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Chapter 24: Orcrox Warriors (3)

The scattered bones on the ground slowly began to move and assemble themselves. Dark magic aroused the bones and connected them one by one, creating bone warriors known as undead skeletons. They were pitiful undead creatures who were unable to rest after death because evil sorcerers used necromancy to make personal dolls out of their corpses.

Yi-An fastened his hold on his greatsword as the undead human skeletons grabbed their weapons and began walking toward the orcs. While eyeing the undead human skeletons, something caught Yi-An’s eye. The other orcs noticed it as well. Their mouths tightened, and their hands trembled in response. Yi-An gripped his greatsword even tighter.

There were undead orc skeletons among the bone warriors. With a noticeably larger stature than that of the human skeletons, the undead orc skeletons wobbled toward the living orcs with axes and halberds in hand and broken helmets hanging from their skulls. It was a dismal sight without a trace of honor.

The enraged orc warriors charged at once, and the sorcerers’ spells echoed throughout the cave. Yi-An also swung his greatsword.

The human bone warriors moved in bizarre ways, but they had formidable speed and strength. When Yi-An tried to stab into an undead human skeleton’s ribs, his greatsword simply bounced off. That undead human skeleton then saw an opening to aim an attack at Yi-An’s throat.

However, Yi-An was able to dodge the attack by crouching down. Then he swung his greatsword again. He managed to land a hit with a loud clang, but he failed to inflict any damage.

Right then, an unfamiliar strength nestled in his body, and his greatsword began to shine brightly with a blue light. It was the blessing of the orc sorcerers! This would allow Yi-An’s attacks to work.

Yi-An dodged the sword coming down at him from above and stabbed the undead human skeleton’s wrist, causing its arm to crumble away. The human bone warrior then extended its remaining arm toward Yi-An and tried to grab onto him. Yi-An extended his hand as well and grasped the undead human skeleton’s cold hand. Then he slammed his greatsword into its skull, which split apart with a loud noise. The strength in the undead human skeleton’s hand was sapped away, and the energy holding the bones of the undead human skeleton together began to dissipate. The undead human skeleton fell apart.

Yi-An thought he could use this moment to catch his breath, but another attack came at him. This time, it was from an orc bone warrior. Its huge axe aimed for Yi-An’s head, but Yi-An lowered his head in time to dodge and drew the bone warrior closer to him.

He extended his greatsword, but the orc bone warrior quickly dodged the greatsword and swung its axe. Their weapons collided, and once it shifted to a power struggle, Yi-An was able to keep up with the undead orc warrior’s strength. Having been empowered by dark magic, the strength of the undead orc warrior was on another level. A force that transcended Yi-An’s continued to press up against him, pushing him to retreat.

Just when he was about to give up fighting one-on-one, he heard a whisper.

“Rest...”

Yi-An raised his eyes.

“Give me rest...”

It was a faint whisper like rustling in the wind, so much so that Yi-An was unsure whether he had heard it by ear or if it had merely been an echo in his head. However, the undead orc warrior’s eyes were directed toward Yi-An. There was something inside the abyss of its eyes that was staring earnestly at Yi-An.

The orc bone warrior turned and slashed forth with its axe. The axe’s blade tore into Yi-An’s arm.

“Aargghh!” moaned Yi-An.

His blood splattered over the head of the undead orc skeleton.

“Warrior, give me... honorable rest...”

Yi-An’s blood trickled down the orc bone warrior’s skull and into the holes of its eyes, making it seem as if the warrior was crying tears of blood.

Yi-An nodded. An indescribable emotion surged within him. He didn’t know much about Elder Lord and how its system was run or what its true nature was. Should he be perceiving the artificially intelligent characters in the game as humans? Yi-An didn’t know how similar their emotions were to those of humans, but to him, Elder Lord was an actual world. Everyone he had met at Elder Lord

The cries of the orc warriors around Yi-An who fought while their shoulders bumped against each other’s, Lenox’s voice encouraging the orc warriors, the solemn chants of the orc sorcerers’ rejuvenating the orc warriors, and the bloody tears of the orc bone warrior who implored for Yi-An to give him honorable rest—if these weren’t real, what was?

Yi-An raised his greatsword. He had to spare the orc bone warrior from the disgrace he was suffering from. An orc sorcerer’s spell nestled in his blade, and its bluish light cast a shadow on the orc bone warrior’s face.

