Chương 18: Chapter 18: End of the Battle.
The orc roared even with a hole on one side and a javelin inside him on the other side.
The armored orc was basked in the glory of its action, satisfied with what he was seeing.
Kennen felt cold and numb at the sight of James' missing upper head with the lower half still intact.
One of them died.
Sure, someone died early but he wasn't from their group so Kennen didn't feel much aside from some shock but it was one of their own this time, definitely not something he wanted to see happen even though he already thought about the possibility.
His heart further dropped to his stomach when he saw the armored stare toward them.
There was nobody between the orc and them. Amelia, Rafael and him couldn't take the orc on, none of them could fight. Moreover, Amelia was a mess as she sobbed heavily. Enzo was an archer and couldn't possibly get the orc's aggro.
The goblins weren't there as they were holding the other pig orcs back.
Frank's condition was unknown.
Their only solution was to call Evan for help but the other guy wouldn't be able to hold off the other armored orc and Evan couldn't possibly tank two armored orcs at the same time.
They were screwed either way.
However, they would at least have a chance with Evan here so Kennen quickly made the decision of getting Evan here.
"Shit! I'm on my way!" Evan yelled as he blocked another attack from the armored orc.
Evan didn't need to be told that he needed to help his friends at the back.
As he was about to go help them, he saw Frank come out the room he was thrown into,
Frank looked like he was fine if one didn't notice the blood at the corner of his mouth.
But with him coming back, Evan could focus on his own opponent and let him take care of the other. He was sure Frank wouldn't get caught twice in a row.
Kennen was relieved to see Frank was alright and the armored orc seemed to have not noticed Frank behind as it slowly approached them.
Frank didn't hesitate as he silently but quickly approached the armored orc and jumped at his back before quickly stabbing the javelin into the opening at the orc's helmet.
"AH!!!"
Frank screamed and used all his strength and weight to push in that javelin as deeply into the orc's skull as possible.
The orc roared and immediately tried to stop Frank but his hand stopped midway and the orc fell down as if it was disconnected.
Kennen felt relief at that, they were at least safe for the time being.
The death of that armored orc also meant that their chance of making out of this alife shot up by a lot.
Frank gave a sad glance toward James' body before turning his eyes away, he had to go help out Evan and hopefully kill the remaining armored orc before the goblins couldn't hold the pig orcs anymore.
Kennen looked at how his goblins were doing and saw they were doing more than fine.
The pig orcs still had to shield themselves with corpses as they approached otherwise they would be skewered by the javelins.
That wouldn't be a problem for the pig orcs if it wasn't for the goblins to be also better than them in close quarter combats. Their superior speed and agility prevented the clumsy and slow pig orcs from ever hitting them as the goblins stabbed their body full of holes.
The goblins could probably hold on for a long while if it wasn't for Kennen starting to feel exhausted. The moment he ran out of gas, the goblins would also wouldn't be able to create any more javelins and for other aspects, he didn't know.
Kennen glanced at Brandi who seemed to be in shock as she glanced at James' body in a trance and Amelia was sobbing as she approached the body but didn't dare to touch or got too close.
She had her hands extended as she wanted to touch him but it was a headless corpse. She didn't know where to touch or even look.
A red crystal formed on top of James' body, if his missing head didn't confirm his death, this definitely confirmed it, which made Amelia sob even harder.
Kennen didn't know what to say to someone who just lost their boyfriend so he let her be and checked on how his friends were doing.
"Ryan! Hit him on the nuts! On the nuts!" Evan yelled to the only augment from Michael's side who stayed.
Ryan fully charged a strike as his left hand and stuck the crotch of that armored orc.
That part was also protected by armor but Ryan's punch packed quite some kinetic force and it was in any creature's instinct to protect their sensible spot.
The armored orc instinctively slouched his body so Kennen's friends were ready to pounce on the opportunity.
Rafael binded the metal club, Enzo power shot the unprotected knee and Frank stabbed the other knee with the javelin, all of that put the armored orc to his knees, which allowed Evan to drive his javelin under the chin of that armored orc.
The roar was cut off as it felt to the ground as if its string were cut off.
Now, only a dozen normal pig orcs were remaining. Although every single of them were quite tired after repeated use of their abilities and could probably only show 60% of their peak, they could still hold on and beat the remaining pig orcs.
They had plenty of experience against them and knew what to do.
It really looked like they may survive the night, even though James fell.
"Fu…Let's get this over with…" Evan let out a sigh of tiredness and went to join the goblins.
"Soon, it's nearly done, just one last push guys!" Frank encouraged everyone.
They dragged their tired bodies into battle once more.
With the other joining the goblins, it took them a little bit more than ten minutes to mow down the rest of the pig orcs.
Any of the pig orc were dead the moment they dropped the corpse as a shield.
"It's finally done…" Evan sighed.
Everyone was so tired that they were laying on the wall for support or sat where there was space on the ground.
"Good job guys…" Frank was trying to show positivity as always.
"One of us died though…"
"Yeah… James…"
Rafael and Enzo muttured at the scene of James' death was still fresh in their memories.
