CH 184

Orc nest

The worst thing would be to get surrounded.

I leave the Orc general and the Orc king for the last as they probably won’t go down easily, and chose to quickly deal with all the normal Orcs first and foremost.

I activated the skills [Flesh Enhancement] [Physical Ability boost] [War Dance]

………and also, [Ability Unleashed]

The skill I plundered from Carlo.

This was my first time using it in a real battle, but I had practiced with it quite a lot of times.

The three skills mentioned earlier are the type that use stamina to enhance your physical ability, however [Ability Unleashed] was a skill that instead used stamina to unlock the max limits of your body.

Humans are said to unconsciously limit themselves to using only about 20% of their total ability to keep their body safe, but this skill allowed one to remove that limit and use the maximum of your abilities.

T put it simply, this skill could potentially increase your strength by almost 5 times more.

But, the backlash from using it would be extremely intense and so when I started practice the most I could manage was a couple minutes and that too at only twice my strength.

On top of that, you have to re-adjust each and every output of your body which was very tough, so I had been hesitant in using it in a real battle but…….

In the last two weeks, after intense sessions of practice, I had finally managed to adjust myself into using 30% of my overall strength consistently. A full 10% increase than normal.

I never thought I’d end up using it for the first time against an entire herd of monsters but with proper use of [Flesh Enhancement] [Physical Ability boost] [War Dance]and [Ability Unleashed],——-I could handle any number of monsters right now.

An Orc that finally noticed me approaching towards them, quickly picked up a spear that had been leaning against one of their shoddy houses, and roared to call and alert its fellow Orcs.

I did originally consider starting with a surprise attack, but I think it’s better to give that role to Snow this time instead.

I will approach them boldly and openly, gathering all the attention to myself and then while they are distracted, Snow will ambush them from behind.

To make sure that Snow doesn’t get put in too much danger, as well to test my newfound strength, this was the best plan.

Before the Orc King comes out from the inner most hut——let’s quickly get rid of all the remaining Orcs.

I unsheathed my steel sword, and raised a war cry myself as I lunged straight at the group of normal Orcs.

[Silent Steps] [Gale]

From all my skills, my physical ability had already been enhanced enough but with [Ability Unleashed], I was able to produce an even faster speed that I didn’t know I had in me.

I rushed in towards the Orc from the front, but due to [Silent Steps], the sound of my movement disappeared, and the Orc completely lost sight of me due to my speed.

While the Orc was still looking in the spot I was originally standing in, I rushed in straight near it and then swung down my sword.

I barely felt any resistance in my hand as my sword sliced through its entire body instantly.

I side stepped to avoid getting the spurting blood on myself, as the Orc who been torn open from the chest to its belly, fell to the ground in a pool of gushing blood.

………that’s the first one down, but really, I was now so much stronger that it didn’t even feel like I was in a battle.

It felt more like I was just swinging a sword at an unmoving object instead.

As someone who doesn’t really get strong from simply killing monsters and need to fight against truly strong enemies to gain anything at all, enemies like these were honestly worthless.

As I thought of such things while I looked over on to the corpse of the Orc——-I moved my sights towards my next target.

Since the now dead Orc had made a cry for help before it died, a bunch of Orc from within their settlement were now rushing towards me.

After all, their enemy was just one small guy.

Maybe because of that, they didn’t seem very cautious and all that had come here were normal type Orcs.

If the Orc King had come out and had taken command of the troops, perhaps it would have turned into a more interesting situation but, as it is now, no matter how many normal orcs come, they are not even worthy of being my opponent.

Just like the first Orc, I intended to cut through all these Orcs as well——so I rushed straight at the group coming at me.

I cancelled [Ability unleashed] [Physical ability boost] and [Gale] for now as they had a heavy stamina cost, and approached them with just [Flesh Enhancement] [War Dance] and [Silent Steps].

Honestly speaking, I could beat them even without these 3 skills as well but, it’s not a good thing to be that careless.

I jumped straight into the middle of a group of 3 Orcs, chopped the head off of the one on the right, stabbed into the heart of the one of the left, and then sliced the one the middle from the shoulder, diagonally across.

In a matter of seconds, another three Orcs were down.

I didn’t miss the fact that the Orcs that saw this happen, all faltered in their place and I rushed straight towards the Orcs that were now thinking retreating, and the horizontally slashed through one’s belly.

Then, I moved to the next Orc that was thinking of screaming for help, and before any voice could come out of its mouth, I chopped its head off.

6 of the normal ones were dead now, and only 2 more remained.

