My plan was to explore the forests the orcs came from, and learn more about them. I wanted to take the battle to them and if possible destroy their settlements. I wanted humanity to prosper and for the first time I was willing to work for that.

Besides, I was pretty convinced that if I wanted to get far in my development some day, we absolutely had to stop the orcs from killing our zombies. If we didn't stop them somehow, and as early as possible, we would lose too much. So I decided to act immediately while the others were still arguing and focusing on their shorter term goals, not seeing the bigger picture.

So I ran for a few hours and explored the forests. Soon I reached the territory from which the orcs came. Here I began to move much more carefully, and my hellhounds found many old or not so old tracks.

I carefully made a map of the area and left various marks on the trees for future reference. Several times I had to change direction to avoid groups of orcs.

Shortly after noon I reached the first orc fortifications. They were not big and here I found something interesting. It turned out that the orcs use the little goblins for servants .... and for food! There were many goblin slaves in the fortifications and they were treated extremely harshly. Many times I saw orcs hit, hurt or even kill the little creatures for no particular reason. In addition, there were all sorts of punishments. There were goblins tied with ropes, there were goblins locked in cages, and there were goblin heads hung on the walls or impaled on high stakes.

"These orcs are a pretty terrifying opponent. I hope they don't manage to capture groups of people and torture them like these goblins," I thought.

I continued to explore and map the region. At night I did not stop my work and so over the next two days, relying on my summons, I managed to find nine orc fortifications.

In the ninth camp, I saw a group of creatures I immediately recognized from popular fantasy literature - they were elves! They didn't look like the ones from ancient human mythology, but rather like modern film and animated adaptations. That is, they were beautiful, with big breasts and long elf ears. Apparently the central galactic bureaucracy, the towers, Hollywood and Japanese anime had tried to show us the same picture of the races in the tutolar island. Not that I minded.

I took a long look around the camp and a bold plan was born in my head! The camp was not large and consisted of fourteen buildings surrounded by a low wooden wall. Most of the huts were sort of warehouses, and the rest were occupied by sleeping orcs and goblins. The walls and the door were guarded by six orcs.

I summoned a group of fire imps and used them to sneak in and rescue the captives. I stood nearby with my familiars and kept an eye on the orc. They weren't particularly active guards. They just stood in three groups of two orcs each, mostly looking around the forest and chatting quietly. One of the groups of orcs was in a special room near the gate of the fortification, and the other two were up on the wall, in small fortified towers. The towers were positioned so that they could be seen from the room to the gate. Thus, the three groups could maintain visual contact and raise the alarm if necessary while being protected from arrows and attacks.

The night was dark and my imps were small and winged. I found a suitably tall tree with lots of branches and leaves. From there my imps slipped into camp one by one and headed for the bound captives.

The elves were in a pretty sorry state. It was obvious that they were tortured, hungry and thirsty. Many of them were crying quietly and trying to tend to their wounds, while others stared blankly into nothingness.

Something twitched in my heart and my eyes watered. As I watched them I slowly thought about the foolhardy choices a million of us had made. Although I knew we would face many trials, seeing the bodies of the tortured elves made me think about the miserable fate of the humans in this game....

After my imps revealed themselves to the elves, I saw them shrink into each other and shudder in horror.

I sent a single imp, who slowly approached, knife in hand, and began to draw a rough outline of the orc camp. Every time he drew a particular building or wall - he would point to it with his paw making quiet, speech-like noises.

The frightened elves calmed down a bit and I began to watch the strange imp with hope..

After a while, my imp pointed to the elves, and explained to them to hide behind a nearby building. I drew a crude arrow indicating where to hide. After some exchange of gestures, I realized they understood me.

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One of the elves was more active and lively than the others. I began to interact more with her and was able to explain that something was going to attack the orcs and distract them.

So I sent my imp to cut the ropes with which the prisoners were bound, and slowly began to send them some of the weapons I was always carrying with me.

During this time I prepared the ritual for summoning my bear, and after I had finished, I sent my imps to thread some coiled ropes, on which thick knots were knotted, through the not particularly high wall and tie them to a tree.

