Chapter 21 (1/2)

Translator: Nyoi_Bo_Studio  Editor: Nyoi_Bo_Studio

As a very experienced criminal gang who had gotten into countless fights and never been wiped out, the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves could easily handle a fight on a village-scale. Although the leader had ordered them to initiate attack, they did not assault impertinently. Rather, they were yelling “Banzai” and riding their wolves into battle. They dashed into a defensive position against the commercial corps, took the short bows from their back, aimed at Gerrard, and shot their arrows.

As an experienced criminal gang, the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves excelled at both horsemanship and archery, and they also had abundant battle experience. They had calculated the striking distance very carefully, so they didn’t have to set foot in the area where old Soth had laid traps. They had managed to initiate an attack in the region where the commercial corp’s arrows could not reach.

Tens of people shot their arrows at the same time, and these flying arrows were like a heavy rain of arrows, which was really terrifying. But Gerrard wasn’t intimidated; he didn’t even bother to block the arrows, apart from using his left hand to cover his eyes.

The archery of the Orcs was very good: more than half of the arrows met their target, and Gerrard was in danger of being hit and becoming a large sieve full of holes. Seeing this, everyone in the commercial corps was nearly frightened to death.

They heard a cracking sound, similar to that of a stone hitting against a tree. As soon as the arrows made contact with Gerrard, they just fell to the ground and he’d suffered neither wound nor blood.

Still, it was wrong to say that the arrows didn’t work at all. Gerrard mumbled, “kind of itchy…” Kind of itchy, that’s all.

Everyone was speechless. Sui Xiong felt as if he saw a pair of drooping wings rise up from the Orc’s heads, and black water was dripping from the wings; there was also a pop-up notification saying “the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves has been demoralized”. Of course, these were all illusions.

“Bloody Hands” Ruhr frowned a bit when he found that the arrows hadn’t worked at all, but he didn’t care about this too much. He had experienced numerous battles, and he had faced enemies clad in heavy armor more than once. So it was okay that arrows didn’t work, since he had many ideas!

“Warlock, scorching curse!” he ordered in the Orc’s language.

Then, three Orcs who had yet to join the assault rode their wolves and approached. After walking a while, they stopped and held up their right hands all at the same time.

All three of them were holding a one-foot-long magic wand. The wands were made of the war-craft’s bones and engraved with magic alabaster, and red gemstones were mounted at the end of each wand.

The magic wands were kind of strange and no one in the commercial corps recognized them at first. Once the red energy wave began hovering around the magic wand, a young wizard named Palin finally recognized it. “Be careful! It is a magic wand that can increase their range!”

The spell in this world was not as powerful as those in the magic novels he’d read before. Here in this world, when one was practicing a magic spell, the biggest problem was the range. Since the wizards needed to use their Zen power to lock onto their target, most of the spells’ range was twenty to thirty meters at most. A longer range could only be achieved when a Ray magic spell was practiced to lock onto a direction instead of locking onto a target via Zen power.

A distance of twenty to thirty meters was not long enough to be safe, so a wizard needed to be protected by a soldier in a real war. Once a wizard lost this protection, even a few advanced wizards might have been killed by a middle-rank archer.

Of course, if a wizard didn’t withdraw when he knew he’d already lost his protection, or even confronted the archer himself, he probably wouldn’t live long due to his low intelligence; he might be the kind of wizard who would probably have killed himself already by botching a spell while practicing.

To solve the problem of limited range, the technique of “increasing the range via spell” came out. Also, in order to universalize this technique, which could make the range of a spell two to three times longer than before, the magic wand was invented.

This expensive magic wand could only be used to enhance a wizard’s ability of “increasing the range via spell”. Although its price was fixed and high, it was still a treasured object that many wizards longed for. Combined with the “Armor Robe” that materialized the spell of “Mage Armor” and the “life-saving amulet” that materialized the spell of “Error Free Transmission”, these three objects were known as the “three treasured objects of war”, a standard set that every wizard of actual combat type dreamed of collecting.

Palin aimed to be a great and respectful adventurer, which meant that as a wizard, he needed to be a wizard who actually saw combat. So he had also been longing for the three treasured objects of war. Although the style of the range-increasing magic wand was very special and different from the one he saw in the magic shop, he still instantly recognized it when the three Orcs practiced the spell. However, he should have realized this earlier.

Hearing Palin’s warning, Gerrard was shocked and hurried to get prepared. But the three Orcs had already practiced the spell, and three rays of crimson light were flying toward him.

The flight speed of the three lights wasn’t too fast, and Gerrard was easily able to dodge them. But he knew that there were many innocent men behind him, and they would certainly die once hit by the spell if he only managed to dodge the three lights. So he gave up on the best choice for him and tried to absorb the force of the three spells with the big tree in his hand.

However, the three Orcs’ positioning was very peculiar. Even if Gerrard could move very fast and the tree was indeed very big, he was only able to withstand two of the spells and was hit by a ray of crimson light.

The crimson light looked very normal, but it was cruelly powerful. The big tree in Gerrard’s hands had been very healthy and strong with luxuriant foliage. But after the light made impact, the green leaves withered in the blink of an eye, and on the place that was hit by the light, tiny sparkles burst into two small flames.