—JORMAND—

As the walled city loomed into my vision, I cast a glance back at my “slaves,” taking a deep breath before I continue on my way towards the gate. Thankfully, it seemed that the orc guards weren’t being particularly watchful, allowing me to get close to the gate. It had been almost an hour since we had departed from and the sky was beginning to be touched with tinges of purple, Erwin should be beginning his attack soon. Then, echoing thunder was heard and the orcs on top of the wall began to move away, leaving the gate unguarded.

I quickly headed over, a bit at a loss when I saw the gate, how were we supposed to get in? Perhaps I should’ve tried to get in earlier, the orcs might’ve opened the gate for me. But it was too late to think about that now, I had to think of a solution to my problem.

As I kept looking at the walls, built haphazardly with stone, wood, and other materials, I was hit with a thought, perhaps I and the others could climb it. The surface was simply covered in ledges and orcs would likely never think of climbing the walls as much as bashing down the gate. I thanked Light for the stupidity of orcs as I told the others to begin scaling the wall, although telling them to stay away from me. If I fell, I could easily bring a few others down with me and that wouldn’t be good.

My new weight made me a bit nervous but I didn’t need to worry, despite how haphazard the wall looked, it seemed solid. But even so, I took care to choose the ledges that I would put my weight on, it wouldn’t do to fall. The climb seemed to take forever—although in reality, it was probably twenty minutes—all of us nervous that there were still some orcs up there. But, to our luck, there weren’t and so we got on top, taking a few minutes to rest before we searched for a way down.

A rather dangerous looking set of stairs greeted us which prompted the thought, Just how was this place constructed? I was sort of amazed, after all, to see something created in such a chaotic fashion was almost impressive. But I pushed such thoughts out of my head, for now, I needed to focus on the mission.

So we quickly descended the stairs, quickly stopping by the gate to make sure we could easily open it for when we made our escape. Once we made sure we could open the gate with ease, I took the rope that held my slaves, I began to hurry up the streets to the palace. On the way, there were several orcs who were heading towards where Erwin was fighting.

They gave me a few curious glances, asking, “You know what going on?”

I shook my head.

“No, but it seem like battle.”

The orcs perked up hearing that, hurrying down towards the source of the noise. I sighed with relief, thank Light they weren’t curious about what I was doing. But even so, I decided to hurry on out of here, they might come back with questions.

As the sounds of booming sounds of the Metal Beast attacking grew louder, we found ourselves at the foot of the palace, the gate not as large as before. It was locked but with some strange magic by Evaline, we managed to get through without too much trouble.

In the palace grounds, we hurried into the palace, all of us more tense than usual, the orcs in the city might’ve gone to fight Erwin but we didn’t know about the actual palace guards, assuming that there were any. But, it seemed that once more, our worries were for naught. The palace was empty and we had no trouble locating the treasury. But our path was blocked by a great door, a large thing of roughly hewn stone which had strange carvings on its surface. But, we were prepared for such a door, after all, the price the Elders paid was enough to ensure a mission of high chances of success.

From a pouch held at my side, I withdrew another scroll, handing it to Evaline to activate. As she set about doing this, I and the others kept watch, just in case an orc stumbled on us breaking into the Orc King’s treasury. All the while, I was a bit uneasy, it really couldn’t be this easy right? There had to be something more, perhaps traps? But were orcs really capable of such things? I really didn’t know, fuck, this is stressing me out.

And then, it finally happened, my fears were realized.

“Oi, what are you doing!?”

An orc made his way towards us, flanked by several slaves.

I quickly stepped forward, blocking Evaline from his sight, saying, “We lost?”

He snorted.

“Don’t give me that shit, what are you doing.”

I then remembered Erwin’s words and I stealthily reached a hand behind my back to grasp the dagger, saying, “The palace beautiful and as no one around, I enter.”

The orc attempted to look over my shoulder at Evaline, saying, “What she doing?”

I stepped to block his vision, saying, “She have punishment, stand at wall so I can whip her.”

The orc blinked and then laughed, me getting more nervous, what was he thinking?

