7

ELVES IN PERIL

That day in the forest, Bash and Zell were having a grand time hunting zombies.

“So many zombies out and about for us to slay today, eh, Boss?”

It was odd, though. There really were an awful lot of zombies around that day in particular.

Usually they managed around two to three zombie kills per hour, but today, it was more like one every second…

It was almost like there was a horde of them. Yes, that wouldn’t be an overstatement.

“With this many zombies, we’ll have that shiny gold necklace in no time, eh, Boss?”

“Yeah!”

Bash nodded in agreement, neatly cleaving a zombie’s head from its neck.

With his greatsword, Bash smashed the shoulders and chest of the zombie to mush, leaving the head and belly parts intact.

Then he deftly removed the jaw part from the head and tossed it into the bag he was carrying.

To receive payment for zombie hunting, one needed to turn in the heads—or even just the jawbones—as proof.

Whether skeleton or zombie, no undead could cause further trouble without a head.

“How are we even gonna be able to carry this many back, eh, Boss?”

“We’ll have to make several trips.”

Bash’s spirits were soaring.

He didn’t even know how long they’d been fighting. Before he was even aware of it, the two found themselves surrounded by a pile of zombie remains.

With this many zombie kills, he may even already have earned enough to buy a shiny gold necklace.

In other words, there was no longer anything holding him back from marriage with a lady elf.

With that extremely beautiful little witch elf in particular. Bash closed his eyes. He could already hear the wedding bells.

Bash and Zell had utterly failed to notice that, beyond their range of vision, the mangled remnants of their kills were rising again, and fresh zombies were crawling from their graves to swell the ranks.

They were too distracted by thoughts of payment.

Even if they did notice, they probably would have been delighted. More zombie jaws to add to the bag.

“Ah, Boss! Look! A wraith! I bet a wraith will go for a lot of money, too! They’ve gotta pay for wraiths, if they pay for zombies and skeletons, right?”

“Go for it, Zell!”

“Yes, Boss! Fairy Shine!!!”

Zell unleashed a blaze of light, evaporating the wraith in midair.

Despite their tiny fairy figure, Zell was a hardened warrior, we must remember. Their magical powers were more than strong enough to do some major damage to their enemies. And even though wraiths were mostly impervious to physical attacks, they were notoriously vulnerable to light magic spells.

Now all that remained of the wraith was a scrap of silk cloth.

Proof of the wraith’s slaying.

Zell scooped the cloth out of midair and tossed it into the bag.

“Ah! Boss! The bag’s full to bursting!”

It was true. There wasn’t even room for one more zombie jaw.

“Hmm. I suppose we’ll have to head back for the day…”

Bash hoisted the bag onto his back.

The bag was a big one, even for an orc to wield. Bash felt the reassuring weight of it, and his heart thumped with anticipation.

“What?! Go back?! But this zombie horde might not even be here tomorrow!”

“The zombies aren’t going anywhere. They’re not migratory birds.”

“Maybe so, Boss, but even so…!”

Bash cut a path through the zombie crowd using his greatsword, with Zell bobbing along behind him.

But just then…

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! How are there this many of them? What the heck is going on here?!”

They heard a voice.

Bash turned in that direction. There was a man there, facing off against a cluster of zombies.

He wore brown-blotched armor and carried a glowing sword in his right hand. With his left hand, he clutched a blazing shield. He was slicing away at the approaching zombie with swift swings of the sword.

His swings had none of the speed and ferocity of Bash’s swings, but it was clear to see that the man could hold his own in battle.

“Yikes! This isn’t good… This isn’t good AT ALL!”

The man was yelping in panicked tones, but he actually seemed to be handling himself very well, and his face was lit up with the joy of battle.

From the sight of the bulging bag lying nearby, it was evident that he had come to hunt the zombies, too.

His grin showed that he was as delighted as Bash and Zell over the prospect of cashing in big once the day’s hunt was done.

“I know that man…”

Yes, the man’s face was familiar to Bash.

It was the friendly fellow who had shared his wisdom with Bash back in the tavern.

At the same moment, the man noticed Bash.

