The One Who Made Her Cry
"There's an enemy ahead. Orcs—charge as you are."
"Enemy!"
"Kill them!"
"Waaaaaah!"
At the orc shaman's command, the orcs abandoned all pretense of formation, seized their weapons, and charged.
Among the birds startled into flight by the orcs' racket, the shaman had tamed one. Sharing its vision, he ordered it to trail behind the horde.
All right. Show me your cards. The orcs of this world are too stupid to do anything but rush straight in—so you won't bother hiding your hand, will you?
Just as the orc shaman expected, Kaisent and Lillian—alerted to the orcs' presence by the birds—were already preparing their counterattack.
"Please lure the orcs this way."
"Got it."
The two of them angled slightly off course, drawing the orcs toward the stretch of ground where Kaisent had buried corpses as mines.
Why? Why do I have this much strength?
Once again Lillian found herself questioning the surplus of power flooding her body. She took stock of her condition. After being tormented by Kaisent the entire journey, she felt a faint mental fatigue—yet her flesh was so vigorous it seemed ready to explode.
Could it be… because of what I did with Kaisent?
She had climaxed more than a hundred times. By all rights she should have been a half-dead wreck, barely breathing. That her strength was surging like this could only mean Kaisent had done something to her. Every time her power overflowed like this, it had been after sex with him.
Deal with the enemies in front of me first.
She set the matter aside for later, tightened her grip on her greatsword, and steadied her breathing.
Rrrrumble—!
Moments later, dozens of orcs came crashing through the trees beyond the forest's edge. They were not fully heavy infantry, but they wore linked iron plating and carried iron-forged arms.
"Corpse Explosion!"
Kaisent, tracking the undead's positions in real time, triggered the spell and detonated them like buried mines.
"Kuaaaaah!"
"Ggaaaaaah!"
The orcs standing directly over the blast zones had their legs shattered; they were flung into the air and crashed back down. Those caught in the wider radius took bone shards and scraps of flesh like shrapnel, their skin torn open in ragged strips.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
He set off several more Corpse Explosions in succession. Ordinary humans would have flinched in terror at the sudden blasts—but the orcs only charged harder. That very recklessness cost them their lives.
"Now! Come out!"
With every corpse detonated, Kaisent gave the order. The undead that had been lying prone rose and closed in, surrounding the orcs in a killing ring. The undead force—now more hobgoblin and orc than goblin—took wounds from every direction and still stole the living one life at a time.
"I don't even need to step in myself."
"……"
"Kaisent?"
The fight was almost too easy. Yet Kaisent's brow furrowed as he tried to name the wrongness he had been feeling for some time.
"The birds."
A strange mana had clung to those birds. And its owner had yet to appear. The orcs' charge. The missing master of that mana. What that combination meant—
"!!"
"Below!"
Both of them felt the ominous surge of mana from beneath their feet and sprang backward, putting distance between themselves and the ground. Vines erupted from the spot where they had stood, lashing out to snare them—and, failing, withered and crumbled into dry, brittle husks.
"Kyaaaaah!"
"Kkya-kkya-kkya-kkah!"
"Hobgoblins!"
"How—!?"
The instant the undead and the two of them were separated, hobgoblins burst from both flanks, shrieking as they charged.
"Kaisent! I'll take the left!"
"Wait—there's something like a mage among the enemy as we—hhuh…?"
Just as Kaisent registered that the enemy's movements were different from usual and tried to grasp the situation, a sudden wave of drowsiness crashed over him.
"Ka…isent? …isent…!"
Lillian seized him by the collar and slapped his cheeks, forcing his closing eyes open—but the hobgoblins' assault was already beginning, and she had no choice but to raise her sword. To make matters worse, the undead fighting the orcs had lost their commander. Even after annihilating the orcs, they simply stood there, waiting blankly for the next order.
"As green as you look. A mage's first act the moment battle begins should be a basic defensive spell."
"Who's there!"
The words were too intelligent to belong to any greenskin. Lillian wondered whether some other force was controlling them and scanned for the source of the voice—only for a hooded orc to step into view.
"An orc?"
"Hmph. First time hearing an orc speak?"
"You're no orc. Why transform into one?"
Unlike ordinary orcs, a keen intelligence lived in this one's eyes. If orcs possessed that kind of mind, they would never have been treated as mere monsters—they would have been accepted as a people, like elves or dwarves.
