The Knight King Who Returned with Gods : Chapter 32
Translators: Nyx and Ririi Rain
Episode 32 Good Orc (3)
It was a refreshing morning for Groktar, a warrior of the
Bladeaxe tribe.
"Gahahahaha! Groktar smashed Galdin's skull!"
"That was some good axe work, Brother!"
Groktar prayed for his compatriot, whose skull had been
split open in a morning quarrel.
"You died fighting bravely, and the God of Warriors
will send you to the eternal battlefield."
After blessing the corpse of his fallen comrade, Groktar
headed to the river. He drew water from the river with a gourd to commemorate
his glorious victory.
"Groktar! Groktar of the Bladeaxe tribe!"
A voice called out from across the river. It was an orc
of different tribe, one of the enemies in the bloodbath that would decide who
would be the great chieftain of the steppe this time.
"Yes I am, and who are you!"
"My name is Barbata! I am Barbata of the Ironfist
tribe!"
"Yes, Barbata! What is it!"
"Fight me! I will defeat you and honor my
tribe!"
"Hmph, good! I will raise my axe!"
Groktar split Barbata's head open and drank from his
victory goblet.
All around him were orcs who, like Barbata, had come to
drink water and then challenged their kindred to a duel and lost. Was that why?
"Hmm, the water tastes a bit unusual today."
Something about the water tingled and stung a little. But
it was the only water they had to quench their thirst, and they couldn't find
another source.
Groktar returned to his tribe carrying buckets of water.
And the tragedy began.
Groktar realized that his body was rapidly deteriorating.
He lost his senses and passed out several times before
lunchtime.
The radioactive material destroyed the water molecules in
Groktar's body, resulting in an excess of active oxygen.
The hydroxyl radical substance1 created in this way
destroyed the cells in Groktar's body in real time, and he felt a gritty
metallic taste in his mouth -- the taste buds on his tongue had been disrupted.
In less than an hour, he lost every hair on his body,
including his eyebrows, and experienced nausea, vomiting, full-body weakness,
and bleeding.
His body felt heavy, like he was carrying a boulder, and
his vision was spinning and he couldn't see clearly.
"Oof... Sha- shaman... call a shaman......."
Groktar grunted in pain and slipped out of his tent. He
crawled out on his knees, but all he saw were his brethren with the same
symptoms he had.
"Ughhhhhhh..."
"Shaman, shaman, agh......."
They sought out the tribe's shaman. A shaman who usually
didn't take care of medical issues, only performing spells to strengthen them,
had suddenly been asked to remove the curse on them.
"Wha- what... I don’t know anything like this. I’ve
never seen anything like this!”
But being a shaman won't bring any help.
This wasn't a spell or a curse, but the result of
drinking water from a river contaminated with highly concentrated radioactive
substances.
Orcs were naturally physically strong, which was why they
held out so long; lesser creatures would have died when they vomited the
poisoned blood.
And so, the orcs in the grassland were dying, poisoned by
their sin radiations.
"Glory to the Lionheart!"
Dum, dum, dum, dum- Thundering footsteps of hunters
echoed across the grassland as a lance pierced the orc shaman's torso.
"Kuuck!"
The orc shaman, his body impaled, tried to attack the
raiders with elemental magic even as he was being hoisted, but was instead
thrown and rolled across the ground.
"Exterminate the beasts. Do not let a single one
live!"
With a rumbling shout, the hunters burst into the orc
camp.
"Go, these are free experience points! Kill them
all!"
"I can't believe how easy it is to kill orcs."
The hunters slaughtered orc after orc, whistling as they
did so at the emaciated state of the orcs they had never seen before.
It was not a battle, it was a massacre, a slaughter.
"Umm… excuse me, Your Majesty."
"What is it, Hari?"
"It's... is it okay, Your Majesty? If we kill the
radiation-tainted orcs... we'll be exposed to the radiation too."
"You mean that toxic substance. Nothing to worry
about."
Leon was not ignorant of the toxicity of radioactive
materials.
Yappy had explained the dangers well enough, and that it
was powerful enough to kill all the orcs in the grassland.
That was why Yappy had proposed spreading the radioactive
material and then watching at the gate entrance.
"It doesn't matter. If it's that much toxicity, it
can be washed away by eating the crops Demera has blessed us with and simply
resting. Besides, all who enter my gate will gain the power of 'contamination
resistence'."
"......I, I see."
If so, what will happen to the quest? The dungeon's
closing condition was shattered...
At that moment, a message popped up in front of Hari's
eyes.
