Chapter 208

Chapter 208

The Desert Elves’ houses were made from sand.

They gathered sand together, then hardened it with magic to make it like bricks. They stacked those bricks and built houses.

Naturally, since they were made of sand, there was no chance they would burn.

The houses made of sand had long served as a sturdy fence for the Desert Elves. But at this very moment, the houses made of sand were burning.

It was not an ordinary flame, but one created by magic.

The ultra-high-heat flames were not merely melting the sand. They were burning it outright.

It was a Skill called Death Breath, unleashed by an orc priest.

The flames created by Death Breath never went out until they burned away every target.

Even if that target was sand.

“Aaagh!”

“Save me!”

Among the burning sand houses, the desperate screams of the Desert Elves rang out.

The Orcs were slaughtering the elves.

The elves were resisting in their own way, but the Orcs were so numerous that they were being pushed back helplessly.

Three or four Orcs swarmed and attacked a single elf, making it impossible to resist properly.

In the end, like ants swept away by a tidal wave, the elves were swallowed by the fierce wave called Orcs.

The screams and cries of elves rang out everywhere.

The elves were dying along with the home they had painstakingly built over more than a hundred years.

“How...... can this be?”

Tabaro, the chieftain of the Desert Elves, struggled to open his eyes and looked around.

Everything he could see was death.

Everything he had led and built was collapsing and burning.

His blood relatives, the clan that followed him, were all dying.

It was the price for failing to stop the tidal wave of death called Orcs.

Tabaro was paying that price too.

An enormous spear was embedded in his abdomen.

The owner of the enormous spear, which looked difficult even for strong Orcs to lift, was Orca, the Orc Great Chieftain.

Orca lifted the spear that had pierced Tabaro’s abdomen as it was. Along with it, Tabaro rose into the air.

“Krrgh! To think I’d fall to...... mere Orcs......”

“That is the reason you die, and the reason your race falls, elf!”

Orca mocked the dying Tabaro.

If there was anything as unchanging as the Orc race, it was the elf race.

Crude houses made of sand, clothes made of monster hide, skin scorched by the blazing sun.

They claimed to have adapted to Earth in their own way, but they were merely prolonging their lives. There had been no progress at all.

And yet the elves always ignored and despised the Orc race.

They considered themselves a noble race, but they had made no development beyond that.

If Orca had been an elf, he would have prepared for an Orc attack. But they had made no preparations at all.

That was why the Desert Elf village was being annihilated today.

Orca looked into the eyes of Tabaro, who had been pierced by his spear, and said,

“From this day on, the elves will fall, and the Orc race will rise.”

“Mere...... worthless Orcs......”

“Watch from hell and see how far the Orcs you despise and ignore will go.”

BOOOOM—!

At that instant, Tabaro, who had been pierced by the spear, exploded.

Orca had concentrated fighting spirit into the spear and burst Tabaro’s body apart.

Flesh and blood sprayed everywhere.

The elves who were still alive screamed.

“Lord Tabaro!”

“No!”

Tears of blood flowed from their eyes.

The Orcs killed even them brutally.

In that way, one Desert Elf village vanished from the world.

Orca sat among the wreckage and looked at the burning Desert Elf village.

The flames soared into the sky and dyed the gray heavens red.

Orca thought the sight was quite magnificent.

‘I will burn the humans’ city like this too.’

A fierce hostility toward humans and elves had taken root in Orc genes.

He did not know why such hostility had formed, nor was he curious.

Orcs were not a race that pondered. They were a race that acted according to instinct.

There was only one being in the entire Orc race who thought deeply.

“Priest!”

It was the old orc priest.

The priest, who could be called Orca’s right arm and mind, did not look very pleased.

He approached Orca with a gloomy expression.

“Lord Orca!”

“What is it? We wiped out the Desert Elf village, so why does your face look so dark?”

“The Shaman of the Red Hammer Tribe is dead.”

“The Shaman?”

Orca frowned.

The priests of the Orc race shared a spiritual connection with the Shamans.

They could not know one another’s thoughts, but by sharing emotions to a certain degree, they could guess whether the other was alive or dead.

“The Red Hammer Tribe would be......”

“They are the ones sent with Lord Ashanka.”

“So something happened to him.”

Unlike a priest, a Shaman did not participate directly in battle, but supported from the rear.

If such a Shaman had been killed, it meant that something had happened to the Orcs guarding the front line.

Ashanka was neither stupid nor irresponsible enough to let the Shaman under his command die.

A situation where he could not protect the Shaman had clearly occurred.

“What should we do, Lord Orca?”

“Send the riders. We will wait here until they return.”

“I will do so.”

The priest answered respectfully.

The Blood Wolves controlled by the riders had extremely sharp senses of smell and mobility.

If it was them, they would find out what had happened to Ashanka before the day was over.

“Stupid Ashanka. To lose a Shaman to mere humans.”

A Shaman was an extremely precious existence.

Raising a proper Shaman required a very long time.

“If you’re dead, I’ll avenge you. If you’re not dead, I’ll rip your head off myself.”

Either way, Ashanka was dead.

---

Zeon sat and looked over the interior of Steel Fortress.

The survivors were moving busily.

Countless people had died or been wounded in the Orc attack. But the survivors were not given time to mourn the dead.

No one knew when the Orcs might attack again.

Before that happened, they had to establish a perfect response posture.

First, they had to clear away the human corpses.

They gathered the corpses in one place and burned them.

It was cremation.

If they left the bodies alone or buried them, monsters might smell them and gather, so they had no choice but to burn them.

Next were the Orc corpses.

More than a thousand Orcs had invaded.

