Not mentioned at all in the story, probably, Dusk is 175cm tall, wearing a very worn and old coat, which is closer to a jacket, with a blue undershirt, brown pants, and leather boots. He has short blue hair, with a regular haircut, and sharp black eyes.

Being the only two left, we looked at each other silently.

She looked about 14 years old, standing about 135 cm tall. Her caramel hair reached her shoulder, and she stared at me with her hazel eyes with a questioning look.

She wore a plain white shirt, with a… full body black jumpsuit inside, as well as blue jeans. Her huge cannon, with a height of 180cm, and a diameter of 0.5 metres stood beside her, but while it seemed heavy, I don’t doubt that she can pick it up quite easily.

It took quite a while before she asked the question she was holding in. “Why aren’t you going with them?”

Well that’s an interesting question. Should I bother answering her? No, I’m too tired of that. “Why didn’t you?”

She pouted at the words. Of course, I knew why she didn’t follow the rest, and I have little doubt that she knew that I knew. “I was wondering why you didn’t follow them…”

I looked over to the direction of the newbies, and sighed. “They want to take the chance to attack while the enemy is evacuating. Since each orc gives monetary rewards, even female orcs, or child orcs, they plan to slaughter them for money.”

She kept silent, and I sighed before continuing, “They’re idiots. Bunch of freakin idiots.” Of course, normally, I wouldn’t voice out my opinions. It brings nothing but trouble, but, with only the two of us, I suppose I can share a little.

“What is your opinion on this?” She asked, while crossing her arms, thinking. “If you don’t kill the things they mate with, won’t they just produce more orcs to strike back?”

Girl, that’s a horrible choice of words. “Its personal opinion, but for people unwilling to fight…. I won’t fight them…”

We silently looked at each other for a bit, before I stretched my arms and stood back up, “I suppose I can take a look at them or something. Actually… what is it?”

She was looking at a flat… thing… of 24x18 cm…. is that one of the fabled ‘tablet’s released by Elanor just recently?

Anyways, she seemed ot be looking at it in shock? What is on it? I was thinking along those lines as I walked over and took a look. There was a… scene… like a story on it. It showed a scene of those newbies….

They…

My gods…

How stupid can they be?

I instantly pulled out a grey card, and in my fingers, releasing the spell in it, [Haste: Long], on both of us. Haste actually has long term detrimental effects on a person, but, this kind of situation totally warrants the use of this card.

Orc are famed for their stupidity. They are idiots, overall, according to the opinions of humans. Of course, this is far from right. They are quite smart, in fact, and, due to humans taking over most of their land, they have started to adapt.

Think of them, as well as elves and dwarves, as humans in various fictions, where they were pushed back due to their weaknesses and adapted.

Humans really are trash, to force similar races to such a degree. There is little doubt that they will strike back when given time, if situations doesn’t improve.

Orcs understand little even with boosted intelligence, but if there is one thing they are sure of, its that humans are shitholes that will lie just to get what they want. They have little sense of honor, and would even cheat their own brethren, much less others.

It is a horrible prejudice, but, it is far from fully wrong. In fact, it is quite close to the truth in many ways.

Humans are pitiful beings. Just like those in the scene, taking a female orc as hostage. The orc chief wouldn’t stop his attacks with that…

I got close to the village, and I heard screaming. “Tai! NOOOOOOO!” It was a girl, which indicated that someone died already. Dammit. I activated another card, [Stop: Wide], and every living being around me, with a range of 70 metres in radius, had their time stopped, including the raging orc chief, the crying newbies, and the rest that are prepared for battle.

There is no doubt that if I didn’t cut in now, many of these will die.

I walked over to the orc chief, and stabbed its heart. It broke out the moment I stabbed him, and he glared angrily at me before falling over, dead. I used a card [Dispel], on the hostage, who was miraculously alive. Broken from the time stop, she gratefully ran off. I walked to the side, and waited for a bit.

As they were released from the time stop, they attacked the dead orc chief, before stopping in confusion. I snorted at them while sitting at the side, and most of them dropped their weapons.