"Arrogant… is what I'd like to say, but looking at my kin in this world, I can hardly blame you for thinking so."
"This world? Are you an Otherworlder?"
"Otherworlder?"
"Because of a certain incident, this world gained the property of easily drawing in beings from other worlds. Those who arrive from other dimensions—like you—are called Otherworlders."
"I see. I knew this was another world, but I didn't expect it to be this chaotic."
Speaking with a native of this world for the first time, the orc shaman felt the need for information.
"I'll just take your arms and legs. Then I'll wring every scrap of knowledge out of you."
Despite the intelligence in his gaze, the orc shaman chose a vicious option.
In the end, the humans of this world can only ever be enemies. And leaving a strong aura like hers intact as a prisoner is asking for trouble.
He judged that giving Lillian and Kaisent any chance to strike back would be a problem. Safer to cripple them first—cut off their limbs—then force the information out of them.
"Attack. You may take every limb. Just leave them alive."
"Kyaaaaah!"
"Kieeee!"
While the two had been talking, the hobgoblins had completed their encirclement. They raised their strange war-cries and rushed Lillian.
Damn it—I need to run!
Carrying Kaisent, who had been plunged into deep sleep by some orcish magic, and breaking out of this ring was impossible. Worse, the orc watching her every move, ready to strike at any moment, closed even the 0.0001% chance of escape.
No! I can't leave this child behind and run!
It was a strange thing. She had been violated by Kaisent so thoroughly that any ordinary woman would have broken under the shock. And yet her goodwill toward him had not only survived—it had deepened. Without thinking, she had erased the option of abandoning him and fleeing.
"Kaisent! Kaisent!!"
Lillian swept her greatsword in wide arcs, driving the hobgoblins back, and called his name with desperate force, trying to wake him.
"Got you."
In the instant every nerve of hers was fixed on Kaisent, the shaman chanted and sent vines surging up beneath her feet.
Slash-slash-slash!
Sensing the danger, Lillian cut the vines with her greatsword and tried to slip free—but more vines erupted along her line of retreat and coiled around her body like tentacles.
"Ghk—!!"
If she released even a fraction of the mana reinforcing her body, the crushing pressure would wring her insides out through her mouth.
"This is a binding art made to subdue powerhouses like you. Once it has you, there is no way out."
The mountain ranges where the Red Fang tribe and other orcs lived were demon-haunted lands where monsters of every kind emerged—places where survival demanded strength. In such a place, shamans had been forced to develop arts for subduing powerful beasts.
"Kikya-kya-kkah!"
"Soft human female! The plump legs are mine!"
"The arms are mine!"
"I want the thighs!"
The hobgoblins closed in on the vine-bound woman, crude iron weapons raised.
"Not here! I can't end here! I will not end here—!"
Crrrack—!
Despair that she would die without ever taking revenge on the Saryeong Kingdom—that she would live on with her limbs severed, neither dead nor alive—wrenched a scream from Lillian. She put so much force into her shoulders that they nearly dislocated. Part of the vines tore free under that monstrous strength, and the pressure on her body began to ease—
Crack! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
"Aaagh!"
—but one of the hobgoblins was not about to stand idle. It hammered her skull with an iron mace.
"Idiot! Don't kill her!"
"Human woman strong! This not kill!"
Battle-frenzy had stripped the hobgoblins of what little vocabulary they had. They subdued her with ease and hauled her right arm out to the side. Lillian, her mana heavily spent tearing at the vines, blood running from her head, still tried to resist somehow. But the blows to her skull had been too much; no real strength answered her will.
"Arms first!"
"No… please… not this… ah… aaaaaaah—!"
"Kya-kya-kkah!"
"Cut! Cut!"
"Make her scream more!"
Pinned by dozens of hobgoblin hands, unable even to struggle, Lillian could not bear the terror of her arm being severed and screamed. The hobgoblins laughed and jeered at her despairing cry as if it were entertainment.
Tsk. Savages.
The orc shaman clicked his tongue at the hobgoblins tormenting Lillian for sport. What he wanted was not a show, but clean, efficient work.
Still—to tear free even a few of the vines I, a grand shaman, crafted… this world can't be underestimated either—
Gooooooooooo—
"Ugh!?"
