Chương 117: The Experiment He Had Been Waiting For

Sieghart continued moving between every cast, using Wind Magic to change altitude and direction so nobody could predict exactly where he would remain. Then something different happened. The defenders cheered. It began near one tower. A few soldiers shouted when another Giant Fireball exploded among the enemy reserves. Then more voices joined. Within seconds, sections of the wall erupted with renewed noise as exhausted defenders realized whoever was attacking the orcs possessed no intention of stopping.

Sieghart felt strangely uncomfortable. He was not doing this for applause. Experience and experimentation remained significant motivations, and pretending otherwise would have been dishonest. Still, hearing thousands of people suddenly sound less terrified was not unpleasant. Sieghart released another Giant Fireball. A large section of the enemy camp disappeared beneath fire. The cheering intensified. He looked farther north. Something was changing.

The orcs who had remained inactive throughout the earlier attacks were finally moving in large numbers. Not toward the walls. Sideways. Several formations spread apart, abandoning dense positions that had made them easy targets for Sieghart's bombardment. Others began retreating even farther north. That was intelligent. Sieghart stopped casting for several seconds and watched how quickly the army adapted. They had recognized the obvious problem.

Standing together beneath someone capable of repeatedly dropping enormous explosive spells was suicidal. Sieghart smiled faintly. At least they learned. His gaze moved toward the largest fires near the center of the army. Several silhouettes were moving there now. One was considerably larger than the others. Sieghart's expression became more serious. Perhaps the Orc King had finally noticed him. The possibility should have made Sieghart retreat immediately. Instead, curiosity sharpened.

He had come here partly because he wanted to understand what made that particular enemy dangerous enough to break the northern army. Now, after poisoning part of the battlefield and raining Giant Fireballs onto the orc backline, Sieghart suspected he had finally done enough to earn the answer. Below him, the defenders continued cheering. The orcs reorganized. And somewhere within the burning darkness, something enormous started moving toward the battlefield.

Sieghart remained suspended above the battlefield after the final Giant Fireball struck, watching the largest campfires while waiting for something enormous, angry, and important-looking to emerge from the darkness. He had already decided how he would greet the Orc King if the bastard appeared. Several Giant Fireballs directly to the face seemed appropriately diplomatic after everything Sieghart had heard about him. Unfortunately, nobody matching that description appeared.

Several large warriors moved among the scattered formations, shouting orders and reorganizing groups, but none displayed enough authority to convince Sieghart that he had found their king. Sieghart maintained his altitude for another minute, quietly preparing another Giant Fireball in case someone particularly interesting revealed himself. Nothing happened, and the enemy army continued spreading farther apart instead.

The bombardment had apparently convinced the orcs that remaining clustered beneath the mysterious flying mage was unnecessary stupidity. Entire formations separated while others pulled farther north, placing greater distances between their fires and supply positions. Near the walls, the human defenders were doing something similar in reverse.

Officers shouted instructions, wounded fighters were replaced, ammunition moved toward depleted sections, and the damaged defensive formations gradually became organized again. It looked like the battle was ending. Not the siege. Sieghart was fairly certain they would have considerably more problems tomorrow, assuming the Orc King remained interested in adding this town to whatever collection of human settlements he wanted destroyed. Still, tonight belonged to the defenders.

Sieghart looked across the battlefield with a small amount of satisfaction. His magic had influenced an entire battle involving thousands of fighters, which was considerably beyond anything he had accomplished during ordinary guild missions. That realization felt good. Sieghart immediately reminded himself why it had worked. Night had hidden him almost perfectly once he climbed high enough, making it extremely difficult for ordinary archers to locate him before the Giant Fireballs revealed his approximate position.

The orcs also seemed incapable of flying. Several had thrown weapons frighteningly high, and enough arrows had passed beneath him to prove that remaining stationary would eventually become dangerous, but nobody had actually joined Sieghart in the air. That advantage had allowed him to attack almost freely. The wind had also conveniently carried his poison directly toward the enemy before eventually becoming inconvenient enough to stop the defenders from pursuing them. Those were exceptional circumstances.

