I can’t say anything since he’s shouting and feeling good.
For the welfare of my subordinates, I’m willing to allow a bit of that. In fact, I’ve gotten used to the ‘Dotti’ making so much noise.
Clank-clank-
Whether it was in reaction to Krabe’s roar or not, over a hundred Orc Skeletons that had fought fiercely with ‘Krabe’ earlier began to gather around us.
“About 150 left? To have died this many in such a short time…”
I was reminded once again of how formidable ‘Krabe’s’ combat power had been in life.
Crack-crack-
I slowly moved with Krabe and the Orc Skeleton battalion toward our house.
– Krrr…
The Orcs, having lost their commander in an instant, stared at me with wide eyes as they became undead and were now subservient to me. They still seemed clueless, only murmuring to themselves.
– Emmeit Sha Karu…
– Prati Sha Kartapia!
“What are they saying…”
Their conversation sometimes sounded like gibberish I couldn’t understand, and I wondered if our world wasn’t the only one that’s unstable considering the system’s translation function hasn’t been working quite well lately.
Even the system must have its limits, right? If it exceeds a certain threshold of processing at the same time, wouldn’t phenomena like this occur?
“Going too far.”
Anyway, thinking of the usual reckless nature of Orcs, their hesitance to act and only talking among themselves seemed fresh to me. It just showed how severely shaken they were by Krabe’s defeat.
And there were those who watched my movements even more quietly than the Orcs.
“Whoa! You there! D-Don’t push!”
“G-get out of the way. Move aside. Quickly!”
“H-Hunter! This way, this way! Yes, yes.”
“Tap…”
As I arrived at the exterior wall of the house, the low-rank hunters who couldn’t get inside scattered in all directions in a panic.
No one had told them not to come in, yet seeing them pressed against the wall outside made me feel a bit sorry for them.
“There are quite a few civilians here. They’re continuing to gather through the back route.”
This would lead to the first problem of basic needs, as already a stench was wafting in from various places. They probably just covered up their mess carelessly.
– ……….
– ……….
Fear was palpable in their eyes as they looked at me, but it felt like the positive side outweighed that. After all, I was like a benefactor who had saved their lives, and that would likely continue for a while.
“Hmmm… It wouldn’t be bad to think about when I need to give orders. More importantly, Orcs, maintain a little more distance from the wall. Yes, that’s right.”
[Uwo?]
[I will handle it…]
“Alright, Krabe, I appoint you as the Commander of the Orc Skeleton Battalion.”
[Ooooo…! M-Me? The Commander? What an honor!]
I probably wouldn’t catch a stronger one anyway, so it wouldn’t be a problem to appoint Krabe as commander.
Krabe seemed quite pleased to have been promoted to commander, as his expression grew more fiery.
With the Orc Skeleton battalion lined up outside, I now stepped into the front yard, which had become a ruin.
As soon as I stepped inside, the hunters resting within gasped and moved away from me. Seeing such consecutive reactions made me scratch my head without realizing it.
Pretending not to care, I looked around again and was swept up in a wave of bitterness.
“I really made a mess here. They just casually threw debris around.”
Among the Orcs that had arrived, there were particularly large ones, who often acted like living catapults.
Thanks to that, nothing in the house was intact. I couldn’t tell if this was our home or inside a dungeon.
“Ugh, so frustrating.”
I truly felt like running over and smashing all those Orc heads right now.
It was a place where I had made a lot of memories.
Splash-splash-
“Huh?”
Near the collapsed pond, I could see Fibryn struggling to move scattered stones and attempting to somehow recover the area.
“Ugh… Fibryn… What are you doing out of the water?”
Summoning rocks from the space and using telekinesis, I surrounded the edge of the pond again.
“Fib?!”
Fibryn noticed me at that moment and flashed a bright smile.
“Fibru!!”
She clapped her short arms and bounced on the spot.
It seemed her fur had become fluffier and her magic power had increased considerably. She seemed to be welcoming me much more vigorously than usual.
I couldn’t remember our relationship being this close, but she was so happy to see me after a long time, I felt grateful.
Seeing her growth, I wondered if she could use something akin to purification abilities like those Fibryn I saw in the hidden dungeon of ‘Nando’.
“By the way, where’s Yeon-hee…?”
The fight with Krabe hadn’t lasted long.
So, it made sense that Yeon-hee and the companions hadn’t yet digested the alchemist’s potions on the brink of death.
I waited for a few minutes while organizing the front yard.
During that time, not a single hunter had dared to approach me and strike up a conversation.
They only observed me from a distance…
Even Shin Hee-won of the White Knight Guild was just occasionally checking on me.
“Everyone is too busy meditating. Well…”
“Shaaaaa! Huh- huh!”
The first to wake up unexpectedly was Noh Ha-yoon.
After struggling to breathe a few times, she regained her composure.
“She must be used to the cold temperament since she adapted to the healing potion quickly.”
Her hair had taken on a deeper shade of blue, and a coldness radiated from her body like smoke spreading around.
She truly was the prodigy that the ‘witch’ openly claimed to favor among her children.
“Huhuhuhuh… Kyahahaha!!”
Noh Ha-yoon seemed to regain her sanity and looked at me, laughing like a crazy person for quite some time.
“Il-wol, thank you so much for the potion. I feel like I’ve realized something great. Haah- is this what it looks like beyond the wall?”
