Chapter 162: Find the Orcs!

Having decided to head out for investigation right away, we first go outside the town.

“Then shall we check the surroundings from the sky?”

“Eh?”

“Yeah!”

When I rise into the air with flight magic, Jairo and the others also follow and rise into the sky.

“Wh-Wh-What!?”

“Now then, which way are the orcs coming from…”

While everyone faces their respective directions and searches for the figures of the orcs, I also use detection magic simultaneously to search for the presence of monsters moving in a herd.

Then, Og‘s surprised voice could be heard from the ground.

“What the heck is thaaaaaat-!”

“What’s wrong, Og!? Ah, could it be you spotted the orc herd!”

“Wrong! Or rather, why are you guys flying in the sky like it’s normal!?”

“Eh? It’s flight magic, though?”

“Flight magic!? What the heck is that!?”

Huh? Does Og not know flight magic?

Strange, it’s not such a rare magic though.

Come to think of it, when I used it in the middle of town before, the townspeople were surprised. Perhaps this area is a land that geographically doesn’t require flight magic?

Even in my previous life, in lands with many flying monsters, they recommended refraining from flight magic and moving on the ground, so there might be circumstances I don’t know about.

“If that’s the case, I’ll carry you, Og.”

“Eh? Carry me?”

Carrying Og, I soar into the sky again.

“Uwaaaaa!? I-I’m flying! I’m flying!?”

“Princess-carrying Og!?”

“Liliera, calm down.”

Huh? Now Liliera and the others are making a fuss, but what’s wrong?

“Everyone, towards the east, something is moving.”

At that moment, Meguri called out to us while pointing towards the east.

“East? Where?”

“Now that you mention it, it looks like something is moving far away…”

Probing the eastern direction with detection magic, I can certainly sense many monster reactions.

“Yeah, there are too many for normal monsters, so they’re probably orcs.”

“How many are there?”

“Let’s see… roughly around 20,000.”

“T-20,000!? That’s more than our Knight Order!?”

“Because orcs have high reproductive capabilities.”

“That’s beyond ‘high’!”

It’s a number that reminds me of the large-scale subjugation conducted around the Royal Capital previously, but unlike that time, the monsters are too densely packed this time. This is a sense of distance peculiar to monsters of the same race or in a symbiotic relationship.

“20,000 huh, as expected that’s too many.”

Certainly, if this number attacks, the guards protecting the town will have a hard time too.

“How long until they arrive at the town?”

“Since it’s a group of that size, probably about 2 hours.”

“2 hours… too short to evacuate the residents… in that case, is it better to close the gates and hole up inside? If we ride horses to seek reinforcements from the Lords of other towns in the meantime, can we manage somehow?”

Calculating backward from the herd’s arrival time, Og considers how to deal with them.

The fact that he thinks about the evacuation of the townspeople first shows Og‘s good character.

“Big Bro! Let’s fight! We who can beat a dragon can do it!”

“Idiot, there are too many. With numbers that large, our magic power will run out first.”

“Besides, there’s a high possibility that higher species like Orc Generals or Orc Sorcerers are present.”

“When it comes to orc higher species, they’re B-rank; if an Orc Emperor is present, it might reach A-rank. Rex could win easily, but a herd of higher species is a bad match for us.”

“The violence of numbers is strong, after all.”

“Is it more realistic to hole up in the town and thicken the town’s defensive walls with earth magic or ice magic? What will you do, Rex?”

At Liliera‘s words, everyone’s eyes focus on me.

“I also agree with Jairo‘s opinion. Og, let’s subjugate those orcs before the investigation.”

“Right, since they’re going to attack either way, it’ll be necessary to fight. First, we contact the Knight Order and the Adventurer’s Guild. Both are folks with strong egos so coordination will be difficult, but since the town’s fate is on the line, they won’t be able to complain! Alright, we’re heading back to town!”

“Ah, there’s no need to head back. I’ll defeat them.”

“I see, underst… wait, eh?”

“Jairo, catch Og.”

I throw Og towards Jairo.

“Uwaaaaa!?”

“O-Ooops!?”

Having become lighter, I distance myself from the town and head toward the orc herd.

“A-Ababa! H-Hey! Rex, you say you’ll defeat them, but what do you intend to do!? The opponents are 20,000!?”

As Og says, to defeat 20,000 orcs, annihilating them with large-scale attack magic is best.

But for that, the problem was that the orc herd wasn’t very far from the town.

If I use magic that’s too strong, the shockwave will cause damage to the town.

Besides, magic that affects a wide area also risks damaging the surrounding nature.

If that happens, the medicinal herbs that should be gathered in the forest near the orc herd will be blown away, and the animals will flee, making the hunters unable to hunt their prey.

To prevent that from happening, the magic used requires utmost care.

“Alright, let’s go with this magic! MANA BURST SHOOTING SQUALL!!”

I launch a highly compressed mass of magic power high into the sky.

