Another side
“Ghahahaha!! Oraoraora! What’s wrong, what’s wrong!!”
Calamities appear suddenly.
The giant body that descended from the sky instantly destroyed the loaded carriage.
The fists swung from that giant body created gale-force winds, scattering the humans around like confetti.
With just one blow, the giant achieved its objective, but it wasn’t satisfied. It danced towards the stunned soldiers, causing one life after another to perish.
Enraged, the knights took up their spears, swords, and staffs to try and defeat it.
However, ignorance is a sin.
In their minds, they thought an ogre had carelessly attacked them.
They thought they could handle something of that caliber.
Then what about overconfidence?
At the very least, it can be said that challenging a disaster-level being that they couldn’t handle with their own skills was reckless.
It was their bad luck to have attacked without realizing that ogre was the commander of the ogre tribe.
“Tch, these guys have no grit.”
They were annihilated in just a few minutes, “traveling” to the god they revered.
“Hey! Did you get the item in question!?”
The giant, who had seemed to be enjoying himself during the fight, became instantly cold, casting a chilling gaze towards the object that had turned into a mass of flesh.
However, the giant, unsatisfied with the process that was more like a rampage than a battle, quickly lost interest and moved on to confirming the original objective.
“Commander! We got it!!”
When the subordinates, kept on standby, rushed in, they found the desired powder inside the carriage.
“Hmph, just as the information said. Burn it all.”
“Roger that!!”
The reason the carriage was destroyed was to prevent its contents from escaping.
It was clear that if this medicine spread, the kind of battles the giant desired would become impossible.
“Who in their right mind would want to fight insane men and women and children?” The Oni King Raidou, showing his displeasure, looked at the object confirmed by his subordinate and his mood worsened further. He gave his subordinate instructions.
“You held onto it quite dearly, but I hope the next one is a little more satisfying.”
This was the third attack this time. They must have received information about being targeted.
Although the general forces were well-equipped, they didn’t feel like they offered much of a challenge.
Raidou thought he could have left this to his subordinates, but then—
“Huh?”
Raidou felt something flying towards him at high speed from a distance, and a slight grin touched his lips at the strength of its magic power.
“Did some challenging figures arrive?”
It would take time to dispose of the medicine. He made a mental excuse that it would take a while to retreat while dealing with its disposal, and remained on the spot.
“Destroy the enemy of the gods.”
Within a minute, the source of that magic power appeared.
Looking up at the sky, a figure clad in white robes showed no signs of slowing down. They descended from the sky, using gravity acceleration to launch a swift attack directly at Raidou.
The speed was undeniably in the realm of the superhuman.
If the knights were present, they would surely have cried out with joy and called this person a hero.
However, the hero who charged bravely uttered words as if in a daze, with no emotion in their voice. Their overcast eyes and childish face appeared from within the robe, and they mechanically tried to eliminate the enemy.
“Haa, what is this? The holy sword isn’t that good either. A dud? Or is this the degraded mass-produced item Jiro was talking about?”
Seeing the face, Raidou let out a big sigh.
To ordinary people, it might have been a devastating slash, but to the giant, it was merely a superhuman ability.
Even that sharp slash was just fast, and since it was too mechanical, its trajectory could be easily read.
Therefore, Raidou easily caught the holy sword between his thumb and index finger.
At Raidou’s movement, the attacker deployed light magic, attempting to attack without showing any emotion.
“Idiot, do you think you can hit me with that deployment speed?”
He sighed again at the slow deployment speed, even though it was without incantation, and Raidou flicked his finger.
A bullet of air shot out from his finger, hit the chin of the young face, and with a jolt, consciousness faded, and the magic dissipated.
The encounter lasted only a few seconds. The battle, once again, was not the kind the giant desired, ending in accumulated dissatisfaction.
“Commander! We’ve finished processing this end. So, what about that guy?”
“Huh? This is what we do.”
Raidou then pierced the heart of the boy who had lost consciousness.
“Well, that’s how it is, isn’t it?”
Even though he had killed the young boy, his subordinate did not reprimand him.
The subordinate had noticed.
The boy’s soul was already as worn out as a flickering flame. He had continued to burn his soul, becoming little more than a living corpse.
“Bury him.”
“Roger.”
It would lead to nothing good for him to continue living in such a state, so it was their kindness as ogres to at least give him peace.
When he ordered his subordinate to dig a hole, a simple grave was completed in a few minutes.
“Commander, battles like these are boring.”
“I know. I know that.”
Wishing the boy a proper life in the next world, the ogre poured alcohol on the grave and finished it.
“Alright, let’s move on.”
“Ooh!!”
The ogres began to move towards their next target.
They didn’t use the main road but traveled through the forest, so their movements were unconcerned about being discovered by the enemy. However, if damage was occurring, the enemy would also start a full-scale search.
“Commander, the checkpoints have been getting stricter lately.”
“That means they’re not completely incompetent.”
“I don’t know about that, when their reach doesn’t extend into the mountains.”
Obtaining as much information about the enemy as possible and outmaneuvering them. That was the rule of war.
Raidou’s true desire was to crush everything head-on, but doing so would lead to the concealment of this medicine production site.
That’s why they were fighting with surprise attacks like this.
“If it were us, we’d definitely start a mountain sweep.”
