Maria killed the ogre chieftain slowly and pressed down on her ax until it was completely embedded inside the monster's body.
She then stepped off and reached out for her weapon. Because of the return function, Calamity didn't dislodge itself from the ogre chieftain's body before flying into Maria's hand. Instead, it tore through the ogre's body, gruesomely pulling out the monster's entrails, effectively killing it.
Maria was awarded a large amount of EXP for killing the boss monster letting her jump a level. She also received a small portion of EXP from her subordinates' kills so she had risen a level because of that.
The chat began spamming that Maria was being a little too gruesome but they sort of understood where she was coming from. She had lost a few of her people and was angry about it. At least they understood her character better now. She was a rather caring person who was sweet to her allies but against her enemies, she was merciless.
Of course, what the chat didn't know was that Maria was actually just exhausted and weakened from the debuffs afflicting her character. She didn't mean to kill the ogre chieftain like that nor did she want to show the audience that gruesome kill.
She was just severely debuffed so her STR didn't allow her to wield her weapon as usual. She had to put in quite a bit of strength to push her weapon into the ogre chief's chest. Although it looked like she was deliberately doing it slowly to emphasize her anger, Maria was actually giving it her all and not trying to accentuate anything.
Although people saw that she was debuffed, they didn't know how severe it impacted her stats. Even now, she was actually extremely exhausted from performing her earlier act of 'cruelty'.
Maria quickly found a spot to sit down and let her army rest. She ordered Lilah to organize a group for the post-battle cleanup and organization. Maria didn't forget about the ogres she had her soldiers capture.
After resting for a little bit, she quickly had her soldiers bring them over. Once the prisoners were lined up together, Maria called for all her injured soldiers to gather and began healing them, one by one.
Maria used her [Fallen's Cruelty] to take the life force of the ogre prisoners and transferred it to her injured soldiers, healing all of their injuries and restoring their HP. All the prisoner ogres had their HP perfectly at or below 25 percent so, with every use of her skill, she killed one of them to heal one of her soldiers.
David really wanted to cut this part out of the stream, but it was too late. Maria used up quite a bit of time healing her injured men, but it was okay since her army needed the rest. She had ordered them to kill every enemy ogre within the village so they exerted themselves more than what was needed of them.
It took about 2 hours for Maria to completely heal all of the soldiers in her army that had a broken or missing appendage. Her skill's 5-minute cooldown was the cause of it taking so long but in between the long cooldown, Maria used that time to cast [Cure] on every one of her soldiers and brought their HP bars back to full.
With her army well rested and healed, Maria immediately gave the marching order. She was ready to attack the next village that was assigned to her. She had received reports from the messengers of Ash and Orh'bankhur's army stating that they were finished with their battles and were already marching to their next objective.
Maria didn't want to fall behind so she had her men pick up the pace. She even cast [Haste] on every soldier in her army to quicken their marching speed. It was the first time in her gaming life that she had to use a mana potion to recover MP, but with everyone having the speed buff, they were able to quickly arrive at the next village they were supposed to attack.
This village was much different from the previous one they attacked. There was indeed a wall being constructed around the village but that was still a work in progress. Probably because it was closer to the ogre city which oversaw this region, it was given the lesser priority in setting up defenses compared to the ones farther away thus resulting in the walls and fortifications still not completed.
"Berserker, do as we discussed earlier."
Berserker grunted in response before roaring and waving over a squadron of ogres. This squadron of ogres was rather unique since their builds were all much bigger and buffer than most of the ogres in Maria's army.
Maria didn't want to act recklessly and risk the loss of her soldiers again. This time, she was going to play it smart and put her army's advantage to better use. She learned from her previous battle that the ogres were physically overwhelmingly powerful. They could double as infantry and siege weapons.
She remembered how the enemy ogres from before had defended themselves by throwing boulders and chunks of earth at them. Maria stole this tactic and was gonna let the ogres have a taste of their own medicine courtesy of their own people.
Before leaving the village, she had her soldiers gather what materials they could from the village to fashion a few carts and wagons. On these wagons were the projectiles that Maria would use to start their siege. A majority of these projectiles were boulders and trees.
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They did somehow find a few Crag Beetles which the ogres scared into submission and loaded them onto the carts. Berserker told Maria that the Crag Beetles' body fluids were rather acidic and poisonous so they would serve as good 'bombs' for later during the siege.
"Now that we're here, let's see how effective these Crag Beetle Bombs are~"
The Crag Beetle monsters proliferated quite easily since they laid multiple eggs at once. Maria had delegated a pair of Crag Beetles of both genders to be used as breeding monsters for their organic 'bomb' farm.
