Chapter 97: Green Skins
The village’s condition beyond the broken palisade was truly miserable. There were no decent houses in sight.
They had either collapsed or succumbed to fire.
“This doesn’t seem to be a very populated village, a hundred or so at most. I don’t think they would have put up much of a fight if a wizard with evil intentions had come. . .”
He looked down at the blackened ground with a somber expression. It must have been bloody.
Irrucil and Farrell walked along the village path, slowly looking around. The conversation naturally died down, and the silence of the village became even more pronounced.
Farrell, who had been expecting this kind of silence for some time, finally spoke up.
“Something . . . . . feels off. Doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
Farrell looked embarrassed at her short answer. Irrucil was busy searching for any remaining traces of magic.
She didn’t know much, but she had a few clues. The low, damp energy lingered on the ground. It was a dark force that bent nature to its own will. Black magic.
“Warlock.”
“Yes?”
“A warlock came to this village. It seems to be his doing.”
“Warlock. . . isn’t that a devil worshiper?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would a warlock come to a small village like this?”
“There are many possibilities. The options include gathering corpses and replenishing supplies for spells and magic.
If a dragon was the source of magic, then a devil was the source of black magic. That was one of the common beliefs. Dark energy was often the source of black magic.
This power, also known as dark energy or negative energy, feeds on the negative emotions of humans.
It is not very efficient for ordinary elemental magic, but on the other hand, it is overwhelmingly efficient for necromancy, summoning, and other black magic.
Farrell pointed out this fact.
“But I don’t see any corpses. Black magic usually involves playing around with corpses.”
“Let’s keep going.”
The two of them soon reached the center of the village. Since it wasn’t a very big village, it didn’t take long.
“Oh my.”
Farrell exclaimed. It looked like two giants had been rampaging. A circle of crushed buildings and deeply sunken terrain surrounded it.
There was a massive piece of charred meat that resembled coal.
“I, Is this, by any chance?”
“I think so.”
It was hard to believe that such a battle had taken place in this small village.
Irrucil looked at the collapsed black ruins. The cornerstone, the foundation, and the location where the midday sun was directly overhead were all visible. It must have been the church.
“Farrell.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He approached, looked at the ruins of the church, and tilted his head.
“There are many intact corpses here, but not in the other houses. It doesn’t look like anyone was controlling them.”
“Yes. Someone placed the corpses in this church and set it on fire.”
“That’s quite considerate of them.”
“I think it was my brother. The trail behind should be from where he fought the warlock.”
Farrell turned his head and looked at Irrucil. A faint smile appeared on Irrucil’s expressionless face.
“Your brother? The one named Russell?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know?”
“The familiar scent and traces of magic.”
“. . . . . .Just from that?”
Irrucil stared at Farrell, then cleared his throat and avoided her gaze. She would glare like this when the topic of her brother was met with skepticism.
She appeared to dislike it when people questioned her brother’s convictions.
Farrell looked around again. The scene was completely destroyed. It was difficult to accept that a fight between two beings could have caused such a scene.
It would be more believable if two ogres had fought each other.
When powerful forces clashed, they were known to leave behind traces of magic, so Irrucil must have sensed something similar.
“In any case, it appears that we’re moving in the right direction. The people at that Black Barley place also spoke well of your brother.”
They had stopped by the Errandis estate a few days ago on their way here. Although Farrell was disappointed by the destruction of the dungeon and ruins, he found the emerging vampire monsters and the resulting commotion to be quite interesting.
There had been a story about the crimson moon and hundreds of casualties. In the midst of this, the lord’s son had been killed while he was evacuating the territory’s people.
Wizards from the Magic Tower, who had come to investigate the ruins, eventually dealt with the vampire attack.
However, Irrucil and Farrell were able to hear the rest of the story in detail at the Black Barley Inn.
