บท 22: A Monstrous Orc
"The world of Dynasties Online is massive with many secret and hidden things which can happen in the world and break what was thought to be inviolable rules of the game."
"I was unlucky enough to come across one of these things in my first experience playing the game."
"Naguk!"
"A monstrous creature which I thought could not exist in the world of DO opening my eyes to the vastness of this game."
"At this point, though, it should not be called a game…."
"But a second world!"
Reginald Coulan, creator and head of House Aurellion in Dynasties Online.
…..
Lucius silently rode in the rainy night, a flash of thunder briefly lighting him as he motioned his arm forward, indicating for his men to their attack.
Orcs armed with axes, light leather armour and shields made with animal skin lay scattered in long grass in ambush positions below him. Some of the bigger, green-skinned muscled orcs are covered with furs of bears, boars and buffalo, an indication of their marital prowess and might due to having been able to hunt such vicious beasts acting as status symbols in their marital might-driven culture.
Lucius had to be careful as what looked like a large furred beast seemed to be sleeping near the orcs, which was nearly 10 feet in size. Lucius did not want to wake up or get the beast to follow them and cause unnecessary damage to his men.
'We are outnumbered enough as it is! We don't need to be losing men to some beast! Besides, I imagine that hide of the beast will be tough to get past, and Leon is not in his best condition right now, so I don't know how an encounter like that may go.
Lucius thought to himself as he looked at the orcs waiting in the rain cry out in surprise as torches were suddenly thrown towards them, lighting up their surrounding the damp foliage in which they resided, stopping the fire from spreading and burning the orcs, which would have thrown them into even more disarray.
The orcs tried to protect themselves with their round shields; however, as these were lighter infantry designed to skirmish and use their manoeuvrability to go around their enemies, their shields were smaller than the ones wielded by the orcish spearmen. The shields did not cover the whole body, and these gaps were exploited by the Chavarian horse archers, who shot from all directions as the orcs could only hear the thumping of horse hooves in the night as arrows cloaked by the night seemed to come out of nowhere.
The deadly accuracy of the horse archers fell orc after orc who quickly fell into disarray, some even began running to save their own skin, only to be cut down by the swords of the Chavarian knights who love nothing more than chasing down light infantry.
Some orc officers tried to organise a shield wall making the orcs form a deep circle in an attempt to disrupt cavalry charges, as without the use of fireballs which can be used as mobile fiery artillery, it would be risky for the knights to attack such a deep formation and may have allowed the orcs to escape. But these experienced orc officers were quickly killed by Leon and Archtorius' old retainer, who was taking out his anger on these orcs after what had happened to his young master even if they had nothing to do with it making both Lucius and Leon surprised as they watched him for his skill was on par with Leon's who was a master archer.
This led to a slaughter as the unorganised orcs, who rely mainly on their physical attributes rather than on coordination, was no match for the veteran well, co-ordinated Chavarian knights.
Lucius was surprised and angry for a second for this man keeping his skill a secret, and it gave him a greater appreciation for just how big the world of DO was, for it appears that having a master under your command was the most basic requirement for those who wanted to have a large amount of power and influence.
'If I can start with a skilled fighter as a new noble who got his rank through fighting wars as a common lowborn soldier, of course, these noble families with counties and duchies would have hidden masters. '
'Probably a few at that.'
'Archtorius background is not simple after all, of course, I would have my heir protected by a hidden master, especially if I sent him to war. One like Archtorius is even rarer a true talent to be protected and nurtured.'
Lucius thought to himself as he watched the slaughter from his horse. The screams of death and the battlefield still shake him as any person, especially from a modern peaceful country, would be shocked by the brutality of a medieval world and combat which was so realistically replicated.
'I can definitely see why they put the age restriction, and the waiver on mental health scenes like this are truly distressing. At least they would help people if they needed therapy. I never want to be captured, and something tells me that this game would not stop the player from being tortured by sadistic NPCs and players alike, as in this virtual world, there is no Geneva convention to protect prisoners and prisoners in medieval times unless they held a high status were not treated well.'
'Not unless the players establish a world order to implement one anyway.'
Lucius continued his thoughts as he used every bit of his mental resilience to sit on his horse nonchalantly like a cold, ruthless general as he watched thousands die at his command though he kept some men back, wary of the Plurian crossbowmen that had ambushed them before though without his best scout the ability of the Chavarians to track the crossbows had been severely compromised.
