Giant Hunt (1)
A short while earlier.
Deep in the forest, the Baron finally found the ogre.
What in the world is that size…
The moment he laid eyes on it, he could not help but be stunned. Compared to the ogres he remembered, this one was easily twice as large. A monster the size of a house—no, taller than his own manor if you measured by height alone—stood right before him. Who on earth would not be shocked?
With the ogre in front of him, the Baron could no longer proudly claim that he had once brought one down. That fight and this one were not even in the same league.
Tch…
He hastily put distance between them, then blew his whistle to signal his comrades. From several directions the answering calls came back; the message had gotten through.
All the while the ogre remained curled on the ground, as if still asleep.
"Captain!"
Before long his men gathered one by one. Every last one of them checked the creature's bulk and went pale. This hunt was clearly not going to be as easy as they had hoped.
"Do we stick to the plan?"
"What else? We don't have another option."
"Look at that size, Captain. Can we even do this? Just the ankles—will our blades even go in?"
"Quiet. We didn't come here to talk about what we can't do."
The Baron wrestled with it, then made his decision.
"We've confirmed its position. We pull back to the hill for today. We hunt it after we draw up a new plan."
"Yes, sir!"
There was no other choice. It was not mere surprise at a size none of them had expected—everyone, though no one said it aloud, looked as if terror had been driven straight into their skulls. At that bulk, anyone would have felt the same.
"Still, how did no one know something this big was living here?"
"It must have stayed put inside the forest. With this much game around, it would never have needed to leave."
Ogres were infamous for swallowing anything that moved—animals and monsters alike. And this place, Wolf Forest, was thick with orcs, beasts of every kind, and other monsters. To the creature, it was nothing short of paradise.
"The problem is autumn. If it starts chasing other monsters over the hill and reaches the village… just thinking about it is a nightmare. Whatever it takes, we end this with our own hands before that happens."
"Geren was right. To take something that size, we definitely need open ground. In a tight spot like this, one swing of its arm would send every tree around crashing down on us."
The Baron's mouth itched with the urge to say that it had been Roy, not Geren, who had suggested clearing the trees below the hill. If someone was going to take the praise, he would rather it go to his son.
"Where the hell is Fabre? What's that slowpoke doing that he still isn't here?!"
He took his frustration out on the absent man. He had blown the whistle ages ago, and still there was no sign of him. In the end he blew it again.
Fortunately, a reply came from nearby. Fabre was close.
Then the problem began.
The answering whistle came from the exact opposite side of the ogre. Caught between the two sounds, the creature twitched—and at last began to rise.
"Fabre, you idiot!"
It was not Fabre's fault. He had simply had the misfortune of being nearby at the exact moment the ogre woke.
The creature blinked and scanned its surroundings at once, already hunting for food. Whether everything had fled in fear of it or not, no monster or beast was in sight. The first thing that entered its field of vision was Fabre himself. His frame, massive enough to put an orc to shame, looked delicious to the ogre's eyes.
From that moment on, a life-or-death game of tag began between the ogre and the Wolves—each side clinging to the other for survival as they ran.
The Wolves wanted nothing more than to peel the ogre off them inside the forest and escape. Facing it that very day looked far too dangerous. They would have preferred to dig deep pit traps in the cleared ground below the hill, strip away a few more hazards, and only then engage. But no matter how desperately Fabre ran, he could not shake the creature. Even when the Baron took over as bait and hurled broken branches and stones, the ogre chased Fabre alone.
"Damn it! I'll have to check later whether Fabre smeared honey all over his back."
The real reason was something else entirely. While scouting the forest, Fabre had been splattered head to toe with the blood of the monsters he had killed. The thick reek of blood had flipped a switch in the ogre's gluttony.
Fabre, pouring every scrap of mana he had into his legs, grew steadily more exhausted, and the hour of sunset was already drawing near. Seeing no way forward, the Baron finally made the call.
"Fabre! Run for the hill!"
Fabre could not even answer; he simply swung hard in that direction. If the captain said so, that was enough.
The ogre was not particularly quick, but it used its long arms and legs like a beast to cut through the forest. Twenty human strides equaled a single one of its own, and for anyone trying to flee, that was pure hell. Worse, it was unnervingly agile. Despite its bulk it slipped and twisted between the obstructing trees with ease. Whenever a trunk scraped its shoulder, arm, or hip, the tree's only remaining role was to snap or topple sideways.