[You have turned the entire Orc Tribes against you. You
have become a public enemy of the Orcs].
"Huh.......?"
Quest change? This was the first time a quest had been
changed. Hari looked at the quest info further.
[Hidden quest. Slay all orcs in the field].
"Yo- Your Majesty, the quest... has been changed.”
When Hari reported the changed quest, the Lionheart King
smiled with satisfaction.
"Good! At last, righteous justice has been
established! Soldiers of the Lionheart! The time for light and justice has
come!"
A few hundred orcs remained. Leon intended to dispose of
every last one of them.
─────!!
It was then. In the center of the orc camp. There was a
strange change in the air.
The sky was turning green.
"That is?"
Leon rode the Stallion and headed straight for the place
where change was taking place. He found a group of orcs gathered there.
"You! It's you! You're the one who put a curse on
the river!"
Hundreds of sick and dying orcs and a robed orc shaman.
He looked at Leon and the hunters, his eyes bloodshot and filled with rage.
"You evil bastards! Cowards! You call yourselves
warriors after all this?!"
The orc shaman shed bloody tears as he witnessed the
horrendous deaths of his people.
Orcs were a race closer to death than any other, but this
was not how it was supposed to be. There should be no such dishonorable deaths.
"Ha."
Leon sneered in amusement at the orcs' cries.
"Worthless, beasts crying out for honor."
The eyes of a beast screaming in rage were low and dirty.
It was a humiliation enough for Leon to be looked at with them.
"The honor of the Lionheart King is not something
you beasts can hold in your eyes. It is a mortal sin that cannot be forgiven
even after being drenched in blood and having your eyes dug out alive."
The orcs trembled at the chillingly harsh sentence.
"Curse your ugly selves and at least give yourself a
chance to redeem yourselves, filthy beasts."
"Arrogant bastards! Gokrok will not forgive
you!"
At that moment, the shaman's eyes glowed green and he
emitted a fiery energy of destruction.
"He is casting spells!"
Leon didn't wait for the wave of energy to settle. He
lifted his holy lance and hurled it at the shaman.
Several orcs raised their shields to protect the shaman,
but the lance, thrown with superhuman strength, penetrated them all and pierced
the shaman's gut.
"Khuhug! It's... too late!"
The shaman poured all of his life force into it. The
life-sacrifice spell succeeded, and a portal opened.
"Gokrok descends...! Our great God of Shaman will...
punish you!"
As if the gate of hell had opened, a pitch-black pit
squeezed through the space, and the immense wind from within sucked in all
directions.
"For... the God of Shaman!"
"To avenge our brethren!"
The orcs did not resist and were willingly sucked into
it.
"Your, Your majesty! What is that!"
"Ha, a mountain of sacrifice. Indeed, they're
beasts. No sign of civilized life at all."
"......."
"......."
Hari and the other hunters stared at Leon in silence.
There was so much they wanted to say, but they held their tongues.
"Behold! This is Gokrok's mighty right arm and
eye!"
[Hidden Quest: Defeat the orc shaman god, Gokrok.]
* * * * *
Orcs were an otherworldly race whose origins were
obscure.
Their characteristics were simple enough.
They were violent, love to fight, and were prolific
breeders.
They were despised as savage beasts, but even they have
gods.
One of the three great gods of the orcs, Gokrok, was the
god of orcish shamanism.
He answered the summon of the orc shaman who succeeded
his wisdom.
Though it took the sacrifice of several hundred orcs and
the souls of countless orcs to summon one arm and one eyeball.
And Gokrok saw. The Orc Butcher was reflected in the
searing green eye. With all his might, he summoned his mouth and addressed the
creature,
[Unacceptable. Must be destroyed.]
Gokrok's eyes glowed and a green beam shot out. It was
aimed at Leon.
However, the <Blessing of Shields>, a holy law that
granted protection from any long-range attack at least once, blocked Gokrok's
eye beam.
[Protected by a being like me. Who is the god who
protects you?]
Gokrok realized that the power that blocked it was that
of a transcendent being. Though on a different realm, he was intrigued by a
being that could stand up to him.
"A being... like you?"
But Leon's reaction was dramatic. In the face of a deity,
there was no fear or hesitation in his face, only anger.
All sense of goodwill was stripped away from his pleasant
demeanor, replaced by a vast amount of murderous fury.
"You wretch. You think you're a god by being the
leader of beasts?! Haaahhhh!"
Leon's glow intensified. Stallion lifted its feet and
charged, holy sword in the man's grasp.
