382 - rcenaries of the Tower 2
TL/Editor: raei
Schedule: 5/week
Illustrations: Posted in discord
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Having faced many ogres, I was well-versed in killing them. I'd developed a sort of combo or routine. Striking horizontally to shatter their knees, then smashing their fallen heads - a slaughter thod too crude to call a combo.
But this one, in its frenzied state, stood at least 10m tall - twice the size of an underdeveloped specin from the outside world.
So its knees were above my head. I couldn't use the sa approach.
If size was the issue, I'd just have to grind it down more ticulously. My warhamr, filled with the stress of repeated knockbacks, crashed down on its instep rather than its shin.
Crack!
"Grooaaaargh!"
My full-force strike didn't just crush its instep - it obliterated it.
We might have been evenly matched in strength, but our durability wasn't even comparable. My mana-infused weapon, unblemished for 11 years, far outclassed re monster bone and flesh.
Still, one strike wasn't enough. Two, three tis. As it howled in pain and tried to squash with its palm, it made another mistake.
It should have pushed away like before.
With its instep shattered and knee buckled, it bent at the waist to crush . No matter how huge, its head kept lowering.
"Wow, that's brutal. Since it's so big, you're just systematically demolishing it from the bottom up like felling a tree. You can really tell you've killed tons of ogres."
What kind of idiot chops down trees by hamring them? LMAO.
-David, you dumbass, forget the sling. If you'd just crushed Goliath's legs, you'd have won. Bad body, bad brain, right?
-How is this lack of attack power? LOL. You're snapping leg bones without even drawing the holy sword.
-The huge giant's gonna use a shrinking spell~
-Today's life hack: If your opponent is freaking huge, just thodically shatter their joints one by one.
Its HP seed nearly depleted. After just a bit more pounding, it crumbled to a mana stone while still kneeling. As I caught my breath, still seething, both viewers and the few surviving rcenaries gawked at in awe.
The goblins that had maintained their ranks before collapsing like bowling pins had long since been harvested into mana stones, half-buried in the ground. The centaurs were sliced up by Katie's swordsmanship ages ago.
As I approached the three who barely survived the chaos, they snapped out of their daze and extended their hands as if for a handshake. Given they survived that mayhem, they must have been fairly skilled. They'd already healed up nicely.
"Thank you, thank you so much!"
"Whew, we really almost died..."
The strange thing was, despite all their comrades being wiped out, they didn't seem particularly sad. I sensed relief at their own survival and awe at our party's combat prowess, but not much negativity like depression.
Wondering if I was just being oversensitive, I noticed my party mbers also seed to find sothing odd. Despite the battle being over, they fidgeted with their weapons, clearly wary of the three survivors.
I realized they must have encountered doppelgangers mimicking humans in the undead-infested poison swamp.
They were on guard because of the inhuman lack of reaction to dozens of comrades dying.
As Grace fingered her bowstring and Katie showed no sign of sheathing her sword, the three survivors hastily raised their hands.
"Ahem, um... We get why Kingdom folks might react that way, but these people aren't our comrades."
"We just tead up temporarily for this quest today. We're not so heartless psycho bandits."
Having lost their nerve after watching systematically reduce a 10m giant to 8, 7, 6, 5m, they even tossed their weapons to the ground and frantically pulled out their rcenary badges. Sure enough, all three badges had different emblems.
One showed a taloned hawk, another crossed swords and axes, the third so kind of leaf and arrowhead. The three clearly unaffiliated rcenary badges finally convinced Grace and Katie to put away their weapons.
Having encountered doppelgangers that devoured divine energy before, they'd developed a paranoid streak in unexpected areas. Though for normal adventurers, that would be the standard reaction.
"Huh? I was wondering what Katie and Grace were doing, but that was the reason? So there was a point to surrounding them while putting Roland up front. I thought so event triggers when 5-stars gather or sothing. ...Wait, you blockheads! You didn't know why they were acting like that either!"