Burning this many corpses was difficult even for an Awakened capable of flame-type magic. So the choice they made was to push them into the cave where the Four-Eyed Bats lived.

“Heave-ho! Heave-ho!”

“Put more strength into it.”

The people dragged the heavy Orc corpses over and threw them into the vertical cave.

Flap, flap, flap!

From inside the cave, the sound of the Four-Eyed Bats flapping their wings could be heard.

The Four-Eyed Bats were enjoying an unexpected feast with the Orc corpses.

Fortunately, because Deborah had tamed the queen, the Four-Eyed Bats did not come through the vertical cave.

Deborah, who was beside him, said,

“If we keep feeding them corpses like this, the Four-Eyed Bats will grow accustomed to the taste of Orc meat.”

“Once the Four-Eyed Bats learn the taste of Orcs, they’ll become reliable reinforcements.”

“This is what they call misfortune turned into a blessing.”

“It is.”

Zeon nodded.

The idea of feeding the Orc corpses to the Four-Eyed Bats had been entirely Deborah’s.

Steel Fortress would gain the Four-Eyed Bats as reliable guardian deities, and the Four-Eyed Bats could enjoy the delicacy called Orcs, so it was a win-win situation for both sides.

Urtian and the Awakened were working hard to strengthen the fortress’s defenses.

They carved down the lower slope below the fortress further to make it difficult for the Orcs to climb, and they stacked the stones cut from the slope at the entrance so they could be thrown.

Aside from that, they prepared many things.

Now there were no distinctions among the people.

Because they had joined forces and fought the Orcs together, comradeship and a sense of kinship had formed.

The Awakened prepared for battle, and the ordinary people moved so the Awakened could fight under optimal conditions.

Deborah looked at the people with distant eyes.

“Now we’ve finally become one. To protect this place, we’ll stake everything and fight.”

“That’s good.”

Deborah sensed something strange in Zeon’s tone.

“You’re leaving, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It would be too shameless to ask you to stay a little longer, wouldn’t it?”

“There’s one thing I learned while wandering the desert for a long time.”

“What is that?”

“It’s better not to interfere too much in the lives of the people who already live somewhere.”

Back then, Zeon had been a wanderer.

He roamed the world wherever his feet took him.

He had no thought of settling in one place.

If someone like him offered too much help and people grew dependent on him, the problem became serious.

In the desert, Zeon’s ability was no different from a cheat.

If they grew used to his protection, the self-sufficiency of a Colony or village would decline.

In truth, there had been several villages that had relied heavily on Zeon, only to be annihilated after he left.

Zeon had learned that fact belatedly and had once blamed himself greatly.

It was not Zeon’s responsibility that the villages had been annihilated, but it was clear that he had contributed to their loss of self-sufficiency.

After that, Zeon made it his principle to interfere as little as possible wherever he went.

As befitting a wise woman, Deborah quickly understood the meaning of Zeon’s words.

“I suppose that’s true. The help we’ve received so far was so great that I briefly forgot the obvious.”

“If it’s you, Lady Deborah, you’ll be able to rule this place wisely.”

“That too is only if we survive. We will survive without fail.”

“Yes!”

“When we prosper enough to trade with Neo Seoul someday, I’ll come find you then.”

“I’ll wait gladly.”

“Are you leaving right away?”

“The sooner a farewell comes, the less regretful it tends to be.”

Zeon stood up and brushed off his backside.

Deborah also rose and walked with Zeon.

Seeing Zeon head toward the entrance, Briel, Levin, and Eloy approached.

Briel asked,

“Are we leaving now?”

“Mm!”

“Then let’s go.”

“Are you ready?”

“Already done.”

Briel tapped the subspace backpack Levin was carrying.

Levin smiled faintly and said,

“I packed plenty of drinking water and food. We won’t have any trouble for a while.”

He had filled the subspace with food and drinking water.

With this much, they would have enough to hold out until they reached Neo Seoul.

They rode the basket down from Steel Fortress.

When they descended, they saw Urtian waiting below.

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes!”

“Then ride these.”

What Urtian held out were the reins of Bactrian Camels.

Two of them, no less.

“If our circumstances were more generous, I would’ve given one to each person. I’m sorry.”

“Not at all.”

Zeon shook his head.

Zeon knew well how precious Bactrian Camels were to Scavengers in the desert.

They were not merely a means of transportation, but friends and companions.

They were not easy to breed either, so their numbers were not abundant.

Giving them two such Bactrian Camels was the greatest goodwill Urtian could offer.

“Even so, if you take turns riding them, you’ll be much less tired.”

“We’ll ride them well.”

“If you arrive in Neo Seoul, release them. They’ll find their way back here on their own.”

“We’ll do that.”

Zeon accepted Urtian’s goodwill.

“Then this is farewell. I hope you return safely to Neo Seoul.”

“I hope you safely stop the Orc invasion here as well.”

“We will definitely survive. And we will make this place prosper. I guarantee that when you visit later, it will be as splendid as Neo Seoul.”

“I’m sure it will.”

“And this......”

“What is it?”

Zeon looked at the black jewel in Urtian’s hand.

“It’s a means of contact with the Scavengers inside Neo Seoul. We contacted them through this.”

“A kind of communication device. But why give this to me?”

“We’ve settled down, so we no longer need it. If you ever need Scavengers, use it well.”

“Thank you.”

Zeon accepted the black jewel.

After looking at Urtian and Deborah’s faces for a moment, Zeon said farewell.

“Then we’ll be going now.”

“Go.”

Zeon’s group bowed slightly to Urtian and Deborah before leaving Steel Fortress.

Deborah watched Zeon’s back as he grew farther away and muttered,

“Another storm will blow through the desert. A great sandstorm......”

A sandstorm named Zeon.