The Blond Nun and the Promotion Battle #6
The Blond Nun and the Promotion Battle #6
As we moved deeper into the tunnel, a peculiar thought seized me. What if the orcs hiding in the abandoned mine had already been killed by the kobolds? What would happen to the quest then?
"Good."
If so, nothing could be better. I'd be able to freeload the quest without ever lifting a finger against those orc bastards. I silently prayed that those little tunnel-gremlin kobolds had finished them off.
Kate, beside me, seemed to be thinking the exact same thing.
"Please, Lord Baldur! Let the orcs all be dead!!"
Did she just have a natural talent for freeloading quests? Even without me saying a word, Kate had already sniffed out what the best possible outcome for us was. I was watching her with a satisfied expression when—
"Wait. I hear fighting up ahead."
Ally, her ears twitching, spoke up.
"Fighting?"
"Kobold cries! They're snarling fiercely."
I pricked up my ears toward the passage ahead. Just as she said, the faint sound of kobold shrieks echoed from deeper in the tunnel. Was a battle breaking out up ahead?
"We need to confirm this. Everyone, walk quietly."
After my order fell, we moved forward into the tunnel with muffled footsteps. Soon, the end of the straight-line corridor came into view.
According to the map of the abandoned mine, a wide excavation chamber lay just ahead. This was the place where miners had dug for ore back when the mine was operational.
"We've arrived."
The moment we cleared the passage, my eyes landed on a terrifying number of kobolds. In the excavation chamber dotted with thick rock formations, the kobolds were ferociously swarming something.
"Cover the lantern light. We should take cover behind a rock and observe the situation."
We covered the lantern's glow with a thick cloth. The kobolds were too fixated on their target to notice us. Using that opening, I led my party behind a massive boulder in the excavation chamber.
'Orcs!'
I poked my head out past the rock and instantly recognized what was buried under the mass of kobolds. Orcs—their distinctive boar-like heads were unmistakable. Identifying them was easy since they were holding torches.
The rough voices of the orcs echoed through the chamber.
"Bolen, big brother—! These kobold fuckers never end!"
"We're gonna die like this! The youngest one is nowhere to be seen!"
"Shut your mouths and just pound these kobolds to death, you bastards!!"
"Y-yes, big brother—!"
The orcs swung their weapons, bludgeoning down kobolds. Four of them in total. Adding the corpse we'd seen dead near the mine entrance, that made five orcs. My instincts immediately told me these were the very orcs who'd committed murder in Kunbilia Village.
Ally, who'd been watching the same scene, opened her mouth in a low whisper.
"Wh-what should we do? Do we ambush them now? The orcs are surrounded by kobolds."
"Wait. It's not time to step in yet. The kobolds might turn on us if we're careless."
Now that we'd succeeded in locating the orcs first, there was no reason to act hastily. If they mutually destroyed each other with the kobolds, that settled it. Even if they barely survived, that was fine for us—we'd just ambush the half-dead orcs.
"Let's wait. At least until the kobolds' numbers thin out."
"Got it!"
I figured the orcs would off themselves if we just waited long enough. But as time passed, I realized things weren't flowing that smoothly. Because among those four orcs, one exceptionally powerful individual was mixed in.
The one called "big brother" by the others.
The orc named Bolen had red tattoos etched across his muscular body.
Bolen swept away the kobolds like fallen leaves with the massive glaive in his hands. Every time that blade swung, two or three kobolds were sliced apart in a single stroke!
'That freak is monstrously strong. If we'd faced him in perfect condition, we might've been in serious trouble.'
An orc with red tattoos all over its body!
I'd heard that within orc tribes, tattoos were only allowed for orcs of a special caste. Red tattoos signified a Warrior-class orc. They're bastards whose entire existence has been forged in combat.
'Please, you goddamn kobolds! Just take out that tattooed orc bastard!'
I prayed in my heart for the Orc Warrior to collapse. For this moment alone, the vile kobolds were on my side. They say the enemy of my enemy is my ally, don't they?
The number of kobolds inside the chamber steadily dwindled. At the same time, the number of wounds carved into the orcs' bodies increased. One orc who'd been swinging a club finally died.
But the instant its kin perished, the Orc Warrior began to exert an unbelievable, monstrous strength.
"Hraaaaaaaaaap—!!"
Its muscles swelled thicker, and the speed of its glaive swings grew faster. Was this akin to a monster entering a berserker state? Kobolds were sliced to ribbons by the Orc Warrior in the blink of an eye.
In the end, the victors of the fierce battle were the orcs.
"Kuhahahahahat."
The Orc Warrior burst into raucous laughter atop the piled-up corpses of the kobolds. The two surviving orcs stared at the Orc Warrior with utterly exhausted expressions. Whatever the case, our moment had finally arrived.
The chance to wipe out the exhausted orcs in one fell swoop!
"Before we move in, I'll launch a strike. We should neutralize that tattooed orc bastard first. When I give the signal, pounce."
Among our four party members, I was the only one capable of a ranged ambush. Brut could throw his spear, but then he'd lose his only weapon. We moved soundlessly through the gaps between the boulders. Fortunately, the orcs didn't seem to notice our approach.
"Hoo."
I concealed myself behind a suitable rock. I unfurled the Water Whip to its full length and checked the orcs' movements beyond the rock. The red-tattooed orc had its back turned to me. The angle of its vision couldn't spot my position.
'Can I do this?'
I gripped the Water Whip and asked myself. Because I had to. I had to prove my magical ability to myself. I had to wipe out the orcs and ascend to Silver Tier. Failure was unacceptable.