The inn was run by a dwarf and a pair of siblings, and oddly enough, its employees consisted of a cat and a rat beastkin. Farrells found the rat beastkin employee more surprising than the stout.
Farrell remembered the taste of the beer and licked his lips.
“That was really good.”
Irrucil agreed. If she hadn’t gone on the road to find her brother, she would have lived her life without knowing that such a beer existed.
“Should we stay here for the night?”
“Yeah. Let’s find a decent house. I’ll look around a bit more.”
“Okay.”
While Farrell went to look for a house, Irrucil closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She wondered if she could smell a strand of her brother’s hair, even though it was unlikely to still be there.
Of course, there was no such thing, and all she could smell was the earth, grass, and the burning smell from the ruined church.
It was a pity, but it was okay. It seemed like it wouldn’t be long before she finally found him.
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“Cohen, wake up! If you lose consciousness, you’ll die!”
“Ugh, ugh. Bri, Brita. Let me go. . .”
“Wake up, damn it!”
Brita carried Cohen and walked quickly. However, the thick and thin tree roots covering the forest floor hindered her speed. She would trip and fall if she made a mistake.
To make matters worse, the sun had already set. The forest nights came early. It was almost impossible for them to move faster in the darkness that had already engulfed them.
Kee! Kee!
Brita’s face turned pale. The goblin voices chasing them were getting closer.
“Eek!”
Brita continued into the forest. She was carrying the larger Cohen while also looking at her feet, trying to find a flat path to run on.
As a child, she had been teased for being a girl with a lot of strength, but now it was saving both of their lives. Brita gritted her teeth.
“Those fucking greenskins! They didn’t tell us they’d have so many green skins! When we get back, I’m going to kill them all! I swear!”
Her words trailed off as she gasped for breath from running and carrying him. Even so, Brita knew that it was an impossible wish.
All of the mercenaries, except for two, had scattered. The number of monsters had been unexpectedly large.
The front line, which they had thought would be fine, quickly collapsed as the number of monsters continued to increase.
Money, trust, and contract requests were important, but life was much more important. When they came to their senses, everyone except Brita and Cohen had fled. An arrow hit Cohen, and now they were on the run.
The dark forest was like a maze. The haphazardly grown trees constantly disoriented them, and the drooping branches slapped them in the face.
The lush undergrowth hid ravines and cliffs.
You would most likely die if you lost your way in this deep forest. There were all kinds of monsters living there, such as rotten tree spirits, swamp monsters, goblins, kobolds, and harpies.
Of course, their habitats overlapped less often than not. That’s why veteran mercenaries and adventurers who knew the shortcuts could survive without losing a limb.
However, Brita and Cohen had no such knowledge, and the goblins chasing them knew it all too well.
Rattle!
Swish!
“Ugh!”
Brita rolled forward at the sound of something cutting through the air behind her.
Cohen, who she was carrying, rolled along with her. Brita’s eyes, which were spinning around, caught sight of a black line flying by.
The arrow that was stuck in Cohen’s side was still stuck there. She had left it there because she didn’t know if she could pull it out.
The arrow was small, as befitting the short arms and legs of a goblin. However, it must have been coated with poison because Cohen couldn’t control his limbs and his eyes were rolling around as if he were dizzy.
After a moment of thought, Brita realized that the process of rolling over had taken longer than she thought. And then Brita realized what was going on. They had jumped off a small cliff.
After a dizzying fall, she felt a sharp pain in her back.
“S, h, i, t, ewew, a, m, n!”
She screamed one syllable at a time. Even so, Brita managed to roll over, holding Cohen tightly.
He was her friend, who had protected her when she was bullied and when her parents were killed by monsters.
She couldn’t lose the friend who had joined her reckless plan to become a mercenary, make some money, and return to the village in triumph.
Thud!
The seemingly endless cliff ended, and Brita realized that she had landed on solid ground again.
“Owwww. . .”
There was no part of her body that didn’t hurt. Fortunately, nothing was broken.
