Chapter 14 : Faking a soldier

Wheeee! The arrow whistled out from Max’s bow and struck an Orc in the eye. He was by no means an archer and it was entirely a fluke. “Nice Shot!” exclaimed the guy on his left as the armored Orc fell over screaming. The newly rearranged Frakan Squad of 40 strong had run headfirst into an Orc encampment of roughly 7-10 soldiers with 30-40 beasts on rounding a sharp bend in the valleys on their way back to the defense line. Someone had literally stepped on a hand to make an Orc shriek to alert everyone.

They had accidentally accidentally managed to ambush the camp. They too were surprised but most of them hadn’t been sleeping. And now they were fighting in firelight, courtesy of the fireballs the mages had conjured setting their enemies and their supplies on fire.

Oh yeah, some updated info. Apparently, the defense line was not a single wall but actually 3 walls through the long and winding valleys. But at the rate at which the Orcs were advancing and that siege engine, Max felt they needed more. For he knew for a fact that somewhere in the next day the lines would fall considering an S rank required the holding of the line for 60 hours.

You have killed an Initiate Seeker Hunter Orc Soldier. +100*10=1000 XP

‘Huh, I guess that’s all the soldiers I need.’ But there was no time to celebrate as an Orc smashed a soldier’s head with his club making the tally in the present battle somewhat equal. He tried to shoot another arrow into the thick melee thinking it would at least hit something but it went too wide accidentally hitting a human soldier. For a moment he froze and looked around. The mage beside him had his eyes closed and the warriors in front of him were still fending off 3 beasts keeping him and the mage safe. Suddenly an extra beast came out of nowhere and lunged on one of the warriors.

You have killed a seedling enemy beast +10 XP

Max tried to aim at it but it went a bit off despite being so close range but it was getting too dicey with the soldier flailing about and he didn’t want to hit another ally. So he decided to stab the beasts with an arrow. He ran up to the warrior and paused to find the right time to strike. But despite its gamelike appearance, the system was not a game and there was no indicator to tell you when to press X to attack. The armored warrior clawed one beast and threw it away only for the second one to take its place. For a second Max stood there like a fool with adrenaline roaring in his veins then went, ‘Oh what the hell’

He got one creature in its thigh. The beast screeched and immediately changed his focus to the new threat and tried lunging onto Max. The arrow snapped and Max fell back with the beast on top of him. As he tried to keep the sharp teeth away from his neck, he felt the pain of scratches from the claws all over his arms chest, and abdomen. As he bled he realized the futility of his struggle since he was not able to push the beast properly away. They were both seedlings but he was just level 2. As scratches began accumulating, a bout of cold reasoning entered his mind.

He needs to switch position or he will be mauled by this beast. So when the beast tried to bite his shoulder instead of neck he just let it go. The beast lost its balance due to the sudden free movement and actually missed. The damage came from the claws that found purchase on Max as the beast regained balance. But before it could Max grabbed its face and drove his thumbs into its eyes.

He felt like his thumbs hit two balls. He just pushed them in until the right one smashed the eyeball and both of them started profusely bleeding. The insides felt wiggly like pushing your thumb into an orange. The beast howled and backed up as Max hurriedly sat up ignoring the pain. He hurriedly grabbed one of the arrows that fell out from his quiver during the man vs beast wrestling match. He moved on his fours and quickly jabbed it into the beast’s head as to put it out of its misery.

He was panting haphazardly to catch his breath when suddenly heard a whoosh and felt the heat as a fireball rushed past his neck and into an Orc’s back who was facing a spearman. He looked up and heard to see the last of the Orcs fall and beasts fleeing. The soldier in front of him stabbed the second beast that had been bothering him and then turned to him.

He looked at the fallen beast and bloody Max, and between heavy inhales and exhales slightly nodded to him. “Thanks.” The fight was over.

-----

Max moved along the bloodied camp finding injured and dying Orcs to finish off. It was literally kill stealing but nobody stopped him. He soon found out why. The XP he got from killing an almost-dying beast was a very small fraction of normal. Almost a tenth. Apparently, if you don’t do enough damage it counts as a shared kill. The XP was seriously not worth the effort so the others didn’t bother but they weren’t stupid like Orcs. They weren’t going to make the same mistakes. Besides, even if was full XP, it still wouldn’t make a difference to the truckload that Max actually needed. But it was increasing his kill counter so he was actually pretty grateful for it.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

This phase had been one windfall after another for him. Arrows from the wall. Then scavenging kills after taking the potion in the debris of the wall. That was actually how his quest seemed on an extremely good progress track. And with him finding out that the defense line had still not completely fallen, there was hope for him yet.