I kept driving the suggestion into myself until the trembling in my hands subsided. In that moment, what surfaced in my mind was my precious lover.
'Rebecca.'
The charm that Rebecca had made for me. I could clearly feel the texture of the hair charm tucked inside my shirt pocket. At the same time, a powerful will surged through my heart—the determination to survive by any means and return to her side.
I clutched the boiling Water Whip and stared at the Orc Warrior. I was aiming for the Orc Warrior's broad back. With the Water Whip, which could correct its trajectory mid-flight, it would be an unavoidable hit. I steadied my breath as I aimed for the dead center of the Orc Warrior's back.
"Hup—!"
In the fleeting instant of a held breath, I kicked off the ground and dashed out from behind the rock. I poured every ounce of strength from both shoulders into swinging the Water Whip.
The echoing crack of the whip made the Orc Warrior turn its head. At the same time, it tried to twist its body and dodge on reflex. But my strike was one step faster than its movement.
"Liquid—."
The sinuous Water Whip collided against the Orc Warrior, catching him square in the shoulder joint mid-turn! Greenish flesh burst open and blood sprayed in all directions. A scream so massive it made the excavation chamber ring erupted.
"Kraaaaaaaaaagh—!"
The ambush was a success!
The Orc Warrior dropped to its knees, clutching its left shoulder joint. The excruciating pain left it dazed and disoriented for a moment. But I couldn't immediately chain a follow-up attack. The two surviving orcs immediately charged straight at me.
"An ambusher!"
"Kill the mage first!"
The orcs rushed at my exposed, defenseless body. But before they could even reach me, they were forced to halt—because my party members, who'd been waiting in the rear, burst out simultaneously.
"Excellent whip work."
"Help the mage!"
Ally and Brut each marked an orc for themselves. The exhausted orcs were visibly floundering even against the small halfling's knife strikes. I inwardly cheered as I successfully retracted the Water Whip—to deliver another devastating blow to the Orc Warrior.
"You damn Incubus—! I'll kill you!!"
The whip-lashed Orc Warrior roared as it heaved itself back up. But contrary to its sky-piercing fury, one of its arms dangled limp. Its shoulder was shattered, making the limb useless. The Orc Warrior fixed its hate-filled glare directly on me.
"Try it, you boar-headed bastard! I'll serve your skull on an altar."
"━━━!!"
Right at that instant, the Orc Warrior broke into a dead sprint straight toward me. Brut, having shoved aside the orc he was fighting, charged at the Orc Warrior. With a lizardman's physique, he should've been able to hold it back!
But something unbelievable unfolded before my eyes.
BOOM—!!
The Orc Warrior swung its glaive and Brut was sent flying! A lizardman standing two meters tall was overpowered in raw strength. The Orc Warrior didn't even spare a glance at the stumbling Brut. It kicked off the ground and charged again.
"This tattooed orc is a monster!"
It shoved aside a lizardman with one hand?! Was this an orc who actually knew how to wield mana? Before I knew it, the Orc Warrior had closed the distance, and I swung the Water Whip with every dying ounce of my strength. But the Orc Warrior saw the whip coming and didn't even bother dodging. It simply took the lash with its entire body while leveling the blade of its glaive straight ahead.
'Is he trying to take me with him?! This suicidal maniac bastard!'
The Orc Warrior's belly hide burst open, revealing bone. The orc's eyes, as it charged with its blade set forward, were the eyes of a creature resigned to death. A sheer obsession radiated from it—that it absolutely would not die alone.
"Guh."
I let out a gasp and backpedaled. But the Orc Warrior charging like a wild boar possessed speed beyond comprehension. At this rate, I'd be skewered by the glaive! A shish-kebabed Incubus would be born! The instant the glaive's blade thrust toward me like lightning—
"Mongma-nim—!!"
At that exact moment, a lantern came flying from behind and smashed into the Orc Warrior's forehead. Oil splattered, and the boar's head ignited in a blaze of roaring flames. The trajectory of the Orc Warrior's thrust twisted wildly. I rolled across the floor and narrowly dodged the glaive.
"Now—!! Finish it off!!"
Kate shouted with her arm still outstretched. She had thrown the lantern and nailed the Orc Warrior! The curved arc of that lantern throw was anything but ordinary. It was the exact same skill she'd shown throwing Holy Water bottles in the underground waterway.
The Orc Warrior hurtled past me and crashed into a boulder in the excavation chamber. Its glaive, aimed at me moments before, had bored deep into the rock like it was tofu. Wreathed in flames devouring its skull, the Orc Warrior let out a monstrous shriek.
"Hraaap—!!"
I swung the Water Whip at the embedded Orc Warrior. I put my soul into every single strike, flaying its entire body. By the time I'd swung until my wrist went numb, the Orc Warrior finally met its spectacular end, glaive still clutched in its hand.
The Orc Warrior's body tilted. Its corpse slowly toppled over and slammed onto the floor of the excavation chamber. BOOM! I stopped lashing and scanned my surroundings. I had to know what happened to the other two orcs.
"W-we've taken down this one too."
"Orc eliminated!"
Each of the dead orcs lay sprawled before Ally and Brut. The moment I confirmed their corpses, the strength finally drained from my hands. I dropped the Water Whip and slumped to the ground.
We had won. We had wiped out the orcs in the abandoned mine. The waters of the abyss had parted, and the wide-open surface world welcomed us.
Silver Tier! I could see the Silver Tier—a place where people actually lived!
"Mongma-nim, it's Silver! Silver!"
"Hell yeah—!"
Clap—!
Kate and I faced each other and slapped our hands together. A victory high-five to sound the triumphant paean.