Day 41-50/Day 44

I felt something with my [Presence Sensor].

Because the ability’s level had increased recently, its species name—though it’s only the Tentative name I gave them—will be displayed if I had met it once, if I knew their real name, then that name will be displayed. Furthermore, it will indicate whether it’s an ally or an enemy. It was a handy ability.

Based on that, it seems that the ones coming over are Gobukichi-kun and two of his subordinates, I started to get up wondering if something happened, then I became aware of the beings lying down cuddling me tightly.

Because I couldn’t bring myself to wake the girls who were sleeping soundly due to the fatigue from last night’s intense orgy, I slipped through using [Metamorphosis] to prevent waking them up.

Then I exited the room made from thread and had a talk with Gobukichi-kun. According to their story, it seems that three long-eared humanoids had come strutting into the cave’s entrance.

Whether to attack and kill them or invite them into the cave was an important decision that needed to be made by me who was the top. Because they couldn’t make a decision yet, they had the strangers wait outside.

This was a good idea, the result of their education bearing fruit. If it was before, they wouldn’t have thought twice before attacking them.

For now I took out a bottle (filled with water from the lake the other day) from my [Item Box], I quickly washed myself with the water inside to give myself the minimum presentable appearance and then went to meet them, they were “Elves (Tentative Name)” consisting of one man and two armed women who looked like his escorts.

The three had fairly good looks, both the man’s ceremonial dress and the two women’s light metal armor were superior quality products. Taste and other things aside, it was easy to guess their respective social status.

Judging from their appearance, the rapiers hanging from the hips of the two women in the back were [Rare] class magic items, other than that they also had ring-type and bracelet-type magic items, all of them [Rare] class.

Unless you have the appropriate social status, collecting equipment of this quality is impossible.

Incidentally, although I thought “The adventurers last time had some nice equipment huh?”, most of their high quality equipment are goods looted from dungeons, for that reason, it is inevitable that for high level adventurers, their equipment is also of high quality.

But for those who don’t venture inside dungeons, it’s necessary to do so through financial power, that’s how it is.

Also, their fairly high-handed attitude is one of the main factors. Well, this was perhaps a racial trait.

While suppressing violent remarks like “For someone who came along without making any appointments, they sure act self-important, let’s tear them apart and eat them.” in my heart, I asked for the reason for the visit, it seems that we fell under their jurisdiction blah blah blah.

Putting in order what they said over the long chat, it seems that the main point was that they wanted me and my followers to become their subordinates—which appears to mean their slaves, by the way they speak.

Also, “There is news in support of the fact that the inferior humans are preparing an attack soon aimed at getting the Elves’ treasure, and to make some preparation, we wanted some strong pawns”.

They concluded that I, who had killed the original Lord of the Mountain “Red Bear”—it seemed to have become a rumor lately. Well, a black Ogre wearing armor made of Red Bear fur would stand out—who had in turn preyed on the elven hunters, was the one most suitable.

The reward they offered was a large amount of food to be shared among the goblins, and a [Unique] Class magic item or two elven beauties for me.

This, is an exceptional reward for an ogre (or so it seems. According to Gobujii anyways).

Buying a [Unique] class magic item, even the worst of them, would cost over 10 million gold. And of course, the price varies by a lot depending on its abilities. It seems some are items that are worth more than 30 million gold.

The reward isn’t an [Artifact] as was expected, but it is still very expensive.

The two elven maiden I saw in front of me, they were very beautiful. It’s bad of me to say this, but they were certainly more beautiful than the Redhead and co. Personal preference aside, beauty is merely in the eye of the beholder.

I was somewhat surprised by their reward, but it isn’t hard to see from the fact that they were willing to offer this much that they were at their wits’ end. While on the surface they seem to show composure, perhaps they would lose greatly when it comes to fighting strength. Really, this is just another typical story.

Afterwards, the elven royalty would be enslaved, this was no laughing matter.

Violence is surely about numbers. Even with individuals with overwhelming power, there is too much precedent in stories where they would soon be crushed by the masses.

I would’ve gotten on board with this story if it was a few days ago, but because we had already inherited better quality and stronger magic items from Velvet, my heart wasn’t moved.

It’s a shame about the two elven girls, but well, I’m telling this now, I have no need for spies or traitors.

While appearance is of course valuable, but for interaction in the long term, it’s what’s inside that’s truly important.

In the end, I clearly refused the Elves’ offer.

Leaving out the official reason, I concluded the matter by saying “Why should I care about your situation.”

The inferior humans blah blah blah were of no concern to me and I had different interests and ideas, so I’m having no part of any conflict that breaks out. But regardless of the war’s goodness or evilness, it’s certainly convenient for me because it would be a good opportunity to obtain a lot of abilities, and the rewards weren’t bad, either.

They had lots of quality goods, there were only a few drawbacks.

