Chapter 75
Chapter 75
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 75
Chapter Title: Orc Fortress Rampage
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"Hmm, human faction."
Hae-jin looked at the faction randomly assigned to him and spoke.
Brick buildings with blue roofs came into view.
This was the human faction.
'The orc faction looks completely different.'
Hae-jin already knew well what both factions looked like.
The orc faction had red roofs and buildings made of wood.
In any case, since he'd been assigned to the human faction, Hae-jin thought.
'When the race-specific Trials' Arena unfolds, I should move with the humans in mind.'
With that thought, Hae-jin extended both hands to his sides.
Whoooosh-!
Black energy gathered in Hae-jin's hands.
In the next moment, twin swords appeared in his hands.
Hae-jin gripped the twin swords.
The players who saw him reacted.
"Ooh, cool."
"Off to massacre again?"
"Damn! Same side as the hero? Total luck!"
"Heh heh, survival this time."
"Nice!"
They were delighted, thinking Hae-jin was stepping up to handle the fighting.
At the players' reactions, Hae-jin inwardly clicked his tongue.
'Not exactly something to be happy about.'
But what could he do?
They couldn't know his intentions.
They probably wouldn't realize until the results came out.
That Hae-jin was deliberately trying to lead their faction to defeat.
In any case, the key point was that even if they became the losing faction, survival required meeting certain conditions.
They had to become the hidden trial achiever with the highest contribution in the losing faction.
That's why Hae-jin had drawn his twin swords.
He couldn't wait for the enemy faction's forces to come and then rack up contribution.
Even if players and regular soldier NPCs respawned quickly, the time it took for them to reach the battlefield where fighting broke out in the enemy faction would allow this side to gain momentum and push back the enemy.
If Hae-jin racked up contribution then, their faction might end up winning.
While the enemies respawned and came, the other players might take out the enemy faction's hero NPCs.
So Hae-jin planned to charge straight into the enemy faction right now.
That way, the enemy faction wouldn't be pushed back by their own during the battle.
Hae-jin, having summoned his twin swords, darted forward nimbly.
Flash!
The players who saw Hae-jin shoot out like an arrow spoke.
"Guess he's gonna sweep them all again."
"Yeah."
"Man, this ride's gonna be sweet."
"Man!"
"If we're the winning faction, we survive, so maybe we don't have to do anything?"
"The hero will take care of killing them all."
"Yeah, yeah."
The players watched Hae-jin's charge and thought whatever they wanted.
It was true he was going to kill them all.
But the human faction players didn't know it wasn't for their survival.
*
Flash!
Hae-jin stopped after running all the way to the orc faction, quite a distance from the human one.
He stopped at a distance where the orc faction's fortress was visible.
Since he'd dashed here right after the war between both factions started, he could now see regular soldiers and players just starting to emerge from the fortress in the orc faction.
Seeing that, Hae-jin gripped his twin swords tightly and crossed them in an X.
'Excluding the heroes, I'll sweep them all in one go.'
With that thought, Hae-jin nimbly shot forward.
Shoooosh-!
Hae-jin surged ahead, deftly slicing down only the regular orc soldiers and players while perfectly avoiding the orc faction's heroes.
To a normal eye, it looked like a simple charge, but the black energy left trails like drawing constellations, tracing the paths of Hae-jin's sword strikes.
The players in the rear paled as they watched the regular soldiers and players get mowed down from the front.
"Damn! How do we win against the Massacre?"
"Shit! We're all dying!"
"Isn't it better to just go back inside the fortress?"
"Yeah! Let's retreat to the fortress!"
"Yeah!"
The rear players urgently stopped targeting the enemy faction and started fleeing back into their own fortress.
It was obvious they'd just get cut down by Hae-jin if they came out.
But that wouldn't save them from Hae-jin anyway.
Shoooosh-!
The black constellation Hae-jin was weaving relentlessly pressed up to the fortress entrance.
No, it went inside the fortress.
To take down even the players who had fled inside.
Naturally, with all that aggro, the orc faction's hero reacted.
"Kurrk, daring to invade the fortress alone."
The orc hero who just spoke was twice the size of regular orcs, draped in bear hide, holding axes in both hands.
He charged at Hae-jin to grab him.
"Kurrk, I'll kill you, human!
"
The orc hero shouted his skill name.
Shouting 'Rip Attack', he jumped toward Hae-jin.
For his massive bulk, he leaped an astonishing distance, landing where Hae-jin had been and swinging his axes viciously.
But.
Slash-!
"Kurrk?"
He'd assumed he'd swiftly leap and cleave Hae-jin with his axes.
But the Hae-jin he'd targeted turned into an afterimage and scattered.
Hae-jin ignored the orc hero targeting him and continued processing only the orc soldiers and players.
The regular orc soldiers and players who died respawned randomly in three barracks bases inside the fortress, and every time they did in those three spots, Hae-jin swiftly moved and kept killing them.
The orc hero trying to stop it was busy chasing Hae-jin's tail.