With their numbers this low, I’ll be fine even if reinforcements come but——maybe they lost their mind seeing 6 of their comrades get slaughtered so quickly, the remaining 2 orcs picked up their spears and decided to charge at me instead.

I call them spears, but they were handmade ones made out of wood. And their ‘armour’ was nothing more than some shabby cloth.

It’s not like they were skilled either so they had no choice but to overpower me physically to have  a chance at winning but, of course, my raw physical strength was also higher.

While they technically had numerical advantage, I had already insta-killed a group of three so……….without even getting touched, I sliced them both down in an instant.

All that remained were the higher species Orcs that were currently inside their huts still.

I circled back from the left and gave the ‘wait’ hand sign to Snow who was still lurking in the shadow of the trees, and then pushed open the door to one of the nearby huts.

Inside I found three Orc Soldiers and one Orc knight, oh and also an immense bestial stench that assaulted my nose.

I was thinking of slaughtering them inside as is but, I don’t think I want to fight in a room filled with this horrible stench.

I closed the door while acting like I was frightened from seeing the Orcs, and then stood some distance away and soon——–baited my acting, an Orc Soldier jumped out of the hut.

While snorting with excitement the Orc Soldier came out probably intending to hunt me down, but the moment it left the hut and the view of the 8 dead Orc corpses came into its view, it’s body froze up.

It must be bewildered and confused, but disregarding that from behind, the Orc Knight also came out and pushed the Orc Soldier towards the front.

Getting pushed from behind, the Orc soldier trying to regain its balance and stop itself from falling over only to end up right in front of me, where I was stood waiting for them.

And against this defenseless Orc Soldier, I simply brought down my sword with full strength and sliced in two.

Seeing that, the two other Orc soldiers who came out also froze up but the Orc Knight remained calm, and quickly roared to call its comrades.

In comparison to the previous normal Orc’s cry that was high pitched, this one was lot more deeper and low pitched.

It’s not like I can understand Orc tongue but, I’m pretty sure that this roar probably implied an emergency of the highest order.

Before the remaining orcs show up, I should probably get rid of these ones in front of me.

Ignoring the Orc soldiers and their rusty swords, I charged straight at the Orc Knight who was armed with a greatshield and a spear in its left and right hands respectively.

Since Ralf and Esta fought the Orc knights during the emergency request in Oxter, this was technically my first time fighting one.

It felt similar to fighting Ralf, if I had to say.

After all the duels with Ralf I had realized that I wasn’t very good against enemies that were good at guarding, but this is no place to be making excuses.

The great shield was made out of rock.

I could unleash all of my skills but I don’t want to spend too much stamina before facing the Orc King either.

I held back on skill usage and chose to outdo it with skill and raw strength.

I cancelled [Silent Steps] as well, and intentionally made noise as I approached from the right and swung my sword.

Since it was meant to be a feint, I didn’t put that much strength behind my swing, but it ended up staggering the Orc Knight pretty heavily regardless.

It looks like I could just overpower it with brute strength if its like this but……….now’s not the time to overthink it and be change strategy.

I activated [Silent Steps] again, and quickly circled towards the left side and slashed at the Orc knight.

The great shield resulted in poor vision for the orc knight so it was probably dependant on sound to keep track of me but unfortunately for it, I happened to have the perfect counter for that——

It was left unable to react to my silent movement and I was able to cut open the defenceless Orc knight apart.

Since it was a guard specialist opponent, I unconsciously used Ralf as the basis for my tactics, but compared to him, this Orc knight was basically a cute animal.

I turned away from the fallen orc knight and looked towards the remaining Orc soldiers.

Seeing the Orc knight fall, they finally began to move again after being frozen in fear but, the fear was still there clearly, as the tips of their iron swords were shaking even while pointed towards me.

It’s not like I enjoy a one-sided massacre but, unfortunately I couldn’t go easy on them in this situation either.

I need to get rid of them quickly as the remaining Orcs and the Orc King will come here, so I quickly rushed in to kill them.

After striking the sword away from the hands of the Orc Soldier, I simply thrust my sword into its heart to finish it off.

The last remaining Orc was distracted from seeing its brethren fall so quickly, so I used that opportunity to circle round behind it and chop its head off.

Because of Ongneer I had started fighting with a habit of keeping the heads and hearts of my enemies intact so it was quite relaxing to not have that limitation on me anymore.

Well, as for the Orc King, I still have been thinking of not destroying its heart as I could always find another Ongneer in this forest as well.

As I took a breather after killing the 3 Orc soldiers and the orc knight……..all the Orcs that had heard the call from the knight had come out from their huts.

And this time, it wasn’t just a small group, it was all the remaining Orcs that had come out.