But being unilaterally ordered around with such an obvious condescending attitude, who wouldn’t hate it? All the more if the job involves risking one’s life. I wanted to shout out loud and clear “Show us some sincerity!”

“At the least, you could humbly get out”, I warned internally, though without any particular meaning.

A few seconds after, the elven male’s face changed into a stupid expression. Apparently thinking he wouldn’t be refused. Using metaphors to call us fools, thinking that I wouldn’t notice — a common ogre has muscle for a brain, thinking I am the same. Maybe. —with an unforgettable condescending look.

Restarting —passing what would be a fatal amount of time on the battlefield — from the beginning, putting into order what he’d seen and heard to understand their meanings, the elven male turned red from anger, before he can say anything I glared at him silently.

I overlapped the activation of [Snake's Evil Eye], [Intimidating Glare], and then [Intimidation of the Strong], they worked perfectly.

Yep, it’s unexpected that you wouldn’t be able to breathe until I released [Intimidation of the Strong].

Finally able to breathe at last, his face paled from the terror causing me to smirk, further scaring him.

Because of an ogre’s scary face. And other things.

Making him this nervous gave me a feeling of satisfaction. I then grabbed the elven male by the neck with my silver arm and yanked him, quickly moving into the escorts’ line of sight, I dragged the elf by ear into his hidden escorts’ view and ordered them to lower their bows. An arrow flew toward my face at the same moment, which I stopped by grabbing it with my mouth.

I made some crunching sounds as I ate the arrow, I gave them a gaze that told them that if they had anymore reaction I would shred his neck. Well, I merely flashed a grin and smiled.

They called out to me with a somewhat weak voice, but I just ignored them saying “Yeah, yeah, is that so”, while tightening my grip to send them a message. I smiled again at the male elf who was giving orders loudly while in a state of confusion, and confirmed that the escorts who concealed themselves and aimed their arrows at me did as ordered by overlapping my [Enlarged Field of Vision] and [Predict], then, without releasing him, I slowly warned the elf in his ear.

“I don’t feel like taking part in your ‘request’ so I’m rejecting it this time, but well, if it’s about your home being invaded by humans, then I won’t be reluctant to cooperate. Since we live in the same forest after all, I’ll go deal with it accordingly. I’ve decided to do this much.”

“But, if you’re thinking of some kind of revenge for this and any of my subordinates or important people get injured, you’re getting eaten. You and all your allies will be killed and eaten.”, using [Intimidation of the Strong] once again, I drilled this into their heads.

And then to make it clear that I was capable of that much violence I took out [Kazikli Bey] from my Item Box, stabbed the ground with the red lance, and used the [Army of Blood-dyed Crimson Spears(Tepes)] ability contained within.

[T/N : Tepes is the Romanian version of his Turkish nickname, it means "impaler" or "spike".]

By doing this, red lances suddenly appeared in front of the eyes of all the Elves that came today. Even the ones that should have been hidden.

After displaying my abilities, the looks on the Elves’ faces changed, while seeing them off scurrying back home, I looked at the red lance in my hand.

I don’t understand the theory, but I can make red spears appear on anything stabbed by this Kazikli Bey and everything within a radius of 100 meters from the point it was stabbed into. This is only the second time I’ve used this ability, but having red spears come out of the ground and trees felt a bit surreal.

Well, its sharpness and length are good, it’s convenient for me who is an Ogre to use, there isn’t any dissatisfaction because it’s an optimal tactical weapon that specializes in “piercing and stabbing”.

However, there are many magical items that can be capable of this and more, this world is really difficult to understand.

From the contents of my little chat with the Redhead and company, if I think of it as a fantasy world where I made an inkling of progress, it’s obvious with the existence of such unreasonable bundles and overtechnology, this world is seriously twisted.

Some say that [Artifacts] are relics of gods, but I still feel it’s completely out of balance with the current civilizations.

Setting that aside for now, by having done this much, I doubt they will even consider revenge. It is unlikely, but it’s difficult to say there’s zero percent probability. So let’s just think about it when it happens.

Oh, yeah.

In addition, the elven male whom I threatened is one of the candidates for the next clan chief, it seems very fitting.

The Village of Elves is deep inside the Unexplored Zone that has yet to be mapped. Now going to see it this time might be interesting.

I was able to guess and infer their meaning to some extent with [Orc Language].

It is a convenient ability to use with races whose way of speaking is greatly different from ours like Green Lizards, but there are races of humanoids who understand similar languages like ogres, goblins and humans, even if I didn’t have it, it’s still somehow possible to have a conversation with them.

That was how I understood the Elves’ speech. I still didn’t have the language ability since I haven’t eaten any elf yet, though I manage to communicate. But it would certainly be easier with it, yeah, the ability would help with understanding the peculiarity of their words — namely their meaning within their dialect.

For example [Great] turns into ? [tiring] and [Scary] turns into ? [tiring]

Well, that kind of feeling. After chasing the Elves away, I went hunting as usual, tonight will also be hot and intense.