Simultaneously, Lenox’s cry rang across the tunnel, “Honorable rest for these men!”

“Rest!” shouted Yi-An and the orc warriors in unison as the weapons of Yi-An and the orc bone warrior collided.

***

“Manager, the main system is locked.”

“What, again?!”

“It’s in protection mode.”

“What is it this time?!”

“It’s our first time encountering this situation. The system says it’s temporarily inaccessible because it’s synchronizing.”

“Dammit!” Park Ju-Jin angrily threw down the documents he had been reading and looked at the huge white structure elevated at the center of the system control room.

That pure white elliptic sphere was what controlled the whole system—not Park Ju-Jin or his team. That elliptic sphere was Elder Lord itself. To be precise, that elliptic structure was Albino, the main core system that calculated and controlled everything in Elder Lord. Albino ran everything on its own; no one knew what logic it adhered to, what kind of system was saved, or what was exactly inside.

All of the technology had been left behind by the genius scientist Yoo Jae-Han, who had mysteriously disappeared. Consequently, no one else knew much about Albino or understood how it worked. As the next genius in line after Yoo Jae-Han, Park Ju-Jin had inherited control over Elder Lord’s system, but instead of controlling it, he could only oversee it as a manager. This meant that although Elder Saga Corporation, a company affiliated with Myeongsong Group, was known as Elder Lord’s creator, it was actually only able to utilize its superficial functions.

“Yoo Jae-Han, that asshole...” Park Ju-Jin uttered the name of the man he had always chased after, admired, and envied but was no longer here. “What the hell did you make...?”

No one understood how Elder Lord was able to implement such flawless virtual reality. The initial crudeness of virtual reality games had disappeared with the emergence of Elder Lord. Even Park Ju-Jin had been unable to distinguish it from reality when he first logged into the game. He couldn’t even begin to understand how Yoo Jae-Han had accomplished such a feat. The whole world was in a frenzy about Elder Lord, but no one actually understood its true nature.

“Albino,” called Park Ju-Jin.

Albino did not respond.

“Albino, what kind of situation is this?”

Albino could be classified as a being of supreme intellect, but it wasn’t under their control. It ignored most of their questions and only replied when it deemed necessary to do so.

At present, Albino chose to remain silent.

“Dammit...” Park Ju-Jin clasped his head.

Right then...

—Temporarily inaccessible due to synchronization in player mode.

Albino had finally spoken. How long had it been since he last heard her voice? Park Ju-Jin looked at Albino’s white body. The white large system core had replied in an alluring female voice—a voice one might typically think would belong to a beautiful woman.

—A player has temporarily exceeded an assimilation rate of 90%. To protect the system and the player, system access will be blocked momentarily.

Park Ju-Jin’s jaw dropped.

“What did you say...?” he asked while fixing his glasses in a frenzy.

However, Albino refused to speak again.

Park Ju-Jin screamed, “Everyone, take your hands off the system and begin monitoring!”

“Huh...?”

“Look for any player who has noticeably surpassed their abilities! Find the bastard whose assimilation rate exceeds ninety percent! It’s over ninety!”

“We lack the staff to look through all of the players...”

“Yeah, so you should screen them selectively! Check the high-rankers! Check the players who already had high assimilation rates! Keep an eye out for bastards who are in a fight or an urgent situation!”

“Y-Yes!”

“Right now!”

All members of the system control room team got up immediately and ran out at Park Ju-Jin’s order. Now, only Albino and Park Ju-Jin remained.

Park Ju-Jin looked up at Albino—the huge, white elliptic computer. After ceasing to speak once again, Albino was now performing calculations on the world inside as usual. Park Ju-Jin let out a sigh and picked up one by one the documents he had thrown onto the ground.

As he was doing so, the content of one of the documents caught his eye.

[Request Form

A VIP is requesting detailed information on a player in Elder Lord and the character he is using...]

Park Ju-Jin threw away the document again. “We can’t do that shit either...”

***

As the orcs proceeded into the depths of the dungeon in silence, they saw undead orcs among the undead species resurrected by dark magic—the bone warriors, zombies, and dullahans. The orc warriors were shaken by the sight of their brothers among the undead as the most important thing to orcs was life. Even their habitual greeting was about being alive, and their shout ‘bul’tar’ was also about life.