“Ugh. . .”
Brita groaned and raised her head. She was surprised to see that her surroundings were bright. She opened her eyes slowly. The light source was a bonfire that was so bright that it made her eyes water.
She could see people lying or sitting around it. They were a group of people with hard-to-understand appearances.
There were three of them in total. The group consisted of an orc, a girl, and a man. On the other side, two large horses were standing under a tree. They must have been riding.
The orc was snoring loudly, and the girl was resting her head on the man’s lap. The man was sitting with his other knee raised, looking at Brita.
“Uh. . .”
Brita lost her words for a moment. The man she could see beyond the flickering flames of the bonfire had black hair and mysterious purple glowing eyes.
The man opened his mouth.
“You’re the one who was making all that noise in the forest.”
“Uh? Yes, but. . .”
Rattle, rumble, thud!
At that moment, the sound of rocks and dirt rolling down the cliff interrupted the conversation.
“Ah! N, Not now! The monsters are coming!”
Brita immediately thought of the goblins that had been chasing them and jumped to her feet.
But it was too late. Dozens of green lumps, each carrying a weapon, leapt down the cliff’s steep slope.
With her right hand, Brita gritted her teeth and reached behind her shoulder.
But before she could draw her sword, something amazing happened. The goblins, who were about to attack Brita and the travelers around the bonfire, stopped in mid-air.
“. . . Huh?”
Brita gasped at the sight, which seemed like time had stopped. Time had not stopped. The eyes of the rolling goblins were filled with confusion, as if they could not understand the situation at all.
“There are an awful lot of green skins in this forest. It was the same during the day.”
In such a situation, the man’s calm voice and words were enough to inspire fear. The man carefully lowered the girl’s head, which had been resting on his lap, to the ground and stood up.
“I was wondering why there were so many of them. This is perfect.”
The man now held a white axe in his hand.
“I’d like you to explain.”
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“W, Wizard?”
Brita wanted to slap herself for using informal language just now. The man, who had demonstrated his skill by levitating and immobilizing dozens of goblins, slaughtered the monsters in an instant with his fearsome axe.
Yes, slaughter. The sight of the fiercely charging monsters, their necks cleanly cut, left them unable to move a muscle.
The goblins, frozen in mid-air, swiftly departed and vanished into the forest. No blood or flesh fell on their camp, so they didn’t have to worry about attracting other beasts.
The man, who might have been a wizard or a knight, was now tending to Cohen’s wound.
“No.”
He pulled out the arrow and placed his palm on the wound, from which black blood was gushing. When the man removed his palm, a white light flashed and the wound vanished. However, Cohen still hadn’t regained consciousness, and his skin was blue.
The orc, awakened from the commotion, spoke as he examined the wound.
“It’s poison. If it’s goblin poison, it’s probably paralysis. You’ll have to find an herb to eat, or you’ll have to let him fight it off on his own.”
Brita bowed her head, thinking that she had never known how to thank an orc.
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
The man stated,
“Can I hear your explanation now?”
Brita and Cohen had responded to the call for mercenaries when the Latham estate announced a large-scale monster.
They originally planned to gather mercenaries and mercenary groups at the nearby Habilton Lodge before setting off for the Latham estate.
At that time, the estate recruiter suggested that they first take care of a small group of green skins nearby.
Those who understood the distinction between having a significant number of military accomplishments and not having many prior to entering the estate, volunteered for the mission.
However, the group was anything but small. The green-skinned monsters, who were not an army, quickly defeated the group of mercenaries by attacking them from all sides.
“That’s how we ended up running all the way here.”
“Monster, is it? Are they mainly green skins?”
“Yes. Or rather, the green orcs are the target.”
Brita said, looking at the only orc present. However, the orc snorted and shook his head.
“Don’t mind me. They’re savages. If I see them all, I’ll kill them all.”
“Ah, yes.”
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