Whatever it was, it definitely looked like she’d grown, pushed to her limits. The same probably went for the others.
“In just three weeks… they’ve grown beyond recognition.”
That’s understandable since they had only been fighting those terrible bastards, so the growth environment would have been optimal.
Right now, Noh Ha-yoon’s ice field could probably freeze several Orc High-Rank Fighters at once.
But the issue was the mental and physical fatigue that had reached their limits.
Even Noh Ha-yoon, upon waking, was on the verge of losing her balance.
“Regardless of the growth, she might not be able to use her strength for a while.”
As I looked closer, the state of my companions became truly severe.
The alchemist’s potion wasn’t enhancing physical abilities; it was entirely focused on recovery.
“When the body is at its lowest, the healing effect is more significant. This could actually be good… since an experience of releasing strength and then filling it again is needed.”
Although I had filled amber bottles with Irmana’s waters in the space of the summoned creatures, it seemed they had used them up completely.
Well, they endured for three weeks…
“I never expected it would turn out like this. Damn you, Inessa. Did you not foresee this future?”
Or perhaps she had foreseen it but still called me to China— that’s something to check later.
Tat-tat-tat-tat—
“Are they starting to push in now?”
The brief disappointment of losing the commander among the Orcs was quickly forgotten.
They couldn’t wait and began advancing cautiously.
“I doubt they’ll strike directly… Are they waiting for a battle general level ally?”
Since we had ample time, I quietly examined the distant regions through the wave of perception.
The movements of the Orcs were densely outlined within a range of 35 kilometers.
They were clearly targeting several key points.
“Hunters are gathering mainly around the large guilds and major shelters. The Orcs are likely aiming for those places… As expected, they have a significant numerical disadvantage.”
It wasn’t just about the numbers.
When entering a dungeon, I could align it with my rank, but now that a far stronger opponent was appearing out of nowhere, it was hard to exert my actual strength.
In the end, the lower-tier Awakened and Non-Awakened Ones were left with no choice but to seek the strongest group.
“A focal point…”
I momentarily recalled my past life.
There was a time when the Orc Legion Commander almost engulfed most of the capital region with overwhelming force and command.
At that time, Jo Gi-man appeared and set up in the northern part of Gyeonggi Province.
Though at first, people criticized him as a coward, soon after, even Transcendents began joining him, and that shelter became the main base for the Great Orc War.
“Eventually, we managed to restore the northern part, but it was too late to drive the Orcs out that had settled in the eroded areas.”
In the end, by the time I was stabbed in the back by Jo Gi-man, I had even heard the Orcs had swallowed up more than two-thirds of North Korea.
“This time too, we can’t let them push southward. We need to establish ourselves early.”
If it’s going to happen, it would be even better if our house could become such a stronghold.
“A shelter…”
Feeling the increasing pressure of the Orc horde, I stepped into our house, now half-destroyed.
Although there was a sign saying [No Entry] on Yeon-hee’s room, I went in without hesitation.
“The ceiling…”
Incredibly, there was a massive rock occupying a corner of Yeon-hee’s room.
Did an Orc or a Chimera throw a rock they found somewhere?
“Let’s grow the sanctuary.”
With the ceiling broken, expanding the sanctuary would be easier now.
“For now, let’s invest 90% of the Devouring Creeper’s corpse.”
I brought just enough of the Great Beast’s corpse into the room to be able to summon it all for investment into the sanctuary.
“The Orcs are only tightening their encirclement but aren’t launching any direct assaults.”
Nonetheless, with ‘Krabe’ holding the line, the Orcs’ advancement speed had significantly decreased.
“Il-wol…? Huh- so you’re here. Don’t you think you should let me know whenever you leave?”
Ha-yoon would occasionally visit to check if I was guarding the place.
“Did I make her anxious?”
If that’s the case, I need to reinforce the sanctuary even more.
– Sufficient materials have been invested.
In less than thirty minutes, I had fully invested the corpse of the Devouring Creeper in the sanctuary.
“The digestion time has sped up dramatically. It seems the speed of material digestion also increases in proportion to the size of the sanctuary.”
– ‘Escape Prevention’ has reached Level 3!
– ‘Field of Vision Block’ has reached Level 4!
– ‘Non-Existence’ has reached Level 3!
– The size of the sanctuary will be drastically expanded!
– The durability of the sanctuary will be dramatically increased!
The effects of the Great Beast that swallowed North Korea were impressive indeed.
Level 3 Escape Prevention… This means even someone as strong as Jung Tae-hyung wouldn’t be able to escape.
A strategy to draw one in at a time and gang up on them would also be possible.
“It feels like the area has expanded to a radius of 70m. But why don’t they show durability in statistics? It’s hard to gauge, and calculations feel off.”
Knowing how long it could withstand would be helpful to step away for a moment and manage things better, but it was frustrating.
Despite that, I continued to invest monster corpses and Mana Stones into the sanctuary.
Especially the corpses of the Demon Beasts caught in the ruins seemed quite valuable, and the Mana Stones were the same.
“This is the highlight.”
The corpse of Necrosquall.
“Can I summon just a bit of this?”
It was easy to handle the Devouring Creeper from within…
“Just a little… just a little…”
Zuuuuuuuu—
“What…?!”
It seemed my control was not quite working as intended.
The corpse of Necrosquall shot up towering toward the ceiling, startling the hunters, who tensed again, surrounded by the Orcs.
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