In that moment the orc shaman felt a sudden, overwhelming aura and snapped into a ready stance. He traced the source at once and saw a vast storm of mana rising around Kaisent, who was slowly getting to his feet.
"Kiek!"
"Kiyaaaak!"
"Don't run! Form ranks!"
The hobgoblins felt it too. They dropped Lillian and scrambled away. As if they had seen something terrifying, they flung down weapons and all and fled in every direction, ignoring the shaman's orders. It was not merely a strong aura—it was a presence that branded into instinct the certainty that no matter what they did, they could not win.
What—what is this!? This impossible power—! He has to die!
If a being with this kind of power rose intact, it would be catastrophic. He tried to cast the sleep spell again and sink Kaisent deeper—but this time the spell did not take.
"Damn it!"
If sleep would not work, then physical force. The shaman chanted rapidly, drawing the surrounding stones and boulders into a single mass. A colossal rock spear weighing several tons at the least, its tip ground to a point, shot toward Kaisent at high speed.
But Kaisent did not even use his gauntlet's functions. With a bare hand, as casually as swatting a fly, he struck the stone spear aside.
Crrrash—!
He shattered a rock spear larger than his own body with a single backhand, then slowly lifted his head and looked at the orc.
"You. You're the bastard who made Lillian cry."
"Ugh… uuugh!"
The orc locked eyes with Kaisent and froze like a frog before a snake. Those pure white irises had turned black—deep, abyssal black that any intelligent creature could only fear.
My mana has solidified…!
Worse, his own mana had slipped free of his control and hardened like stone. A power that bound another's mana?
Not a magic eye…! This is… pure overwhelming force crushing me flat…!
At first he thought it was the power of those abyss-like eyes. Then he understood: the crushing force Kaisent radiated was simply overpowering his mana by raw dominance.
"Kh… u… uaaaaaaah!!"
The shaman coughed blood as he forced his solidified mana to move, wrapping Kaisent's body in vines. At the same time he used a Polymorph art, transforming into a wolf, and fled for his life. Buy time. Escape. That was the plan—
Crack! Crrrack!
Kaisent's nails shifted into a dragon's. He tore the vines free and cut them apart as if the shaman's thrashing were nothing. Once the vines were destroyed, he turned his gaze toward Lillian.
There she was—blood running from her head, half-conscious, staring blankly at him.
"How dare you touch Lillian!"
"Gaaah—!"
At Kaisent's furious roar, the wolf-form shaman snapped back to his original shape, clutched his chest as if his heart were being crushed, and dropped to his knees. The force that solidified mana had focused entirely on him; he could no longer maintain Polymorph.
What… what is this…!? A mere child… with power like a monster…!
"Die."
Kaisent's speech, usually soft, had turned harsh and ugly. He cast a spell at the shaman.
Whirrr—! Seize!
"Ghk—!"
It was the shaman's own art—the binding spell that created vines to wrap and subdue an enemy. Kaisent had read the mana pattern of the spell used against them and made it his own.
Crrk! Crrrack! Crrrunch!
"Gh… ghhhhh…!"
The vines coiling around the shaman's entire body tightened slowly, bit by bit.
"I'm not going to let you die cleanly."
"Guaaaaaah! Khrrk! Khrrrrk!"
At last the ribs could no longer hold. They snapped and punched into his lungs.
I'm… dying…
Bones pulverized. Organs crushed. The orc shaman felt every instant of the agony as he died. Kaisent watched coldly until the life left him.
Ch…ief… danger… r…un…
You must not fight this monster. Even the army we have gathered is nothing before it.
Ah…
And as his life flashed before his eyes, the orc shaman finally understood what the aura he had felt resembled.
This is…!
A being so mighty that no matter how many of their kind gathered, it could crush them like insects. A guardian of the world, born to be the strongest.
Dra…gon…
When he was still a young shaman in training, a dragon had flown overhead and loosed a long roar. The sound alone—etched into his species' instincts as pure terror—had made him wet himself and faint. Later an elder shaman told him that dragons sometimes roared simply out of boredom, and that day had been one of those days. A roar thrown out for amusement had made him piss himself and collapse. That was when he learned what a gulf between races truly meant.
But… why…
Why had a being this powerful fallen to his spell at all? If it was this strong, it should have fled without ever thinking of fighting. He would never solve that riddle.
Crrack!