CHAPTER 26 - Just do it yourself! III

I am not sure what’s happening in the rest of the world. I don’t know if the invading forces are winning or not, but at least in this city, they are. As I explore the city there are no signs of human life.

I already know that they are hiding, but it seems like they can’t get a second of respite for some reason. Everywhere I look I find traces of monsters of all kinds, yet I can’t discern any human trails.

I have no problems following a trail now that my senses have gotten better, but first I need to find one, so I keep moving.

I wander around the outskirts of the city for a few days looking for clues.

The first days go by fighting or resting after testing my new axes with the monsters I bump into. Some of them are groups of orcs, but the vast majority are just a bunch of groups of smaller beasts or monsters.

I fight every one of them to improve my fighting skills and rest afterward, each time with an ever so slowly raising amount of qi and improving my control over it.

A few days pass, and the number of intelligent monsters I encounter on the streets is a lot less, making it seem like they were dispatched elsewhere, but where to?

Well, I guess they were recalled back to their groups, in the center of the city. I have seen them engage in fights with one another, suggesting that there is some kind of power struggle.

They probably saw that their troops in the furthest parts of the area were getting ambushed by an unidentified individual or something, namely me.

Maybe that is what forced them to play it safe and not send any more groups around the outer border, where I am currently searching.

I should be either happy about having to deal with less trouble or filled with joy as I make them retreat even if just a little bit, but I am not.

It already has been over a week that I have been searching around and so far I got no results apart from fights, some supplies and loot, or a couple of survivors that I kept sending back to base in my steed, telling them to look for Jake.

All those things made me decide on my new current plan. I will continue the search in the inner area of the city where all the action lies, and I will take every piece of information I can get my hands on. So I delve into the no man's land between what seem to be two factions of monsters.

I will first assess the situation and then see how I can get the most out of it.

Whatever scam or dubious action I take, I want to be ready to not be caught doing the deed, which could be super awkward, and in this case dangerous too.

I delve deeper into the area as I try to stay unnoticed and inconspicuous the whole time.

Peace doesn’t last long, as I find a group of orcs soon enough and start tailing them. They are a group of twenty-something, definitely a lot bigger than the groups I have fought so far.

If they really are at war between themselves it makes sense that these groups that are in the hot spot of the conflict are bigger and stronger in general.

I haven't been spotted yet, so I decide to keep them close and spy on them for now.

Minutes pass and I can more or less uncover their patrol route. They are making a path that’s been stipulated beforehand. Probably defending it as a frontier between both sides, waiting for the enemy to make their move.

All of them are ready for any movement.

I was actually planning on ending my search on the outer perimeter a couple of days before, but I started to feel something different in a couple of fights already where I was able to know when I was being attacked from my blind spot.

After the first time it happened, I tried to recreate it, but it’s kind of hard to intentionally let your enemies attack you from somewhere you won’t be able to react on time.

Maybe I am overthinking things and the attack doesn’t have to come from a blind spot, maybe it’s just that it was easier for me to notice myself dodging the attacks when I couldn’t see them.

That’s exactly the point, I don't know how to use it or if I can even use it whenever I want to. It is kind of hard to explain too, it's not like a warning per se, it's more like a feeling of dread or knowing that you need to move.

In fact, maybe there is indeed a way to simulate the feeling outside a battle to the death. I will keep an eye out for it and try to remember the feeling from now on. Now I need to keep up with the plan and continue, I will be going to the city center tomorrow.

I know there are more monsters and that there is probably a war raging on. War, that somehow me and every other living being in the area, especially humans, will have problems to avoid.

I kind of already joined it just by culling their numbers by some amount, no idea how low or high the number is to them, taking into account that I have no information on their numbers as a whole.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Probably high enough, or the leader or whatever it was wouldn’t have come to me personally to ambush me last time I was going back with the guns and everything I got from the police station.

If that guy wasn’t the leader or someone important and strong and instead just a party leader of some sort, we are fucked, big time.

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The first thing I do in the morning is to check that I have everything on me: knives, axes, some food and water, and finally a pocket knife that I took from a shop while looking around. It has an ample variety of tools to make my life easier, like a can opener.

I ready myself up and then set off north from where I am, going straight into what's probably the center of attention of all the strongest monsters in the vicinity.

I am careful not to fall into any traps or ambushes as I advance. I am not keen on stepping into a mole den like before where they can just surround me by popping all around the ground.

Taking all those things into account I scout ahead. I pass through a few groups of smaller threats like the small group of the weaker orcs and another of the hedgehog beasts that start to become scarce as I go closer to the heart of the city. Probably getting scared by the bigger monsters in the area.

