Heroine Survival Vol 3 Chapter 6

Orc Subjugation

I would hold back a group of orc that included a rank 5 by myself for a month.

Anyone would surely consider me crazy or suicidal if they only heard  that sentence. I thought that it would cause some argument in a good or  bad sense when I announced that, but perhaps I had threatened everyone  too much with my pressure, because everyone there consented instead.

The number of enemies based on the previously obtained information  was more than fifty normal orcs who were equivalent to rank 3 each, four  orc soldiers who were equivalent to rank 4 each, and then an orc  general who was a rank 5. Militias with no combat skill wouldn’t even  serve as meat shield if they fought such group head on. Even soldiers  with proper training would need ten times the orc’s number in order to  match them.

Thinking properly, anyone should think that a hundred or more  adventurers and soldiers would be needed just to hold back such group of  orc.

……That was based on “proper” thinking.

Perhaps I would be able to find the house where Gil and Shuri were  living in if I searched for it but, I had no intention of looking after  someone I didn’t know. If Gil and Shuri’s little brother and stepmother  planned to run away then I’d at least buy them time to do that. But, it  would be their own choice whether to run or stay here.

I had heard about the general location of the orc group from the  guild’s receptionist lady, but the soldier who first talked to me told  me about the location in more detail. I then headed toward the orc’s  base right at that same day without staying for the night.

I was told that it was two days distance from here with the average  adventurer’s speed, so I should be able to shorten it to around half a  day if it was me.

The location had a village until around ten years ago, so there  should be a road for carriage to there, but now that road had been  reduced into animal trail now after ten years had passed.

I tried examining the ground when the road turned into grassy place  midway. I found large footprints that had passed through there recently,  so it seemed that I wasn’t heading to a wrong way.

After that I found several more spots that had similar footprints.  From there I guessed that the orcs weren’t moving independently but in  group of around three.

Orc’s intelligence was something like above goblin but below human,  however higher rank monster had the tendency of getting smarter, so I  could catch some glimpses even just from the footprints and trails I  found that the orcs were under a leadership.

I wouldn’t say that I couldn’t defeat a group of orc that consisted  of at least three orcs, but the opponents were still rank 3 monsters  despite everything. It was possible that they would call for help if I  failed to defeat all of them.

Monster’s strength wasn’t in their flexibility and adaptability from  having multiple skills like human, but their brute force from their  single skill and high status. An orc’s combat strength was only around  half of mine despite also being a rank 3, but I would be in disadvantage  if I faced more than one of them due to their high stamina point. I  wouldn’t be able to whittle down their stamina completely in a  protracted battle.

Besides even if I defeated some orcs, the other orcs could discover  their corpses and learned that they were under attack. In that case they  might attack the town as revenge.

The omnivorous orcs were staling the corps remaining in the farms  outside the town, so they weren’t troubled for food until now, but just  like human, surely they would get greedy after their basic need was  fulfilled and they would want meat next.

Orc was omnivorous. And they liked meat more than vegetable. I  guessed they were also hunting around the abandoned village, but if they  ran out of game there, the orcs would definitely attack the small town  for “meat”.

「……But」

I mustn’t misunderstand here. I wasn’t a hero or a saint.

What I had to do wasn’t “exterminating” the orcs. I mustn’t forget  that in the end my objective was only to “buy time” until the town’s  residences escaped. To do that, what I needed to do wasn’t hunting the  orcs who were procuring food and driving them into a corner, but  maintaining the current situation.

A self-deprecating smile formed on my lips as I was considering such strategy.

「……The’s no such thing as “proper” strategy at this point of time though.」

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I advanced through the forest while keeping myself hidden. Half a day  passed before I encountered orcs walking inside the forest. As I  thought they seemed to be moving in a team of three. It was very  troublesome but they weren’t beyond my means to defeat.