"You filthy beast, your presence will not be
tolerated by this Lionhearted King!"
Leon's sword shone. Light poured from all sides, coating
it in layers, just as it had when he poured holy water onto it before.
[An insignificant mortal... !]
Gokrok's right arm swung down at Leon. The massive mass
was a weapon of its own. Hari and the hunters were stunned by the sight of the
twenty-meter right arm swinging toward Stallion and Leon.
"Your- Your Majesty?!"
But Leon charged on, unperturbed. His sword glowed
brilliantly.
The Holy Sword. Given to the first knight of the goddess
of light and justice. This sword had another power besides being
indestructible.
Dazzling (Glorious) Holy Sword.
A symbol of undying brilliance. It can cut through
anything in the world.
[What!?]
Bewilderment flickered in Gokrok's voice. No wonder. A
mortal, albeit a strong one, had cut off his arm.
The trait of a Holy Grail Knight was that their weapons
were inscribed with holy laws. The power of the concept to deliver a true blow
to the opponent you strike.
Even if it's a spirit being, if cut by this sword, the
essence of the body will be struck.
[Kaaaaghhhh...!]
"Go, Gokrok-nim?!"
The god screamed in pain. The orc shaman was taken aback.
[Guh, you...! Yes... it is you... Orc Butcher... Demon
Slayer...!]
Gokrok had identified his opponent's true identity from
the damage to his body. A knight from another dimension than his own, but one
whose notoriety was so great that even demons feared him.
A demigod from a nightmarish world, where the
highest-ranking demons were said to have died en masse beneath this demigod
devoted to the goddess of light and justice.
[I will retreat for now... you will pay the price for
this insolence.]
With those words, Gokrok terminated the summoning and
returned to his own dimension. The orc shaman was dumbfounded as the god he had
called upon at the cost of countless orc souls simply left.
"Go, Gokrok. Gokrok, My Lord!"
Leon approached the shaman, who shivered from the shadow
that fell over him.
"I suppose this is all there is to the ‘god’ of scum
beasts."
"I, thi-...!"
The shaman didn't finish his sentence. Leon's holy sword
had decapitated him.
The orc shaman's head rolled to the ground, and Leon
stared down at it in contempt.
"Hmph, the beasts have spoiled the party. You are
not meant to live."
[You have completed all hidden quests.]
-All participants are granted the skill 'Orc Hunter'.
-All participants are granted the skill 'Man at Arms of
the War Knight'.
Hunters gagged at their reward skills. By nature, skills
were rare rewards for hunters.
The theory was that certain actions or repetitive
behaviors could get you skills, but two different skill rewards?
[Orc Hunter]
-Deal 30% more damage against Orcs.
[Man-At-Arms of the War Knight]
-Provides 20% more physical resistance when fighting
alongside a knight with the [War Knight] skill.
The stats may not be that spectacular - one was Orc-specific,
which was a bummer, but it gave me a whopping 30% extra damage, and
[Man-At-Arms of the War Knight] gave a 20% more physical resistance.
Practically all the hunters here now had physical
resistance that only tank-type hunters would have.
"Fuck... this is awesome."
As Gu Dae-sung and the other hunters gawked at the hidden
quests rewards, Leon shouted,
"Collect the loot! Hurry up and move!"
The hunters jumped to their feet. Yes, there was still
the loot.
Over four thousand orcs had been killed. Even if the gate
where the orcs appear was lousy, 4,000 or so orcs would still be a lot of loot.
As long as the dungeon closing conditions were fulfilled,
they had to scrape up the loot from the gate as soon as possible.
"Hurry up! Focus on the high-level warriors, and get
all of the shaman's items!"
"Ugh... If these bastards died well, the 'Warrior's
Heart’ would be a great item......."
"Would a radioactive pickled heart be okay?"
"I don't know! I heard that if we eat the blessed
rice, we won't have to worry about radiation, so let's just take them
out!"
The hunters scattered in all directions of the grassland
with greedy eyes.
-Kririg!
Unlike them, Hari and Yappy stayed behind. Hari was not
item-hungry, and Yappy's attention was elsewhere.
"Um, Your Majesty... what should we do with
this?"
Hari pointed to a severed massive arm.
It was the severed arm of the orc shaman god, Gokrok.
It was still there even after Gokrok had closed the
dimensional gate.
***
Notes:
1 The three primary species, i.e., the superoxide anion (O2•‒), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and the hydroxyl radical (HO•), are called reactive oxygen species because they are oxygen-containing compounds with reactive properties.↩
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