Against flying enemies, ranged specialists, or someone capable of reaching him through specialized Aura, Sieghart would never receive enough uninterrupted time to rain Giant Fireballs across an entire army. He would not let this go to his head. That was how people became corpses. Sieghart slowly descended while examining the battlefield below, searching for somewhere away from both armies. Returning directly to the wall after ignoring several soldiers seemed unnecessarily likely to create questions.

A few isolated fires remained across the darkened field, usually around burning tents, shattered supply wagons, or unfortunate orcs that had failed to escape the Giant Fireballs quickly enough. Sieghart noticed several moving shapes near one burning section. Four orcs. Their armor remained partially aflame as they staggered away from the damaged camp, apparently attempting to rejoin the retreating army while everyone else focused upon reorganizing. Sieghart changed direction. Those four would do.

He descended behind a low rise some distance from the walls, landing where darkness and uneven terrain prevented either army from obtaining a particularly clear view of him. The moment his feet touched the ground, Sieghart dismissed the wind supporting his weight and immediately started following the injured orcs through the darkness. He wanted a closer look. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

That was not entirely because of curiosity regarding their increased magical resistance. Sieghart had another experiment in mind, one he had been considering since discovering something disturbing beneath Bellhaven. The burning orcs did not notice him immediately. Their attention remained focused ahead while they stumbled between patches of scorched grass, occasionally beating at their armor to extinguish the remaining flames. Sieghart followed quietly. Eventually, one turned. Its eyes immediately fixed upon him.

The creature shouted something Sieghart could not understand before drawing a one-handed axe and charging without showing even the slightest concern about why someone was following them alone. The others turned immediately. Apparently, questions were unnecessary. All four attacked. Sieghart pointed toward the ground. Frozen Floor spread across the grass. The effect formed directly across their path, coating dirt, stone, and burned vegetation beneath a thin sheet of magically produced ice.

The first orc stepped onto it at full speed. Its foot shot forward. The enormous warrior immediately lost balance and crashed onto its back hard enough to crack the ice beneath its shoulders. The second collided with him. The remaining two attempted to stop, but their momentum carried them onto the frozen surface before they could properly adjust. Sieghart raised both hands. Several Earth Bullets formed around him. He fired.

The first stone projectile struck the nearest fallen orc directly across the forehead, snapping its head backward while another slammed into the side of its skull. Sieghart kept firing. Stone after stone struck the fallen warriors before they could regain their footing, concentrating specifically upon their heads instead of wasting attacks against their unusually durable bodies. One skull cracked. Another collapsed beneath repeated impacts.

The third orc managed to rise onto one knee before three Earth Bullets struck the same side of its face almost simultaneously. It dropped again. The final warrior roared and tried dragging itself across the ice toward Sieghart, fingers digging into frozen earth while blood poured from several wounds across its head. Two more Earth Bullets ended that effort. Silence returned. The entire exchange had lasted only several seconds.

Sieghart approached cautiously, keeping several additional Earth Bullets floating beside him until he confirmed that none of the four warriors still displayed meaningful movement. A familiar sensation accompanied the kills. He had gained experience. Not enough to produce another immediate level up, but the System clearly recognized the orcs as worthwhile enemies despite their already injured condition. Sieghart looked toward the corpses. He still needed something else.

Earth Bullets had crushed the skulls, but they revealed almost nothing about whatever existed inside the body beyond the obvious mixture of bone, blood, and tissue. Sieghart formed Wind Blades. Several narrow currents compressed around his hands before becoming sharp enough to slice through grass beneath them whenever he allowed the edges to drift too low. He aimed toward the nearest corpse. Then hesitated.

Dissecting humanoid bodies felt considerably different from dismantling monsters, especially when the enemies possessed weapons, clothing, expressions, and enough intelligence to organize entire armies. Sieghart disliked the discomfort. He still released the spell. A Wind Blade crossed the corpse and opened its torso. Sieghart immediately looked away for half a second before forcing himself to examine what he had done.

