Ashes of the Orc Settlement
A deafening boom shook the air. One by one, the structures of the orc settlement began to explode. The first to collapse was the bone tower, a grotesque monument that filled anyone who saw it with revulsion. The moment Yusoha’s alloy shell struck, the tower could no longer hold its monstrous shape and crumbled into ruin.
The other buildings suffered the same fate. Barracks were pulverized, watchtowers shattered. The relentless barrage pouring down from the cliff began annihilating everything in its path. It wasn’t only the buildings that burst apart. The orcs inside the settlement couldn’t withstand the bombardment either, exploding one after another.
The orcs tried to resist by cloaking themselves in mana. A few even displayed monstrous resilience, deflecting spells. But it was meaningless. They had no way to reach the enemies perched on the cliff above. Without orc shamans among them, they possessed no means to strike back at the casters raining magic from safety. In the end, the orcs died one by one beneath the falling spells.
The most vicious among them were, of course, Yusoha’s. Each time one of those massive alloy shells of horrifying weight dropped, the orcs’ bodies were crushed flat before exploding. Naturally, some orcs managed to bat the shells away. But it changed nothing. No matter what they did, they inflicted zero damage on Hwanryeong Team 2.
From the orcs’ perspective, it was nothing short of a catastrophe.
Yusoha surveyed the settlement with a distinctly refreshed expression. The area, scorched and flattened by countless spells, could no longer be called a settlement. It was simply a ruin. The village had lost every trace of its original form and become nothing but wreckage.
Only five or six orcs had survived. Even they were in terrible shape, barely clinging to life. Yusoha raised her hand and called a halt to the bombardment. Part of her wanted to erase that filthy place completely, without leaving a single speck behind, but she knew pushing further would exhaust some of her team members.
“This is enough. No need to waste any more strength.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Looks like five or six survivors. Let’s head down and secure them first. They might actually talk. Some creatures that cross over from the gates learn human languages, just like the Guardian Stars.”
“Understood!”
“Mina, if you would.”
“Yes, Team Leader.”
Lee Mina immediately summoned her Guardian Star, Cynea, and began wrapping the feet of every Hwanryeong Team 2 member in wind mana.
“Ready.”
“Good. Let’s move.”
At once, the entire team leapt from the cliff. It looked like suicide, yet thanks to the wind mana Cynea had layered beneath their feet, they touched down on the ground without the slightest impact.
“Let’s finish off the survivors. Gathering information is ideal… but if they refuse to talk, just kill them.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
Hwanryeong Team 2 advanced into the settlement. The sight was as gruesome as expected. The barrier built from lava-zone rock was completely shattered, and the tower crafted from human bones and hides had lost every last trace of its repulsive grandeur.
Everywhere lay the alloy shells Yusoha had fired. Beneath them, the crushed corpses of orcs met the team’s eyes. Not every orc pinned under the shells was dead, however.
“Gruuuk…”
One was still alive, its lower body smashed but stubbornly holding on.
“…Human.”
The instant it saw Yusoha at the front, hostility blazed in its red eyes.
“It can speak Korean. Must be a fairly high-grade specimen.”
Yusoha regarded the orc with a bored expression.
“Despicable… human. Kill.”
The orc simply repeated the same words.
Despicable human.
“Yes, I suppose I would be despicable from your point of view. But haven’t you been slaughtering humans indiscriminately too? Like those over there.”
Yusoha glanced at the scattered human bones lying nearby.
“Human. Kill.”
The orc kept repeating the same phrase. Madness flickered in its red eyes, yet Yusoha, hearing it directly, could only snort in contempt.
“Kill me? You? In that condition?”
“Kill!”
Apparently unconcerned about its crushed legs, the orc flailed its arms in a desperate attempt to attack. But—
Slice.
“Graaah!”