Time Left : 42 Hours 27 minutes 48 seconds

E - Mission 000 : Kill 10 soldiers personally.(10/10)

D - Mission 001 : Kill 5 variants personally. (2/5)

C - Mission 002 : Kill 200 beasts personally. (200/200)

B - Mission 003 : Kill the Forward Enemy Commander. (0/1)

A - Mission 004 : Identify and kill the traitor before he destroys the wall. (0/1)

S - Mission 005 : Hold the defense line for more than 48 hours. (0/1)

X- Mission 006 : Kill Imhotep(0/1)

Kill scavenging was considered a job for rookies here in order for them to grow a little more. And Max was a rookie. He was actually grateful for the variant kills. Those things were Orc variants of the Noviciate Seeker kind. Almost twice as big as those damn Orcs themselves. And even critically injured and dying had almost killed Max. Now the actual kills he needed were actually five but this was the part where he knew this windfall of luck ended. He was not gonna find the commander or Imhotep lying in a ditch.

But the major problem was the traitor. How was he supposed to identify and kill him when he was not even at the wall? And which of the two walls was he going to destroy anyway?

“C’mon men, let’s take a break for two hours then we move again!”

Max wanted to argue in the interest of time but the pain made him reconsider. He was not fighting with guns and canons now and melee fights needed strength and stamina. He took out the half-drunk potion bottle and gulped it down.

“Where’d you get that?” An officer stopped him accusingly. “Chill out Kelado! The kid’s fine.” The guy in charge of supplies called out. “That’s an officer resource! Why is he getting a bottle?” the man called Kelado scowled at him.

“I said he is fine.” The guy glared back and for a moment it turned into a showdown. “Let it go Kelado, Smarel ain’t gonna budge on this one. The kid saved his life yesterday.”

For a second Kelado frowned as he looked to the soldier who spoke up. “It’s True I saw him shoot the beast on his back through the whole damn melee. The Shorty would have made a kabab out of Smarel if he hadn’t.”

Kelado huffed and walked off. Apparently that was good enough. The supplies guy, Smarel gave a nod to him and went back to counting stuff leaving a confused Max with an empty bottle. He had shot a grand total of two arrows, he had no idea who the hell was Smarel. That’s when he realized something else. He had shot a soldier. Maybe there was a beast on his back at that time and he just couldn’t see in the terribly low light. Or maybe he was just confused but in any case, as the warmth spread through his bones, he was happy to keep his loot.

“Rookie, you are on the lookout. Don’t fucking fall asleep!” The chief officer called out pointing at a ledge. As he shouted back “Yes! Elder!” like he had seen the others do and started walking “Take Kiraak with you. I want you two up there awake as eagles, you understand me? We’re behind enemy lines dammit.” the Officer walked off.

A slim guy who looked as new as he got up and yelled “Yes! Elder!” Max and Kiraak nodded to each other and started for the ledge.

“Hey, you got any of that left?” Kiraak asked. “I’m sure I have at least one fracture in my hand.”

Max contemplated as he climbed up but chose to keep the potion for himself. After all he didn’t even know if all these guys were merely NPCs.

“Nah, man. Sorry,” he took out the empty bottle and showed him. He had subconsciously kept it back in his pocket instead of throwing it out. So he tossed it to the guy as proof.

“It's fine. From what I can tell from your uniform, you needed it more than me.”

Kiraak shrugged. “No dude you…” Max was going to console him when he heard a grunt and froze.

On instinct, Kiraak froze as well. There was something on the ledge. Max’s blood flow spiked and his hand went to the short sword on his belt. While climbing there was no good weapon, but it was better than a bow. When after a few seconds nothing happened they both signed to each other and began climbing over.

What greeted them was a huge Orc with strange red skin sleeping in a sitting position leaning against the rocks. It wasn’t big enough to be a variant but there was something about him. ‘So the Orcs did have lookouts on the camp. They weren’t entirely stupid, just, incompetent.’

Max climbed up and walked to the Orc as slowly as he could. He was sure that since a battle didn’t wake him probably nothing would. But just in case.

He was now almost upon him and could smell his rancid breath. He quietly angled his blade and jabbed it right into the center of its throat. The orc woke up with a surprised look in his eyes and grabbed at Max’s hand. But the damage was already done. Max found himself trapped for a few seconds as the orc tried to stem the blood flow. Looking into its eyes, as they went from surprised to angry and then to pleading as the light went out of his eyes. It was an enemy, but it too was alive. It must have had dreams and fears and family. But now it was just another number on Max’s kill counter.

And Max found this more jarring than the battles he had faced somehow. Most of the injured ones he had finished had looks of acceptance or relief from misery. But he had killed them fast and from a bit more distance. Staring death in the face was not a good experience Not a good one at all.

Ding! You have killed an Initiate Seeker Orc Variant Farsighter Orc. +150*10=1500 XP