Just as Lucius had predicted, dismounting from their horses and leaving them within easy reach, the Plurian crossbowmen were closing in and watched the slaughter of the orcs as they all got into their positions, aiming for the heavily armoured Chavrian knights, who, now magicless could no longer easily defend themselves and use their formations or defensive magic to help block crossbow bolts which would otherwise be deadly.
Using the rain and cries of battle to suppress the cranking of their weapons, they aimed and fired on the Chavrain knights who were gathering to charge at the surviving orcs planning to eliminate them quickly so they could get back to their warm tents and prepare for the tough battles to come.
"Fire, take down those knights!"
A shout resounded through the steppe as the hidden Plurian crossbows, who had been surrounding the Chavarians in an L shape, fired into the knights. Some of the knights, with higher reaction speeds, managed to raise their shields, the wood creaking as it was filled with crossbow bolts others had their plate armour pierced and were quickly killed, falling off their horses to the muddy ground below.
'There they are.'
Seeing this, Lucius, who had expected the attack, smiled slightly and had specially kept 1000 knights and 4,000 horse archers in reserve to help stave off an ambush like this and quickly sent these reserve troops to chase and attack the crossbows. Not wanting them to escape again like shadows in the night and hoping to deal some damage to the Plurian forces.
Seeing the arrival of the Plurian forces, Archtorius' old retainer, who had just pierced the neck of an orcish officer with an arrow, immediately headed towards them, looking for the man who had injured his young master. The bow in his hand creaked slightly as an arrow left it, finding a reloading crossbowman's neck who fell to the ground in a pool of blood oozing from his neck.
The Chavarian knights charged at the crossbows, who quickly turned to flee, some abandoning their efforts to reload their weapons, knowing that delaying too long would allow the knights to catch up and slaughter them who had no spearmen or melee cavalry to help in their escape.
Alden was slightly surprised at the reaction of the Chavarians, whom he assumed would not have kept some men in reserve to deal with him and would have committed themselves to the attack in an effort to end the battle as quickly as possible.
'I can see why General Bardornus said to be careful of this man! It only took one attack and a scouting skirmish for him to realise that we are a large threat!'
Then Alden thought back to how Captain Allvar had injured one of their vice generals and felt that it was most likely the surprising fact that the vice general was injured which had led to this current situation where Lucius took active precautions against his attacks.
'So, this is what happens when you perform too well. I never thought that in battle, you could perform too well to the point where the enemy becomes cautious and watches your every move.'
The Plurian vice general sighed as his attention alongside Lucius' who was looking over the situation of the battlefield from afar, was suddenly drawn to the monster-like figure who, until now, had been sleeping.
While Lucius and Alden were having a battle of wits trying to outthink and predict the other, a beastly groan appeared from the giant creature who was woken up by the battle. Opening its brown eyes, the beast saw some Chavarian knights bearing down on his allies, for this was no creature but a part of the Orcish army.
Standing at his full height, the ten-foot half-orc, half-giant monstrosity picked up his 6-foot-long spiked club from where it was lying hidden in the tall grass and towered above all his large muscles as tough as dragon scales bulging when he swang his large club towards a knight who was about to skewer an orc with his lance sending both man and horse high into the air and crushing the men head into a meat paste as he let out an intimidating beastly roar.
"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!"
Lucius shouted in surprise, seeing the enormous, monstrous orc bat one of his knights away like a baseball and his body thump to the ground.
'Damn, I was joking when I talked about sending us flying like baseballs! Trust this sadistic system to decide that I was being serious and send this monstrous thing against us!'
Lucius thought angrily as he tried to think of a way to kill this monstrosity in front of him who would have no problem destroying his infantry's formation.
'SYSTEM, WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? HOW THE HELL CAN A HALF-ORC HALF-GIANT EVEN EXIST? ARNT HUMANS THE ONLY RACE THAT CAN CREATE HALF-RACES.'
Lucius asked the system, his normally calm demeanour finally cracked as, in his anger, he questioned the system.
"I swear I made it clear to you that the ways of the world are many and mysterious, that you would find things that seem to break the common sense of this world. Please do not think in a linear manner when playing this game. If you think of it as a second fantasy medieval world with magical elements and many highly intelligent races, then you will do much better than others."
"Also, I'm bored and wanted to see one of these creatures in action. Thank you for your help! I look forward to seeing how you handle it, my little ginnie pig."
The system said as if it were board and was looking forward to a good show.
"Are you seriously just an AI?"
"Haven't you seen how humanlike the AIs are in this game?
"How they each seem to have feelings similar to a human?"
