Chapter 59 – The Fortress-like Demonic Shield

Two squads eh….? If I kill them all, I shouldn’t be lacking in money for a while.

It shouldn’t be a problem to kill them all, since by making use of the Hate phenomenon, I don’t need to worry about any of them escaping

I just need to quickly break through to the middle of the 400 orcs.

[Greed, let’s go!]

『Fuu, any time』

I had simply ran straight through them. Seeing such a monotonous move, the orc leader started to order the other orcs to intercept me.

Soon after, countless numbers of fire arrow cover the sky, raining toward me.

『Here they are, Fate』

[I know that.]

Well, shall I try it?

I thrusted the black sword forward, and activated the third tier form.

The shape started to change, from a black sword into the demonic shield. A black shield that was even larger than my body appeared in front of me. And, at the same time, the arrows started landing.

I could feel the impact that was transmitted from the shield to my right hand. Fire arrows seemingly rained down endlessly.

However, none of them managed to reach me. The black shield blocked them all.

Whilst thinking how should I use it next, Greed kept speaking through the 《mind reading》

『How about that! Neither physical nor magical attacks can pierce through my third form. This demonic shield is like a fortress! What do you think now! You can start praising me, respect me now, Fate!』

[We are in the middle of battle. Would you please be quiet!]

Damn, I haven’t even reached the orc squadron yet, but Greed already thought that we’re gonna win. Even though I had refuted him, I had to admit that this was a good weapon.

[You can forget about the new sheath if you keep being noisy.]

『Oioi, that won’t do. Don’t say something like that. If it’s only Fate who’re wearing new clothes, it would be unfair if I stayed with my old sheath. It should be the other way around! I should wear a new sheath, and you just stay in that getup.』

[Why it should be like that!? Isn’t that strange!?]

It’s still the usual unreasonable Greed. As his wielder I had to put up with all of his shenanigans.

Using the black shield to block the orcs’ attack, Greed and I marched in all gung ho.

I’m closing in on the orcs soon. When I was about to change back to the black sword and pounce forward,

『Wait, Fate. Breakthrough as it is now!』

[Eh, are you serious!?]

Could it be, he’s holding a grudge against me because I plan to delay buying him a new sheath? Since it sounded silly, I couldn’t help but to scoff at Greed.

『You’ll see why it’s such a huge shield. Now, run without stopping!』

[I don’t care anymore.]

From where did that confidence come from? Well, when he’s like this, that means everything he said will go well.

Here goes nothing, let’s try it out.

I decided to keep it in shield form instead of switching to the black sword.

I could feel heavy thuds transmitted to my hand from my shield one after another. And every time, [Buhyiii] sound can also be heard, which meant that they had died upon collision.

In addition to that, the inorganic voice continued to announce the increase in my stats.

[This is….amazing]

『Right, right? Hahahahaha, this is Shield Bash. It supposedly requires some muscle power but the you now can do it easily. Against monsters of these orcs’ level, they’ll get blown away easily just like that. Come on now, full speed ahead』

[Yosh, here we go]

This is good. Much easier than using either the sword or scythe. How convenient, there is no need for such thing like feints, I just need to run up to the enemy and crash into them.

I single-mindedly plowed through the orcs.

Then I made a U-turn and rushed back toward the orcs again.

Once again, the inorganic voice notified me about the increase in my stats.

Well, it may be unscrupulous of me to say this, but this way of fighting is also interesting.

As I started to get used to this new form of Greed, the orcs began to make a new move.

The leader, the high orc, had changed their formation.

In order to prevent me from trampling over them, it positioned the shield wielders at the front, supported by lots of orcs from behind.

[Can we break through that?]

『Don’t worry. Charge at them decisively. Fate, march ahead fearlessly!』

[Okay, understood. I’ll break that orc’s wall thoroughly.]

『That’s the spirit』

I tried to re-penetrate the orcs rank, running like a galloping horse that has forgotten how to stop.

When we came in contact, I felt a much heavier impact than before.

Even so, I couldn’t just stop there.

[UooooooooooooOOOOOoooo]

I raised my voice along with my speed. At that point the orcs’ meat wall started to have some trouble.

The sound of collision could be heard nearly everywhere.

The orcs at the back row collapsed after crashing into each other, probably due to absorbing the impact between my shield and the orcs in the front row.

I thought I could hear several ‘Buhhyii’ sounds. And right afterward, the inorganic voice informed me about my increasing stats yet again.

