Fire Camp

"Huh?"

Allen whirled around and found Captain Zenof standing there, with his distinctive beard and all.

"A scout reported seeing fire going up, so I came to investigate. What's going on here?"

The countless scars on the man's arms and face seemed all the more eye-catching as he drew the sword on his waist and slowly walked past Allen.

'It's Captain Zenof... I thought he'd come here tomorrow. Did he run over?'

"I...thought I would try cleaning up an orc village."

Allen chose to be honest. More than a hundred orc corpses lay on the ground, leaving little doubt as to what he was doing. He reverted all his Summons so the Knight Captain would not mistake them for monsters. For a split second, he considered leaving a Stone D just in case, but the sight of the man approaching the orcs as if he was on a stroll assured him that even such measures were now superfluous.

'He totally got an eyeful of my Summons.'

There was no doubt in Allen's mind that the Knight Captain had gotten a clear look at his Summons fighting. He wondered if he was going to be interrogated about them later.

"Gumoh?" The orc king sized up its new opponent warily.

"I see, an orc king. I'll take care of it. In the meantime, you take care of the chaff, Vice-Captain Leibrand."

"Sir, yes, sir!"

'Huh?! Vice-Captain Leibrand is here too?!'

Just as Zenof did, Leibrand also walked past Allen, weapon—in his case, a spear—in hand. Seemingly infuriated by Zenof's undaunted attitude, the orc king swung its halberd with all its strength, roaring, "GUMOOOOHHHHHH!"

This was a four-meter-tall monster brandishing a five-meter-long weapon in its rage. Even so, the Knight Captain managed to beat it back with his sword, even making it look easy.

The impact from the blow was so great it blasted the giant monster off its feet for a brief moment. The orc king returned an attack so fierce Allen flinched instinctively, kicking off the start of a furious exchange between the Knight Captain and the monster.

At the same time, the Vice-captain advanced on the normal orcs with his spear over his shoulder, not a hint of trepidation on his face. The magic-using orcs reacted first, shooting three fireballs into the air.

"I see, magic," Leibrand murmured before his figure suddenly turned blurry and became enveloped in a shimmering haze.

The next instant, he thrust his spear at the monsters faster than the eye could see. The shockwave generated from the point bored a huge hole in the abdomen of five or six orcs in a row. Blood exploded after a beat and the victims crumpled to the ground, dead. One of them was a magic-user. Apparently Leibrand was prioritizing them.

One of the fireballs lost momentum and dissipated, but the other two continued flying toward the Vice-captain from different directions.

"Hmph!"

Leibrand sliced the two fireballs apart with a single swing, causing them to break apart and similarly dissolve harmlessly. During this whole exchange, he was still walking toward the orcs, his face as cool as a cucumber.

The orcs drew back in fear for a brief moment at the sight of the Vice-captain dealing with the magic attacks so easily, but the next instant, they all surged forward. In response, the knight also picked up his pace, quickly shifting into a full-speed charge himself. When the two sides clashed, he sliced and diced the monsters every which way, making short work of them.

At the same time, the fight between the Captain and the orc king was also coming to an end. The former slashed down with his sword, bisecting both the halberd held up in defense and his opponent, armor and all. The orc king was clearly no match for the Captain. After mere minutes, the two knights had finished off every last orc within the village walls.

'They're freaking strong! I guess that's the "fiefdom's most powerful man" for you. And turns out the Vice-captain can really hold his own too.'

Allen recalled hearing from Raven about how everyone familiar with the Knight Captain's fighting style called him "War Demon Zenof." Similarly, it was hard to imagine the Vice-captain being the same man who had been thoroughly beaten up by Krena in her childhood. Mihai had previously told Allen that Leibrand was strong, and now he saw the truth in that statement for himself.

'The haze thing that Leibrand used, was it an Extra Skill? So other classes have Extra Skills too, not just Sword Lord. Speaking of which, Zenof didn't use his at all.'

As Allen started analyzing what he had seen, Zenof approached. "My men will arrive slightly after sunset today. Let's finish taking care of all of this before then." Surprisingly, he was not questioning why Allen was here.

