Chapter 53 – Orc Hunting Part 2
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Translator: SFBaka
Editor: Thor’s Stone
We secured the horses, and I drew a simple map on the ground to help with the strategic planning. In the end, we decided to break through together instead of dispersing our combat strength. If anything untoward happens, we’ll all run back here and make our escape together.
(D-1, make sure monsters don’t get near the horses.)
『Acknowledged.』
The five of us carefully trudged through the trees. When we advanced two hundred meters, two patrolling orcs started heading in our direction. But they weren’t going straight for us. They should pass us by from the side. Of course, they still didn’t manage to notice our presence.
I signaled for Cleria to finish them off. I used the hand signal for requesting a headshot. Once they came into range, Cleria manifested two arrows of flame and promptly killed the two patrolling orcs.
The orcs fell down without much noise.
We advanced another hundred meters nearer the orc settlement. This time, we encountered five orcs. We moved in even closer and found them sleeping around on a small clearing. They were snoring comfortably.
I signaled for Cleria, Sharon, and Selena to finish them all off via headshot. I continued to give hand signal instructions to specify which orc each of them needs to target. Afterward, the three of them got into position and promptly fired off Flame Arrow spells. All the magic projectiles hit the heads of the sleeping orcs dead on.
Sharon and Selena hit their heads with two arrows and Cleria hit them with one each.
We continued to advance another two hundred meters and found another bunch of sleeping orcs. This time, there were seven of them. Again, I had Sharon, Selena, and Cleria finish them off. Now we’ve cleaned up 14 of them. That makes 61 remaining orcs.
We advanced yet another hundred meters and finally got a glimpse of the orc settlement, which looked like a crudely constructed village. The crude buildings were placed inside a circular clearing with a diameter of about 150 meters. The dwellings were just crudely built sheds lined with long leaves of some sort of plant. Most of the orcs were sleeping underneath those dwellings.
Now that we’ve come this close, it’ll be better to fire magic spells off from a decent distance. Anyway, let’s finish off the ones walking around first.
I signaled for Cleria, Sharon, and Selena to start finishing them off via headshots once more, starting from the ones closest to our position. They fell down one after another, and once nine were killed, a cry rang out from the back of the village. Looks like we were finally noticed.
“Everyone, open fire!”
I entered the village after giving out the order. I locked on to every orc in my line of sight and killed them with high-speed flame arrows. I hit the orcs right in the middle of the brows or right on their temples. Lots of orcs fell dead all at once.
I saw a Wind Cutter spell fly past. It must have been Elna. The heads of several orcs got separated from their bodies. Impressive, Elna.
After I fired off several more flame arrows, a terrible scream resounded from the back of the village.
“T-This is–!? This is bad Alan! That’s probably a General Orc!” Elna warned.
That sounds quite impressive! I finally saw the source of the scream before long. It was an orc several times larger and more muscular than its brethren.
It was still 70 meters out, but it sure has quite a bit more presence than the other orcs. It’s probably more than 3 meters tall.
“Elna! Tell me how dangerous a General Orc is!”
“Alan! It’s a General Orc you know!? U-Um…… Er…… I-If possible… can you try not to aim at its face?”
“…Huh? Okay.”
I hit the General Orc’s large body with five high-speed flame arrows, and it fell down in quite an anti-climactic fashion.
The rest of the orcs were already killed off by Cleria, Selena, and Sharon. Oops, there’s some hiding over there. Almost missed them. I finished off the two orcs hiding in the bushes nearby.
With this, all the orcs in this settlement have been killed.
“Alright, operation over! Great job everyone. Hey Cleria, I killed a big prey! Let’s go check it out.”
I called out to Cleria and went over to check out the fallen General Orc. It really was different from all the other orcs. Its height was about 3 meters and 20 centimeters. It had a savage-looking face and had two tusks protruding from its lower jaw.
“It sure has an intimidating face. Hey Elna, why couldn’t I attack its face?”
“We can sell its severed head for a lot of money. It’s used as some sort of charm against evil spirits or something,” Elna explained.
“Geh. What bad taste. Are you sure people would even want to display something like this in their rooms? Uh, since it can sell for a lot, we might as well take it. Let’s cut it off right away and drain the blood. Harvest the magic stones from the corpses before other monsters come running, everyone. Oh, and the proof of subjugation is their right ears, so don’t forget to cut them off as well.”
I handed two jute bags to everyone and had them recover the magic stones and the proofs of subjugation. It took about one and a half hours for all five of us to finish collecting the magic stones and ears.
The General Orc’s hut had old swords that were probably from dead adventurers, metal shards, five large silver coins, and a few assorted small coins that were worth a total of 575 Guineas. Man. They sure loved money even though they’re just pigs. Let’s take them too.
“Yosh. Let’s withdraw.”
“Fuu. Recovering magic stones sure is tiring,” Sharon sighed.
“Yeah. I wonder if there’s a method to take the magic stones from monster’s corpses in an easier manner?”
“But I must say, Alan, the hand signals you taught us were truly quite useful,” Elna praised.
“Yeah. I came up with them specifically to be used in operations like this, so I’m glad they proved useful.”
We went back to where we left the horses and rode back to Gantz. It’s already past eleven in the morning. We should be back in Gantz by one in the afternoon.
Fortunately, we encountered no more monsters on our way back.
When we reached the city gates, we got off the horses and showed the guards our guild IDs.
“What’s the contents of the bags?”
“They contain the severed ears of orcs as well as an orc head. Do you want to check them out?”
“N-No, it’s fine! Go right ahead.”
I felt conflicted when we reached the guild building. We should have returned the horses first before coming to the guild, but I was already pretty tired out and couldn’t muster the motivation, so we ended up tying the horses to a spot inside the guild building’s parking lot. We then saw the men that served as temporary guards approach us. Now that I got a good look at their leader, he was blind in one eye. Maybe it’s an old injury.
“How much?”
“Five horses will be 50 Guineas, mister.”
“Here you go.”
“Thank you for the patronage.”
The man and his companions stood guard near the horses.
“Now then, which counter should we report in?”
“It’s most likely that one,” Elna pointed out.
Unlike the usual reception counters, it was placed behind a fairly large booth. A signboard with ‘Assessment Counter’ written on it was hung up on top of the booth in question.
“What is your business with us today?”
The man in charge of the counter promptly asked what our purpose was.
“We’re handing over orc magic stones, right ears, and a General Orc’s head.”
“Ahaha, you sure make some interesting jokes sir.”
He gestured for me to hand over the bags for checking, so I gave him the one with the General Orc’s head. He looked at the content of the bag and closed it with a start. He peeked inside again and closed it once more.
“T-This is–!?”
“The severed head of a General Orc.”
“…So you were actually serious?”
He slowly opened the bag once more and closed it almost immediately after getting a little peek. He tied the mouth of the bag securely.
“I’ll call some more people over, so please wait here!”
The man hurriedly took off after placing the jute bag with the General Orc’s head under the counter.
“What was that?”
“”No idea,”” replied Sharon and Selena as they shook their heads.
“Well, I thought it would turn out like this. I knew it,” Elna sighed.
A total of six men ran out of the back of the guild office.
“Where is it!?”
“It’s in this bag, sir.”
The newly arrived man looked at the contents of the bag.
“…There’s no mistake. It’s a bit inconvenient to continue discussions out here. Can you all come to the back so we can continue?”
“Alright. Let’s go, everyone.”
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