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▼Orc（Ordinary Type）　Race：Beast Demihuman・Rank３

【Magic Power：72／80】【Stamina：３９２／４２０】

【Overall Combat Strength：２７９（With Body Strenghtening：３２０）】

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It seemed they were equipped with rusty spear or crude stone axe, but  I should be warier toward their stamina parameter. It was possible that  I wouldn’t be able to finish them off even with surprise attack when  their stamina was that high.

They weren’t carrying any prey with them so these orcs were most  likely patrols against external enemy that dared entered their  territory. In that case I would only put the orcs in high alert  pointlessly if this team didn’t go back. Even if I wanted to target them  I could only wait until they were very far away from their settlement.

After that I encountered another orcs several times. I hid inside a  bush to wait them to pass me or crawl on the ground to slip from their  side. Then I finally arrived at the abandoned village where the orc  group was living.

It looked like that village originally had logs driven into the  ground to act as wall that surrounded it, but some spots had become very  damaged or rotten now. The orcs only piled some rocks half-heartedly at  those spots to block the hole.

I returned into the forest temporarily, then slathered my mantel with  the soil and mud of the area to cover up my figure and scent. I also  slathered mood on my face and hair.

From here, I couldn’t be discovered by them even once.

They mustn’t detect me even once until I had finished all my “preparations”.

I had a meal that only consisted of a bit of dried meat and nutrition  pills that were made with alchemy. I hid myself by clinging on a tall  tree trunk until it became dark at night.

When I saw that the surrounding had become dark enough, I placed  rabbit leather on the bottom of my boots. It was a countermeasure to  erase my footstep’s sound. I blended the magic particles inside my body  with the surrounding using Magic Power Control that had become level 4.  Using Stealth that had also became level 4 thanks to Magic Power  Control, I became a “shadow” inside the darkness and started moving.

I didn’t touch the orcs. I didn’t put my hand on them even when there was a chance.

According to that woman’s “knowledge”, one should approach from  downwind when moving stealthily. But that method was only half correct  in this world.

If it was me who erased my “human” scent with sorcery Clean and  blended to the surrounding using mud scent, rather than purposefully  going against the wind direction and creating an unnatural flow of air, I  should instead match my moving speed with the slow night breeze. With  that my existence could completely melted into the darkness.

*Hyun…….*

I wrapped my pendulum around the wall’s rotten log and infiltrated into the abandoned village soundlessly.

Calculating based on the village’s size and the number of still  remaining houses, this village’s population should be around 500 people.  The farms that should have been outside the village had been swallowed  by the forest, but there were also some places inside the abandoned  village that seemed to be a farm with wild grasses covering them.  Surrounded by those unattended farms were forty houses at the center,  and another thirty houses spread out at the east, west, south. The orcs  were using those half rotten houses as they pleased.

First I investigated the accurate number and positions of the orcs. I  checked how many orcs there were in each section. And then I would  search the locations of the orc general and orc soldiers. I wouldn’t be  able to make detailed plan without first knowing that.

I investigated those until morning. The result was that at the west  there were around 15 orcs and one orc soldier. At the east there were  only several orcs who doubled as sentinels. At the south there were less  than twenty orcs and one orc soldier.

At the center there were around fifteen orcs and two orc soldiers. I  assumed that the general was also somewhere at the center. I only  assumed that because I judged that it would be dangerous to approach  that place that was emitting a strong presence.

I didn’t grasp the accurate number but just a rough count because  there were several orcs that were patrolling at night. I couldn’t get  the accurate count, but even so my count shouldn’t be that much  different from the number of fifty orcs that was the result of the  investigation of the adventurer that the baron hired.

I returned to the forest before dawn came and put some distance away  from the abandoned village before I started picking some will grasses.

I picked herbs that could be used as medicine and poisonous herbs.  Some of the plants that grew in this area could be turned into poison  when combined with the ingredients that I had at hand. Plants that could  be eaten raw would become my food.

Insects or frogs would be more poisonous when making poison using  ingredients from this kind of forest, but it would be pointless if I  couldn’t secure the necessary amount, so I limited the ingredients to  only plants from the start.