“Wh-What is that!? Even though it’s such a small mass, I feel unbelievable magic power from it!?”

Seeing the magic power mass, Mina raises a voice of surprise.

Yeah, this magic is inefficient so there aren’t many users of it, so it’s natural that Mina hasn’t seen it.

“It’s a magic an acquaintance taught me a long time ago. Now, attack the orcs!”

Reacting to my instruction, the magic power mass splits in half.

“It split!?”

Furthermore, each magic power mass splits in half into four, and splits in half again into eight, rapidly increasing in number.

And when countless small magic power masses were formed, I fired the swarm of magic power masses toward the orcs.

“Go! Pierce the orc herd-!”

The sight of the finely divided magic power masses raining down upon the orc herd while spreading is practically a meteor shower.

“Beautiful…”

Watching that sight, Liliera mutters softly.

At the same time, a sound like heavy rain, dodododododo, echoes from the ground.

“…Alright, subjugation complete.”

” ” ” ” ” “Eh? Already!?” ” ” ” ” “

“Yes, then shall we head over to collect the subjugation parts?”

We fly toward the place where we subjugated the orc herd.

“Eh? We defeated them, seriously?”

“What was that magic just now!? Hey Rex, what kind of spell formula is that magic!?”

“…Or rather, how long do I have to keep carrying this old man?”

◆

“What is this…”

When we came down to the ground, the corpses of countless orcs were lying there.

“What is this, the magic pierced all the orcs’ hearts!?”

“Besides, even though we defeated this many orcs, the damage to the ground is small, just countless shallow holes.”

“What on earth did you do, Rex…?”

Since everyone asked with great interest, I decided to reveal the trick.

“This magic is called Mana Burst Shooting Squall, and it’s simply a magic that pierces the opponents with magic power masses divided by the number of enemies.”

“You say by the number of enemies, but you finished them all off with one shot. It’s not just scattering magic blindly, is it?”

“Exactly, Mina. This magic senses the opponents’ magic power reactions, automatically splits, and is a semi-automatic spell formula that flies aiming for the heart, which has the largest magic power, of the opponents.”

“Semi-automatic spell formula!? What’s that, never heard of it!?”

“Because it attacks pinpoint aiming for the heart, unlike large-scale magic, the advantage of this magic is that it doesn’t wastefully scatter attack magic power to the surroundings. Though it requires magic power for control proportionally.”

Yes, this magic is a magic created to pinpoint and defeat only a massive amount of enemies, and not damage surrounding facilities and nature.

That being said, because it requires a massive amount of magic power to capture and aim at countless enemies, it ends up consuming magic power not much different from large-scale magic, so it’s a magic with not very good cost-performance.

“I understand it’s amazing, but…”

Liliera sighs while looking around the surroundings.

“Isn’t it considerably tough to harvest the subjugation parts of this many orcs?”

“A-Ahaha… well, yeah.”

Yeah, that’s true. Even in my previous life, I used this magic to protect a facility, but everyone had a terrible time dealing with the corpses of the remaining monsters.

That’s why this magic became obsolete.

“Wouldn’t it have been better to just blow them away normally with magic…”

Ugh, when you say that…

“Munch munch, Kyuu.”

Ah, Mofumofu is eating the orcs.

“…How about we tell him to leave only the proof of subjugation parts and let Mofumofu eat the rest?”

“No no, as expected that’s impossible. It’s 20,000, you know?”

“Munch munch munch.”

Hmm, I thought it was a good idea, though.

“…Hah!? W-Woah!? What is thiiiiis!?”

While we were talking about such things, suddenly Og‘s surprised voice could be heard.

“Ah, the old man returned to his senses.”

“H-Hey hey hey hey, what on earth is the meaning of this!?”

“Umm, this and that.”

“Munch munch munch.”

“I see, so that’s how it is… wait, what’s that!? Is magic really that anything-goes!?”

“Impossible, impossible, Rex‘s magic is special.”

“Indeed. We couldn’t possibly use magic like this.”

“Munch munch munch.”

No, if you properly train in magic power control and magic capacity improvement, I think even Mina and Norb could use it.

“Besides, the work of harvesting monster subjugation parts is manual labor. We have to take the time and effort to report it to the Guild Master too.”

Only that is troublesome.

“Hm? In that case, how about issuing a request to the guild and having folks with free time help with the harvesting? We defeated 20,000 of them. There should be higher species too, so even including the cost of helpers, we’d be in the black, right?”

” ” ” ” “Ah.” ” ” ” “

“Munch munch munch.”

N-Now that you mention it, that might be true.

” ” ” ” “A genius… as expected of a former A-rank.” ” ” ” “

“Hm? Well yeah. Using people well is also necessary for a knight.”

As expected of Og. He easily solved this problem!

“Alriight! Then let’s return to the town of Togai and hire adventurers!”

” ” ” ” “Agreeeed!” ” ” ” ” “

“Munch munch munch.”