The orcs treated death, which was seated in opposition to life, as a holy phenomenon. They firmly believed that the cycle of life had to be completed with death. Yet, their dead brothers had been disgraced by the evil sorcerer who had settled inside the cave.

The orcs were flooded with cold anger. Any trace of upset had disappeared from their faces, and their presence became sharper. The orc warriors thoroughly smashed any undead orcs that they encountered into pieces to give their brothers the rest they deserved, but some orc warriors received injuries on the way...

“Aarrghh...” An orc warrior dropped to his knees after his arm was cut off by an undead mantis.

His fellow orc warriors poured a potion on him and fastened the amputated arm back onto his body. The orc sorcerers cast recovery spells to help, but it was uncertain whether the arm could fully recover because there was a great amount of damage in the wounded area. The injured orc might not be able to use his arm again.

Lenox approached him and asked, “Arctar, are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Lenox.”

“Go back to the entrance and wait with the other injured warriors.”

“I can still fight! Even if I die here, I will continue fighting!”

“Arctar,” Lenox said while grabbing Arctar’s shoulder, “This is not your place to die.”

“...”

“As you have always said, only a dragon would suffice as your opponent.”

“...You are right,” Arctar cackled. “Understood. I’m sorry, Lenox.”

The injured orcs began to walk toward the dungeon’s entrance by supporting one another. The orcs who could no longer fight during the dungeon raid were waiting at the empty lot where they had defeated the death knight. There weren’t any dead orcs yet, but they had lost a third of their troop to injuries.

“Me... Me too...” Grom uttered.

“...?” Lenox looked at him questioningly.

Grom approached Lenox while putting his wounded area on full display. It wasn’t a severe wound.

Seeing that, Lenox raised one of his eyebrows and stated, “You can still fight.”

“That is...”

“Apprentice, believe in yourself,” said Lenox firmly.

“Y-Yes...” replied Grom as he went away with drooping shoulders.

Concerned, Yi-An ran up to Grom and asked, “Are you okay?”

“Ah, yes. Yes,” Grom answered.

“I saw you doing a good job earlier. Let’s make it to the end,” Yi-An encouraged him.

“Yes...”

Yi-An tilted his head in curiosity. Grom had been strangely downcast during the progress of this dungeon raid. Yi-An initially thought it had been because the death knight was so scary, but Grom was still crestfallen even after seeing the death knight getting pummelled by the orcs. It seemed his mind was elsewhere.

Grom sluggishly walked behind the orc warriors. Yi-An, who was still worried about Grom, walked alongside him in support.

Hoyt, who had been at the front of the troop, suddenly said, “Everyone, gather your strength. There isn’t much left in this journey.”

They had reached the end of the tunnel and were at the last hurdle of the dungeon raid. At the end of the tunnel was a giant, eerie door, and in front of it were three death knights. They were different from the death knight at the entrance. Like waves of heat in summer, the death knights’ dark energy moved in thick waves and surged outward. The whole tunnel vibrated with dark magic.

“Fooooooooooolllllllliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiissssssshhhhhhhhh ooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrcccccssssssssss...”

Just from the sound of the death knights’ voices, the orcs could tell these death knights were much stronger than the death knight from before. The death knights’ overlapping whispers spread eerily throughout the cave, and the orcs could no longer tell how many voices were in this space. Although the orcs were unable to clearly understand what the death knights were saying due to all of the noise, they all got goosebumps because of what they heard.

The death knights then picked up their swords. Even though there were just three death knights, the orcs felt an intense pressure from them that was beyond comparison to all the undead they had faced before now.

Sensing danger, Yi-An’s body tried to retreat, but Yi-An held on through the force of his will and charged forward. The orc warriors alongside him also raised their weapons, and the orc sorcerers began to chant spells.

The death knights walked toward the orcs. Their legs were moving, but it was a strange progression; they seemed to be slipping forward on a surface. With unimaginable speed, the death knights arrived before them in an instant and swung their swords. Their swords collided with the orc warriors’ weapons, and the sheer force of the death knights sent the orcs flying backward.

Right after dodging an orc warrior who had been flung backward, Yi-An swung his sword at one of the death knights. Yi-An thought his body felt strangely light. He could clearly see the trajectory of the enemy’s attack. He didn’t think he could lose to anyone at that moment.

Yi-An’s greatsword struck the death knight.