After a couple of hours, I start to spot numerous groups of orcs, all of them from the weaker species.

‘This can only mean that I was right and that they are at war between themselves.’

This in turn, just means too that I will need to be careful to not get caught between one of their scuffles. They both have beef with me, and I am not sure I can take on a group formed by both of them if they decide to get rid of me first.

I avoid all groups and start roaming around to try and get information on where I can find people and even on the state of the war on both sides. If I can know what’s the course of their battles I may be able to turn it into an advantage and plant some discord.

Going through the streets I wonder if this is really the best way to find someone, but I can’t help but sigh. There is no hint at all about where they may be, and too many dangers for me to just go screaming all around or something similar.

Maybe if I was strong enough there would be an easier way, but I am not, so I need to keep myself far from the bigger fights and the stronger enemies.

About going from building to building… Well, obviously it’s not even a solution. I would need months at the very least, if not years to explore a decent amount of them and in that time not only any of the people I am looking for could have moved, but they die too.

I am already trusting that they are alive right now, but I can't help but worry about their safety. The last time I heard about them was a long time ago, and in the current state of things you can die anytime, just a step in the wrong direction or staying on the path of someone you shouldn’t cross and done…

‘Fuck, there is no point in thinking about that.’ I deny my own thoughts for now and keep going, I feel like I am already getting close to the base of the smaller orcs, and I want to get a peak of it to have an estimation of their population at the bare minimum.

After that, I will try to do the same with the other threats around here, which are the other orcs at first sight, but I can’t forget about the other that may arise at any second. I haven’t forgotten about the minotaur I saw the very first day.

I know that at the time I wasn’t ready or strong enough to make a clear evaluation of its strength, but it wasn’t definitely weak, and I haven’t seen it leave the city so I am not one to make assumptions, even if the rats he was ordering around did leave.

There are some pack animals too, like the armored panthers or the hedgehogs, but I have no idea where they have a den or home anywhere if they even have one, which I honestly doubt.

Cautiously I approach the place I suppose the base of the orcs is, and I start to have problems to go unnoticed. More and more groups roam around this place, giving me more and more reasons to think that I am on the right path, but not making it easier at all.

I try to not make any noise or let them see me, but while the noise part is more or less okay if you have a sharp eye and stay focused, not being seen it’s not.

I chose to do this in the middle of the day to not misguide myself by the darkness of the night or bad weather, but this is troublesome.

I try to mask with the few shadows and hide on corners and obstacles as best as I can, but I have no clear way to hide in plain sight, which is something I will have to figure it out. For now, I play it safe, not being hasty and waiting to analyze the range of movement that each patrol follows to spot the best time frames to make a run for it each and every time.

I pass a few dozen meters like that but find myself against a tall wall now. ‘Hmm, I don't want to enter without knowing what it is inside, they will probably have a few capable of seeing me as their leader.’

I don’t want to risk it, so I just go up to a nearby building to get a clear view of their base and their numbers. I go up to the rooftop of the nearest one which is about the seventh floor, so it should be hard to spot up here while I scan their defenses.

I stay still to make it harder to spot me while I watch the base for a couple of hours as the orcs go around in their activities and in the end I get some idea about what I am dealing with.

Inside the base there has to be around 1.000 orcs, probably a little more. From those monsters around half of them are divided into squads on standby ready to leave at the request of support from a squad that’s been already sent.

All these squads, both the ones on standby and the ones that come back are about twenty or twenty-five each. The ones that ask for help vary a bit but do not seem to lose too many of their members either, most of them returning with forty or so. So I suppose there are about a bit over 1.000 more of them roaming around in groups.

I wait for night to come and see how many groups come back to sleep and eat to make my final assumption. All monsters seem to respect the night or be scared of it, if the orcs do it too, not only will it help me know the numbers a lot closer to reality, but that will show that whatever is scaring them from going out at night is even stronger or deadlier than expected.

Night soon falls, prompting me to pay more attention to the surroundings of the base and its entrance from my advantage point of view. As the darkness takes over the light orcs start coming back into the base, they are not in a hurry, seemingly used to doing it already, yet they do not delve either and enter the base soon enough.

I end up making an estimation of about 2.500 orcs, out of them more than half are on patrol duty over the length of the day. I will need to look into the other orcs, the ones that are bigger and stronger, but the numbers of these ones already surpassed my expectations.

It would be difficult to get rid of them on my own, and even more in the way I had planned so I will think about something else that will have more of a chance of working.

I stay on the spot for a little while to see if I can spot anything out of the ordinary on the streets from this height, but it’s not the case and I end up deciding to leave after a while.

‘I will definitely have to somehow discover what makes them cautious at night, cause I can’t make heads or tails of it for now.’