I also found a rare mushroom that could be used for either poison or  medicine, so I gathered as much vines as I could and hung the mushroom  on a tall tree to dry it.

I wasn’t doing just that for the whole day. I also had to observe the  orcs’ activity and the movement range of the orcs that weren’t outside  for procuring food.

Letting my guard down would lead to exposing that town to danger  seeing that I didn’t know when the orcs would change their action and  invaded that town. I felt uneasy with my stamina if this turned into a  long haul but, I would manage somehow if I could take multiple naps for  that totaled to three hours of sleep per day, with each nap lasting for  five minutes at maximum.

.

After I continued living like that for one week, I became able to predict the broad action pattern of the orcs.

There were around ten orcs that would go gathering crops from around  the town once every three days. I thought they were the orcs that  attacked the town at the beginning but, from the two times I witnessed  their departure, they were accompanied by an orc soldier once.

And every day when morning came, there would around ten orcs that  went hunting for animal at the same time, but all of them were small and  young orcs with lower combat strength.

As for me, although I was managing my physical condition using pills,  I could only manage my perfect state of health for around one week that  way. So I took time to consume the dried meats in my possession and the  fruits I gathered inside the forest far from the abandoned village. I  unexpectedly managed to find a lot of wild beans and yams, but as  expected eating them raw wasn’t delicious at all.

I had collected all the required information in this one week, so I would begin taking action soon.

The first step of my strategy was 『hunting animal』, but it wasn’t for me to eat.

I understood from my observation that the hunting of the orcs wasn’t  going well. They were a race with big body and unsuited for stealth, so  even with ten orcs going hunting, there were some days when they  couldn’t even catch a single prey. In such day they would grab whole  branches of berry in the forest to bring home.

It was obvious but, the high rank orcs preferred meat rather than  beans or vegetables, that was why the orcs were going hunting every day.  And so in order to delay the orcs from attacking the town in search of  meat, I hunted for rabbits and deers and placed them around the  abandoned village.

Human wouldn’t lay their hand on some random animal corpse unless it  was an emergency. They would be suspicious if they found something like  that, but the orcs might be misunderstanding the corpses as something  that their comrades hunted. The orcs would rejoice when they found the  fresh animal corpse and brought them home in high spirits.

At the same time I was also starting to prepare the ingredients to create a poison that was suitable for the situation.

It was very difficult to create poisons for fifty targets inside a  forest where I had no alchemical tool, so I was doing it slowly for now.

I dried the poisonous grasses and mushrooms, created a bowl and a  pestle using Hard to process them, then used the medicine and  ingredients on hand to create “poison”.

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It was the second week now but, the orcs still hadn’t made any  movement. Perhaps it was because I was continuously providing them meat.  All my preparations until now would be wasted if they took action now,  so I moved to the second step of my strategy.

What was important for that strategy was the fact that despite being  monsters that attacked humans, the orcs were still “living things” that  ate food and drank water.

The well in the abandoned village had been buried by the accumulation  of dry leaves that rotted into soil for these ten years, but there was  just one reservoir inside the village where water welled up. Even so the  water there was dirty and muddy, but monsters like orc could drink it  with no problem.

I split the finished poison into unglazed jars in small portion to  preserve them. I infiltrated into the abandoned village when night came  and mixed the poison into that reservoir bit by bit.

I mixed the poison bit by bit, to familiarize the orc with the medicinal “taste”.

Half-assed poison wouldn’t work well against orc that could consume  even muddy water or rotten meat. It also wasn’t just a matter of taste,  the orcs would be on their guard if I suddenly mix a lot of poison and  their physical condition worsened. They would stop consuming the poison  like that, so I only increased the amount of the poison bit by bit to a  degree that the effect was faint.

That wasn’t the only thing I did. I also sneaked into the houses  where the orcs were sleeping and mixed poison into their scattered  foods. Of course I was also gradually mixing poison into the animal  corpses I provided them.