Some of them started crying. Out of the 99 newbies, there are about 85 or so left. Some of them started crying, but one of them, probably the girl that was screaming just now, walked over. She was furious, and there was tears in her eyes. She pulled her arm back, and swung.

I said that I won’t fight people who doesn’t want to fight, but, if that person really wanted to, I wouldn’t care if it’s a man, woman, or child.

The result is her flying away with a [Gravity Blaster]. She coughed blood while lying on the ground, while a red haired girl desperately healed her.

The newbies glared at me angrily, but I stood up. I let my fighting aura loose, and all of them cowered in fear.

I took in a deep breath.

“IDIOTS!”

I entered the village, and heard the veteran shout, “IDIOTS!”

As I reached them, I saw him, seething in rage. A huge pressure gushed out from him, but towards the rest of the people who were all cowering in fear. “I told you guys to get some rest. Some mental preparation before the final battle, but you guys were overcome by greed. The greed that got some of you killed. You charged in, without thinking, all because of your petty greed.”

“I should kill all of you and be done with it. I saw CLEARLY what you all did. If ANY of you had DONE ANY RESEARCH, NONE OF THEM WOULD HAVE DIED!” Dusk pointed at the dead adventurers. “But as expected, EVERY YEAR, NOBODY TAKES THIS SERIOUSLY! EVERY YEAR THERE ARE AVOIDABLE DEATHS, BECAUSE ALL OF YOU THINK THAT IT’S A GAME!”

Taking a few breaths, he sighed, “Remember this. Life is not a game. When you do a little less information gathers, or even less training, people die. If you guys had thought up of a plan before running off, on both times, nobody would have died. The mission can be cleared with no deaths with a quarter of your number, but because of a lack of scouting, thinking, AND planning, people die.”

Sheathing his sword, he walked through them, back towards the town, “Clear this mess. I’ll be reporting to the guild. Remember to claim your rewards. The rewards of your fallen will be shared between all of you.”

That’s when he stopped in front of me. He looked at me, before chuckling a little, “What’s your name, little girl?”

“Shiina, and I’m not a little girl.”

“Dusk.” He said briefly, and returned towards the town. I pulled out a first aid kit, and ran towards the demoralized newbie adventurers.

“[Sacred flames]!” Mel was healing a girl, who was lying on the ground unconscious. “Shiina? Where were you?”

“What happened?” I asked, opening the first aid kit and bandaging a wounded cleric beside me. “Never mind… I can guess.”

I have read reports about humans taking hostages of orcs, elves and dwarves. It never ended up good for the humans. From the 9 corpses, spilt into 2 parts each, I could imagine the whole scene. They probably showed the female orc with the blade on its neck to the orc chief, and, while confident in their victory, the orc female dived towards the ground, breaking free of his grasp, and the chief instantly swung horizontally, killing all of them at once.

The orc female survived, somehow, since there was no corpse of the hostage.

Dusk, the veteran, probably let her go after killing the chief. I still don’t understand his reasoning…

“[Sacred flames].” She kept on healing the unconscious girl, “He was right… I was thinking of it like… a war game, you know. The kind where children play… But… people die…” She was teary when she said that, and she wiped her tears away. “I just can’t believe that… the people who was leading us… just died like that…”

“…They were idiots.” I muttered to myself, while sending the cleric I treated away. “His choice was stupid… but… somehow it’s the right one.”

“Did you say something? [Sacred flames]!”

“No… Nothing.”

“14 casualties. 2 at the first battle, 12 at the second because they took a hostage.” I said angrily while taking a swig of the ale. Ugh, it doesn’t taste good. I’m not much of a drinker, but the barkeep, Jared, and the guild representative forced it on me.

Both Jared and the guild representative nodded after hearing the report. “You cut in on the second battle, I suppose?” The guild representative asked, me, and I sighed again, “I had to cut in in both battles. They went too close to the orc base before resting, and I had to warn, and help them. How did they even use their scouts? Also, that hostage attempt, ugh.” I spat to the side. I was angry at them, but also at myself for not forcefully stopping them.