"I can't believe it, I survived!" Ryan was the only one who felt happy and even laughed but he was exhausted that only a couple coughs came.
Kennen didn't forget to send his goblins away to collect the crystals.
Frank took a minute to himself to catch his breath before he went to check on Amelia.
He put a hand on her shoulder and said with a hint of guilt, "I'm sorry. He would have been still alive if I didn't f*ck up and was stronger…"
Amelia had her mouth opened and was about to say something but emotion came over her and she sobbed.
Kennen and the others also came over and gave her their condolences.
Frank then checked up on Brandi and said a few words to her but she didn't have any visible reactions and was still in a trance.
Amelia turned her head toward Brandi and her face turned that of anger as she stood up and ran toward her.
"It's your fault! It's all your fault! James is dead because of you!" Amelia slapped Brandi and started to choke her, "If only you didn't hesitate! If only you…"
Frank immediately sprang into action and tried to pry her hands away from Brandi's neck while Kennen and the others ran over and tried to pull her away.
"She's your best friend, don't blame her! It's not her fault!"
Kennen didn't believe in what he said. Even he thought that Brandi was more at fault here.
She could have participated in the fight from the beginning, moved quicker or even used her skill double slash, if she had done any of that, James would probably still be alive right now.
He would never say that out loud. Not everyone was wired to fight against terrifying monsters and doing the blame game now was really not to any of their interest.
Brandi got up to her knees and started to slap herself.
"I'm sorry! It's my fault! I shoudlve have been the one to die! I don't deserve to be here!"
She was bawling her eyes out while she slapped herself.
Frank had to rush over and stop her from harming herself.
Amelia, who was struggling to get out of the hold, stopped after seeing that.
Kennen and Evan let go after seeing she stopped thrashing around.
She slowly walked over to the screaming Brandi, who kept apologizing over and over, and suddenly hugged her.
Evan and Kennen were one step behind her, ready to interved if she tried to attack Brandi again but instead, the two women started to cry loudly like banshees.
Apparently, they were fine now.
Frank motioned his friends with his head and eyes that they should just leave them alone so they could let out their emotions.
Kennen and his friends walked over to the stairs and pig orcs corpses were spread out everywhere.
"Shit, we'll have to clean this. Can't let so many corpses rot in here."
Kennen sighed.
This was even more work. Moreover, they didn't even get a full night's sleep as it was still night. Thankfully there was a window in each of the stairs so some moonlight could shine in, otherwise it would be completely dark and they probably wouldn't be able to fight in the stairs.
"Where are the little guys?" Enzo asked where the goblins were.
"Collecting crystals and checking out if there are any more orcs downstairs."
"I wonder how many we got this time." Frank said as he sat on the stairs.
"At least fifty, it felt like we were fighting against a hundred guys." Evan replied.
"By the way, where did those cowards run to?" Rafael asked.
"Upstairs, probably locked themselves on the roof." Kennen responded.
He felt a voice inside him that told him to kill them. He wasn't feeling that good about that but there was one thing he was sure of, a form of punishment should be dealt to them. He just didn't know what.
"Those filthy snakes, I'll kill them when I see them… but I need a good night's sleep first."
Evan was getting heated up but lacked the energy for that anger to fully manifest.
Kennen felt anger but they were so tired that it was hard to really feel angry.
"They… they aren't bad people. They were just scared…" Ryan tried to defend Michael and other people who fled.
"Did we see the same thing? They pushed one of us down and even literally said that we should die so they can live!" Rafael wasn't having any of it.
"They deserve an arrow to the head!" Enzo yelled.
"Calm down guys. Let's not get too heated up." Frank tried to calm his friends down.
"Right, let's not spill more blood tonight." Ryan echoed.
"Stop defending them, Frank!" Evan said in indignation.
"He's right frank. There must be consequences. We can't rugsweep this and act like nothing happened."
Kennen refused to let this go this time and be the bigger person.
"I'm not defending them. I'm just saying that we shouldn't get too agitated and do something we might regret."
"What do you expect us to do then?" Rafael asked.
"Let's wait for them to come and talk. They'll apologize and we'll all stay out of each other's business." Frank proposed.
"F*ck that! Apologies ain't gonna cut it! James is dead, mate!"
"Yeah, f*ck them!"
"Frank, bottom line is they pushed us down so we can die, we can't consider them anything other than enemies. I know there's a saying about keeping enemies close but I'm not one of those guys, I rather keep them far away, preferably six feet under the dirt."
"I feel the same way, Ken, but we aren't murderers."
Everyone looked down and were thinking if they could really do it.
"I'll get the goblins to do it."
Kennen said and he believed he would really do it if everyone was in favor of the decision.
"That's still murder." Frank disapprovingly said.
"Yeah, by the goblins. My hands are clean." He replied, maybe a bit too calm.
Frank was speechless.
"Don't do anything reckless, let's talk to them and force some compensation." Frank said in the end.
Kennen and his other friends weren't exactly thrilled with that but relented to Frank's decision since Frank was the 'expert' interpersonal relationship of their group.
Thirty minutes later, the goblins came back with a huge back of crystals and reported on what they saw.
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