Whatever answer he wanted would not appear simply because he preferred avoiding unpleasant sights. He sent another blade through the second corpse. Then another. The smell became horrible almost immediately. Blood mixed with burned hair, scorched leather, poison residue, and everything else accumulating across a battlefield where thousands of people had spent hours attempting to kill each other. Sieghart disabled Enhanced Smell. He had absolutely no intention of experiencing this in greater detail.

For a moment, guilt remained. Then Sieghart noticed something beside one corpse. A hand. Not an orc hand. A human hand. Three severed fingers were still trapped between the warrior's teeth, partially hidden beneath blood covering its mouth and chin. Sieghart stopped moving. He looked toward another corpse. Blood covered that one's mouth as well. Something pale remained caught between its tusks. Sieghart stepped closer despite already suspecting what he would find. Another finger. Human.

The discomfort inside him changed immediately.

"So that's why." Vessa and Orin had refused to explain what made this Orc King and his army particularly troublesome. Sieghart had assumed they were simply avoiding disturbing military details around a child. Apparently, there had been more to it. These orcs ate humans. Not metaphorically. Not because someone had exaggerated enemy behavior to make them sound monstrous. They had pieces of people inside their mouths. Sieghart stared toward the retreating army in the distance.

That explained several things about the defenders' reactions as well. Losing the walls did not merely mean occupation, capture, or being driven from the territory. For some people, it meant becoming food. Sieghart looked back toward the bodies. He felt considerably less guilty about cutting them open now. That probably was not a particularly healthy thought. He accepted it anyway.

Sieghart used another Wind Blade, carefully opening the torso farther while avoiding unnecessary damage to whatever strange structures he wanted to examine. The first body looked mostly normal. Normal for an enormous hairy orc, anyway. Then Sieghart noticed something dark-red beneath the ribs. His expression changed. He crouched. A core rested inside the corpse.

It was smaller than the one belonging to the unfinished Dungeon Guardian, naturally, but the color and unsettling magical sensation were unmistakably familiar. Dark red. Corrupted. Sieghart immediately examined the second corpse. Another core. The third possessed one as well. By the time he checked the fourth, any possibility of coincidence had disappeared. All four orcs carried corrupted cores inside their bodies.

Sieghart remained crouched between them while the distant battlefield slowly became quieter, his earlier satisfaction disappearing beneath a much more uncomfortable realization. This was what he had wanted to confirm. Bellhaven had bothered him because the Dungeon Guardian's corrupted core had given him Necromancy after absorption, suggesting that someone had deliberately altered the creature rather than allowing natural dungeon reconstruction.

Sieghart had wondered whether corruption worked similarly inside living beings. The orcs had just given him an answer. At least partially. The cores existed. That alone proved their bodies contained something far stranger than ordinary Aura reinforcement, although Sieghart still did not know whether the corruption caused their unusual resistance. Perhaps that was why Fireballs barely affected them.

Perhaps the increased hair, physical strength, and magical durability were consequences of whatever process produced these cores. Sieghart looked toward the nearest one. He had planned this experiment before coming down. Kill an orc. Find the core. Check whether his System reacted. Simple. At least, that had been the plan while he remained safely above the battlefield and the corrupted core existed only as a theoretical possibility. Now it was directly in front of him. Sieghart extended one hand. Then stopped.

Memories from Bellhaven returned immediately. The fragments becoming dust. The experience. Necromancy. Zombification. The overwhelming desire to reject death. His grandparents. Sieghart slowly pulled his hand back. Absorbing another corrupted core could answer several important questions. It could also unlock something considerably worse. The Dungeon Guardian had been undead, so Necromancy at least possessed some logical connection to its nature. These orcs were alive before Sieghart killed them.

Whatever knowledge their corruption carried could be completely different. That was exactly what made the experiment valuable. It was also exactly what made touching the core seem increasingly stupid. Sieghart stared at the dark-red sphere beneath the opened ribs. For once, curiosity did not immediately win. His fingers remained several centimeters away. And for the first time since deciding to conduct this experiment, Sieghart seriously wondered whether some questions were better left unanswered.