“Ogre, don't you find this tastes awful?”
Watching Ogre eat an elven green-fruit he had just picked along the way, Lange finally couldn't help but ask the question.
He suspected Ogre's sense of taste might be different from his own.
“Awful? I suppose it is a bit bad,” Ogre replied indifferently.
“And here I thought your taste buds were different from mine,” Lange muttered softly under his breath.
“I've been eating them since I was a kid, so I'm used to it.” Ogre finished munching on the fruit he had just picked by the roadside. If the fruit didn't taste bad, how would it have ever been his turn to eat it?
Although Ogre's staple food had long since shifted to various meats, his childhood habit of eating these fruits still remained.
Aside from its terrible taste, this kind of fruit, which could quickly replenish stamina, really had no other drawbacks.
“Give me one too.”
Folke had thrown up earlier, leaving his stomach empty. He felt it would be good to put something inside to suppress that sensation.
Even if it was this bitter stuff, the fruit was indeed helpful for clearing away the metallic taste of blood.
Just smelling it earlier had already made him feel a lot more clearheaded.
“Hmm? Oh, sure.” Ogre handed over one of the fruits he had just picked. It was free, after all.
Still, he felt a bit surprised—this young master could actually tolerate this taste.
He had offered one to Folke before, but Folke had thrown it away after just a single bite.
Er... actually, he seemed to have spat out that bite too.
Watching Folke take the fruit, Lange was just as surprised. No matter how dense he was, he could feel that the young master he followed seemed to be somewhat different now.
He had become more restrained, seemed to have grown more confident, and there was another indescribable change about him.
‘This is the man I, Lange, should follow!’ Lange suddenly felt that perhaps Folke really stood a chance of becoming the family heir,
someone who could lead him to defeat his half-brothers who looked down on him.
‘Perhaps this is the difference between a legitimate son and a bastard son like me...’ Lange couldn't quite wrap his head around what that change was, and ultimately attributed it to the difference between legitimate and illegitimate birth.
A noble's legitimate son was naturally superior to an illegitimate one—this was only to be expected, and it was what he had always believed.
“We're almost there,” Ogre spoke up to remind them.
Though he had walked in a seemingly casual and frivolous manner along the way, he was actually observing their surroundings at every single moment.
And his dynamic vision made it easy for him to discern things over a kilometer away.
Folke, brow furrowed as he patiently and with full concentration wrestled with the fruit, was only halfway through it when he heard Ogre's reminder. He lifted his head and immediately spotted a river flowing continuously in the distance.
Where there was water, there were usually villages—this meant their destination was close at hand.
“How about I go and clear them out?” Lange said as he put his helmet back on and drew his one-handed sword.
The clearing he referred to was of the mana wolves drinking by the river. Having walked all this way, his hands were itching for action; those weak goblins from before really hadn't been enough to satisfy his urge to cut things down.
The deeper they ventured into the forest, the more frequently monsters appeared.
“No need. This pack of mana wolves won't attack us unless they're starving,” Ogre said, raising a hand.
The food of mana wolves was typically weaker herbivores like mana rabbits and mana deer.
They wouldn't take the risk of attacking humans—whom they saw as fair-skinned, tall 'goblins'—especially when the latter were traveling in a group.
The strong preying on the weak was ever the rule of the forest.
Yet humans who could appear in the Forest of Magical Beasts were never weak. On the contrary, humans in the forest were terrifying existences at the top of the food chain—after all, those who came here were basically either Professionals or professional hunters.
“It's better not to disturb them. Let's not make any pointless expenditures of stamina.”
Unless it was to obtain food, Ogre would always try his best to maintain his optimal state before a fight.
People said the arenas were cruel, but the Forest of Magical Beasts at night was far more terrifying and brutal than any cricket-fighting ring of those nobles.
“Don't look for extra trouble—Lange, try to follow Ogre's advice while we are here,” Folke emphasized.
“Alright... Young Master.”
This time, Lange didn't harbor any negative feelings toward Folke's warning.
For one, Ogre's performance throughout their journey had thoroughly convinced him.
For another, Lange had also just realized his own slip-up—he wasn't alone now; he was in a team.