I could have done it, but I didn’t.

Heh.

Actually, someone like me wouldn’t, and couldn’t.

“We need to remake those stories where monsters take princesses hostage. They’re a lie. Nobody keeps their promises. Heck, most of the times, the princesses are violated and sold as sex slaves. End of story” The guild representative muttered, crossing out the names of the people that hadn’t reported to him today. “Tai. This guy is dead?”

“Confirmed, I think. Not sure if that’s the name, but I think it was his girlfriend attacked me after the battle.”

“Sad. He’s the son of a knight. Son of a knight. Gods, even someone like that is willing to do such a rotten thing?” He said, a little shocked, and I snorted at him. “Most of the times, the children of thieves has better morals than these crap.”

“True. One’s father being a good person doesn’t mean that he is good himself.” Jared said, walking back after tending to another customer. “By the way, Dusk, isn’t it the time of the year already?”

I checked the date, and sighed. “It definitely is. Dammit. I’ll have to get going tomorrow.”

“I couldn’t even stop them. Nobody could.” The guild representative said with a resigned tone. “In fact, I’m sure that there are assassins coming over now.”

“Not far from the truth.” Jared nodded. “You better leave tonight.”

“Heh. This world is utterly corrupted. Last drink of my life! Come on, Dusk, get one as well!” He handed me a mug of ale, and after clinking them together, we took them in one swig.

Ugh, bitter. I hate this.

“Ahahahahahahaha.” The barkeep, Jared, laughed at me. “It was nice meeting you.”

The guild representative smiled at both of us, before leaving silently. Jared sighed. “We’ll see his body within a week. He wouldn’t be able to fight all of them.”

“…”

“The culling event, huh. I can’t believe it’s here again. It was also a miracle that you survived yours.”

I grinned wryly at his words, and muttered softly, loud enough for him to hear, “It was no surprise.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was no surprise that I survived. After all, who was the person who had gone against them last time?” I smiled, recalling the memories, “I’m heading off to sleep.”

“…Take care, you know.”

“Yeah...”

“So what did you feel when they died?” Elanor said after laughing.

“Sad? I don’t really know… I think I should feel sad… but I don’t really…” I sighed. “It feels worse when Ducky got damaged compared to them dying…”

“Ahahahahahaha!” Elanor laughed again, before continuing, “No worries, that just means that you’re a true engineer. Well, you will find someone worth worrying over at one point. You’re 18 already, although you still look like a 14 year old girl.”

“Uuuuu…. I’m not that small!” I cried out, and she laughed. “I’m…. just…”

“Small. I know. But you’re still growing though… even after 18 years old… maybe one day you can be a fine woman.” She said, and laughed again.

“Please don’t mock me like this…”

“Back to the point, you said that you received orders from the guild to go to Ostmont?”

“Yeah, it was like a raid, in fact, there are many others also chosen for the quest.” I spoke, reading through the notice, “There isn’t much said here, except that it will be a raid of at least a thousand people.”

“…bad…Ok. You said that the veteran supervisor is called Dusk? I’ll contact him. He’ll bring you to Ostmont tomorrow morning. Okay?”

“Eh? Erm… I think I can go alone? I don’t think he’ll like me bothering him…”

“Hell no, you’re going with him. If he doesn’t want to go with you, show him your tablet. Give him the library.” Elanor said sternly. “It’s an order. Go with him.”

“Ok… but is it fine to show him the library?”

“Of course, he owns the library. Oops. I don’t think I should have said that so proudly.” Elanor laughed again. “Go with him, he can help you. And, if you are in danger, send me an emergency signal, I’ll mobilize every single engineer in the world. Ok, good night, you need to wake up early tomorrow!”

“Wait! Are you serious!?” I shouted, but she already disconnected. “I guess… I’ll go to sleep now… So tired…” I slumped on my bed without removing my armor, and slept instantly.