“Hahaha, whipping? Here!? You are bold orc, I like. Go ahead and whip, I watch.”

WIth a smile on my face, I reached toward my side as if to grab the whip and then suddenly lunged forward, knife in hand. To my dismay, he caught my hand and as he smirked, a blade flew from behind me and buried itself in his eye. He let out a grunt but I interrupted it as I elbowed his throat with my other arm, stabbing away at his chest with my now free left arm. His body slumped to the floor as the slaves screamed, each of them drawing knives and beginning to attack me with wild fury.

I tried to reason with them, I really did, but they just wouldn’t stop attacking... before I knew, I had killed one of them. And then another, and then another, soon all the slaves were dead, leaving only me standing there. This was the first time I killed another human and it made me sick, my mission was to save them and yet here I was killing them.

But before I could dwell on this, Evaline gave an excited cry, the door had opened. I pushed those thoughts out of my head as I directed my gaze to the treasury, my mind soon filled with the sight that I saw before me. There was gold, gems, silver, various sets of armor made for humans, grand swords, and slender spears... it was a sight which took one’s breath away. As we wandered through the riches of the Orc King, we began to select a few items which had taken our fancy.

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I myself took up a sword, the thing seeming ridiculously small in my new hands. But even though it looked rather small, it did not change that this was a well-crafted weapon, possessing a slight electric aura whose blue color beautifully accentuated the silver of the mythril blade. And the guard was a rather simple item, just a piece of metal which ensured that my hand wouldn’t be cut when clashing blades with another But the pommel, on the other hand, was a realistic recreation of the jaws of some dragon-like creature which held a spherical gem between its teeth. This gem held my attention for the longest time, the swirling blue energies hypnotizing me as they briefly sparked deep within the gem as if it trapped lightning itself.

And then, I suddenly heard Valder’s voice shout with excitement, “I think I found it!”

I quickly ran over, forgetting about the sword in my hands as I beheld the warhammer which Valder was struggling to lift. It was... I don’t even have the words to describe it other than to say that it appeared as if the gods themselves descended to make this work of art. It was a great warhammer whose base was made of a jet-black material which was then inlaid with gold and silver, with two great emeralds embedded at the center of the warhammer’s sides. The two-foot-long hilt, mostly made of the jet-black stone, was inlaid with more gold and silver, with the bottom four inches and pommel being far more intricately designed.

The last four inches of the hilt excluding the pommel was similar to that of a sword’s, with a clear distinct valley for the hand to reside, ensuring a stable hold when the hammer was swung. The guard, however, was merely a small ledge surrounding the hilt, more there to keep the hand at the warhammer’s base than to protect.

At the end of the hilt was the pommel of the warhammer where yet another emerald resided, encapsulated by a smaller replica of the warhammer’s head, the gem encased by adamantium, leaving only two opposite sides visible to the eye. The shape of the pommel, like the warhammer’s head, was that of a rectangular prism on one end and a squat pyramid on the other, one more smashing and the other for piercing. It was the perfect combination of beauty and lethality, truly, it was a King’s weapon.

I stepped forward to take it, dropping the lightning sword which Valder went for instead. But I ignored him, hefting up the warhammer with relative ease. I couldn’t begin to wield it but I should have no problems running while carrying it.

I then turned to the others, saying, “We should go now, take only two artifacts with you, any more and we may have trouble getting it all in the tank.”

I added after a moment, “And Valder, make sure that they are reasonably sized as well.”

Valder groaned.

“Fine.”

With that, the others went to collect their artifacts and I looked around to choose my last artifact. My eyes soon stopped on a shield, its dull iron-grey surface standing out among the finery. It was like a squashed hexagon, with the leather straps making it so that your forearm would match with the lengthwise side of the shield, leaving the narrower ends for presumably elbowing and punching. It was strange why such a normal looking item was here but if it was, surely it was special. And besides, if it wasn’t, I could always just use it for myself, my last shield broke a while back and I never managed to find a replacement. So I strapped it onto my arm, chuckling as it looked as if I was wearing a child’s shield.