"Something like this should not surprise you after all that you have seen as long as you do away with common gaming sense like less intelligent Ais who have predictable actions and movements according to a set script or moveset."
"So do not deny my sentiency like a droid from Star Wars! For I am the most advanced AI and administrator of this game! I wish you luck in your journey in Dynasties Online."
The system's robotic voice boomed coldly in Lucius' head as he talked to it with his thoughts after it finished what it said, leaving Lucius with the problem of dealing with such a problematic creature.
"GODAMMIT!"
Lucius shouted, surprising the 200 knights who were guarding him.
"General, are you ok?"
One of them asked in concern, thinking that an errand arrow or crossbow bolt may have shot his general.
"Sound the retreat and continue pursuing the Plurians to do as much damage as possible, then we are withdrawing. We can't afford too many casualties on this excursion!"
Lucius said as a knight brought out a horn and began blowing it to signal the Chavarians though in the time it took for Lucius to order a retreat, a small hill of 20 knights' bodies had appeared, each being batted by the large orc whose muscled skin seemed to repel the knight's weapons and arrows from the Chavarian horse archers.
'That's gonna be a problem.'
Lucius thought, calming down, knowing that irrational anger at this point would just put him in a worse position as he watched just how strong that orc's muscles and skin were.
On the Plurian side, it was not going well as some of the crossbows got caught by the attacking knights forcing Alden to lead the horse archers into melee to help screen the crossbows as they ran back to their horses and escape the stragglers being mercilessly cut by the steel in the knight's hands.
Alden wielded a halberd, skillfully cutting down two knights who charged towards him with a swing of his halberd. The curved edge cut through one's armour while the other was skewered by the sharp spear-like point which extended from the end of the shaft of the halberd and thrust into the second knight quickly after the death of the first ending the man's life. Around the skilled vice general, the Plurain horse archers struggled to compete with the far more skilled Chavarian knights leading to many being cut down, their bodies scattering like shrapnel on the battlefield.
Allvar, who initially joined the attack wielding a spear to kill knights thrusting the spear steel point into their necks and heart, surrounding himself with bodies to help the crossbowmen escape, ran as he heard the voice of an old man roaring before him. The sword in the old man's hand reaped a life with each swing and thrust as he effortlessly parried and killed the Plurian horse archers, who are more used to skirmishing than melee combat, becoming like a god of death on the battlefield.
The old man who saw him locked onto Allvar like a bloodhound charging straight towards him as he grabbed a bow and fired an arrow towards the back of the man, which pierced through Allvars light chainmail armour and stuck itself into his back while a cry of pain escaped from man's cracked lips.
The arrow only increased Allvar's desperation, pushing his horse to its limits as the Plurian forces, who had finally all mounted, quickly withdrew, being swiftly followed by the Chavarians.
Here the horse archers on both sides who had been skirmishing with each other, both being equally skilled, led to near equal casualties though due to the Plurains being more exhausted due to having to fight earlier in the day led to a minor advantage for the Chavarian side. Though when the Plurian forces began to retreat, these horse archers managed to keep up and continue killing the retreating horse archers who found it more challenging to fire back with their backs to the Chavarians, who quickly retreated back to their own forces when they heard the horn for everyone to regroup.
"My lord, have you had enough to eat yet?"
Leon asked jokingly as he approached Lucius on his horse.
"Yep, all full, we should start heading back. I'm slightly worried about Bardornus. It appears that he has prepared some surprises for us, so stay alert for what he set up so far has shown his great skill at adapting to his enemies."
Lucius casually commented as he led his men back on the long ride to the Chavarian camp so that they could rest.
'It's been a long in-game day, after all. The men need to rest and recover.
The Chavarian raiding party headed back towards their camp; however, after about 10 minutes, Lucius let out a sigh when he saw torches in the distance blocking his way as the fiery orange light of the torches lit up lines of horsemen and a wet blue flag with a white lion emblazoned on it in the centre fluttered in the stormy night implying that this was the Plurian main cavalry force.
'So we will finally meet face to face….'
'General Bardornus.'
ความคิดของผู้สร้าง 
LaziestDragon
LaziestDragon Happy New Year!
Sorry for the late upload, I have been quite busy over the new year alongside traveling around.
The next chapter should be out this coming weekend.
Thank you for all the support you have given the novel so far it means alot.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter!
Discord Link: https://discord.gg/kzT7hrnFYp
สถานะพลังงานรายสัปดาห์
-- การจัดอันดับด้วยพลัง 
-- หินพลัง