<h4>Chapter 132: Mountain of Spears, Forest of Swords</h4>
Crockta discovered stars on the people’s foreheads.
<i>‘They are yers.’</i>
The information about the Forest of Monsters became known to yers after the north opened up. yers began to visit the forest as a new hunting ground thanks to Crockta and his friends getting rid of the Behemoth.
The group of yers were calmly carrying out their formation and engaging in a battle with the herd of trolls.
The warriors held back the enemies at the front, and the attackers from behind bombarded the enemy. It was a ssicbat strategy, but theycked firepower.
The trolls were incredibly strong thanks to the mana of the ck Forest, and their wounds healed immediately. They aggressively swung their clubs and crude weapons at the yers.
A troll drove a rusty axe into a yer.
“Ack!”
“Pull him back!”
“It’s toote!”
The trolls abandoned their opponents and charged at the injured yer. They singled him out and ruthlessly swung their weapons at him, rendering him to a bloody pulp.
The yers stepped back at the grotesque sight. The corpse soon dissolved into white particles and began to disappear.
“Crazy trolls!”
Although the trolls had been injured as well, they healed rapidly as blood foamed up at the site of their injuries. Although the source of the mana that had saturated the Forest of Monsters had disappeared, its effects still lingered.
ording to the message from the system, it would take fifty years for the effects topletely disappear. The trolls that had been exposed to such dark energy were different from the trolls the yers knew. They were monsters whose abilities had been enhanced to diabolical levels!
The trolls charged again. They paid no heed to the magicians’ bombardment and clung onto the yers, forcing the yers to raise their shields at the trolls’ indiscriminate approach.
“Help!”
But not all of them were swordsmen with shields. Those who didn’t use shields had no way of blocking the troll’s attacks and were forced to engage in fiercebat with the trolls.
“I should have gotten a shield, dammit!”
A warrior with a huge greatsword broke away from the formation.
“What are you doing?!”
“There’s no point in just standing there! Let’s fight!”
“You crazy...!”
“Everyone, let’s fight!”
He swung his huge ymore. Despite his recklessness, he disyed precise swordsmanship.
The trolls quickly moved to surround him, but he persistently retreated to blind spots to avoid being surrounded.
The magiciansunched fireballs at the horde of trolls. A few trolls copsed and writhed in pain from the burns.
With the opening, the man swung his greatsword at the troll’s neck. The troll’s head fell off.
Even trolls with astounding regenerative abilities couldn’t recover after their heads were cut off, but it didn’t matter; there were still a lot of trolls left.
The other yers came forward to help the man with the greatsword. They charged at the trolls with their shields, leading to a closebat battle.
The magicians, no longer able to discern who their enemies or allies were, refrained from using attack spells and resorted to strengthening their allies’ weapons with magical power.
“Die!”
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
Crockta, Tiyo, and Anor observed the fierce battle with their arms crossed.
“Ohh, they are quite good,”mented Tiyo.
“They still have a long way to go,” replied Crockta.
“Is it okay if we don’t help?” asked Tiyo.
“They are all yers. They have received the curse of the stars. They wille alive again,” Crockta grumbled.
“The trolls are getting pushed back. The troll named Drog at the ck Forest was much better at fighting than them,” said Anor.
“That guy is a monster, not a troll!” shouted Tiyo.
The momentum on both sides intensified. There was a man with a greatsword at the front of the yers’ side. He fiercely swung his greatsword and was putting on an impressive performance
But he failed to live up to Crockta’s standards. “He has too many useless movements.” But he still eyed the man warily.
Although the man’s greatsword was much smaller than the Ogre yer, it was a ymore that could be categorized as a greatsword. Crockta couldn’t help but pay attention as someone who used the same type of weapon.
The moment he thought the yers would end up winning if things continued like this, a shriek shook the forest.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
A new monster appeared. The yers’ faces fell as despair crept up inside them. A creature muchrger than them had appeared when they were about to finally defeat the trolls. An ogre that had feasted on the dark energy of the forest and turned into a mutant—the two-headed ogre had appeared.
“You moron! Look what happened!”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“How can a guide lead us all the way to the end of the forest?”