Between the thickness of its hide, the hardness of its bones, and a raw strength beyond imagining, no one dared even think of closing in.
"We have to hurry! The sun's already going down!"
Dusk was settling in. The one mercy was that the forest was thinning before full dark could catch them.
Between the great trees of Wolf Forest, the enormous ogre stepped into view.
Even from the hilltop its size was unmistakable—truly staggering. The force radiating from that pale bulk was no joke.
Once it reached the open ground and the dense trees no longer blocked its sight, the creature stopped its pursuit and peered around. The motion was almost human.
"Fabre! Hurry!"
In that interval Fabre made it to the foot of the hill. He looked completely spent; combat was out of the question for him.
"Everyone to your positions!"
the Baron shouted.
There was no choice left. They would have to face it according to the earlier plan. In this situation, the only things they could trust were the magic weapons in their hands.
Watching from the hilltop, Roy spoke to Geren.
"Master Geren, please go help Father. I'll stay right beside Mother."
At Roy's words Geren met Aena's eyes. When she nodded, Geren immediately slid down the slope. Shepard and Megan followed right after him. In a moment like this, every extra ally mattered.
Of course I'm going too.
Roy turned to Aena.
"Mother, my stomach hurts terribly—I need to use the latrine. On the way back I also want to grab the charm Master Geren made for me."
"The charm?"
"Yes. Don't worry. Stay here with Anna and I'll be right back. It's safe up here, so you don't need to come with me."
"Do your business and come straight back, understand?"
"Yes."
Aena let him go more readily than he expected. What truly demanded her attention was the chaos below the hill, and her gaze was locked there. Besides, everything Roy had done up to now had earned him her full trust. This was not a child who would do anything suspicious at a time like this. And above all, nowhere was safer right now than this hilltop.
Sorry for lying, Mother…
But Roy headed straight toward the mercenary company's tents. Whether they were on standby or part of the ogre-suppression support team, every mercenary was watching the foot of the hill. Roy wrapped himself from head to toe in dark cloth he had somehow prepared and slipped secretly down the slope. The gathering dark, plus the concealment illusion he intended to use, made discovery unlikely. Concealment magic normally lost most of its effect once the subject moved, but with every eye fixed elsewhere it hardly mattered. The falling night would help him as well.
"Draw it out of the forest!"
Meanwhile, a fierce battle had already begun below.
The ogre looked at the many humans surrounding it and shifted its body with something like a sneer. In its eyes they were probably nothing but prey.
The Baron and the Wolves poured mana into their weapons. Across the darkened earth, ominous gleams of magical power began to bloom here and there.
"I'll draw its attention! Strike when you see an opening!"
The first to seize the ogre's gaze was, without question, the Baron. Flame shot from his left hand and slammed straight into the creature's face.
He would use magic only once. There would be no time to chant again while dodging the ogre's attacks.
The creature's face blackened with soot. Unable to contain its rage, it roared and charged the Baron, swinging an arm thicker than several tree trunks at once, intending to hurl him far away. But the Baron flipped neatly through the air and, with a slash of his treasured sword Triumph, succeeded in cutting the ogre's arm.
It was only a shallow wound.
The hide it had believed could never be cut had been scored. The ogre went berserk. When a frame a good ten meters tall began to thrash, the ground around them shook as if in an earthquake.
In that moment several mana-charged arrows sank into its back. Even though Triumph had cut so easily, the arrows had little effect—half of them bounced off without piercing the hide at all. It was proof that without Roy's magically reinforced weapons, even breaking the creature's skin would have been no simple task.
"Don't stop—keep going!"
The Baron was bolder than anyone else on that field. Charging a rampaging ogre was not something a sane man would do. One mistake and he would be crushed like a frog, his guts bursting. Yet that was exactly what the Baron did. Having somehow read the rhythm of the creature's thrashing, he slid in as if dancing and cleanly sliced the ogre's heel.
He had meant to sever the ankle entirely, but once again the cut was frustratingly shallow. The monster's sheer size and the thickness of its hide made the difference.
"We've arrived. I'll cast at once!"
Belatedly, Geren arrived with Megan and Shepard. He began chanting immediately—earth magic, meant to shift the ground and pin the creature's movements. Ideally they would have lured it into a proper pit trap; this was only a stopgap.
Geren would have liked to do something with a blade as well, but matching the Baron was beyond him just then. The Baron's swordsmanship and footwork were enough to make even Geren click his tongue in awe. In the end Geren settled on magic instead.