I then summoned my bear and sent it forward.

Before I ended up in hire, in the towers, I didn't know bears could climb trees or even mountain walls. Or rather, even if I had heard that fact, I hadn't paid much attention to it.

When I first started summoning my monsters, I often went into their memories and studied their habits. I spent many days with my instructor, Nathan, training with my animals and learning much about them under his expert instruction. Then, when I ended up on the tutorial island, I didn't neglect my work and often found time for my controlling exercises with my summons.

My huge bear couldn't climb a wall easily, but it could use its paws and the anchor points of the knots of the rope to get over the relatively low wall. This was going to save me from having to sneak into camp and do my summoning there.

My bear was almost three meters high, and the wall was only four meters. And so, led by my poor imagination, it approached quietly, carrying a large log, which it left at the base of the wall, and after stepping on it, the bear could now reach the top of the wall with its paws. Then it gripped the wall with its front paws, and with its feet the smart bear used the thick knots for support and with a few powerful movements climbed up the wall.

At that moment the orcs raised the alarm. If I had seen a huge bear on the wall of our camp, I naturally would have done the same.

Without delay, I sent my bear to attack the nearest group of orcs. These two orcs weren't as strong as the orcs that regularly attacked our camp, or the huge orcs that attacked the huge zombie boss. The orcs here were shorter than a human and although they were armed, their weapons weren't that good.

After the bear got the attention of my opponents, I also climbed the rope and started shooting with my crossbow.

I sent my familiar to set fire to the two large hay bales I had seen earlier with his fire magic, and I also threw a few fireballs at the thatched huts the goblins were sleeping in.

The first group of two orcs didn't stand a chance against my bear, and I used my crossbow and my magic on the second group. My bolt injured one of the orcs, and the second one, distracted by my magic, fell easily to the charge of my much stronger monster.

One of the last two orcs, witnessing all this, ran away in horror, and the second one followed him in a few seconds, after a slight hesitation. Luckily for me, that gave me time to reload my weapon and shoot him in the back.

In that way in just a few minutes we were able to deal with the orcs, but during that time the camp began to wake up. Wasting no time, I sent my bear to finish the fallen orc, and I took cover in a suitable spot on the wall, clutching my trusty crossbow.

Some of the elves, seeing their chance for revenge, went forward with the weapons I had given them. Others went for the weapons of the fallen orcs, but most of them just stayed hidden. More orcs began to emerge from the buildings, often letting out fearful war cries. However, I didn't give them much time to come to their senses as I attacked with my monstrous bear and my crossbow.

The elves also helped quite a bit by attacking the awakening orcs in nearby buildings. After killing the first dozen orcs with ease, the remaining living orcs had already emerged from the buildings and regrouped quickly forming a loose battle formation. A multitude of goblins had emerged from various buildings, shouting in their squeaky voices and running in all directions across the camp.

After my bear got to a few of them and tore them apart with its paws, the rest of the goblins fled terrified into the forest. None of them joined the orc formation, which made me both happy and hopeful.

My bear had received several deeper and numerous superficial wounds, an orc spear protruded from its shoulder and its ear was torn off by an arrow and bleeding. I was in no hurry to attack the orc formation and instead walked over and began firing my crossbow.

There was a large shield in my ring that I had kept since my battles in the demon dungeon, and now I took it out and hid behind it.

Some of the orcs had bows and returned fire. During this time the elves killed some of the slower, unarmed goblins and approached the group of orcs.

Unlike the elves, I knew I wasn't risking my life here. Even though I didn't want to die, and lose currency units and a few days, in order to revive myself again, I wasn't afraid of showing and shooting my crossbow. I was overcome with intense euphoria and adrenaline raged through my body. For the past months, I had been training or even killing different creatures every day. Be it zombies, goblins, orcs or wild animals. I had begun to get used to the battles and to succumb more and more easily in the fighting frenzy that accompanied them.

We humans were primarily predators. We had conquered our planet and killed and eaten most of the species that inhabited it. The path of homo sapiens led to space, but our roots still clutched the stone spear of our ancestors.