Chapter 71

Even after all this time, it’s worth noting that a four-meter-class bear is at a level treated as a monster on the mainland.

Even a three-meter bear possesses enough muscle to snap human bones with one paw, yet this one had a physique nearly double that in volume. Naturally, its reach and toughness increased proportionally. Taking even a single direct hit was as good as a death sentence.

—So, if you were to ask which is more troublesome, a four-meter-class bear or a four-meter-class Orc, the members of the Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights would likely answer without a second’s hesitation:

“The four-meter Orc, obviously.”

Bears occasionally walk on two legs, but they are fundamentally four-legged creatures. Their claws and arm strength are remarkable, but their leg length is relatively short compared to their bodies. They are undeniably formidable, but at the end of the day, their fighting style is that of a beast.

In contrast, Orcs have arm lengths closer to humans, and they can grip tools with five fingers. They can wield weapons with those arms or escape by swinging through tree branches. If an Orc grows to five meters, its arms alone are estimated at over two meters. The terror of a weapon being added to those powerful limbs is beyond description.

In this country, such a creature had been confirmed only once, exactly last year. Faced with the corpse of that four-meter Orc that ultimately froze to death, the Knights were truly relieved. Setting aside the nightmare of the following deep freeze they tried so hard to ignore, they had genuinely thought:

“I’m glad we didn’t have to fight that.”

However, appearing not once but twice, it forced them to realize that the threat they once felt hadn’t truly vanished.

“The camp was attacked by a giant white-furred demi-human!?”

“NO HUMAN CASUALTIES! BUT TENTS DESTROYED, DAMAGE IS EXTENSIVE! THE WHITE ONE IS MOVING SOMEWHERE BY SWINGING THROUGH THE TREES! COMMAND HAS ORDERED THE SKIRMISH SQUAD TO BEGIN TRACKING THE WHITE ONE IMMEDIATELY!!”

There was no longer any need to confirm. It was likely the Boss Orc of the colony, the culprit behind the destroyed cages, and it signaled the appearance of a giant Orc that would undoubtedly etch its name into history as the largest ever seen in the kingdom.

Waiting for us as we rushed back to the main base was the wretched sight of the temporary camp that had been functional just a moment ago. Tents were shredded, stretchers were trampled, and knights were scrambling to clean up the mess.

In the middle of the collapsed camp, the Vice Commander and others were caught in a storm of information.

“A messenger from the Engineering Squad currently tracking! The target moved southwest but was lost after they couldn’t keep up! Should we have them head toward the motive carriage, Vice Commander!?”

“Do it! We have no time to wait for them to double back! More importantly, what’s the status of the motive carriage’s security!?”

“According to Knight Senega’s report, the unit led by Knight Njya is deploying! Simultaneously, they’re urgently organizing the remaining personnel capable of fighting! They plan to head for Isberg Village as soon as the formation is complete!!”

“It’s an overstep of authority, but well done. Senega’s handled everything I would have asked for… What about the Skirmish Squad that went to the cave!?”

“We just arrived!!”

Captain Garmon shouted as he ran toward Vice Commander Rony.

It was then that we finally learned what had happened at the camp.

At almost the same time we finished suppressing the cave and Nonoka-san reached the site, the white giant had appeared. It looked down at the knights from atop a massive conifer before suddenly lunging at the camp. To put it bluntly, it was such a one-sided struggle that it was a miracle no one had died.

“It truly was a sudden ambush… and only a single target. It picked up the timber we were using to set up camp and went on a rampage; neither swords nor spears could reach it. Because it moved so violently, the tear-gas firecrackers were useless. The moment we managed to form an encirclement, it just leaped over our heads and escaped…”

As if responding to the Vice Commander, whose frustration at having a monster-slaying order brushed aside so easily was palpable, the other knights who had faced the Orc began to speak one after another.

“No, the thing was just huge! It’s a demi-human and faster than I thought; I couldn’t even get within sword range! If I’d known something that big existed, there would’ve been a way to handle it… Damn it!”

“We used ranged weapons, but the beast’s hide and fur are so thick the arrows wouldn’t penetrate! Even the wire traps failed because its legs were too thick!”

“In that case, bludgeoning attacks probably won’t be very effective either…”

“Arrows won’t pierce it…!? T-then my crossbow is…!?”

Calme’s role was suddenly in jeopardy. His aim is perfect, but a high-power crossbow is naturally large, and cocking the bolt requires significant physical strength. With the crossbow he can handle now, taking down that white giant Orc might be difficult.

“And about the fact that no one died… that white thing seemed to be looking for something while it was wrecking the tents. Its reaction to us running away was pretty weak.”

