Chapter 22

The Beastmen

“Well then, looks like your next.” I slowly advance towards the last orc. With each step I took towards him, the orc would take a step backwards.

“C’mon, don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little human like me.”

“…” The orc continue to back away from me while shaking in fear.

“Alright, how about this…” I put my sword back in its sheathe. “I’ll let you get a free hit on me, how’s that?”

As much as I enjoy seeing him cower in front of me, I really don’t want him running away and alerting his tribe.

“…” Even with my sword sheathe, the orc continue to back away from me.

I guess he’s not an idiot. Unlike his brothers that charge at me recklessly, he stayed in the back and watch my moves, which means he probably knows about “Rend.”

Rend is a little magic trick I came up with that allows me to increase my arm strength for a split second for a quick and powerful attack. Seeing how he’s cautious of me even though I put my sword up means he’s fully aware of my little trick.

I walk closer to the orc with my arms open wide to make myself looks as harmless as possible.  Unfortunately, I fail miserably at that. The orc turn around and started running away.

Damn, looks like I won’t be able to get him, but he’s still not getting away. Suddenly, a fast moving object fly right past me and heads towards the retreating orc. The object pierces straight through the orc head.

After watching the orc body drop to the ground, I take another good look at my surroundings.

“That was the last one!” I shouted to Aaron. A few seconds later, he crawls out his hiding spot.

“You knew this was a trap?” Max said with a confuse look on his face.

“Of course, this body was laying in the middle of forest for who knows how long, and yet not a single monster even tried to eat it, pretty obvious it was a trap.”

“So why did you purposely walk into then?”

“Because it’s easier to take an opponent out when they think they have the advantage.”

Max started to pace back and forth while rubbing his chin. I guess he was thinking of another question to ask me.

“Anna, how old are you?”

“I’m…fifteen.”

“Sixteen.” Aaron corrected me.

“Right, sixteen, why you ask?”

“Nothing, it just kind of feel like you’re an old war veteran seeing how you handle this situation.”

“Well I guess I been in enough battles to call myself a veteran.”

“I see…” Max gave me a sad look that basically said “You must’ve had it rough.” I quickly turn away from him, because that pity look he was giving me reminded me of Athena, and I don’t like being reminded of her.

“So orcs were behind this huh?” I said, hoping I can change the conservation.

“From the looks of the evidence it seems like it.

“They may also be the reason why you was attack by ghouls yesterday.” The orcs probably push the ghouls out of their territory which would explain why the ghouls were lurking around in the morning even though they’re nocturnal creatures.

What I don’t get is why the orcs attack us. Orcs will typically ignore humans unless they’re trying to capture females, but there isn’t any females in our group…. Wait a second, those assholes were trying to capture me weren’t they?! Well I guess that explains why they didn’t have their weapons out when they attack me.

“So I guess all we have to do now is warn the town about the orcs and our mission is completed right?” Aaron ask.

“No, not yet.”

“What do you mean not yet? We just solve the case, what more do you want?”

"I want to find all the people that went missing and save them.”

“And what makes you believe that any of those people are still alive? They could be as dead as this man over here.”

“This cloth proves it.” Max opens his hand and shows me the white cloth. “This cloth proves that they’re taking people alive, and using them for who knows what. We already kill some of their men, so if we just go back to alert the town that’ll give the orcs plenty of time to prepare themselves and finish off their captives. So we need attack them while they’re still unaware of their men death.”

“So what, you want us to take on an entire tribe of orcs by ourselves?”

“I know this may sound crazy, but I believe you two are capable of this task.”

“I don’t know about this.” If we’re dealing with a small tribe then we might be able to take them out if we ambush them, but these guys got enough confidents to camp near a human city and kidnap people. Which means these guys are either stupid, or they’re fully capable of taking on an entire town.

“Sis if we take care of this problem ourselves then we’ll be able leave town faster just like you wanted.”

I’m pretty sure Aaron only saying that because he wants to help these civilians, but he is right though, it be much faster if we take care of this.

“Alright fine, but I’m in charge. If I deem this mission to be too dangerous to continue then we’re leaving immediately, you got that?”

“Yes Ma’am!” Both Aaron and Max gave me a salute.

Fucking smart asses. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, do you know were there base at?” Max ask.

“No.” I walk towards the orc that tried to run away and yank the arrow out its head. “But I’m going to assume the direction this orc was heading is where their hideout is at. And since orcs are camping around here they’re probably set up shop around a clearing like this one so they can watch out for ambushes.”

“Max was right.” Aaron started to chuckle. “You do sound like an old war veteran.”

“Shut up, now let’s hurry up and located it before they find out their men is dead.”

.

.