Zenof, Leibrand, and Allen worked together to gather all the orc corpses into the middle of the village. There was no need to purposely show off his Summons, so Allen pulled his weight using only his own strength. Just as he had done for the goblin villages, they were going to cremate the remains.

"Captain, I want half the magic stones," Allen said.

"Hm? Well, that's fair. Very well."

Allen had already killed around half of the orcs by the time Zenof and Leibrand arrived, so he made sure to properly request what he deserved. The truth was that he wanted the Rank B magic stone too, but he let it go, as it was the Captain who had killed it.

The three quickly dug out the magic stones from the mountain of corpses. During the process, Allen caught Zenof looking over as if he wanted to ask something, most likely about the Summons, but he never did.

According to Zenof, they would have to fully burn this place to the ground afterward to prevent other orcs from moving in and using it as a settlement again. The human remains were fine being gathered in one place; the chivalric order would bring them back in case any surviving kin wanted them.

While the three of them were in the middle of moving the human remains, the rest of the knights arrived on the scene. They had pushed their schedule forward in order to catch up with their Captain.

'It's about time for me to head back, or I won't make curfew.'

Allen looked up to confirm the position of the sun. Considering the distance between this location and Granvelle City, he would not be able to arrive back at the mansion within the day if he did not head off soon.

When he announced that he would be returning, however, Zenof said, "Camp out with us tonight. I'll explain things to His Lordship afterward." Naturally, Allen had no choice in the matter.

Because the orc village stank terribly, the knights moved off a certain distance away to make camp. From what Allen could see with a Bird E, there were about a hundred knights on this expedition. This was probably a reasonable number for taking on orc villages.

Honestly speaking, he thought the knight captain could probably take on an entire village all by himself, but the others probably all had their own roles to play. There were some things that required numbers rather than individual strength.

With practiced movements, the knights soon had the camp all set up.

"Allen. Come eat over here." Zenof called out to Allen, who had been watching from a corner so as to not get in anyone's way.

"Yes, Sir," Allen replied, obediently approaching the fire. He was handed the drumstick of a wild bird and urged to dig in.

"So, all the destroyed goblin villages that we found were your doing."

"Yes, Sir."

"You understand my need for up-to-date intel as the Knight Captain, yes? So I have to ask: how many goblin villages are left up ahead?"

"None, I believe. I destroyed fifty-two of them in total."

'There may be ones that've just sprung up, but I can at least say for certain that there aren't any left in the foothills of the White Dragon Mountains.'

Allen had scoured the area meticulously for goblin villages using Bird E and thoroughly razed every last one to the ground.

Zenof's brows drew together in a thoughtful frown. "You're just as—no, beyond what I'd heard."

"...I'm sorry, Sir? What did you hear?"

The Knight captain began recounting all of Allen's feats to date, prompting the boy to set his drumstick down and listen closely.

At six years of age, he had brought down his first albaheron, then went on to hunt more than fifty of them over the next two years; this matched perfectly with the years Krena Village had exported a large number of albaheron feathers to Granvelle City.

Then, at age seven, he had started advising the village's hunting party. As a result, the number of great boars they were able to take down per year doubled from ten to twenty.

'How does he know all that? I mean, he probably asked around in Krena Village. But still, that's a lot of detail.'

As figurative question marks appeared all over Allen's head, Zenof continued.

Right after Allen started working at the Granvelle mansion, strange occurrences began cropping up in the area between Granvelle City and the White Dragon Mountains. Goblin corpses bearing slashes like claw marks turned up in large numbers, every last one with its magic stone carved out. The numbers kept climbing and climbing, with the final tally, according to reports, exceeding a thousand.

One year later, reports came in of the same thing happening, this time to orcs. Starting last year, armored ants were added to the list of monsters suffering the same fate. Crucially, the days such discoveries were reported overlapped perfectly with Allen's days off and the days he went out as a huntsman.

Most recently, almost every goblin village that the chivalric order had advanced on had already been wiped out and burned to the ground.