Chương 77: Chapter 76+77 The Flaming Bone Axe

The Flaming Bone Axe"Exactly. Why are they making such a commotion?" The other Bloodclaw warriors beside Karath looked just as puzzled. After hunting an ogre and then a drake, their standards for what counted as powerful had become thoroughly distorted. Of course, being weaker than an ogre did not make a minotaur genuinely weak. Dagon had said it was stronger than an Owlbear, so a single clean hit would probably still end an orc's life. However, an orc warrior's existence was already a daily struggle against death.

These were warriors who had once prepared to hunt a drake. There was no chance they would cower before something weaker than an ogre. Without the mana stone, every one of them might already have crossed into the afterlife. Then again, perhaps this world had no equivalent of that particular river.

"Damn it. Strange monsters have been appearing more often lately, but Dagon never imagined two minotaurs would attack." While the Bloodclaw warriors held their absurd discussion, Dagon muttered to himself and looked back at them.

"Brothers of the Bloodclaw Tribe! We will kill the monsters attacking our settlement. You are guests, so remain inside the village. There is no need for you to fight." Once his unsteady legs recovered, Dagon began moving to join the other warriors. Even while believing Karath to be a liar, he still intended to treat the Bloodclaw group as honoured guests. That was very much like an orc.

"It looks like those monsters may be difficult for the Warriorhearts warriors to handle alone. We should help them."

"There are two," Krog replied after estimating the situation.

"Perhaps we should take one and leave the other to them."

"If this were our settlement, we could handle both. With only five warriors and none of our traps, one should be appropriate." The monsters were said to be stronger than an Owlbear but weaker than an ogre. Fighting both at once without prepared traps would create unnecessary danger.

"Good. Let us help." Karath moved toward the main entrance, and the other Bloodclaw warriors followed.

"What are you doing here?" Dagon shouted urgently when he saw them approach.

"The five of us will take one. Your warriors can deal with the other."

"What nonsense is that? Dagon told you a single minotaur is difficult even for ten warriors!"

"That is true by your standards. Ah, there they are." Two enormous bull-headed monsters emerged from the forest ahead. They were not as large as ogres, but each stood well above three metres and possessed a grotesquely muscular body.

"We will separate one and kill it." Dagon continued saying something beside him, but Karath ignored him. The Bloodclaw warriors moved immediately, each understanding his role. Their basic formation remained similar to the one used against the Owlbear. Goldin stepped forward and threw a spear made from ogre bone.

"MOOOOOO!" The spear lodged in one minotaur's chest and swayed as the creature's eyes turned red. It charged directly at Goldin.

"Damn it! We will attack the other one!"

"Warriors of Warriorhearts, strike!" Dagon and Chief Moldin shouted urgently after seeing the Bloodclaw group move first. Goldin immediately began retreating. Krog and Kurdan, who had already taken their positions, threw bone spears at the pursuing minotaur and divided its attention. As the three alternated between attack and evasion, Karath approached unnoticed. Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"Hup!" He swung the bone axe with all his strength and struck the creature's leg. Crack! The drake-bone weapon was absurdly durable, and the women of the Bloodclaw Tribe had sharpened it carefully. Combined with Karath's strength, its edge split the minotaur's hide and buried itself in the flesh beneath. At the same moment, Karath moved the mana inside his body and sent it into the axe. BOOM! Flames exploded from the weapon.

Had the creature ever heard of a flaming bat from a rough neighbourhood in Karath's former world?

"MOOOOOO!" When the explosion erupted inside the thick hide and thigh muscles, the enormous minotaur released a deafening cry. Even a creature of that size struggled to endure such agony.

"This is the power of superior equipment, you bastard." This was the first time Karath had used the bone axe he spent an entire day enchanting in actual combat. The result was deeply satisfying. He had engraved a modified Fireball into the weapon. When he struck the drake's lower jaw with the ogre femur, the sensation had resembled hitting a home run. Karath had liked that impact. That was not the only reason he selected Fireball.

The drake's breath and the faint scorch marks left by earlier Fireballs had shown that drake bone possessed extraordinary resistance to heat. The axe could endure repeated explosions without suffering meaningful damage.

"What is that?"

"How can an axe strike create fire?" The Warriorhearts warriors fighting the second minotaur looked over in astonishment when flames erupted from Karath's weapon.

"Focus!"

"What are you doing? Never look away during battle!" Chief Moldin and Dagon, who had remained more attentive, shouted and pulled them back to the fight. Karath needed to finish quickly and assist them. Dagon and Moldin were technically commanding their warriors, but their instructions were closer to encouragement than strategy. Their orders amounted to little more than focus, fight, kill, or charge. If the battle continued that way, several warriors might die even if they eventually defeated the minotaur.

