If an adventurer party were to run into a group of over fifty orcs on the highway, how would they typically respond?
Without a doubt, about ninety percent of the party would choose to flee.
Although orcs are classified as a low-risk Rank 2 monster, when they gather as a group like humans, they demonstrate the power to take down even large monsters.
Therefore, it cannot be said that an adventurer party could face this large horde of orcs head-on and definitely win unless they’re a Rank 5 adventurer.
Even a top-tier Rank 4 party would generally prefer to avoid a frontal confrontation, using ambushes, surprise attacks, traps, splitting the enemy, and many other strategies that adventurers are meant to employ to secure certain victory.
Given this, the probability of encountering an adventurer party capable of stopping the advancing orcs is very low, perhaps just one in ten encounters may feature a Rank 4 party.
However, all of them seemed as if they were born under an unfortunate star, having met a Rank 5 party on their very first encounter.
“Here I go!!”
Shouting louder than the orc’s battle cry was Kai, wielding a massive double-edged sword.
His body soared through the air with momentum, pointing the blade downwards towards the ground, no, directly toward the skull of an orc, crashing into the heart of the enemy horde like a falling meteor.
Kai brought his two-horned beast to an abrupt stop just before impact, leaping high into the air with the same momentum.
In a chaotic battle, cavalry is unnecessary; all Kai, the swordsman of the Rank 5 party “Wingroad,” needs is the single swing of his sword.
“Great Breaking Slash!”
The impact was reminiscent of a meteor crashing down.
Kai’s master-level martial art, “Great Breaking Slash,” cleaved the orc standing at the landing spot in half, no, obliterating it from head to toe into tiny pieces.
The sharpness of the blade isn’t the only source of power. A shockwave caused by the additional effect of the martial art spreads out, sending nearby orcs flying.
A cry echoing with shock, vigilance, and anger responds to the disaster that literally fell from the sky.
In the next moment, the sound of dying screams mixed into that discordant chorus.
“What’s wrong with you!? Orcs are supposed to be savage, so come at me already!!”
Despite not understanding the human language, Kai’s taunts carry through as he already sets his sights on a new prey.
With a horizontal swing of his massive sword, he sent an orc, along with its bone club, flying.
Not just one, but two orcs went flying together.
With a grunt of anger that didn’t quite make sense, the orcs surrounding Kai began their counterattack.
Driven by bloodlust, their eyes blazing red, they rushed to strike Kai with their weapons raised in a display of strength.
There was no coordination among them, but in the face of this relentless barrage, an ordinary swordsman wouldn’t last even thirty seconds.
“That’s it, that’s how it should be! It’s not interesting otherwise!”
However, none of those attacks grazed Kai.
In stark contrast, the orc army was on the receiving end of Kai’s relentless strikes.
His fighting style was not what one may call graceful, as it embodied the principle “soft controls hard.” Instead, Kai pressed on with strength equal to or even surpassing that of the orcs.
He avoided attacks purely because of his speed, and took down orcs with a single blow solely due to his sheer strength; that alone is all that matters.
Yet this was the ‘minimum’ quality befitting one who bears the name Galblaze, a prominent figure among the four noble houses of Spada.
“I won’t lose in a battle of strength!!”
Unassisted by martial arts, blessings, or enhancement magic, Kai—genuinely a human—could face the orcs head-on and overpower them through sheer power. This superhuman might forms the basis of the swordsmanship taught by Galblaze.
Of course, a mere wild orc wouldn’t draw out these superhuman sword techniques from Kai.
Having only used martial arts upon diving in, Kai swings his sword freely, slicing through orc after orc without activating any special techniques.
“Come on, bring more!?”
But just as Kai was showing off his ease in the chaos,
Roaring with a familiar sound,
a giant black shadow descended from the sky, like earlier.
Crashing down in front of Kai, having crushed several orcs beneath it, was a massive monster with a two-tone black and red fur and with long rabbit-like ears sprouting from its head.
“This is… something Pun!”