The orcs’ formation was gradually undone, and soon they wouldn’t be able suppress my power.

『Fate, go, go, go! Trample those pigs into mince meat』

[That’s too gross! Tone it down a bit]

『What do you mean? There no ‘tone down’ in this me’s dictionary.』

Good grief…..I guess it’s impossible to manage Greed’s foul mouth. It’s true that my victims this time have been turned into mince meat, but I don’t need anybody to tell me about it.

Aaaaa, when I actually saw it, I felt like I wouldn’t be able to eat meat for a while.

Let’s finish this already. I exerted my full strength, destroying the orcs’ formation.

They were literally sent to the sky. It was as if a flower made of orcs had bloomed in the sky.

《Gluttony skill activated》

《Durability+940800, Strength+921600, Magic+729600, Spirit+768000, Agility+729600 will be applied to your stats》

Even the two orc squads were easily devastated. Any lesser orcs would be sent flying to their death with simple flick of my shield. At this point, I could just switch to scythe form and start reaping earnestly, but I decided to stay with shield form since I’d started to get the hang of it.

After I realized that I’d already got used to the weapon to a certain extent, I turned my attention to the fleeing blue-skinned high orcs. I’ve been fighting the orcs several times already, and I’ve come to know that they have a rather crude but strict social hierarchy.

The other orcs tried to protect them because these blue-skinned orcs are high ranking individuals. I don’t know if they do this from reason or merely out of their natural instinct.

But in any case, the command of the high orcs was absolute for the lower leveled orcs. It’s kinda like how humans treated the holy knights.

『What will you do, Fate. Will you chase after them and kill them all with the demonic shield?』

[No, leave them be. Let’s finish up.]

Enough with the black shield. I switched to black bow form.

I nocked a magic arrow that was created from my magical power. This magic arrow has an auto-tracking function, so I don’t have to really aim properly to hit with it. Even someone with a lack of experience in archery like me can use it with ease.

But even so, other orcs kept getting on the arrow’s path and prevented the magic arrow from hitting its actual target. In that case, I could only try another route.

I aimed the black bow to the sky, and shot 2 arrows consecutively.

The magic arrows flew in a curved path, bypassing all other orcs, and directly hit the heads of the fleeing high orcs. With a magic arrow stuck in their heads, the two high orcs fell to the ground

《Gluttony skill activated》

《Durability+406800, Strength+435500, Magic+350600, Spirit+308600, Agility+336800 will be applied to your stats》

I nodded to myself after confirming that the gluttony skill had activated from the inorganic voice resounding in my head. Not yet, it’s alright…….The me now, it’s alright to consume a huge amount of stats like this.

I wonder if it’s because the fight with the machine angel Haniel, but Gluttony skill has been quiet as if it’s sleeping. It may only be temporary, but it’s good for me. Or perhaps it’s the result of my training in suppressing the gluttony skill. Well, I wish that it was indeed the latter.

I looked around at the orcs who had lost their high orc commander. The remaining orcs had scrambled trying to attack me.

Without their leader, the orcs were no different from goblins or kobolds. I killed the orcs in the distance with the black bow, and took out those that managed to approach with the black sword.

[It seems I’ll be able to rout them completely]

『Umu. With this you’ll be able to buy new things. Quickly clean them up, harvest their ears, and return to Babylon.』

[I know that]

I began to cut out the ears of the fallen orcs and collected it inside the 2 bags I brought. This was quite a chore as there are a lot of them. Unexpectedly, the fighting part was so much easier.

I collected the parts required to prove to the exchange facility that I had killed the monsters――the orc’s ear. By the time I finished harvesting, it was already sundown.

『Fate, don’t forget the ears of the two high orcs』

[Yeah]

I almost forgot, ironically, because I saved them for last so that I wouldn’t get confused. Greed is strangely useful in weird times.

Yossha, I hefted the 2 bloody hemp bags.

[Well, shall we go home?]

『We shall……or so I thought. Fate, we got company』

Alarmed by Greed’s warning, I raised my face, and true enough the other warrior party is heading towards me.

They are…..the warrior party that fought the orc squad not so far from here. Them heading here only meant that they’ve already finished dealing with the orcs on their side.

I wonder why they’re coming here. I put the hemp bags I had carried on the ground and readied my hand on the black sword, just in case if I needed to use it, and waited for them to arrive.