Savage Ascension: Starting with God-Tier Plunder Ability-Chapter 50: Screams Echo

No two-legged race knew the terror of wolves as well as orcs. Even warriors who’d wielded swords and stood fearlessly before wolves would sometimes die with their throats bitten—that was the wolf race. Their low height made them agile, and the moment you failed to swing your sword properly, it was the warrior whose throat got torn out.

A soldier with a spear can’t catch a single wolf. Because it’s realistically impossible for a long spear to stab a wolf. You had to aim for the wolf’s side to have any decent hit rate—but a soldier with a spear targeting a wolf’s flank?

Even for a novel, that was too much. Anyone who’d held a spear even once knew well how difficult it was to stab a wolf.

For the orc brothers, targeting the human who’d befriended a wolf when facing three times their number would be a flawed action.

Sen was an 18-year-old scout who’d just passed being a greenhorn two years ago. Particularly talented at handling bows, he’d dreamed of being a ranger. But ranger was an unacceptable profession—too difficult and harsh, with many obligations but few rights.

In the end, he’d changed his job to mercenary. Because he thought an archer who aimed at enemies from medium to long range in close combat wouldn’t die.

Born in Deep Well Village at the eastern edge of the Medio region, he’d been with the Skull Mercenary Group for a year and a half now.

He’d learned various things from the mercenary people, so he was now an excellent scout. He was very skilled at sometimes putting in arrow support from the flank to change the tide of battle.

Since he boldly received an equal share of the Skull Mercenary Group’s commission fees, the mercenaries not doubting Sen’s combat ability became his greatest pride.

’Where I came yesterday.’

Unlike Rowan’s area, there wasn’t a single 10-year-old orc tree. But even though he’d been here before, Sen acted like a scout should. From tree to tree, from bush to bush, moving to lower spots rather than high ones.

Places with good views of the surroundings were clearly visible from other places too, so they had to be avoided. Even if it meant taking one more step, maintaining a narrow field of view and searching carefully was the most basic of basics that forest scouting talked about.

It was the ranger’s most basic teaching method, called the arrow that pierces mercenaries’ throats. Because there was a terrible obligation to kill anyone who heard if you revealed it, only those receiving ranger training knew it.

In this place where information itself was rare, such information was as visible as billions of balloons floating into the sky, so secrecy was possible. It was to the point where you could know by just deploying manpower to kill everyone who knew. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Rustle. Rustle.

That said, you couldn’t always work your feet hard to cover lots of terrain.

’I marked it here.’

A visual blind spot. Sen went back and forth while examining the base of trees. Trees that weren’t too big yet could be climbed high were the best trees for rangers.

’Found it.’

Seeing the cross clearly carved on roots protruding from the ground, Sen climbed the tree without hesitation. The thick leaves hid him well. And he could look around the mountain from a higher spot than anyone while being in the foliage.

’Come out, orc.’

Since the guy definitely wouldn’t know of his existence, Sen had that thought while looking around. He’d smeared mud on his face like a facial pack, so his pale white face had a darker color—even if someone looked at the tree, they wouldn’t notice, so he scouted the surroundings without hesitation.

Human eyes looking far away captured many things.

’Not a breath of wind, so I should see something...’

Sen clicked his tongue. This additional request would probably take quite a while. Still, he couldn’t give up. Eight silver coins (one of which was Rowan’s share) was a request hard to find. It was excessive money for just catching one orc who’d fled from a tribe and releasing village youths with not-so-high force as payment.

’There must be a deep cave somewhere.’

It was past experience. If it lived in the mountains but wasn’t visible, it meant there were abundant resources in a cave.

With plenty of water too, he probably wouldn’t appear in the mountains except for major matters. Sen, leisurely enough to have stray thoughts while hiding in tree foliage scouting, soon strapped his bow back on. He was thinking of going down and moving to the next spot.

And the moment the bow was fastened to the strap, he heard the sound of cutting wind right in front of his nose. The orc who’d been hiding right in front of the tree where Sen was shot his bow. Sen’s view, who’d climbed the tree to see far, looked only outward and didn’t look right in front of his nose.

Even if he’d looked, he wouldn’t have noticed. Because of the orc’s skin color.

’Ugh!!’

He wanted to react, but it was an arrow sound heard from too close, and the arrow embedded itself straight into his side. Right below where the lungs were, so his breath was instantly cut off and he couldn’t breathe. The lungs weren’t injured, but the shock was transmitted to them.

Thud!

A fist twice the size of an adult male’s struck Sen’s head twice as he fell. Sen couldn’t even shout, couldn’t even make a death rattle. Because he couldn’t breathe.

Brother Donetous made Sen lie face down, then wrapped his hands around his waist and suddenly squeezed with strength. Sen lurched, then coughed.

"Kheuk! Cough! Keu..."

And that sound diminished. Because a roughly welded, incredibly dull axe appeared right in front. It was no different from just pounding iron to make it wide and fitting it in. His good eye could tell from how firmly it was fitted how much practice had gone into it.

An attached iron axe created purely through repeated practice without measurements or exact figures.

Brother Amantous dropped from the tree right in front of the tree where Sen had marked, landing with a thud. Landing on all fours, despite his heavy weight there was no loud sound, creating great dissonance.

"Let’s take him."

"Ah, wait."

Seeing them speak human language, Sen tried to open his mouth, but before that, both his wrists were chopped off straight by the axe.

"KYAAAAAAA! Ahhh! Aaahhh! AAAGH!!!!"

Going berserk, Sen instinctively tried to curl up like a fetus, but brother Amantous grabbed his hair and started dragging Sen up the mountain with tremendous force.

He shouted endlessly. Blood kept flowing from Sen’s severed wrists.

The agonized screams echoing through the mountain like an echo could be heard even by Rowan, who was farthest away.