Hae-jin was well aware of that.
'Chase me all you want, orc. What good does it do?'
Orc.
The name of the first hero orc to emerge from the orc faction.
New heroes were added to each faction every 30 minutes of combat.
But only 10 minutes had passed since Hae-jin entered the orc fortress.
The reason was simple.
'Every time a regular orc soldier or player dies inside the fortress, the next hero's spawn time shortens by 1 second per kill.'
That's why the second orc hero appeared after just 10 minutes.
Hae-jin could see it.
'Osphel's out.'
Osphel.
Unlike the first axe-wielding warrior hero, he was a mage-type hero.
Though still an orc.
Osphel, having appeared, spotted Hae-jin.
"Kurrk, daring to wreak havoc in our fortress. I'll kill you,
"
Osphel raised his staff.
Mana energy gathered around him, blue mana turning into red flames and shaping into spears.
Flaming spears.
He created several and targeted Hae-jin.
Roooar-!
Flaming spears streaking through the air with fiery tails toward Hae-jin.
But of course, they couldn't inflict any damage on Hae-jin either.
They merely targeted the afterimages of Hae-jin as he continued processing respawning players and orcs in the orc fortress.
Seeing that, Osphel gnashed his teeth.
"Kurrrgh! Dodging that too? Then...!"
Roooar-!
Osphel intensely gathered fiery energy.
Unable to damage Hae-jin with his Fire Spears, he seemed about to use a powerful spell.
Gathering his energy, Osphel cast his magic.
"Kurrk,
"
Each attribute had higher-tier variants.
For fire, it was flame, and flame-infused spells commonly used the prefix 'Flame' instead of 'Fire'.
Higher attribute magic usable from 5th class.
Feeling Osphel's Flame Ball, Hae-jin thought.
'Guess I have to slash it?'
He could dodge.
But the reason Hae-jin intended to slash the Flame Ball was simple.
'If I dodge pointlessly, Osphel's Flame Ball won't just fail to hit the players and regular orc soldiers I need to kill—it'll damage the fortress, pulling forces to repairs.'
Unlike Fire Spear, a Flame Ball could deal significant damage to the orc fortress.
So even though he could dodge, Hae-jin deliberately didn't and slashed it instead.
Slash-!
Hae-jin cleaved Osphel's Flame Ball with his sword infused with Chaos energy.
Seeing that, Osphel burst into mad laughter.
"Kurrk, krahat! Slash it and you'll be caught in the explosion and die, human!"
Osphel was pleased to see Hae-jin trying to slash his Flame Ball.
Why?
Because he believed that slashing a Flame Ball would trigger a massive explosion, and no frail human could survive it.
But soon Osphel's expression hardened.
Slash.
Hae-jin swiftly cleaved the oncoming Flame Ball.
The intense flaming orb was neatly bisected.
It should have exploded on the spot, but the halved Flame Ball simply turned to smoke and vanished without a trace.
Seeing that, Osphel said with a stiff expression.
"Kurrk, wha... how? The Flame Ball didn't explode?!"
Osphel had been certain that Hae-jin splitting his Flame Ball would kill him in the explosion.
Yet seeing it dissipate harmlessly, he couldn't hide his bewilderment.
Regardless, Hae-jin continued killing the respawning regular orc soldiers and players.
Thanks to that, the players in the orc faction were going mad.
"Hey, stop killing already!"
"We know we're losing anyway, so why keep killing us?!"
Players fleeing to avoid dying even one less time to Hae-jin vented their complaints.
Among those players, some noticed something odd.
"But he's killing us like crazy just to rack up points, right?"
"Probably."
"But don't we survive by leading the faction to victory?"
"Yeah."
"Then why doesn't the Massacre just smash up our faction's stuff?"
"Well, capturing enemy forces gives points or something."
"But why not those? Anyone can see killing them gives way more points."
The dubious player was pointing out exactly why Hae-jin wasn't targeting the orc faction's heroes.
No matter how you looked at it, to score high in this Trials' Arena, you had to take down those heroes, not them or the plain-looking orc soldiers.
Were the heroes too strong?
No.
From what the orc faction players had observed of Hae-jin's fights so far, he seemed capable of handling the heroes easily.
So why was Hae-jin ignoring the orc faction heroes and only killing regular orc soldiers and themselves?
Of course, they couldn't know the answer now.
Hae-jin had no reason to explain it to them.
He was simply racking up points solely to survive via the hidden trial even in the losing faction.
Afterward, Hae-jin's rampage summoned two more orc faction heroes that should have appeared every 30 minutes.
The archer-type hero Obow and priest-type hero Ohealer emerged.
Once they did, Hae-jin stopped the massacre.
'They should be arriving soon.'
He sensed presences.
The presences Hae-jin felt were the human faction's forces.
In truth, the human faction's forces currently had only two heroes.
And with one just emerging, there was only one human faction hero among the forces approaching the orc fortress.
Recalling that situation, Hae-jin thought.
'With heroes at 4:1, the orc faction won't lose.'