The people at this camp didn’t know it was an Orc yet, but if it was, the usual reasons for moving outside are territory display or foraging. But there was no abundance of food at our dirt-poor Knight Order’s camp, and if it were a territory display, it would have driven us away more thoroughly.

I doubt it was just “doing it because it was cranky.” If so, the world really is coming to an end.

“Its behavior is unpredictable. What is its goal? Since it’s faster than us, it’ll be hard to even make contact without narrowing down its destination.”

“Hmm… so the individual that appeared here has a clear objective? Please give Nonoka a moment.”

“I’ll leave it to you, Lady Nonoka. I hate to rush you, but we have no time. At that size, it’ll be more than the motive carriage crew can handle…!”

The Vice Commander clearly doesn’t want to lose any subordinates or villagers here. I understand his desperation, but we have no choice but to entrust the behavioral analysis to Nonoka-san’s brain, who has already begun thinking deeply with a finger to her chin. The problem is, even if we read its movements, how do we corner an Orc that’s swinging through the trees at a speed the knights can’t match on foot?

“Seniors, thank you for the intel. By the way, there’s one thing I’m curious about… just how big was this giant white demi-human?”

“Ah, right. It was rampaging so much I can’t say for sure, but—”

As he spoke, one of the seniors pointed to a five-meter-long timber that had been thrust into a corner of the camp—looking completely out of place—and squeezed out a trembling voice through a cold sweat.

“I’d say it was about as long as that timber… the white thing threw that at us.”

“Eh.”

I looked at the timber again. It was wood, about forty centimeters in diameter. A pillar of a size that could kill a person just by falling on them was staring down at us with a smug look. I’m not confident in these kinds of calculations, but it looked to be a massive piece of wood weighing roughly a thousand kilograms.

If it could swing that around as freely as a child playing with a long branch, it would be a long-range weapon with a reach of over six meters, far exceeding human knowledge. If it can do that with an Orc’s agility, its combat ability would be equivalent to a high-tier version of a Troll, possessing mid-to-high level power.

If something like that seriously attacked the motive carriage or the village—the pure white snow would be stained red.

I felt the blood drain from not just me, but the entire Skirmish Squad. It was a fear born precisely because we knew it was an Orc and had actual combat experience.

“Hey, hey, you’ve gotta be kidding! An individual like that would be a solo subjugation request even on the mainland!?”

“A monster with abilities that far outstrip others of its kind due to mutation, commonly known as a ‘Named’… Perhaps our current opponent will become the first ‘Named’ in the history of our Kingdom.”

The Vice Commander’s heavy voice left the others at a loss for words, and silence fell. We couldn’t afford to be optimistic just because the knights here had escaped with their lives. This was truly the brink of the biggest incident since the Order’s founding. I swallowed hard, recalling the images of the massacre and the bloodstains in that cave.

“This is bad… we can’t let the tragedy of that cave be repeated with humans—!”

“I’ve got it! I know where that individual is headed!! It plans to recreate the tragedy of that cave… at the location of the bear we killed yesterday, where the motive carriage is right now!!”

“—What!?”

I was left speechless this time by the words Nonoka-san uttered after her deep deliberation. My worst-case scenario happened to coincide perfectly with the conclusion drawn by her brilliant mind. With eyes full of conviction, Nonoka-san scanned our surroundings.

“I suspect that white individual harbors an intense hatred for the white bear that raided its nest. It was during that chaos that we humans suppressed the nest, resulting in the death of the last female. And yesterday, we carried that hated bear away—worse yet, we turned it into a hot pot and ate it…”

“Then doesn’t the target of its revenge no longer exist?”

“An Orc wouldn’t know those circumstances! That’s why it’s desperately tracking the bear’s scent! The reason it trashed the camp was likely because it caught the scent of the bear on the stretchers we used. Once it realized the ‘body’ wasn’t there, it headed for the other location it could think of! At worst, it might think humans and the bear are in league—or it might just be trying to wipe us all out as obstacles…!”

If that was true, things were heading in an even worse direction. If I recall, that bear’s bones and hide are still there in their entirety after the meat was butchered. Since the carcass was moved so recently, there is definitely a stronger scent of the bear there than there was on the stretchers.

Of course, we couldn’t say for sure, and it was a hard story to swallow. One of the seniors shouted, giving voice to the group’s vague doubts.

“That’s ridiculous! An Orc having the intelligence and sense of smell to carry out a vendetta—hey, Varna! That’s impossible, right!?”

“Unfortunately, it’s entirely possible.”

“Are you serious?! Dammit!!”

I felt bad for the senior, but I shot him down bluntly. Aside from those outside the Skirmish Squad who were having a delayed reaction—“Wait, that was an Orc? We came all the way to this snowy country and it’s just another Orc?!”—the fact remains: while revenge behavior hasn’t been confirmed domestically, it’s not uncommon abroad.