As we walk deeper in the forest a bad feeling began to gnaw on me. But I guess anyone would have a bad feeling if they had an eight foot creature coming for their butt. But that’s not the only thing bothering me.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

This world seems to be getting weirder with each passing day. Not only have monsters gotten more aggressive, but they also seem to be getting smarter. And if that wasn’t weird enough, yesterday I saw ghouls aggressively attacking a bunch of humans in broad daylight, even though they’re nocturnal cowards. And now today we got orcs going around kidnapping humans’ right in front of their towns… Seriously, what the hell is going on with this planet?

With these thoughts lingering in my head, we continue to roam the forest until we spotted another clearing.

“Alright, this made be there…” I quickly drop to the ground before I finish my sentence. “Get down now!” I quietly shouted.

Both Max and Aaron quickly drop to the ground.

“What’s going on?”

“….”

Ignoring Max, I slowly crawl closer to the clearing so I could get a better view.

“Seriously, what the hell is going on with this world?” I quietly mutter to myself.

“What’s wrong?” Aaron slowly crawl up to next to me. He immediately froze up when he look at the clearing.

“What’s happening, did you guys find the orcs?” Max crawl up next to me and froze just like Aaron when he look at the clearing.

“Well Max, do you think we can still handle this?”

“…” Max remain speechless. I can’t blame him, this situation we’re facing is truly dire. What we were hoping to be small tribe, turn out to be a small army.

Every single one of the orcs that was roaming the clearing had a weapon on them and some kind of leather amour on, from the looks of it, it look like they were getting ready for war.

“W- Why the hell are there so many orcs?” Max said.

“I don’t know, I say we quickly get the hell out of here and warn the town like we originally plan.”

“Agree.”

The three slowly crawl away from the clearing. After we were a good distance away from it, we got back on our feet and started walking towards town.

“NOOOOO, STOP!!” A female voice echo throughout the forest.

“That must’ve been one of the kidnap victims.” I turn to see Aaron stop walking. He stare at me with a pleading look on his face.

“Yea it’s probably one of the kidnap victims, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“So we’re just going to ignore the woman screaming for help?!”

“We have no choice but to. You saw what was back there, there’s no way we will be able to help her.”

“LET GO OF ME!!!” Hearing the woman scream, Aaron tightly clench his hand.

“I’m sorry sis, but I just can’t ignore this.” Aaron turns around and runs straight for the clearing again.

“Damn it Aaron! Max, stay here!” I quickly run back to the clearing to stop Aaron. As I got closer, I started moving slower and slower so I wouldn’t alert any nearby orcs. After frantically looking around, I spotted Aaron standing next to a tree. He had already his bow out and ready to fire. I look over to see he was aiming at that pinning the woman down.

“Aaron, if we we go back to town we’ll get a search party to rescue her and everyone else the orcs kidnap.”

“….” Ignoring me, Aaron fires his arrow. I look over to see the arrow pierce straight through the orc’s head. Both the orcs and the woman look dumbly at the dead orc.

“Get out of there now!!” Aaron shouted. I quickly rush over to him and cover his mouth.

“Are you done playing hero? Because we need to get out of here before they find us.”

“HELP ME!!”  I looked over again to see the woman was being chase by two orcs. Aaron pushes me away and grab two arrows out his quiver.

I tackle Aaron to the ground. “You’re using magic now, are trying to get us spotted?!”

“….”  Aaron turn his head towards the clearing. “She got away, thank goodness.”

I look over to see that the two orcs that was chasing the woman were lying dead on the ground with arrows stuck in their head. And the woman herself seem to have escape in the forest.

“Good job, but now we’re in danger.” About twenty orcs were currently running in our direction.

“If we work together we can take them on.”

“You’re delusional kid.” Even if I went all out I doubt I can take half of them like this. And I doubt we can outrun them.

My only option now is to find something to distract them so we can get away.

“Sis, you make a run for it, I’ll hold them off.”

“What?!” I looked at Aaron to see if he was messing around, but he had a dead serious look on his face.

“It’s because of me you’re in this situation, the least I can do is get you out.”

“Are you serious, you know they’re going to kill you right?”

“They’ll kill both of us if we stay here arguing, now go, I’ll be fine.”

“….” I was speechless. This kid that use to always hide behind me whenever something scare him, is willing to sacrifice himself for me.

“Actually you’re wrong, they won’t kill both of us…” I slowly stood up so the orcs could see me.

“Sis, what the hell are you doing?!” Aaron looked at me with a bewildered looked on his face.

“Something incredibly stupid.” I took a few steps forwards so the orcs attention would entirely focus on me. “Oh yea, I guess I’ll try to help free all the kidnap victims, but only if they don’t get in the way of my escape.”

I didn’t turn around to see if Aaron heard me. I kept moving forward so they would think that I was alone. At this point I was already surrounded. One of the orcs walk up to me, his eyes was twitching which pretty much told me he was piss.

“You just killed three of my men and let one of our prisoner escape, do you have anything to say to that?”

“Um… I’m sorry?”