one at a time.
Boom!
A monstrous roar and a heavy vibration rolled in from not far away. Then came the crack of shattering trees and the panicked cries of birds exploding into the air all at once. The sounds were drawing steadily closer.
"This is bad!!"
They used hunters who climbed trees better than any mercenary as scouts. One of those hunters came sprinting toward them.
"Huff... huff... This is bad. It's an ogre. It must have caught the scent of blood—it's coming straight this way."
"What? I've never once heard of an ogre in this forest! I've been at the Greenhilt branch for ten years!"
It had already been a decade since Padec became branch leader and was posted to the Greenhilt Barony. In all that time he had never even heard an ogre mentioned as a passing joke.
"I've never seen one in twenty years of hunting either, but it's definitely an ogre. I've never laid eyes on one myself, yet it matches exactly what the elder who taught me described."
Tension rippled through the surrounding mercenaries in an instant.
"We get out of the forest as fast as possible. Dump anything that slows you down if you have to—just move!"
At Padec's shout the mercenaries surged forward. An ogre was not a monster one faced lightly. Its bulk was several times greater than even an orc giant, and the raw power of that size meant a glancing blow was often enough to kill. Even if they had no choice but to fight one, doing so inside a dense forest was absolute suicide.
Yet the sounds kept growing closer.
"Faster! Leave the loot—go!"
No matter how outstanding their magic weapons were, Padec knew full well they would be useless against that thing. Pour enough mana into a sword and you might cut an ogre's flesh—but if you could never get close enough to swing, the blade was worthless. The only hunting method he knew was for shield-bearers to lure the beast one way while mages poured magic from another direction. Among the current company, however, those who could cast proper magic were few enough to count on one hand. Even Saltias, whose specialty was powerful flame magic, had been badly wounded not long ago.
"Just a little more! The hill is right ahead!"
The mercenaries flung away everything except their precious magic swords and ran for their lives. Fortunately, the ogre did not catch them that day.
Padec reached the crest of the hill, caught his breath, and looked down. He could clearly see the pale, massive head of a giant figure bursting through the forest canopy again and again.
"This is troublesome. We only just received the weapons..."
Padec began rapidly composing in his mind the contents of an urgent letter to Baron Greenhilt.
The baron's hands trembled as he took the letter Padec had sent.
An ogre...
A tangle of emotions crossed his face. The face of an old comrade who had lost his life to one. The fame he had gained by bringing the beast down. The glorious moments that had ultimately carried him all the way to the seat of a lord. Suddenly he missed the fellows who were now older and busy with their own work in their own places.
"Ibaldo. Do you remember the day we brought down that ogre? We were still young then."
"I was already in my twenties at the time."
"Haha. That's right, you were."
"But why are you suddenly recalling those days?"
"It seems I'll have to summon the Wolves for the first time in a long while."
"What!?"
At the name he had not heard in so long, Ibaldo's expression grew colder than ever.
"Assembling everyone will be difficult now."
"I know. That witch won't budge an inch, and Ana put down her sword far too long ago."
"Has something major happened?"
"They say an ogre has appeared in Wolf Forest."
"That..."
Soaring Wolves. It was the name of the party Cliv Greenhilt himself had formed after graduating from the Knight Academy. The baron now intended to summon his old comrades and personally join the hunt for the ogre.