In our country, the Knights usually deploy operations that ensure the total annihilation of a pack in a single strike, so there are rarely survivors. Furthermore, the ones with the intelligence and aggression to seek revenge are invariably the high-caste male Orcs—the priority targets. That’s why revenge hasn’t happened even if a stray got away before.

However, abroad, there are countless monsters besides Orcs, making it difficult to achieve the clean sweeps our Order manages. Consequently, there are documented cases of troublesome, ferocious Orcs harboring a strong grudge against humans and launching raids on populated areas. Though, to be fair, most of this knowledge came from Nonoka-san’s trivia.

“To begin with, Orcs are obsessive enough to chase a female across the sea; once they set their sights on something, they don’t let go. And a large individual possesses instincts and intelligence far above the average Orc… right, Nonoka-san?”

“Exactly! As expected of Varna-kun, you’re quite studious when it comes to Orcs. To add to that, a five-meter-class stray would have unfathomable hunger and ferocity. We have to take it down quickly, no matter what!!”

It occurs to me that perhaps the reason the bear slaughtered the cave Orcs but failed to finish off the female was because it was being extremely cautious of the threat posed by a five-meter Orc. Vice Commander Rony, who had been nodding deeply and adjusting his glasses, placed a hand on my left shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“And so, Knight Varna, I want you to go ahead and kill it before it engages the units at the motive carriage!!”

“Could you please not issue solo subjugation orders like it’s a given? I mean, I’ll go because the situation is what it is, but…”

“I’m sorry, but this time it is truly bad. You see…”

The Vice Commander cut his words short. His expression was leaking cold sweat, but for a reason seemingly different from the threat of the Orc. Actually, the amount of hand-sweat soaking into my shoulder was incredible. He probably wasn’t aware of it, but because he was shivering, the sweat was penetrating my clothes at an accelerated rate.

“C-c-consider the facts. A motive carriage is not a tank, you know? The side panels specifically have the structural integrity of an average house…!”

“Ah, now that you mention it, that’s true. I heard that last year, some seniors who were play-fights indoors crashed into a wall and left a bulge in the exterior.”

“Exactly! Strength has been increased slightly since then, but fundamentally, the outer walls are not built to withstand combat! If a giant log were slammed into it by something… even half that size…!!”

The Vice Commander, whose eyes had gone bloodshot beyond the point of mere fear, suddenly grabbed both my shoulders with an unbelievable grip. His panicked face filled my entire field of vision.

“A motive carriage under attack would undoubtedly be totaled!! Repair costs: BOOM!! Management responsibility: DOUBLE BOOM!! And if the heating function of the destroyed carriage is compromised… if it breaks, we’ll be bankrupt and frozen to death! It’ll be the end for us this time for suuuuuuure!!”

“C-c-c-calm down?! Let go of me and stop shaking me!!”

“Do you think this is a situation where I can NOT panic?! HAAAAHHH?!”

It seemed Vice Commander Rony, half-distraught and having partially forgotten about human casualties, was only seeing a vision of ruin on a completely different dimension from ours. I mean, realistically, if the carriage is destroyed, we face the effective execution of having to break through the snowy roads on foot to return to the capital, and the future where the Order is disbanded due to casualties draws rapidly closer.

Between all those circumstances, the Vice Commander’s heart was on the verge of a total crash. My brain was also on the verge of a crash due to a shaking so powerful I wondered where it came from in such a thin frame. Someone stop watching and help me… I thought, until Captain Garmon, who had remained calm, stepped in to peel the Vice Commander off me.

“I won’t tell you to calm down, but if you don’t let go of Varna, we can’t move the plan forward, Vice Commander!!”

“Oh! A-as expected of my superior and the conscience of the Order…! To be so cool-headed in this situation!! You saved me, Seni—”

“We have to hurry up, stuff Varna-kun into a catapult, and fire him, or we’ll be too late!!”

“…Hey, don’t dig up that nostalgic crap idea that got rejected during the last subjugation!!?”

Shortly after, having slapped Captain Garmon across the head with all my might for the first time in my life, I ignored both the Captain and the Vice Commander and fled into the snow, sprinting using Hidden Style Eight: Dancing Phoenix repeatedly.

“Why am I, with only two years on the job, the most sane person in this situation? Isn’t that weird? It’s weird, right? Someone please validate me…”

Even though I hadn’t encountered the Orc yet and there were no casualties, for some reason, I felt a desperate urge to cry.

This is also the Orc’s fault. For now, let’s just blame everything on the Orc. My slapping the Captain was, of course, the Orc’s doing too. Unforgivable Orc, to think you would harm my superior like that.