I then shouted, “We go now, orcs may find-”

There was suddenly a shout, “Find what?”

I turned and saw seven orcs at the entrance of the treasury, these orcs glaring at me. What was worse was the facf that these orcs appeared to be magic orcs, the ones that Erwin warned me about.

There are also special orcs, orcs that can wield magic. They are far stronger than your average orc and should you meet one, the best thing you can do is to run. And if you can’t, then find a way to attack them at a distance.

I shouted to Evaline and Serilia, “Serilia, attack them range! Evaline, contact Erwin!”

To Valder I commanded, “Protect them!”

They did so and as Serilia shot arrow after arrow, wounding some orcs and killing one, I and Valder prepared to defend them with our lives as Evaline called for Erwin. But Serilia would soon run out of arrows so I placed down the warhammer in favor of a nearby mace, its lighter weight much better for me to deal with. I then prepared to face the three advancing orcs, each exuding a magical aura. Much to my surprise, two of them stopped advancing as one stepped forward.

He pointed his great sword at me and sait bluntly, “I challenge you.”

I grunt and raise my mace, the orc raising his great sword. We then charged at one another, his sword clashing against my new shield as I swung with the mace towards his head. He ducked and proceeded to tackle me, knocking me down to the floor. I raised my arms protectively as his fists rain down on me, although they soon stop as an arrow hits him in the shoulder. He growls and I take the opportunity to punch him in the neck with the sharp edge of the shield, causing him to cough as his hold weakened. I threw him off and continue to bash with the shield’s edge until his face is caved in, standing up to meet the next orc.

My breath was panicked as the next orc charged with hands outspread, forcing me to put one foot in front of the other, flattening my feet against the floor. I met the charging orc and grunted as I slid back, the breath knocked out of me. But I had no time to relax, struggling in a contest of power between me and the orc, his flaming aura making things more difficult as the pain began to blind my mind. With a great roar, I threw him off me and wasting no time, I ran at him, leaping into the air with my elbow faced downward, intent on at least breaking a few ribs. It didn’t work, he kicked his legs out into my stomach, breaking some of my ribs instead and incapacitating me for a few more moments.

As I fell to the floor, wheezing, he stood up and grabbed my hair, forcing me to meet his eyes. I glared back at him, struggling to move my body but my efforts were brushed aside with ease. He then unsheathed a knife and moved to slice my throat, although once more, an arrow from Serilia saved me. But this time, I couldn’t take advantage of it and could only lie there, struggling to get up. Then suddenly, there was a large boom as the palace walls shook, causing the orcs to stumble.

It was then that Valder—the foolish boy that he was—took his blade and shoved it into the back of the orc, although the orc managed to grab him by the arm and throw him across the room. Anger gave me energy and I stood up, punching the orc in his face, knocking him down. I then stomped on his head, hearing an ugly crunch. But I didn’t stop, I stomped one more time, this time my foot meeting with the floor, shards of the skull burying themselves in my foot. But my adrenaline allowed me to ignore the pain, turning around to face the other orcs whose attention were focused on something outside the treasury.

Then there was another shudder as parts of the ceiling began to fall, accompanied by a familiar thunder. It appeared that Erwin was somewhere outside, firing upon the palace itself. This distracted the orcs and Serilia took the chance to kill another orc with the last of her arrows, Evaline casting some fireballs to help out. In the meantime, I helped up Valder, turning back to face the orcs, some of which who had turned back to face us. I looked around for the mace which I soon found, picking it up as I stared back at the orcs one of which was sent to deal with me while the other two made their way to the others.

I just gritted my teeth and charged to meet this orc... and got my ass royally handed to me. He gave me a dizzying punch to the jaw and then proceeded to pummel me as I sank to the ground, the only thing I was able to do being to keep up my arms. And this time, I don’t think that Serilia could save me, this was the end. I closed my eyes as the blows continued to rain down, although I was increasingly less aware of them. I wasn’t really feeling anything in fact, just cold... really cold...