“Whoa! A real orc! Not a zombified one?!”

Raising his flaming shield, the man suddenly came running right at Bash.

Bash readied his greatsword. He didn’t need a reason to cut down an enemy who charged him this way.

“…”

But the man came to a screeching halt just short of Bash’s swing radius.

His face was as white as a corpse. He was dripping sweat. And he was clearly out of breath.

“Orc Hero? Is it you?”

The man seemed to know Bash by reputation.

“Is it you, Strangler?”

All of a sudden, Bash realized he knew this man, beyond that one night in the tavern, that is.

He hadn’t made the connection the other day, but the man’s armor sparked Bash’s old war memory.

The armor had been white once, but now it was covered in bloodstains.

And the man had considerable magical ability as well. That was how he was able to make his sword glow—and how he kept his shield ablaze.

A human Magic Knight.

Breeze Kugel, the Strangler.

“What is an Orc Hero doing in elf lands…?”

“I already told you the other day.”

“What? But this is our first meeting…isn’t it?”

Breeze trailed off as the memory resurfaced.

Yes… He did share drinks with an orc the other night at the tavern, after both had been rejected by elven women.

But after getting completely hammered, he awoke the next day with no memory of what they’d talked about.

He could vividly remember the two of them clinking tankards together, drowning their sorrows as they cast yearning eyes on the beautiful elf ladies.

Breeze was a human, though.

Humans were pretty smart. They were quick-witted and had enviable deductive reasoning skills. Well, most of them.

So when Breeze spotted Bash’s bag, he was able to fill in the blanks fairly quickly.

“Huh… You know, for the life of me, I couldn’t guess what an orc would be doing in a place like this, but now I get it.”

“Yes, well… Ashamed as I am, I need the funds.”

“There’s nothing shameful about it. You’re a great man. Especially compared to me…”

“…”

Bash stared at Breeze.

The man stood tall, with his magical sword and shield. Anyone looking at him would take him for a capable warrior.

Humans could use magic regardless of their virginal status, so presumably there was no shame attached to Breeze’s magical powers.

But according to what he’d told Bash in the tavern that night, he was single.

In the human country, getting married after a certain age was simply what was expected.

Just as orcs feared the stigma that accompanied virginity, so, too, did humans fear the embarrassment of remaining single well into their adult years.

“You and I are both doing the same thing, for the same reason.”

“Ha-ha… Well, I guess I can’t argue with you there. Thanks, friend.”

Breeze chuckled self-deprecatingly.

As if to apologize for standing in the presence of such a great man and failing to match up.

Bash, for his part, had no idea why Breeze looked so embarrassed.

They were both in pursuit of an elf wife, and they were hunting zombies to earn enough coin to procure a piece of jewelry that would capture one, after all.

“Hmm?”

Just then, Bash’s keen ears picked up on something.

It was the sound of clinking armor and clashing swords. Plus, faint voices…musical, very pleasant voices.

“It sounds like the elves have been attacked by the zombies.”

“…What?”

Bash strained to hear better.

Yes, he could hear it more clearly now. The sound of elves yelling and shouting in panic. They sounded as though they’d been ambushed and were losing the fight. Several of them were screaming.

“Ah. They’ve lost the advantage.”

“…”

Breeze narrowed his eyes in response to Bash’s casual remark.

The human’s mouth turned down, his brow furrowing as his expression grew solemn and serious.

“Don’t sound so detached and unconcerned! The elves are in trouble! Which way are they?!”

“That way.”

“Then, let’s go!”

Breeze set off at a run.

“What’s going on, eh, Boss?”

Zell looked quizzically at Bash as the funny human man shot off.

Zell didn’t even have a clue who the man was—or what he was doing there.

He seemed to be some sort of acquaintance of Bash’s. Some sort of clearly powerful human mage soldier.

“I don’t know. But I suppose we should go with him.”

Bash set off, following Breeze’s tracks.

They arrived on the scene to find all hell breaking loose.

There was a veritable swarm of zombies.

The elves numbered so few in comparison.

The elf soldiers had gone into battle formation and were valiantly fending off the waves of zombies, but it was clear they were losing.

