It was the third evening after Latten’s visit.
With the starlight having dimmed, and as the people were finishing their work and making preparations for nightfall, there came a commotion from the passage north of the palace as a man with disheveled hair ran to us.
“Help me! We’re under attack!!” he shouted, coughing up blood. He fell, and everyone gathered around to support him.
At the time, the three of us had been discussing plans to defend the side of our kingdom that faced the Great Fracture, but we’d run to the gathering crowd after hearing the noise. The man turned to me and spoke, breathing shallow.
“Ogres. The fields are being attacked. If we don’t act soon, they’ll eat everyone…”
Leaving us with only that, the man passed out.
“Ogres?”
“Ogrekin—the mortal enemy of humankind,” Mizuho stated, face stern. “I had thought we would run into them sooner or later. Let’s hurry.”
We armed ourselves and ran into the northern passage. As we neared the end of the greatbat cave, which was illuminated by a few torches, we spotted them. A group of creatures the likes of which I’d never seen before was jogging after the fleeing townspeople.
They were about one meter tall—half that of an adult human, but quite a bit wider and stockier. Their bodies looked too large for them, they were covered in short brown hair, and they had stubby arms and legs. Their heads were as wide as their bodies, and a big ear hung off either side. Each pair of large, front-facing eyes was glaring. The things resembled short-haired dogs walking on their hind legs. All of them had belts around their waists, with red scarves covering their mouths. Their armaments were shabby, broken swords, rough clubs, rusted hammers, and the like. One of them was clearly using a potlid as a shield.
“Ogrelings, Taiga,” Troach explained. “They’re weak, but annoying in numbers,” she continued. “Make sure you don’t get surrounded.”
“Understood.”
Seeing us armed, the band of ogrelings stopped, appearing frightened. In the meantime, the fleeing citizens hid themselves behind us.
“Situation?” I asked.
“While we were setting up the farms, they suddenly… They came out of the hole in the hill!”
“They got three of us. I don’t know if they’re dead. At least one was captured…”
As I listened, the enemy forces, which seemed to have collected themselves, readied their weapons and inched closer. There were five in all.
Troach was the first to move. Her thrown dagger plunged deep into one of the ogreling’s heads, sending it crashing to the floor. As the other ogrelings charged, I met them with my spear. Their movements were untrained, and dealing with them was easy. Even Mizuho was able to take one down with her own weapon. Troach and I handled the last two, which were flailing their equipment about wildly. The battle was over in a matter of seconds.
We hurried on ahead. When we came to the pitfall in the middle of the passage, we hesitated a bit.
Our intent had been to bury the trap so it was safe. We’d modified the switches, thrown open the cover, and placed a board across it by the wall to allow workers to move through. But now, peering into the hole, we saw a large number of ogrelings had fallen into it and died.
Troach, Mizuho, and I crossed the planks and proceeded through the passage. The treant-hill room was different since the last time I’d seen it.
The star I’d picked up in the slime chamber was hanging in a high spot from the ceiling. It was evening now, so it had dimmed quite a bit, but there was still enough light to barely make out what was happening.
The treant’s corpse had been cleaned up by scavengers and our citizens’ axes. As for the moss originally growing here, we’d gathered it all up to expose the soil on the floor. We were in the middle of turning the room into a usable plot of farmland, and about half the chamber was ridged now, having been plowed. Several ogrelings were dead by the walls. It looked like some of the remaining bloodsucking kudzu vines were coiled around them. The monsters seemed to die pretty easily.
However, a group of those weak creatures was currently trying to kidnap some of our nation’s people. They were clustered around the top of the hill, shouting to one another as they tried to drag the humans they’d caught with their nets into the hole.
I approached them with a shout, and the ogrelings turned to me and charged down the hill. Some of them went too fast and tripped over themselves. They never got back up. Troach caught up and came alongside me, making it the two of us against the oncoming crowd of ogrelings.
Even professional martial artists renowned as invincible in the ring were occasionally killed by nobodies on the street with knives. Blades were powerful things, and facing down so many monsters at once was frightening. Troach and I had spears, which gave us the advantage of range, but the ogrelings kept on running at us fearlessly even though they were about to die. They would be no joke if this devolved into a melee. As we were desperately stabbing, batting aside, and pushing away the enemy, both of us ended up sustaining several wounds.
Meanwhile, Mizuho went around behind and cut the captives out of their nets. They were bleeding as well, but they crawled down the hill under Mizuho’s protection and escaped.
That was when we heard a cracked gong from inside the pit. When the ogrelings heard it, they stopped. When it struck several more times, the remaining monsters began to withdraw—growling in intimidation at us all the while—and returned into the hole, one after the next.
Once the last ogreling was gone, the thrumming stopped. Our surroundings suddenly quieted, and under the quickly dimming star, only heaps of ogreling corpses lay upon the disturbed ridges.
Troach and I ran over to the three people Mizuho had rescued.
“Everyone alive?”
“Yes, but they’ve been beaten severely. They need healing, and quickly.”
“Troach, can you move? We need help. Bring a bunch of people here.”
“Got it!”
Troach swiveled around and ran back. Mizuho got to work, stopping the blood with what tools she had on hand. Before helping her, I had one more task.
“Mizuho, I’m going to check to see that our foes have actually retreated. Can you handle things here?”
“Huh…?”
“We need to make sure it’s safe. I’ll be back in a moment,” I told the obviously uneasy Mizuho before peering into the pit. A crude ladder was hanging from it. I put a lantern on the tip of my spear and stuck it inside to light the way below. There were no enemies as far as I could see.
Closing the lantern’s shutter, I removed the firefly star from within and put a foot on the ladder. Descending several rungs, I looked around, then threw the star I’d taken into the room, as far from the shaft as I could get it. It was nothing compared to a flash-bang, but it would at least be a distraction.
As I listened to the sound of the luminous stone bouncing away, I kicked off my perch and jumped down the remaining distance myself. Using my whole body to soften the impact, I stayed low, quickly scanning the chamber’s interior.
It was empty. The firefly star shone quietly in a corner of the room.
Standing, I retrieved my light source and returned it to the lantern, closing the shutter. I approached the open doorway, peeking inside while keeping myself concealed, and saw several flames flickering deeper in the giant hall. The ogreling band was beating a retreat, torches in hand. The dust that had gathered on the floor now had many footprints in it.
Suddenly, I heard the gong ring out a few more times, and the opposite side of the tunnel brightened. Many more torches were visible compared with just moments ago. Perhaps they’d come out a different door. I watched closely, squinting to discern the figures in the flickering orange light. Several larger forms bickered about something in bestial voices as they milled about the little ogrelings. Many of them stood taller than humans, and one was absolutely giant. By my judgment, it had to be over six meters high.
The force of ogrelings we’d fought had only been a reconnaissance group. This was a raid force composed of dozens of monsters.