Chapter 34
#34. The Orcs in the Sleeping Forest
A short distance from Winterwald's frontline defenses lay the Black Forest.
Karak and the one thousand elite orcs of the Dual-Axe Tribe under his command stepped into the forest's outskirts, all on high alert.
"Kurrk……! Stay alert! The cowardly humans may have set a trap!"
Yet even after walking deep into the forest, they couldn't see so much as a shadow of a human.
Their tension gradually turned into boredom.
An orc lieutenant walking beside Karak slung his enormous dual axes over his shoulder and snickered.
"Humans…… not a single one. Kurrk…! They all ran away!"
"Cowards! They're all trembling inside those blue walls!"
"Kurrk…! Weak! Cowards…! They don't deserve to own good land!"
The orcs, who had been tense and frozen, began relaxing and mocking the humans here and there.
Karak swept the area with a fierce gaze as well, but saw nothing except densely packed trees.
'Hmph. Those cowardly humans. This is going to be a boring fight.'
Just as Karak snorted and was about to quicken his advance,
"Ku…… rrk? Chief!"
one of the orcs walking at the rear shouted in a flustered voice.
"Something just…… moved! Over there!"
"Kurrk! What do you mean, something moved!? Was it a human?"
"A tree! That tree, kurrk…! It just looked at us and moved!"
At those words, Karak frowned as if dumbfounded.
Karak himself wasn't particularly bright, but he hated subordinates who acted like complete idiots.
"Kurrk! No time for nonsense! Trees don't walk! They stay rooted in the ground!"
Karak shouted angrily as he turned around.
It happened at that moment.
Swoooosh!!
From the darkness of the forest, a shadow shot out like a whip and lashed all the orcs at once.
"Kuek!"
"Kraaagh!"
Several orcs at the front were hit squarely in the chest and sent flying backward.
They did not get back up.
A sharp shadow also rushed toward Karak's face.
"Kurrk…! Don't get cocky!!"
Karak crossed his dual axes and knocked the shadow away.
Kaaang!
The sound of steel striking steel rang out, and a thick vine bounced away.
Karak's arms finally got a chance to use their strength for the first time in a while.
"Coward! Stop hiding in the forest and show yourself! I am Karak, chieftain of the Dual-Axe Tribe!"
Karak opened his eyes wide and roared toward the forest.
Then bizarre sounds began coming from all around them.
Creak! Crrrk! Crack!
Karak and the one thousand orcs held their breath and looked around in confusion.
The enormous trees they had passed without a thought.
Dozens, even hundreds, of them were simultaneously pulling their enormous roots from the ground, shaking off the dirt, and standing up.
"Ku, kurrk……! T-the trees stood up!!"
"Chieftain! Kurrk. W-we're surrounded!! The trees really are moving!!"
Faced with this entirely unexpected situation, the orc unit fell into utter chaos.
But Karak wasn't frightened in the slightest.
He was the chieftain of the Dual-Axe Tribe and a brave orc warrior.
Instead, he grinned.
"Keh heh heh! Surrounded!? By pieces of firewood like that? We'll just tear them all apart!! Break through!"
"Kwoooooo!!"
Karak's roar reawakened the beast instincts of the shaken orcs.
The orcs charged the steelwood trees, swinging giant axes and maces.
Clang! Kaaang! Clang!
Clashing metal rang out without pause, and the forest instantly became a chaotic battlefield.
It was while the orcs were enthusiastically chopping away.
The buds decorating the branches of the steelwood trees began opening all at once.
Pshooooooot!
Bright yellow powder spurted from hundreds of flowers.
The powder quickly covered the entire forest like thick fog.
A sweet, dreamlike fragrance seeped into the orcs' lungs each time they inhaled.
The orcs began acting strangely.
Those who had been wildly swinging their axes moments ago now wandered around with dazed eyes.
"Kurrk……? Suddenly… sleepy…… I am……."
"My eyes…… closing…… zzz……."
Thud. Crash!
With loud noises, the orcs dropped their weapons one by one and collapsed.
The steelwood trees did not bother finishing off the orcs who had fallen into a deep, carefree sleep, snoring away.
"Kurrk…!?"
In Karak's field of vision alone, nearly a hundred elite orcs had already collapsed helplessly, talking in their sleep.
"Get up right now, you idiots!! Who sleeps on a battlefield!!"
Karak raged, veins bulging in his forehead, but no matter how loudly he shouted, the sleeping orcs showed no sign of waking.
The only ones still unaffected were Karak and his close aides, who could use aura.
And the unusually strong orcs who had consumed huge amounts of monster meat.
But even they breathed harder and their eyelids grew heavier the more they fought.
Since they had entered deep into the forest without thinking, their escape route was already gone.
Huge trees encircled them, leaving no way out.
Even while panting, the orcs desperately swung their axes.
Creak. Crack!
It was then.
The group of trees split wide apart on both sides, opening a path.
Through the gap, a tiny tree monster with very short roots came pattering in front of Karak.
It was much smaller, but……
Powerful, overwhelming mana poured from it!
It was Pochi, Winterwald's first forestry commissioner.
"Heh heh heh! You stupid pigs! You're not getting past here! If you quietly fall asleep, I'll let you live!!"
Karak's face twisted in rage at the taunt of the little tree speaking human fluently.
"Kurrk…! Don't make me laugh! You mere piece of firewood!!"
Karak and the roughly fifty members of his personal guard erupted with red aura and tightened their grips on their dual axes.
"Kurrk…! Chop every last one down!!"
"Kurrk…! Let's show them the power of the Dual-Axe Tribe! Break through aaaah!!"