The ground was already littered with the bodies of many elves. Some were already dead, others gasping their last breaths. Anyone could see that it was only a matter of time before every last elf was wiped out.

“Curses! I can’t believe a bunch of brainless zombies got the advantage over us like this!”

“I know… It’s so unfair that we, the members of the Thirty-First Independence Squad, should have to die like this, after we survived that hellish war…”

“Ugh… I was hoping to get married before my time was up…”

The surviving elves were beginning to lose all hope.

There were no rookie recruits here.

The younger soldiers had already fled. All that remained was the old guard.

But even with centuries of battle experience, they still didn’t have the strength needed to hold out against a horde of zombies that kept relentlessly springing up all around them.

One by one, the elf soldiers incurred heavy injuries and fell to the ground.

“I’m out of magical power as well… I never imagined myself dying in peacetime, not after we fought so long and hard to end the war. Perhaps I let my guard down too much…”

“Yeah, and we got left behind…again. Those young squirts got to go on ahead to safety, leaving us lingering behind like expendable trash…”

“Ughgh… I just wanted to get married. That’s all I ever really wanted…”

Now there was only a handful of female elf soldiers remaining.

They kept fighting valiantly on against the zombies. But now their escape route had been lost. And they were out of strength.

Just as the zombie horde was about to swallow the women up…

“Sacred Edge!!!”

A flashing sword cut its way through the bodies of several zombies at once.

The sword was wielded by a lone soldier.

The sword cleaved the zombies in half, and the flaming shield worn by the man ignited the corpses, turning their bodies into ashes in a second.

But wait. The man wasn’t alone.

Behind him stood another great warrior, also fighting valiantly. He swung a gigantic greatsword, with which he sent the bodies of several zombies flying into the air in pieces.

“…?”

Dumbfounded, the elves could also see what looked like a small glowing orb zipping this way and that. It was flitting back and forth between the fallen elves, twirling through the air and leaving a trail of sparkling powder in its wake. It seemed to be dusting the bodies…

They weren’t sure what was happening, but it was certainly a spectacular sight.

The orb’s movements had a certain clumsiness to them, though. It was just enough to convince the elves that what they were seeing was real and not a hallucination.

While the elves watched the orb dance, the two warriors continued to slay zombie after zombie.

It was like they were reaping their way through a cornfield, their swords slicing through the crowd in big, swooping semicircles.

They continued, doggedly, as if they had never felt tiredness or exhaustion in their lives.

They fought until the surrounding area was completely cleared of zombies.

“Hah…”

The man, Breeze, paused and checked that the area was, in fact, clear. Satisfied, he turned to the elven women.

Then he pushed his hair back from his forehead with one hand in a dashing manner and addressed them.

“All right, ladies?”

Overcome with relief, the elf women bobbed their heads emphatically.

They still weren’t sure what had happened, but one thing was clear: They had been rescued.

The duo who had come to their aid were a curious pair, though. One, a human clutching a glowing sword. The other, an orc wielding a massive greatsword. What were they doing here, together?

Now the orc, Bash, walked over and approached the women.

He paused, frowning deeply. He seemed to be thinking of something to say to them. But before he could speak, his attention was distracted by something else.

“Hmm!”

He had spotted one of the injured elves, leaning against the trunk of a nearby tree.

She had a huge wound on her stomach, and her clothes were drenched with blood.

Her eyes were closed. Her breathing was shallow. Bash remembered this woman.

“You there… You all right?!”

Bash didn’t know the woman’s name.

But still, he remembered her. How could he forget?

Without her help, Bash would never have found his way to the Great Eagle’s Perch.

“Ugh… What? Who’s talking? That you, Mr. Orc…?”

“It is! It is me! Pull yourself together! That’s just a flesh wound!”

“No, I’m done for… Everything’s gone dark…”

“Because you’ve got your eyes closed! Snap out of it! It really is just a flesh wound!”

In fact, the wound had already begun to close…

Fairy dust could seal up any cut and heal any injury on the spot.

But her mind appeared to be addled. Perhaps she had been attacked by a wraith?