“Hmph, do they have the guts to do something like that?”
Anger is difficult to sustain.
Raidou’s initial anger had subsided somewhat by this point.
It wasn’t that he had forgiven them, but his passionate feelings had died down.
Of course, if there were a more challenging enemy, he would surely feel passionate in a different way.
He had calmed down to a state where he could have a leisurely conversation while walking at a pace that was a bit too fast for smooth movement through the forest.
“Indeed! Rather, if they’re going to find us, it would be more efficient to gather a large force at their base.”
“You got that right! That would be more fun for the Commander too.”
“Though there might be a lot of weird guys too.”
The ogres behind the leading giant made noise.
It looked like a Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons), but their sounds did not leak outside.
Several spellcasters were using invisibility magic.
For the spellcasters themselves, this was a technique they had learned to avoid bothering other customers when they were rowdy at parties, but they had become skilled enough to use it in battle.
A technique that was an extension of banquet entertainment. They originally valued fighting head-on above all else, so they rarely used this technique in combat. Enemies, assuming this, do not anticipate that the ogre tribe can move stealthily.
When they hear the commotion and rush to investigate, the ogres have vanished without a trace. Even if they search the roads, expecting their temperament, they won’t find them.
Unaware that this was causing even more confusion, the ogres marched on, making noise.
“Stop for a moment.”
The giant, their commander, halted their march.
“A message from the Tree King?”
A large eagle flew down from the sky, landing on his arm. He received a letter.
“…I wish I could have gone there too.”
“What is it, Commander?”
“The Tree King has started a war. They declared war openly, set up a base in a dungeon, and are drawing the enemy’s attention.”
“So, the enemies will concentrate their forces there, and our side will be weakened?”
“Yeah, it’ll make the boring fight even more boring.”
“Jiro’s little brother might be happy about that.”
The content was a declaration of war. Given the Tree King’s personality, Raidou didn’t expect her to make such a warlike move.
However, she had gone ahead with the declaration of war, exceeding Raidou’s expectations.
“Jiro must have pulled some strings. He must have sensed some ominous movements.”
The front line had moved from the continent to Isal.
From here on, they would only stop when the war ended.
“Hurry up. It’s best to get this troublesome work over with quickly.”
“Yes, but we’re already practically there.”
It was not a favorable development for Raidou to be late for a full-scale war.
However, he would not abandon his job.
For these ogres, a mountain or two, no matter how steep, was nothing they couldn’t easily overcome by running.
What they saw from the mountaintop was a scene like vast wheat fields.
However, if the people working there hadn’t been knights and priests, Raidou and his group would have overlooked it as a farming village.
“This is it, huh? They built it in a pretty remote place.”
It should have been quite far from the mountaintop, but their eyesight allowed them to see the camp with ease.
“Oh, someone noticed us.”
“They’re coming towards us, Commander.”
“That’s good. From here on, we’ll go head-on.”
The ones defending this farmland were far more numerous than the transport unit they had encountered earlier.
Facing a force deployed in units of thousands, the ogres grinned.
“Alright! We’ve been waiting for this!!”
“We’ll settle the score here for not being able to rampage earlier!!”
They let out joyful cries, as if they had forgotten they were the minority.
One ogre clapped, another whistled.
One ogre raised their weapon, another bared a ferocious smile.
They were eager, and felt no hesitation towards fighting.
“Alright! Let’s go, you bastards!! Ring the gong!!”
At the giant’s command, they let out a war cry and rang the opening gong.
A deafening sound echoed from the mountaintop. The knights hastily formed their defenses, but the ogres had already descended to the foothills before then.
“Commander! A fake hero has arrived!!”
“I’ll handle him! You guys deal with the trash!!”
“Roger!!”
The strongest forces stood on the front lines, their killing intent and magic power surging as they clashed head-on. This was the highlight of battle.
The expressionless boy and girl, like Noh masks, who charged as the vanguard, unleashed high-speed attacks with their physical prowess, attempting to cut down the Oni King, but—
“Ridiculous!”
They were instantly scattered.
A single thrust to the heart with a fist.
The ogre’s fist, which had discarded all mercy, showed enough power to take lives, intending to quickly end this hollow battle.
And the opposing side, their strongest forces defeated with overwhelming ease, fell into disarray.
Fellow ogres did not miss this opening.
“Hahaha! You guys who can only fight boring battles, die!!”
“You want to fight by crushing the future of children!? Huh!?”
“Who’s the one who won’t advance without using women and children as shields!”
The ogres’ rampage, fueled not by anger but by rage. The difference in numbers meant nothing.
Even though the enemy outnumbered them, they slaughtered them without flinching.
They too felt anger.
Because they knew the scene of people biting into the vegetables they had distributed, tears streaming down their faces, trying to live another day.
That’s why the ogres would not permit those who would destroy lives with such madness.
They would slaughter everyone involved.
That was all.
Today’s word:
Sometimes it’s necessary to draw attention in a big way.
As always, thank you for your feedback and typo corrections.
If you find this interesting, please leave a review, rating, bookmark, etc.
Currently, I am serializing another work:
“Pandora Pandemic Panic” – Pandora’s Box has been opened again, but we are fighting back with various things in a secret base!
Please check that out as well!!