"We will kill this one first! Do not take unnecessary risks. Only delay the other!" Karath shouted toward the Warriorhearts warriors and charged again. Unlike the inexperienced locals seeing a magical orc for the first time, the Bloodclaw warriors had already fought beside Karath against the drake. The flames did not distract them. They simply continued performing their roles. The minotaur's right thigh had been torn and burned, forcing it to limp. Krog, Goldin, and Kurdan mercilessly harassed the wounded monster.

It had initially fixed its attention on Karath, but the relentless attacks forced it to turn toward the three warriors again.

"Krahahaha! Now it is Kaden's turn!" Kaden approached the opposite leg and swung his enormous battle axe into the minotaur's left thigh.

"MOOOOOO!" The leg, as thick as a small tree trunk, was split nearly halfway through. The bone beneath the wound had cracked. Kaden had produced through muscle and weapon strength alone the kind of damage Karath required magic to achieve.

"Krahahaha!" As the minotaur groaned and turned to kill Kaden, Karath entered again from the opposite side. The axe split the creature's flesh. BOOM! Mana entered the weapon, and another explosion erupted.

"Heh heh. Superior equipment really is the best." The modified Fireball engraved into the axe used flame, compression, and direction. Unlike a conventional Third Circle Fireball, the directional element did not make the spell fly. It merely controlled the direction of the explosion. That greatly reduced the danger of Karath being caught within his own blast. The structure still required the calculations and mana of a Third Circle spell, but that no longer mattered.

The engraved magic circle performed the calculations. The mana naturally flowing through the drake bone supplied roughly one third of the required energy. Karath had deliberately engraved a spell too powerful to operate using the bone's mana alone. Like placing a battery inside a device, the weapon activated only when he supplied the remaining mana.

"MOOOOOO!" The minotaur screamed as another section of its leg exploded. It could no longer stand properly.

"Heh heh heh." In the past, killing a monster of this level would have required extensive preparation and traps. Now the Bloodclaw warriors could overwhelm it through equipment alone.

"Damn this pay-to-win equipment!" Repeatedly thinking about equipment awakened an old memory. It came from the period when Arnold worked as a developer for one of the largest gaming companies in his former world. His team had planned a genuinely promising game. The systems were enjoyable, the content was substantial, and the balance had been carefully designed. If development continued according to plan, it might have become something special.

"Those damned premium items!" BOOM!

"Those damned random boxes!" BOOM! Then the planning department suddenly demanded paid items. Later, they ordered the team to create absurdly powerful equipment obtainable through random purchases, items capable of destroying the game's balance. The systems collapsed into chaos. Arnold had worked day and night attempting to repair the balance. Even that had been tolerable. What he could not accept came afterward.

"Manipulating the odds? How could you bastards demand that?" BOOM! They even wanted the displayed probabilities of paid random draws manipulated. By that point, Arnold could no longer tell whether he was a game developer or an accomplice to fraud. He quit the company and endured years of hardship to establish a small independent studio.

"Ah." Without noticing, Karath had continued detonating the axe while venting his anger. The minotaur had already become a ruined mass of flesh.

"It died already." Unfortunately, Karath's resentment had not yet faded.

"Oh. There is another one." Fortunately, a second punching bag remained.

"MOOOOOO!" The minotaur's expression seemed different from when it had confidently invaded the village. That was probably Karath's imagination. Bull-like eyes naturally appeared somewhat pitiful.

"Good equipment makes everything so easy!" BOOM! While the warriors of both tribes distracted the creature, Karath swung his axe into the second target. Using overpowered equipment truly did make hunting effortless. However, Karath was completely different from the executives he despised. Was that hypocrisy? No.

"Karath made this from beginning to end!" BOOM! He had quit a massive company, struggled to keep a tiny independent studio alive, and died from overwork just as he finally completed a major project as its owner. Then he awakened in this world and began again from the bottom of an impossible primitive society. After all that, he had created this weapon himself. It was fundamentally different from purchasing power or obtaining it from a random draw.

"If only those cursed premium items had existed here!" BOOM!

"Why could they not be useful somewhere like this?" BOOM!

"Was that even a game? Was it? Answer me!" BOOM! Nearly twenty years of accumulated resentment from both lives flowed through his axe.

"Haaaa." Once the second punching bag had also become a ruined heap, Karath finally felt refreshed. The Warriorhearts warriors who had charged courageously against the minotaurs were now staring at him with undisguised fear.