Fairy dust was effective against injuries and most illnesses, but its ability to repair mental damage was often limited.

The minds of fairies are already somewhat jumbled up, you see.

“Mr. Orc…tell her… Tell Lady Sonia, in the main unit, to the south… Tell her that the lich is…not here. It was a fake all along, a decoy… So many zombies…a trap… She may already be in grave danger… Please…”

Lady Sonia? In grave danger?

Bash’s heart leaped.

Sonia. That was the name of the beautiful elf he wanted to marry.

She was in danger? Then Bash could not stay a moment longer.

“…Understood. Thank you for the intel!”

Bash rose before the elf.

Then he jerked his head at Breeze.

Breeze had been listening and knew exactly what Bash was trying to tell him now.

“Right. You go. I’ll take care of everything here. You can leave your swag bag; I’ll bring it home for you.”

As Breeze finished speaking, one of the elves threw herself into his arms.

“Take me home with you!” she could be heard whispering into Breeze’s ear. The human man’s eyebrows shot right up to his hairline, and his lips formed a perfect O of surprise and delight.

“…”

Bash was overcome with envy.

If Bash took this opportunity to proposition another of the elf females they’d rescued, it was highly possible that he could have found himself in such a blissful position as well.

But Bash had set his heart on another. He already knew which elf he wanted to propose to. During the day’s zombie hunt, he had thought of nothing but her.

“Thank you, friend.”

And so Bash left the scene at a run.

Breeze watched him go.

Breeze, too, had fought in the war. He knew the code of honor. No man would dream of attempting to hold back his fellow soldier from the fight.

“Huh. Real-life heroes really are a cut above the rest of us…”

At any rate, Breeze had figured it all out.

He knew why the orc was traveling alone, when so few orcs left their homeland. He knew why the orc was here, in elf country. He knew why the orc had been hunting orc zombies in the elven forest.

He knew the real reason behind it all.

“Gugh… I wanted to see my darling hubby again one last time…”

“Um, Captain Azalea? I think your wound is completely healed already…”

“…Huh?”

Finally recovering from her mind-altered state, Azalea opened her eyes to find that Bash had already disappeared.

“Hah… Hah… Dammit…”

The fight against Clan Chief General Baraben had been in progress for nearly an hour now.

But it hadn’t even been a full six minutes yet.

During that time, Thunder Sonia had unleashed a hundred spells, burned down all the surrounding trees, and turned the forest area into a flat arena.

But still he remained standing, the mighty man in the center.

“Grawwwrgh!!!”

“Gu-gu-gu! You fool! Foolish, brainless Thunder Soniaaa!”

Baraben roared.

Gandaguza gurgled with laughter.

They had both taken a hundred of her spells to the face, and yet they were still alive and kicking.

Well, since they were technically zombies, perhaps alive isn’t the right word. At any rate, they were still kicking.

The giant one was displaying the kind of speed and strength one would expect from an orc general.

The elves were nimble, thankfully. Any ordinary soldier would have already found themself pounded into the dirt.

“Foul! Filthy! Enemy! Elf!!! Diiie!!!”

The orc general’s mushy, rotten brain could only come up with a string of insults that sounded like dark curses.

In truth, Thunder Sonia had already suffered the full brunt of several of his attacks.

She was injured but still alive, thanks to the high-level protective barrier spell she had cast around herself.

She had to focus not only on her magical attacks but on expending magical energy on her defense as well.

Even though Thunder Sonia was the greatest mage among the elves, she could not outlast the battle while expending all her reserves of magical energy in this fashion.

But she could not let up. For if she did, it would spell the destruction of her fellow soldiers.

All around, her elf brothers and sisters were losing their lives one by one to the zombie forces.

She needed to defeat her enemy, and she needed to do it fast.

This was taking far too long, and precious lives were being lost as a result.

But Thunder Sonia had no ace up her sleeve.

All of her magic had been greatly weakened by the resistant paint. Her patented thunder magic—and the fire magic that proved so effective against the undead. She wouldn’t even bother with the useless ice and earth magic, of course, since the zombies were already basically immune to those. It was the other two that she mourned the loss of.