“I was confused!”
The yers began fighting among themselves. It seemed like they hadn’t nned to venture so deeply into the forest, but the guide had gotten lost and they had ended up here.
The yers and the trolls tentatively stepped back from the ogres. When an overwhelming predator appeared, even foxes and wolves had to exercise caution.
A two-headed ogre picked up a rock. Although it was a giant rock, it lifted it up with ease as if it was a small pebble. The ogre threw it.
<i>Thud!</i>
It hit a troll’s head and crushed it into pieces. The troll’s headless body dropped on its knees and copsed. Bubbles of blood foamed up at the site of the amputation to regenerate flesh, but it wasn’t possible to restore a whole head. The corpse writhed and then went limp.
The yers’ faces grew pale at the sight of the tenacious trolls copsing in an instant.
The ogre roared, “Keuhhhhhhhh!”
Then, it stomped its feet and charged at the trolls and the yers. It swung its fists and club indiscriminately, sending its victims flying in the air.
“Ahhhhhh!” screamed a yer.
The ogre grabbed a yer and began devouring them with loud crunching noises. As the yer’s lifeless form dissolved into white particles and vanished, the ogre’s face twisted into a scowl, and it began to attack its surroundings even more violently.
“I should take action.”
Crockta wasn’t worried about the yers who coulde back to life after being killed, but their travels were getting dyed as the battle intensified. He wanted to quickly return to Quantes and enjoy a hot bath and delicious food. Crockta raised his Ogre yer.
“As expected of the chieftain,” teased Tiyo.
“Indeed, he leads by example,” chimed in Anor.
Crockta ignored what Tiyo and Anor said and stepped forward. The ogre was ruthlessly ughtering trolls and yers. Thepletely dismantled party of yers scattered in all directions as they fled in chaos.
“What? Dammit! There’s even an orc!” A yer saw Crockta and stopped in his tracks, but Crockta just walked past him.
“Huh...?”
The yer looked back in surprise as Crockta ignored him and walked forward. The orc went past all of the fleeing yers and advanced toward the ogre. The orc’s huge de shed brilliantly.
“Greatsword...?”
Orcs typically wielded axes, hammers, and halberds. Although there were orcs who carried greatswords, they were extremely rare, and among the rare group of orcs, one very famous orc stood out.
“Could it be..? Nah, it can’t be...”
But he couldn’t take his eyes off of the orc. A faint energy like heat waves rose from his body. He seemedpletely separated from the world. Although the orc was just walking, he seemed to be moving in apletely different method. There was something different about that orc.
The ogre discovered the orc and approached him as he swung his huge club. The orc walked toward him without showing any signs of fear. The distance between them narrowed.
“Keuooooooh!” The ogres struck the ground with its club. With an explosive sound, dust and dirt scattered everywhere. His field of vision blurred.
“Ugh!”
“What!”
The orc’s destructive power shook the ground. He couldn’t see anything because of the aftermath of the blow. The yers coughed among the cloud of dust.
Suddenly, a warm liquid sttered over them. A yer who was iling around amid the dust ran his fingers through his hair. “Huh...?”
He saw dark red liquid on his fingers.
Eventually, the dust settled, and the yers raised their heads. They eximed at the sight that was revealed in front of them.
“...!”
The two-headed ogre was slumped down, and his two heads were rolling across the ground. The red liquid on them was the fountain of blood that had scattered from the ogre’s heads as they flew across the sky.
As soon as he realized it, the metallic smell of blood stung his nose.
“Oh my god...”
The orc who had beheaded the ogre in an instant was now walking in search of another opponent. His greatsword was immacte without even a spot of blood. The dark tattoos that seemed to be vibrating on the orc’s body caught his eye
<i>‘Terrifying face, red bandana, an entire body full of tattoos, and a greatsword...’</i>
“Could it be...!”
He realized who the orc was and eximed, “That orc is...!” He was about to excitedly shout at the yers around him when he realized that everyone had run off and disappeared. There were only trolls around him now.
He met eyes with a troll. “Um...”