Now she just wanted to see how well they performed as bombs and whether it would be worth it to sink in some funds into raising these expendable monsters.
"Sound the horn for battle. We should at least let those poor fools know what's coming for them," Maria ordered.
Their 'horn' was actually just the battle cries of everyone in the army. The ogres in the village had long since noticed their presence but Maria still wanted them to announce themselves and hopefully intimidate their opponents into surrendering.
This was actually what Maria hoped for since the thought of losing any of her precious soldiers ached her heart.
Berserker began roaring and the other ogres in her army likewise bellowed after him. Their cries split the air as a massive gush of wind surged forward and struck the walls of the enemy village.
System Notice: Morale of your Army has reached the peak! Requirements met! Fury of the Titans (Degraded) has been applied! Fury of the Titans [Degraded] +5% movement speed
+5% attack speed
+5% HP regen
"Such a thing can happen? That's nice to know," Maria mumbled before dismissing the message window.
"Alright, get ready to attack! First, the siege squadrons! Throw EVERYTHING we have here while our infantry slowly moves towards the walls! You are to cease-fire and join up after the vanguard arrives at the tower!"
The ogres received their orders and immediately got into position. Each siege squadron had 6 large ogres. 2 would be in charge of 'reloading' while the other 4 would work in pairs to shoot the projectiles into the air.
They started off quite awkward at first since it was the first time they were doing this, but after a few rounds of firing off boulders and trees, the ogre pairs were able to get into gear and synchronize their movements and power to launch the boulders and trees far into the sky and somehow reach the village walls that was a couple of hundred meters away.
The effects were as Maria expected, they couldn't break down the walls but it was enough to cover for the infantry's march towards the walls.
"Alright, it's going great. Keep it up! Berserker, lead our men to the walls. Take it down as swiftly as possible. This time, don't kill everyone. Let the ones who surrender live. Kill only the ones that resist!"
Berserker grunted in understanding before he roared and charged forward. This time, Maria didn't join the battle. A few of the debuffs from earlier were still afflicting Maria so she wasn't in any condition to fight.
"Lilah, Alexa, you go as well. Lead my personal soldiers and get some EXP."
"And you, Master?"
"I'll stay behind and rest. I recklessly used my skill earlier and the backlash still hasn't disappeared. Go ahead and have fun. Also, keep an eye on those ogres. Without me there, they might suddenly destroy a building or two," Maria said before finding a place to sit down.
"Alright, Master. Alexa, Little Red, let's get going."
"Right."
Maria saw them off with a smile before heaving a sigh. She opened up her stream's chat and read through it.
A few hours had already passed so she couldn't skim through the entire chat history and see what she missed. The current topic her audience was talking about was her cleverness in copying her enemies and using her ogres as siege weapons.
It wasn't anything that needed high praise for but Maria felt a little smug and happy nonetheless. When people noticed that she was looking at the chat, they began greeting her and thanking her for the good work.
...: Good job, Maria! ...: It was a splendid battle earlier. I wish you would tone down that cruel side a little... ...: The above person, be quiet and move to the side if you can't accept our angel for who she is! ...: Wouldn't it be nice if she was a little sweeter and kinder though? ...: A cruel angel is also okay! You want me to write you a thesis on why a cruel angel is also okay? ...: Shut up, you idiot
The people watching her never ceased to amuse her. Even though Maria was supposed to be the one entertaining them through her stream, she was equally entertained by reading the ridiculous things her viewers wrote in the chat.
"I hope you all enjoyed today's stream! There will be a second part tomorrow and it will start at the same time!" Maria said. She was going to hold off from attacking the ogre city for now.
She needed to consolidate her army and secure her newly conquered territory. It wouldn't take up too much of her time since she was going to leave it to her subordinates and while they were at it, she would bring her army tomorrow and attack the ogre city.
After conquering that city, Maria would then turn her attention back to internal affairs for a while and postpone her plans of conquering the entire mountain range. She had been informed by the various ogre leaders and Orh'bankhur about the other ogre settlements in the mountains so she naturally wanted to conquer them as well, but it wouldn't do her well if she neglected managing her territory and people.
History showed her that many reckless and foolish leaders who only focused on wars ended up losing everything in the end with their empires, kingdoms, or dynasties falling. She didn't want such short-lived glory so Maria made sure to balance war and management.
Of course, this was only a game and she didn't need to strictly follow this. It wasn't like there were going to be treacherous AIs in the game that will backstab her, but Maria viewed the game the same as she viewed reality, she didn't want to risk the chance of something like that happening since the game advertised it emulated reality at a 99% ratio.
"I'll take a short break from my conquest after I take over the city tomorrow..."
Maria stretched her arms and quietly watched her army decimate the village ahead.