Other than that, I also had a bit of acid. I slathered it on the  joining points of the weapons that the orcs carelessly placed outside  the houses in order to weaken their weapons’ durability.

Patiently and thoroughly……the 『malice』 that was 『me』 was permeating into the orcs.

I didn’t do anything foolish like getting impatient and lying my hand on them.

I wasn’t someone powerful like Feld or Grave. I didn’t overestimate  myself so much that I thought I would be able to continue defeating them  bit by bit in group of two or three until they all died by my hands.

My failure would directly lead to the death of many people. If I  carelessly took action and the orcs’ action surpassed my expectation for  even just a little, that would become the place where I died.

Failure couldn’t be permitted. I couldn’t give even the slightest chance for the orcs to counterattack.

That was why facing this large army of the orcs that was like a giant  rock, I didn’t use a great sword to split it open or breaking it from  the sides using hammer, instead I whittled a hole into it using a needle  to pour in “malice(poison)”.

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But, even that would reach the limit soon…….

The poison that I used wasn’t anything significant. In the first  place it was just 『medicine』 that couldn’t even be called poison. What I  used was just common “medicines” like laxative or medicine to treat  nasal inflammation.

There was no need for me to explain what laxative was. It was  originally something that was used to eject poisonous substance from  inside the body, but it would cause dehydration when it got used for  long period and lowered the stamina.

And then the nasal inflammation medicine had the effect of reducing  snot when someone caught fever. However, it would make the throat became  abnormally dry as the side effect. And then it would make the orcs  drank the water more and more, bringing in more of my malice to gnaw  inside the orcs…….

After three weeks passed, almost all of the orcs were starting to get dehydration symptom.

It was then the orcs finally started to consider that something was  causing this. It seemed that they thought the cause came from eating the  dropped meats.

They were half correct because I had also mixed the poison into the  meats. There the orcs that were in charge of hunting and made to rest  because of the dehydration symptom and the orcs that were in charge of  stealing crops from the town were sent outside the abandoned village in  order to look for foods other than meat.

But they soon ran out of food with just that. The higher rank orcs  that preferred meat should choose to attack the town after this.

There was one more week until the evacuation of the residents who  could run away was finished……I sensed that my effort to buy time in this  way would reach its limit soon, so I started with the last step of the  strategy, which was me directly stopping them.

Three orcs were walking inside the forest. They were carrying furs  that they used as bag instead of large weapon, so they were most likely  planning to gather fruits and wild plants that seemed edible instead of  hunting.

But, their condition was different from three weeks ago. They seemed  lifeless and it looked like just walking through the undulating ground  of the forest was a difficult task for them.

……I would manage somehow if it was like this.

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▼Orc（Ordinary Type）　Race：Beast Demihuman・Rank３

【Magic Power：54／82】【Stamina：117／39０】

【Overall Combat Strength：154/283】▽45％DOWN

【Status：Weakened】

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*Tan* I kicked on the branch and leaped down from the tree where I  was looking down on the orcs. I readied Galbas’s black dagger and put my  whole body’s weight to the stabbing the blade into the skull of the orc  whose combat strength had been halved.

*Gatsun-!*

『BUMOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!!』

Even then it didn’t die instantly and let out a death throe. The  other two reacted and yelled in warning. But, their voices wouldn’t  reach the other orcs from this location.

The remaining orcs yelled while attacking me simultaneously with their rusty axe and hatchet.

*Hyun-!*

『Buoo!?』

The blade of the pendulum that I made to circle around grazed an  orc’s eye. I kicked up the rotten leaves under my foot to the face of  the other one, blocking its sight. I readied the black dagger and a thin  knife with both hands and stabbed them together toward their brains  from below their jaws.

『Buboo……』

It was a bit hard but, even I could stab through the relaxed muscle  of orc. When I pulled out the blades that pierced the orcs from below  their jaws, *blob* blood spilled out as though they were coughing it out  and the two collapsed at the same time.

「……I don’t hold any grudge against any of you.」

You all had simply, become “our” enemies.

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