Yusoha’s sharp blade severed the orc’s arm in one clean stroke, effortlessly ending its resistance. Red blood, identical to human blood, sprayed through the air, but Yusoha didn’t even flinch as she stared down at the creature.
“Speak. How many other settlements are there besides this one?”
“Kill… you.”
The orc gave no answer.
“No intention of cooperating, I see.”
“Shall we torture it?”
“Pointless.”
With that, Yusoha drove her sword cleanly through the orc’s heart.
“I wonder if the others will be any different.”
She questioned every one of the five or six surviving orcs, but none of them answered her. They, too, had sensed it—Hwanryeong Team 2 represented a lethal threat to their kind.
“The king… will not forgive you for this…”
Those final words from the last orc before it died gave the team one valuable piece of information: the orcs were ruled by a king.
“A king… Do you think it’s the powerful monster you mentioned before, Team Leader?”
“Very likely. And the probability that he possesses a core is extremely high.”
“Then our ultimate objective is the orc king.”
“Exactly.”
Yusoha nodded at Cha Hyeonseong’s words. The rest of the team finally felt the situation click into focus.
“For now, we return today. Tomorrow we’ll purify this place and establish a forward base at the same time. I want those grotesque things removed first.”
Yusoha wrinkled her nose in distaste as she surveyed the scattered orc corpses, ruined barracks, and debris from the shattered bone tower. Someone immediately stepped forward.
“I’ll handle it.”
“Shin Seongmin?”
“Yes. Since I can’t contribute much in direct combat, at least let me take care of the aftermath. Adein.”
He summoned Adein with the confidence of someone who had done this many times before.
“I’m counting on you. Burn every last piece of debris here. Leave only the rock barriers standing.”
“You called me out just to do chores like this?”
Adein grumbled, but she still carried out Shin Seongmin’s request with surprising diligence. With a fierce whoosh, flames roared to life. Everything except the rock barriers began to burn. The orc corpses scattered across the settlement burned as well. The alloy shells had already vanished—Yusoha had dispersed their mana before Adein even began—so the purification was finished in moments.
Soon nothing remained but ash. Before long, Hwanryeong Team 2’s forward base would rise here.
The stench of burning corpses filled the air, but the team watched the scene with the calm detachment of people long accustomed to such odors. Then they turned and left.
Recently, Terta had been feeling something strange. It was as if an indescribable, overwhelmingly powerful presence was drawing near. The sensation was close to pure instinct, and it made even Terta’s massive frame tremble.
It was the first time he had felt anything like it since being swept into a bizarre vortex and dropped into another world. The sense of crisis he had never once experienced while crushing countless powerful humans and annihilating their entire race in his previous world was now rising again.
What is this feeling?
It shook the very core of his existence.
Decades after settling on Earth, Terta had received the new power known as mana. He had become incomparably stronger than the being who had once enslaved orcs and exterminated every human who dared look down on his kind. For someone like him, this unidentified sensation was almost impossible to accept.
Yet his confusion lasted only a moment. Who was this powerful existence? Whose presence could be felt so clearly even from such an immense distance?
Human? Or something else entirely?
It didn’t matter. Terta felt a surge of curiosity. His hatred for humans was important, of course, but he was a true orc—one who loved war and considered standing on battlefields where blood and flesh collided to be the highest honor of a lifetime.
His hesitation was brief. Terta rose to his full, towering height and spoke to Shahan, leader of the orc shamans.
“Shahan.”
“What is it, my lord?”
“There is a place we must go. It is very far.”
“A place we must go…?”
“Yes. There dwells a being so powerful that even I cannot guarantee victory. A being I very much wish to fight.”
Shahan nodded silently and obeyed without question.
“I will prepare at once.”
“Good.”
Terta lifted his battle axe—larger than his own body—and slung it across his back. Drums thundered. The orc elite soldiers, Shahan, and the orc champions gathered before him.
“Move out.”
Without another word, Terta began to walk. The orcs followed behind him with the devotion of true believers.