And even if she managed to take down General Baraben, who was serving as their vanguard, he would simply be revived by Gandaguza, the lich backing him up.

If she tried to take down Gandaguza first, General Baraben would use his full power to block her. Even if she did manage to get an attack in, Gandaguza’s powerful, high-grade magical defenses would deflect it.

“…This is NOT looking good.”

Thunder Sonia had begun to realize that this was a battle she could not win.

She’d been in tough spots before, found herself in the midst of battles that looked completely unwinnable.

She hadn’t made it to age 1,200 simply by idling the years away.

No, she had fought for years, centuries even, to become the great elf mage, Thunder Sonia.

Her enemies had come up with all kinds of ingenious countermeasures to use against her.

One notable incident involved the Demon Lord Geddigs, who sealed Sonia’s magic and ransacked the elf town.

Yes, she had made it through countless battles that ought to have killed her.

She had made it here to this point through the skin of her teeth.

If she fell, it would destroy the morale of all elfkind.

If she perished, who would be left to protect them?

Without her, the kingdom of the elves would be left with only the rookies, the inexperienced youth, to turn to.

Those thoughts had always sustained her in battle before. They had kept her going as she fought through hell, survived off muddy rainwater and sparse rations, and clawed her way through to peacetime, to this moment right now.

“…”

Thunder Sonia cast a quick glance behind her.

There stood Aconitum.

Calendula was gone. He had taken the main body of troops and withdrawn.

Just as she had told him to do. He had poured all his energy into the safe retreat of the troops, leaving Thunder Sonia to battle through.

Aconitum had stayed, of course. He was Thunder Sonia’s personal guard, after all.

His job was to protect Thunder Sonia to the end. So he stayed.

And yet, thought Sonia.

Aconitum was due to be married.

Nothing was announced yet, but he liked a girl, and she liked him back.

Saying she wasn’t jealous would be a lie.

But her feelings of happiness for her grandnephew were greater.

After all, she had known him all his life, changed his diapers when he was just a baby.

Even now, her chest burned with emotion as she recalled how he had followed her around, tugging at her robe and calling her Sandy Sonia.

Of course she loved the little squirt. He was her grandnephew.

The war…was already over.

It had been endless, bloody, grueling, and devastating, but it was over. It had ended just as this new generation, her grandnephew’s generation, came of age.

He didn’t have to die here. Not like this. Not now.

He didn’t deserve to be dragged down to hell by these infernal zombies. No…by these lost souls who had already tasted defeat once.

If anyone was to be dragged down with them…

…then it only made sense for Sonia to be the one.

“All right.”

Thunder Sonia nodded firmly.

“Aconitum! It looks like it’s going to take a while to bring these ghouls down. It’s time to stop playing games! I’ll hold them back, but you evacuate first! I’ll be right behind you!”

She managed to sound quite convincing.

Or so she believed.

Actually, Thunder Sonia was notorious as a mage for having deep reserves of stamina during long battles.

Still, this was no longer a matter of simply holding out. That would do her no good. She needed to get everyone out ahead of her and then evacuate. It was the only logical solution.

But Aconitum shook his head and yelled back.

“Don’t be stupid! I’ll never leave you to die! Not ever!”

What?

Thunder Sonia blinked at him in confusion.

“Wh-what? I’m not asking you to leave me to die! Don’t you be stupid! I have no intention of dying here, believe you me!”

“Nuh-uh, you can’t fool me! You always do that whole fake Go on, I’ll be right behind you thing! Then if anyone protests, you start in with the whole I’m the archmage, Thunder Sonia! Are you implying I can’t handle this myself? thing!”

Thunder Sonia thought about it for a moment. Is that really what she did?

…Yeah, that sounded like her.

Thunder Sonia was always trying to reassure the other elves at her own expense.

Whenever the enemy had them outnumbered, and they were in a state of extreme peril.

Whenever there was a break in the fighting, and Sonia played with the children to distract them from the war.

She had said that same speech almost verbatim that time when the Demon Lord Geddigs had invaded.