***
At the same time.
The conference room in Winterwald's Grand Ducal Castle.
"Heh heh heh. To subdue those huge orcs without spilling a drop of blood."
Kylan watched the screen inside the crystal ball and laughed in satisfaction.
Inside the crystal ball, orcs covered in yellow powder were vividly shown collapsing limply into sleep.
At the overwhelming sight, the vassals all gaped and marveled.
"Truly impressive, Tower Master."
At Kylan's praise, Aria, the master of the Green Mage Tower standing nearby, bowed with a smug smile.
"It's all thanks to Your Highness. It would have been impossible without the magic stones Your Highness provided."
The national-treasure-grade staff Heart of Verdure, created by fusing the Boss Treant's magic stone with a fragment of the King Slime's magic stone.
Holding it, Aria could bring to life countless secret arts she had only dreamed of in theory.
One was the secret art of using the body of a plant monster as a host and making improved plants parasitize it.
It was called Parasitic Germination.
This time, she had succeeded in making flowers bloom on the treant's branches that sprayed sleeping powder.
"What I planted in the treant is a rare species called the 'Fairy's Yawnflower,' which grows only deep in the Southern Hallucinatory Forest. I had improved the seeds in case they would be useful someday."
Once planted, the seeds grew on their own, making it an efficient secret art.
Aria continued.
"And as Your Highness instructed, I surrounded various parts of the forest with sturdy vine walls two or three layers deep. They won't be able to escape easily."
"To have tended that vast forest in just a few days. Excellent work."
Aria answered, looking enviously at Eleanor seated beside Kylan.
"You're too kind. If I'd been alone, it would have been impossible even after several months.”
It was thanks to Eleanor's solar mana boosting the vines' growth speed.
Kylan nodded and gazed fondly at Eleanor, who had attended the meeting.
"Heh heh. Did you hear that? As expected, you are Winterwald's treasure. I'm worried His Majesty the Emperor might stubbornly demand that you be returned to him again."
"Oh my, Your Highness."
Eleanor shyly lowered her head, her cheeks reddening.
"Please do not worry, Your Highness. I am Winterwald's lady of the house. No matter what His Majesty the Emperor says, my place is only by Your Highness's side."
Kylan gazed at his wife as though he might kiss her, then, noticing the vassals' eyes on them, cleared his throat and turned his gaze to the crystal ball.
"Well, then. We should prepare to welcome the next guests as well."
***
"Huff…! Huff……!!"
Karak panted hard and wildly swung his dual axes.
Crunch! Kraaang!
When another thick vine wall blocked his path, Karak cursed and swung his axes.
"This is getting old……!!"
It was already the third time.
He chopped down the branches of the steelwood trees and ripped apart absurdly thick vine walls by brute force.
"Kurrk……! Damn firewood bastards……!!"
After smashing through the third vine wall, a fierce northern wind finally slapped Karak's face.
He had escaped the hellish Black Forest.
"Kurrk……! W-we're alive……!"
"That powder was vicious……!"
Karak and the hundred orcs who had survived plopped down in the snow and sucked in air until their lungs felt ready to burst.
The cold, biting northern air felt sweet to him for the first time.
"Huff…… huff……."
Karak, panting heavily, slowly turned his head to look behind him.
"……."
The Black Forest had firmly sealed its entrance with a wall of enormous steelwood trees, as if nothing had happened.
Surely……
Surely he had entered that forest together with one thousand orc warriors.
The elite among the elite, the proud warriors of the fierce and prideful Dual-Axe Tribe.
Yet barely a hundred had endured the sleeping powder and escaped with Karak.
"Kurrk……."
The thick knuckles of Karak's hands trembled.
Then the sound of flapping wings came from above them.
Flap flap!
A red-eyed crow.
It was the familiar belonging to the shaman Gur.
It had only now emerged from beneath the vines that completely covered the sky.
[Karak! What have you been doing in the forest all this time!? Your advance is far too slow!]
Karak's eyes blazed with fury as he raised his dual axes at Gur's reprimand.
"Kurrk…! Shut up, old man!"
The crow flinched and stopped flapping.
"The trees in this forest…… are moving monsters!”
[W-what?! The trees are moving?! Karak. No matter how harsh the forest is, that……]
"I saw it clearly with my own eyes!! Those enormous pieces of firewood pulled out their roots and stood up, then sprayed us with sleeping powder!"
Karak huffed angrily as he stared at the Black Forest.
By now, many orcs had fallen asleep inside it.
The subordinates who had collapsed snoring—he couldn't bring even one of them out in the end.
That alone would have been infuriating enough……
"And there's more……."
Karak gritted his teeth.
"Kurrk……!"
Karak's eyes burned red with rage as the last sight he'd seen kept flashing through his mind.
The forest behind him as he fled.
The enormous steelwood trees had tightly bound the sleeping orcs in their roots and were dragging them somewhere.
Dozens, hundreds of his subordinates.
As though they were merely hauling cargo.
"……."
Karak's broad shoulders trembled.
Where could those rotten trees be taking his subordinates?
'My…… subordinates……. Where are you taking them……?'
With his small brain, Karak could reach only one conclusion.
No matter how much he thought it over, even slowly and carefully, there was only one answer.
Where would a monster take its prey after a successful hunt in the mountains?
Obviously.
'A food…… storehouse.'
A single thick tear fell from Karak's trembling eyes and seeped into the snow.
But Karak remained unaware.
That the vicious capitalist of the North, Kylan Winterwald, was planning to turn his subordinates into upstanding taxpayers.
He could never have dreamed of it.