I'd been secretly checking the three survivors' specs through Han Se-ah's stream, so I hadn't thought along those lines. I was just observing how even natural-born 5★s could barely survive such chaos.
But viewers couldn't know those behind-the-scenes details, nor did they need to.
They were just snickering and teasing Han Se-ah about my impressive performance.
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Raei Translations
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Long after the frenzied ogre underwent size reduction surgery and turned into mana stones, Han Se-ah's luck proved abnormally skewed. Not a single ogre appeared before our party.
As we progressed from the 52nd to 53rd floor, and it seed we might reach the 54th without encountering the nad mob "ogre".
The carefree Imperial rcenaries who joked about getting a discount on hiring more people with their life savings disappeared after looting their temporary comrades' corpses and paying us tribute. This ti, a party of Kingdom adventurers lucked into finding the 53rd floor passage...
"Strange, I heard from the Adventurers' Guild that adventurer casualties were high due to frenzied ogre appearances..."
"If only they'd appear before us instead of killing innocent fellow adventurers..."
"It's convenient for exploration, but this will really slow down quest progress."
Whether for the quest, the special enhancent stone mission, or simply out of stubbornness, we lingered in the plains for quite a while. But no ogres showed up.
Even with Han Se-ah as party leader, how could the others agree to camping in the tower searching for ogres? Ostensibly due to the mage's curiosity about special enhancent stones, everyone seed genuinely disappointed.
After all, our genius mage Hanna figured out how to use regular enhancent stones just by looking at them. Surely she'd discover sothing about special enhancent stones? Such vague expectations. Seeing her spout regrets about the mission reward while oblivious to her mounting karma made want to give her a good smack.
"We should start heading back soon, considering our remaining food."
"Our inventory let us co this far on our own, but going further would be pushing it..."
"Yeah, that's right. To stay longer, we'd need a supply contract like the rcenary corps."
So we sat in a circle on the golden grass of the safe zone, chatting and expressing our regrets, but there was no helping it.
I'd been sleeping for days now with my eyes covered by a sleeping bag inside the tent, thanks to the plains' bright sunlight. All those days without encountering a single ogre, just endless "goken-ken-go-go-go-go-ken-ken-ken". It was practically ingrained in my head by now. Those sadistic viewers were even counting and mocking it.
They made all sorts of weird jokes about Mr. Nakamura Goken[1] coming to see the global strear, placing bets on whether it'd be goblins or centaurs next, dismissing Han Se-ah's cries about the ogre possibility as nonsense - which turned out to be true nonsense since we didn't encounter a single one...
We held out in the plains until our food ran out, so it was about ti to leave. After spending a day in the safe zone we stumbled upon, we'd have to make our way back tomorrow using Han Se-ah's minimap and Grace's senses.
Thinking this, I covered my eyes with the thick blindfold bought from the Adventurers' Guild and forced myself to sleep.
"...Roland? Roland!"
"Hm? What is it?"
Grace, who was on watch duty since even safe zones couldn't prevent other adventurers from turning into bandits, urgently woke . I thought it might be my watch shift already, but her voice sounded too frantic. Was a group of adventurers approaching en masse?
I erged from my tightly wrapped sleeping bag like a butterfly from its chrysalis, struggling to sleep in bright places. Taking off my blindfold, I saw Grace's fair face flushed with confusion.
"Katie! Hanna! Irene, wake up!"
Grace frantically woke the others, Han Se-ah logged in clueless about the situation, and dozens of people murmured in the background.
"Hey, who are you people!?"
"We're rcenaries under the command of Border Count Baden of the Empire! Who are you?"
"We're researchers from the Magic Tower. Please lower your weapons."
Mages, rcenaries, adventurers, knights and soldiers. Waking up to sudden chaos, I understood why Han Se-ah who just logged in couldn't grasp the situation.
I couldn't either, f*ck.
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[1. raei: no idea about this sorry. Might be a kr .]
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