Although she had never used such a weak-sounding phrase as I’ll hold them back before.

No, she was Thunder Sonia, the archmage of the elves, the Elf Hero herself. She didn’t hold the enemy back. She sent them to their graves, screaming.

She was the greatest magician the elf race knew, after all. There was nothing she couldn’t handle all by herself.

“Well, at any rate, I can’t let you die, Tum-Tum! What would I tell your mother, huh?”

“Why do you assume I’d die, while you’d make it home to see my mother…?”

“It… It was just an example! Just in case I managed to make it back without you.”

“…Well, at any rate…let’s give it a try!”

Finally, Aconitum seemed to get on board with Sonia’s order. He pressed his lips together tightly and gave a firm nod.

Then he drew in a large breath before speaking again.

“…Yes, you’re right. But let me hold back the two undead creatures. You run back to town and warn everyone, Lady Sonia! Get reinforcements! You have to live, Lady Sonia! The elf race can’t keep on fighting without you!”

“Tum-Tum…”

If Aconitum died, there would be no end to the tears.

His parents, his brothers, his army buddies. His beastkin betrothed. She would cry. They all would.

But…that was all.

He was a soldier. A military officer like any other. Even if the elf army’s supreme commander fell, they would be replaced. The army was set up so as to constantly regenerate itself, through generations.

Aconitum, himself, was replaceable.

On the other hand, you had Thunder Sonia, the elf archmage.

She was not replaceable. To the elf people, Sonia was a symbol of hope and endurance. She had protected them for over one thousand years. She was their goddess of victory.

“…You snot-nosed little twerp! What do you think I…? Why’d you think I…?”

Thunder Sonia gnashed her teeth in anguish, wiping away tears with clenched fists.

It had always been this way.

Ever since the day she turned six-hundred years old, everyone around her had been trying to protect her.

She may have been only a civilian in military employ, but even though she was the blood relative of a clan chief, she was effectively retired. She had no jurisdiction over army matters.

And yet the young soldiers always sought to save her, to preserve her above others.

And they always had. That was how she was still alive, after all.

At the time, she accepted it. She knew she was needed for the war effort. The elf race would crumble without her. She knew that, so she accepted the help—the special treatment. For the sake of survival.

But the war was over now.

They had won, hadn’t they?

So why were they still trying to keep Sonia alive?

“You’ve fought for twelve hundred years, survived every battle. It’s time for you to step away from the battlefield altogether and find your own happiness. Get married, even. Don’t you agree?”

“If you really think that, then why don’t you get down on one knee and propose to me?!”

“No thanks, Granny. I’d rather not keep the bloodline pure, actually. Besides, I already have a fiancée.”

“Right! That’s what I’m saying! That’s why you should be the one to survive!”

As Thunder Sonia and Aconitum continued to screech back and forth in their usual way…

…a rock came flying out of nowhere and struck Aconitum.

He went flying, right up into the air, and came down hard several feet away.

He was motionless.

“Gu-gu-gu! Enough games!”

Careless. She had been careless.

She had taken her eye off the enemy during battle.

Someone had died because of her carelessness.

“…Aconitum? …Tum-Tum? Y-you can’t just die on me…not here. Come on…”

Thunder Sonia called out to her grandnephew, desperate for him to respond to her.

He remained silent and still.

“But…you’re supposed to get married. To the beastkin princess. You’ve always liked beasts of all kinds, ever since you were a kid… Oh, sorry. Look, I didn’t mean to imply that beastkin are the same as common animals. That would be prejudiced, now, wouldn’t it? Come on, Tum-Tum… Say something…”

There was no response.

The elf lay sprawled on the ground, not moving at all.

This had happened many times in the past. Careless Sonia had often taken her eye off the enemy, let her guard down, and caused good soldiers to get killed.

But…it wasn’t all her fault.

Aconitum was culpable as well. He had argued with her for fun, even with the enemy nearby.

He should have just listened to Thunder Sonia and evacuated as she instructed…

…or so she told herself. But it didn’t lessen the pain in her heart.

“I swear…”

Thunder Sonia shook her head, blinking back tears.