In an environment like the Forest of Magical Beasts, he couldn't act as willfully as he did back in the city; he had to protect Folke.
“Let's go. It shouldn't be much further,” Ogre said, swallowing the remaining half of the fruit whole.
“Are we going to do the same thing as before in a bit?” Serandic asked. He noticed that Ogre hadn't formulated any sort of plan this time.
“No...” Ogre shook his head. He pulled out his striped mask and put it on before announcing his plan. “This time, we're going to charge straight in from the rear and slaughter our way through.”
The village was too large. If the goblins occupying it decided to run, they definitely wouldn't be able to handle it using their cave-goblin strategy.
Therefore, the best plan was to quickly breach the perimeter and directly eliminate the leader of those goblins.
Without a leader, the remaining goblins would be nothing but a disorganized rabble.
However, the goblin raiders who dared to occupy an abandoned village were bound to be much stronger and far more numerous than those cave goblins.
Because of this, Ogre hadn't directly rushed in when he first discovered this place.
Originally, Ogre had planned to kill the Goblin King after promoting to a Professional before returning to clear out this place along the way.
Since this abandoned village was quite far from human settlements, it usually didn't pose much of a threat to humans.
After all, Ogre had no confidence in completely wiping out the goblins here if he charged in single-handedly.
So it was better to leave it for now and handle it later.
But things were different now.
With the help of Folke and Serandic, Ogre felt they could use this abandoned village to practice, and who knows—they might just steamroll the entire place.
As for danger...
It was certainly much less risky than going in alone. Ogre believed that a noble apprentice like Folke was bound to have some life-saving items on him.
At the very least, they should be able to retreat unscathed.
“In that case, I'll be responsible for the opening attack,” Folke said, gripping his staff tightly.
“No, Folke.”
Ogre shook his head and explained, “Your mana should be saved for more important moments. I suspect there are goblin knights in this village. Just leave the ordinary goblins to us.”
The strength of mature goblin knights was highly unstable, but most of them were roughly at the quasi-Professional level (which was the standard for Ogre and the others' unarmed strength).
Of course, the gap between a quasi-Professional and a quasi-Professional Apprentice was also very large, but this didn't mean a goblin knight could beat a quasi-Professional Apprentice like Ogre in a duel.
Compared to well-equipped humans who possessed inherited martial techniques, elite goblins who had awakened knight qualities were only slightly better than the weakest tier of Professional Apprentices.
After all, if they were truly powerful, goblins wouldn't have been driven to the outer fringes of the forest.
‘However, for a group of goblins to give up their environmental advantages and gather together so far away from humans, it feels rather fishy...’
The more Ogre thought about it, the more he felt there might actually be some good treasure hidden inside this dilapidated village. The stronger the monsters, the better the nearby resources usually were.
“Fine,” Folke agreed to Ogre's plan with a nod, not being difficult about it.
Experts always saved their performance for the grand finale, after all.
Having roughly settled on their charge tactics, Ogre's group soon arrived at the outskirts of this goblin-infested village.
...
Not long after Ogre and the others departed.
A mana wolf still drinking by the river was suddenly clamped around its fragile lower back by a bloody maw that surged out of the water in a surprise attack.
Its vital point crushed, the mana wolf died instantly on the spot, turning into prey for that bloody maw.
Upon seeing this, the other mana wolves scattered and retreated as if facing a formidable enemy.
They watched the riverbank warily, waiting for the alpha's command.
They probably never would have expected that a mana-swamp crocodile from the central marshes of the Forest of Magical Beasts would swim all the way here!
Fortunately, this unconventional mana-swamp crocodile did not continue its attack, but merely carrying the freshly killed mana wolf in its jaws, it slowly vanished back into the river.
Only a wash of blood-red floating down the current hinted that a terrifying giant beast had once hidden within these waters.
If a human Professional had been watching from the side at this moment, they would have been able to directly notice an anomaly on this mana-swamp crocodile.
Because this mana-swamp crocodile's eyes were blue.
This kind of eerie blue hue, rather than a racial trait... if it appeared on a monster,
there was basically only one possible answer—
this monster had a mage master!
Rate on N.U.