It was the monstrous Rank 5 monster that had sent all the monsters in the northern part of the Galahad Mountain Range and Prince of Spada into a state of terror just a month ago, named after the ancient word meaning “Fury,”
“Laspun, you truly are an exceptionally forgetful fool, a big fool, a muscle-bound idiot.”
With an icy gaze that expressed utter exasperation, Safi stood beside the pseudo-Sleipnir, holding her beloved grimoire “The Tenets of Immortality.”
Now, this raging beast obeyed not its own brutal instincts, but the commands of this single girl.
Resembling Galblaze, the Hydra, which similarly claimed to be one of the four great noble houses of Spada, Laspun was revived again through the unique “Necromancy” passed down through their lineage.
There were two notable differences from its living form.
The right arm that had been lost since the first encounter was now fully regenerated down to the tips of its fingers.
However, this was not Laspun’s original arm; it was a massive gauntlet imbued with the dull shimmer of steel—not just hollow bones but a completely perfected mechanical arm filled with iron.
The right arm part of a large golem presumed to be an ancient weapon excavated from the ruins of Avalon was one of the rare materials owned by Safi, and she thought it was no waste to use it on such a Rank 5 monster.
No, rather without materials as extraordinary as these, it wouldn’t be able to keep up with Laspun’s combat capacity.
The other difference was its eyes.
Those eyes were filled with a wild ferocity that far outstripped the bloodshot gaze of the gathered orcs, now transformed into the same purple color as the girl behind it, who remained cool and collected.
That was the manifestation of the dark magical power that serves as the source of the false life force common among those similarly commanded by necromancers, the undead.
With its eyes eerily glowing with that purple hue, Laspun leaped at the orcs with the same savagery it possessed in life.
With its own left arm, boasting extraordinary strength, and the resurrected steel right arm, it overwhelmed the strength of the proud orcs.
“That’s dangerous! Hey, Safi, you just targeted me, didn’t you!!”
“My control is still a bit lacking, tsk.”
“Don’t click your tongue at me!!”
Every so often, Laspun’s mighty arms would graze past Kai, swinging the great sword beside him, but somehow they managed to avoid friendly fire by the narrowest of margins.
Such is the teamwork of a Rank 5 party.
“Whoa! You’re scarier than the orcs!!”
Just at the moment where Kai could feel his own life flashing before him as a massive fist passed him by again, he cursed Laspun’s gigantic form with a mix of urgency and resentment.
“—Thunderclap!”
In front of Kai, a thunderclap resounded.
A brilliant flash so bright it seemed blinding, accompanied by a deafening roar—however, the ones receiving the most fatal damage were likely the orcs caught in the torrent of lightning crashing down from above.
The advanced area-of-effect attack magic “Thunderclap” had detonated here, and there was no way the orcs, possessing purely physical capabilities, could possibly defend against it.
“Shal! You’re dropping it too close! If you had taken just one more step forward, you would have hit me—actually, you kinda did hit me!!”
“What? Just use your spirit to dodge it.”
Charlotte, the third princess of Spada, infamous for her tomboyishness and renowned for her magical talent, answered without a hint of remorse for singeing a bit of Kai’s spiked golden hair.
Standing next to Safi, who was operating Laspun with the ease of moving pieces in a board game, Charlotte began to chant for yet another attack spell while casually humming, raising her beloved short staff “Crimson Thunder.”
“Hey! If you’re going to use a blast, aim from a distance!!”
Even Kai, often mocked as a swordsmanship idiot, had gotten used to hearing spell incantations being uttered behind him.
Like a boy at the gateway reading the unlearned sutras, he was familiar enough with the sound of chants to instantly discern the type of magic about to be unleashed.
In other words, Charlotte was about to cast her favorite type of thunder attribute magic again—a blast-type attack spell that sweeps across a wide area.
Both the wand with its red adornments and the shining golden eyes were aligned toward the spot where Kai was fighting the orcs.
“—Thunderclap.”
“Stop itttttt!!”
Thus, the orcs fell without exception, either cut down, crushed, or struck down by lightning—through one of those three methods.
From the emergence of the orc army to the moment they began to scatter in retreat, it had been about ten minutes.
Nero’s prediction had been spot on.