She was Thunder Sonia, an elven warrior.

A veteran warrior, of countless battles.

She hadn’t forgotten who she was. She would return to her true form: a bloodthirsty demon of war, burning every enemy in her path into ash. She was the Elf Hero, after all.

“I swear you’ll pay for that! I’m going to erase you from this world! I’ll bury you so deep you’ll have no hope of crawling your way up to the surface again, no matter how strong your necromancy might be!”

Thunder Sonia raised her staff.

Her expression was glacial fury, the calm before the storm.

Getting mad wouldn’t change the situation. Her magic powers had been rendered ineffective.

But she needed to buy enough time for evacuation. If not for herself, then for Calendula and his soldiers, who had gone on ahead.

If the Elf Hero and the army general both died like this during a simple zombie cleanup operation, it would make the elf race look weak. The orcs might even be inspired to rise up against them. Even their allies, the human race, might take the opportunity to expand their borders by taking a slice of the elf territory pie for themselves.

It could lead to another war.

That couldn’t be allowed to happen. If only one of them survived, the survivor could obfuscate the details of the other’s death, spin the situation in the best way to benefit the elf race’s image. But…how was she going to pull this off?

“No…escape! No elves…escape! All diiie!!!”

General Baraben’s roaring shook the trees in the forest.

Thunder Sonia agreed with him.

She wasn’t going to let a single zombie escape.

She just wasn’t sure how she was going to do that yet. That was the issue here.

“Silence! Get back in your grave and pipe down like a good corpse should!”

Just then…

Something came fluttering between Thunder Sonia and General Baraben.

With quick, somewhat erratic movements, it flitted and flapped through the air.

As Sonia watched, it made its way over to Aconitum’s fallen body. Then it began dancing and jittering in the air above him.

It performed a midair triple axel, then a double loop the loop.

All the while, powdery, glittery stuff was dropping from it, falling onto Aconitum’s body.

Its odd dance was almost hypnotic.

To an onlooker, the strange image could only have been chalked up to a hallucination.

There was no one around to explain what this odd apparition was or what it was doing.

But there was a more pressing matter at hand.

Something that concerned Thunder Sonia and General Baraben much more than some unusual, glowing apparition in the forest.

It was the imposing figure that was steadily making its way toward them now.

Even from far off, they could hear the sound of destruction its mighty coming wrought.

Zombie parts flying through the air. Trees uprooted. It was getting close now.

It was like a small, perfectly concentrated mass of pure violence.

Then the figure came into view.

“…”

It was an orc.

Just an ordinary, green-skinned orc.

And a small one, at that, at least when compared to an average-size orc. Still, he was well muscled. He had the sharp eyes of a bird of prey, and his hair was a purplish-blue. He carried a greatsword in his right hand. He was just an orc soldier, same as you could find anywhere in the orc homeland.

But Thunder Sonia knew…

She knew how ferocious, how fearsome this ordinary-looking orc was.

She knew better than anyone in this world.

“Bash…”

It all made sense in that moment.

Why this Orc Hero was here now.

Why he had come to the Shiwanashi Forest. Why he had revealed himself to her.

“Aha! Bash! Long time no see! You been well?”

Baraben sounded delighted to see Bash.

He held his arms wide, still clutching his war hammer, as if inviting the orc in for a hug.

“Your coming strengthens us! Come, let us fight together, like old times! Let us crush the vile elves and take back our forest!”

Thunder Sonia’s heart sank.

Yes, she understood it all now. She knew why the Orc Hero had come to the Shiwanashi Forest.

Yes… The orc had come to take back the forest, on behalf of his people.

He had come to slay her. Then, with the elves disillusioned, he would reignite the fires of war once more.

But Sonia didn’t have enough strength left to defeat Bash. She knew this all too well.

And with General Baraben and Gandaguza on the orc’s side as well, there was zero chance of her escaping with her life.

“General…Baraben? Is that you?”

Bash was frowning, looking around in confusion.

Just then, the shining, fluttering thing came zooming over. Sonia could see it clearly now. It was a fairy, emitting a mellow glow.

