Chapter 46: Unintentional (2)

“Those two, can’t they sit still for an hour?” After the two knights, Jimmy and Diego left to hunt, Farman grumbled under his breath as he supported his back against the slick stone walls of the dungeon. A small golden pocket dagger moved about beautifully from fingers to fingers of his right hand, making ‘ting-ting’ noises as it scratched against the metallic glove.

“Would you stop doing that!? Its annoying.” Hendry growled from his position behind the blond man. He was peeking the book from over the blond commander’s shoulders and felt the constant clinking sound tugging on his nerves.

“Hmm!? You mean this!?” As if to further annoy him, Farman spun the dagger faster, making the noise sporadic and loud. If not for those helmets they were wearing, Hendry could have seen a grin on Farman’s face.

Their bickering would have gone forever, but the blond captain’s sudden actions halted it midway. The young man closed the book in his hand with a thud that silenced the duo. They looked at him with expressions hidden behind their helmets.

“Something’s wrong.” The seriousness in his voice made the two knights startle. Hendry closed his mouth, gulping back whatever insult he was about to hurl at Farman. While the later quietly put away the shiny dagger. The young man had a solemn face, which was rare from their point of view.

“What is it, sir?” Hendry asked carefully, showing no sign of his earlier aggressiveness. Farman, too, stopped his playful actions and looked at the young man with all the seriousness he could muster. He tensed the muscles of his body as his hand hovered over the sword strapped to his waist. He opened and closed his fingers rhythmically before holding the sword handle firmly.

“I lost track of their presence.” The blond man said before darting deeper into the tunnel and into the mouth of the forest. The other two knights quickly followed after him, with each holding their weapons in a firm grip. After arriving at the opening, they all stopped and scanned the scenery before their eyes.

It should have been a medium-sized forest, filled to the brim with dense and lush greenery. There should have been a trail of dead goblins left by the two people who went before them. But, clearly, that wasn’t the case here. Forget about goblin corpses; they couldn’t even see the trees. Well, the forest was there, but it lacked adequate trees. They could even see a few holes here and there. Upon closer inspection, they saw remains of tree roots inside those holes.

“There used to be trees here!?” Farman exclaimed with confusion and shock written all over his face. Then he got closer and knelt down to inspect the holes better. Suddenly a gasp left his lips, “Judging from the size of roots, the tree shouldn’t be small! What caused this?”

After hearing him, the blond captain’s frown deepened as he looked at Hendry in the eye, before asking in a hushed voice, “You said, there was a rumor of orcs sighting on this floor, right? How much of it is true?”

“When we asked around in the underworld of Cloud Meadow town, we discovered it was the Owl Bandits that spread the rumor. Allegedly a small bandit group of theirs had a run-in with this orc while scourging for treasures.” Farman recounted all the details they investigated during their short stay in the border town.

Their spies in the royal capital of Valier Kingdom got the news about the third prince’s visit a week ago. After hearing it, their fifth princess sent them with this mission to pull in the third prince to their side. While their stay at the border town, they searched high and low for any vital info regarding this prince and his entourage and stumbled upon this completely unrelated news.

“Owl Bandits! Aren’t they pretty active at the border of a few small kingdoms? I heard their full strength could rival one of those kingdoms.” The blond man was a bit surprised. Being a small kingdom themselves, they would often keep tracks of these lawless powers. Powers such as Owl Bandits wouldn’t spread a lie if there were no benefits to it.

“Yes, and we also heard that they are gathering an army of mercenaries to tackle the problem. Probably this is why the third prince of Valier kingdom is coming.” Hendry said his thoughts.

“A group of mercenaries, gathered by lawless bandits, things couldn’t go any worse than this. The royal family must have sensed a threat to public safety and sent one of their princes to watch over. If they go out of line, probably they would round them up and make them disappear. A kingdom like Valier wouldn’t be afraid of these small bandit organizations.” The blond captain mumbled out his analysis. It was a pretty accurate guess, as the royal family was indeed sending their third prince for this reason.

“Then sir, are you saying that there is really an orc living here?” Farman asked shakily. He wasn’t afraid of meeting an orc, even two orcs. What he afraid of was to meet a whole bunch of them. They were the royal guards of the fifth princess, and their strength shouldn’t be underestimated. Each one of them could easily handle an orc, even many at once. However, it would be a different story if a whole bunch of them come out.

Monsters such as goblins, orcs, kobolds, and other low-leveled monsters like to live in a group. Spotting one was the same as finding the whole pack. It was also the reason why the group of bandits gathering an army of mercenaries.

“Let’s back off.” The young captain looked pensively at the destroyed remains of the forest and made a hard decision. Those two men were his subordinates and also his colligues with whom he had gone on many adventures. He had been through thick and thin with them, but now he had to abandon them like this.

“Sir, what about Jimmy and Diego? Are we going to abandon them?” Farman asked with a shaky voice. The young captain looked at him and found his hands trembling over the sword's hilt. A sigh escaped his lips as patted Farman’s shoulders.

“Its probably be too late already.” The young captain frowned as his face darkened. The thought of his comrades’ situation both angered and saddened him. Those were his good men, after all. “Let’s get out of here before its too late.” Seeing their captain’s lonely back when he walked away, Farman and Hendry looked at each other for a moment and followed behind him silently. Before they got out of the tunnel, they gave the destroyed forest one last glance as their eyes behind the helmet reddened.

“Not in a glorious battle, not from old age. Those two…they just vanished just like that!” Hendry mumbled as they walked away through the colossal iron-gates. The other two, including the captain himself, remained silent as they heard his lament.

…

Alex’s POV~

I didn’t know that my unintentional actions would ward off the biggest trouble I could have faced at the moment. And neither I knew that an army was about to form to fight against Logier, and his fellow orcs. It was indeed unprecedented trouble that I never saw coming.

Currently, I was dealing with the two captured humans. I was sitting behind them, below the shade of a tree, with a book in my hand that once belonged to goblin lord. My purpose was to eavesdrop on their conversation. I was hoping they would talk about something important and drop some clues, but these fellows were borning. They rather talked about some empire gossips and king’s promiscuousness. I was very disappointed with their uselessness.

In the meantime, I was also using them as my training dummy.

Target Resisted!

Hint: Increase your INT and WIS

Since the time they were captured and buried to their necks, I was practicing my skills on them. Especially after all the improvements, I thought I had done with them. Cast Illusion and Nightmare Seed were my top picks. Nightmare Manifest didn’t need to test out, as it was very effective on them.

There was a reason why I was sitting behind them. The suppression effect would come into effect when I go near. The hint was right, after all. As long as I’m not spotted, the suppression effect couldn’t affect me.

Like before, whenever I use those two skills, a thin, pink film would appear out of nowhere and block the invading magic. Even with my new and improved Cast Illusion, it was the same. The tooth-pick shaped magic tendril couldn’t break through the barrier and would shatter after a few seconds.

However, it wasn’t without its own benefits. Every time the magic tooth-pick shattered, the force from the implosion would vibrate the thin film, which would then make the human dizzy.

Unintentionally, I found the secret to ‘dizzy’ spell.