Before he could even say anything, the troll swung its club. The world around him spun. His body soared through the air, and his vision shook. Although he had experienced death in <i>Elder Lord</i> many times, it felt unnerving each time. Within the haze of death, he thought he saw the orc splitting another ogre’s stomach.
***
More ogres appeared from the forest, but Crockta got rid of all of them. In the past, he had leveled up as he struggled against them, but he now felt like he was massacring low-level opponents. Things were getting tedious.
He looked around him.
“Tsk, tsk.”
He didn’t see any yers. They had either be corpses and disappeared or ran off to the Forest of Monsters. Those who escaped would die in the hands of monsters anyway, so it didn’t matter. If they had resisted until the end while maintaining their formation, a few could have survived.
“Nothing has changed.”
Aside from high-ranking yers who always aimed higher or ns that instigated war, regr yers were a mess inrge groups.
The few remaining trolls eyed Crockta warily and then disappeared into the forest.
Tiyo and Anor drove their karuks toward Crockta.
“Good work Crockta,” said Tiyo.
“Everyone ran away. They could have survived if they had stayed still,” remarked Anor.
“Can’t believe they left without saying thanks. How pathetic.”
Crockta shrugged. The yers probably hadn’t expected a single orc to ughter all of these ogres. It couldn’t be helped.
They would have to start over after being killed by the monsters. Crockta expected them to die several more times before they could escape the Forest of Monsters.
Crockta got on his karuk again. They were heading straight to Quantes from the Forest of Monsters. “Then, let’s get going again.”
As soon as they were about to resume their travels, they felt a presence behind them. Crockta and his friends turned their heads to look. A yer was tentatively walking toward them.
“Hmm...?”
It was the yer they saw earlier, the one who used a greatsword. He looked at Crockta, Tiyo, and Anor in session. He hesitated first, and then asked, “Are you guys leaving the Forest of Monsters?”
Crockta nodded.
“Then, if you don’t mind, can I please go with you guys? It’s hard for me to get out of here on my own...”
He had an extremely cautious attitude after witnessing Crockta’s prowess and realizing that Crockta was a monster who could easily defeat several ogres on his own. It was hard for even a high-ranker to disy such skill. The yer was certain that Crockta was a royal NPC with a title or a named NPC on that level.
Crockta exchanged looks with Tiyo and Anor. They shrugged. Crockta nodded. “Sure, why not?”
Thus, they ended up traveling with the yer named Kenzo, who was also a warrior.
Crockta believed Kenzo was just a hardcore gamer who didn’t know much about trending videos or news about high-rankers. He didn’t seem to know about Crockta at all and thought of him as just a super strong NPC.
Without exchanging much conversation, they continued to make their way out of the forest. Monsters didn’t dare approach them because they smelled like ogre blood.
They asionally ran into groups of yers hunting monsters, but they were able to reach the end of the forest without any conflict thanks to Kenzo carefully exining their situation to the yers. As they exited the dense forest, <i>Elder Lord’s </i>sky spread out in front of them. Crockta was happy to see the sky of the continent again.
“I have returned! Yahoooo!” shouted Tiyo.
Anor was excited at seeing the continent’s scenery for the first time. “It’s nice.”
The continent looked much livelierpared to the empty wastnds of the north. Crockta took a deep breath. He felt like he had returned home.
Then, he suddenly locked eyes with Kenzo. “Ah, good work. You will be fine from this point.”
There was nothing dangerous from here and onward. Crockta grinned and gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. Although Kenzo was just a brief acquaintance, Crockta felt a strange closeness with this man who also wielded the weapon of real men—the greatsword.
“I wish you luck,” said Crockta.
“Let’s go, Crockta!” urged Tiyo.
“Are we going to Quantes? I have to see it for myself after Tiyo boasted about it so much. I can’t believe hot wateres out from the faucets.”
“Haha, you country bumpkin dark elf!”
The others paid no heed to Kenzo. Crockta was about to head to Quantes with his friends after bidding farewell to Kenzo when...
"Wait!" shouted Kenzo.
Crockta''s friends looked back. “...?”
Kenzo hesitated and then stood in front of Crockta. Then, he dropped to his knees. “Please ept me as your disciple!”