It flew up to Bash’s ear and appeared to be whispering something into it.

Bash was nodding, listening. Looking at Thunder Sonia and…grinning.

In Sonia’s eyes, that grin signaled nothing more than the orc’s glee over her impending death.

“C-come on, then! I’m… I’m the Elf Hero, Thunder Sonia! I’ll fight you to my dying breath!”

Sonia raised her staff, prepared to face her end with dignity and die a hero.

But she was miles and years away, thinking back to the Nightmare of the Shiwanashi Forest.

It had been the worst situation in all her 1,200 years. A desperate, pitched, and bloody battle that she seemed to have no hope of surviving, let alone winning.

It had been so harrowing, so grueling, so terrible, that she knew she could never stand to face such a battle a second time.

“Hmm.”

Bash was walking toward Thunder Sonia now, moving steadily.

She knew, though.

He may have been moving slowly right then, but he could pounce at a moment’s notice and operate so swiftly that he would be little more than a blur.

She wouldn’t be able to land a hit on him…unless she acted with cunning. She could bait him into swinging at her, evade him by a hair’s breadth, and then strike him before he could rally.

Could she pull it off, though?

She’d done it in the past. Even though she lost. Actually, she thought she’d gotten him pretty good. But she had been the one lying on the ground at the end of their last battle.

This time, Bash had General Baraben and Gandaguza on his side. Presumably, they would all attack her at once.

She would need to evade their attacks as well, even while she was dealing with Bash.

Could she do that…?

Of course not.

But she had to. She had to, or war would start up all over again.

A war between the orcs and the elves. Would the humans and beastkin ally with them again this time around?

Forget about the dwarves. They despised the elves. But the humans, they were a fickle race. If they realized that the elf race had been weakened, they might seize their chance and try to take the elf land.

Nor would the losers of the last war simply stand on the sidelines and watch.

The succubus race, the fairies, the lizardmen… They would side with the orcs, no doubt about it.

Then…it would all happen again…

No! She couldn’t let that happen!

She had to do something! She was the Elf Hero, Thunder Sonia!

Why had she lived so many years, if not to rescue her people now?

She had to find a way…

“Hah… Hah…”

Thunder Sonia’s heart was pounding in her chest.

The pressure was too much. She felt choked by it. Gasping for air, she began to charge up her staff with magical power.

Bash was right in front of her now.

He raised his greatsword…

Then he turned his back on her, pointing the sword directly at General Baraben!

“I won’t let them harm a single hair on your golden head. You just stand back and watch.”

“…Um, what?”

Thunder Sonia was frozen in shock, her staff held aloft in midair.

What was this orc saying…?

“Grawrgh! Baaash! You bastard! Siding with the elves?!”

“Gu-gu-gu! What for? Why?! Traitooor!!!”

General Baraben and Gandaguza howled with indignity.

Bash had betrayed them. The Orc Hero was taking a protective role over the sly, sneaky elves, turning his sword on his own countrymen! It was unbelievable.

But the two of them had no idea…

The war was already over.

The orcs had decided among themselves to live better lives in this new society.

“The Orc King has forbidden hostility toward other races.”

“Bastard! Traitor! …Weakling!!!”

General Baraben roared.

“Nemesis? That pathetic excuse for an orc?! How dare he pass judgment on meee!!!”

“Gu-gu-gu! What happened to the pride of the orcs?! What do orcs have besides combat?! Have you no teeth?! For shame!!!”

Baraben’s crazed bellows. Gandaguza’s burbling shrieks.

Bash was not deterred. In fact, the sound of them imbued him with strength.

“General Baraben. I respect your legacy and your great deeds in life. However, a zombie orc is no longer an orc. And only an orc can speak for orckind.”

“Grwaaargh! Bwaaargh!!!”

General Baraben was incensed.

With a thunderous roar that shook the very earth beneath their feet, he charged at Bash.

The zombie general towered over Bash, the war hammer he wielded making Bash’s greatsword look like a toothpick in comparison.

“Come, then!”

The Orc Hero lifted his sword and began to do battle against the zombie general.