Chapter 29

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Yumi said.

I’d finally talked her into it, it took a few minutes to convince her she’s not on the ‘fodder’ team.

“But what are the rest of us supposed to do?” Akira asked nervously. We were now having a good ten second rest but soon more orcs would hit us.

“We have to basically keep them from swarming Yumi. While her shield does seem to have anti-grappling, the effectiveness will be reduced the more that go after her. She could easily be tripped up or have them try to go after her on the sides or back behind the shield too. And like Shun said, you’ll be her damage, since she’s almost purely defense,” Sensei encouraged.

“Is that OK Shun?” she asked me.

“That sounds about right. We do crowd control and try to stay alive, while she buys us time to figure out how to deal with that monster,” I said. “So Akira, you stay next to her and pick them off as much as you can so she can concentrate on the lead ogre. But don’t engage him too much. He may anticipate some of your moves. You’ll have to remember your focus is keeping Yumi safe and his attention on her as much as you can, since even with your great strength you don’t have some kind of damage cushioning like the shield gives.”

“Got it,” he said.

“Rina…” I started to say.

But she interrupted me, “I’ll just try to stay alive and not run away,” she whimpered.

“That’s right!” I affirmed.

The ogre didn’t even try to run at us, though the other orcs did. He just let them loose like a wave of fodder ahead of him. He’d finally gotten together what he considered to be a good enough sized little platoon that was running straight at us. Ironically not very many of them were big, probably so he could intimidate them more. But he made up for it with their being a good number of them.

I wondered why he was waiting in the back, but then realized he was letting the smaller orcs try to cut us up, while learning our movement patterns, and trying to tire us out. It was the strategy of a rather cunning opponent that had survived a lot of trouble before. But still he edged closer, while he was leering at the females in our group.

With more vigor than before Akira slammed two of the leading orcs back at the same time with his log and then kicked another. His kick was so hard that it broke its back sending the spine into a rather gross bent angle and it landed several feet away in the dirt.

Wow! S-satyrs are this strong?!

I dodged the chop of an orc hand axe and then sunk my axe blade into an orc’s neck as I found myself fighting in a huge tumult again. Then I dodged another, parry, parry, and then block, in quick succession. Then I swung the axe low and bit into an orc spine just above the hip. I could do a finishing blow opening right before parrying the next one that took its place. Then it seemed like I was repeating the whole sequence of blocking all over again, not just for myself but to cut them off from running to go to Rina and Asakura Sensei.

I struggled and the tumult seemed to carry me so much so that I feared I’d be trampled into the ground at times. Even without being plowed under by the orcs I could at all times feel how dangerous and precarious our position was.

But still I had to keep a general idea of where the ogre was at all times.

“This is …hard….work,” Yuriko gasped. Somehow she’d kept herself up too. She was more athletic than she looked.

“Hang in there,” Akira encouraged.

“All work generally is,” Sensei tried to encourage but sounded pretty tired herself. Her encouragement probably backfired sounding like that.

The others near us were struggling though.

Yumi managed to hold three orcs at bay, thanks to the energy shield’s effects. But she kept having them try to get at her before the ogre boss was even here; which wasn’t good. She was holding them well and her light blue mana shield soaked up all the damage easily but things could change at any time. It also gave the others time to not die, basically. Had she not discovered the energy shield the stray orcs would probably have surrounded us and ended our little struggling party.

“Try to get them off her before the ogre gets here,” I frantically said to Akira. The ogre in charge was only about ten paces away and taking his time, with a long club similar to Akira’s log hanging over one shoulder. He looked like any second he might strike. The fact that he could be so calm while we were cutting up his minions was eerie.

Yuriko tried to help Yumi, but she wasn’t doing very well either. She missed a few blows, but then was wounded one in the arm, but wasn’t making any progress after a full minute of engagement with it.

Behind me Sensei and Rina had managed to avoid stabbing me from behind somehow and had killed one of the ones that had been together that had been confronting me. That let me whittle away at stuff that was going after Akira and myself while somehow I avoided being carried away.

Akira splattered another orc, while I parried one and then kicked the one in front of me in the balls for a stun. That created an opening where I could chop at its neck, crushing its trachea; but that caused me to be showered in green gore in the process. There weren’t very many orcs left but we had to be wary since more might crawl out of the woods like cockroaches in cardboard. They seemed to be able to know where each other was quite easily too.

“Not bad Shun, you are staying alive and keeping them off people even,” Akira noticed. But I felt guilty, thinking he was giving me more credit than I deserved.

Rina and Sensei helped though. They’d bought time trying to keep a second orc off me so that I could do that. If not for that I’d have had a worse time of things. But the second orc wasn’t killed, just distracted and now I was parrying and blocking a whole series of blows. It was fortunate the axe handle had some kind of rubbery protective coating, but now it was starting to get all sorts of little nicks and scratches in the coating.

“Yumi help!” Akira said suddenly. His eyes were big, seeing the ogre was about to move.

Our blood chilled when suddenly the ogre did something really weird. I’d barely even caught the movement when he suddenly like covered a whole ten feet in less than a second to crash into Akira with some kind of power rush.

That was some kind of unknown skill!

It was also strange that he felt confident enough to go after the biggest and strongest of us right away. What had made him do that instead of going after weak targets first, unless he believed it didn’t matter either way?

His long club perfectly clashed against Akira’s log, but he’d also added a rapid shoulder butt attack into him right after that, which sent Akira flying backwards. The only reason our front line stayed intact at that point was because most of the smaller orcs were already dead. We struggled to cover Akira from the other orcs which put extra pressure on Yuriko, me, Rina, and Sensei. Not only did we have to stay out of the way of the ogre but also watch the remaining orcs wanting to exploit Akira being down on the ground.

“Yumi cover him!” I coached.

“I’m trying! He was so fast!” Yumi wailed in despair.

“Damn it!” Akira yelled, managing to stay alive. He wiped blood away from his lip from hitting the ground hard, but was up again in a hurry.

“Get up! Get up fast!” Yuriko hissed, as she too had to roll to avoid an overhand club swing that would have instantly killed her. It missed by only a few inches. The ogre was fresh and fast, while Yumi still had two orcs hanging on her shield. She tried to shake them off so she could be ready to move better on the ogre but they were tenaciously hanging on.

“AHHHH!” Yuriko screamed again and again as the long club almost got her again.

We tried to hurry to assist but I was pinned down by existing orcs. If I were to try to just ignore them and rush through they’d exploit all kinds of free hits on me.

Rina threw a rock and it hit the ogre but just made him mad with no effect. It seems his skin was even hardened from battle and so much muscle to cushion blows.

Then Akira somehow managed to get back on his feet again, but collapsed to one knee as the ogre almost crushed him again right after he’d gotten up. He barely got his log up in time and the air was littered with a fog of log splinters and slivers. Then the ogre kicked him in the stomach and he was back on the ground biting dirt.

“Aghh,….can’t….brea…the,” he gasped. He was trying to suck in air, but it was really weak and raspy. The wind was knocked out of him and he was crawling on the grass. I parried a couple of orc blows that were trying to fake me out and to go around me to go for him. It was really close for a few seconds but somehow I managed to prevent his death and mine both. Blocking the advance of the orcs worked, but made them that much more mad at me instead.

“Cover him!” Yuriko screamed. She stabbed one of the orcs that was trying to go around, and crushed a kneecap. Then she went after another that was hanging on Yumi’s shield just in time to open up more room for Yumi to maneuver properly.

I was horrified when the ogre was coming at Akira’s unprotected back. But this time the orc in front of me somehow prevented me from protecting him. I wouldn’t make it in time either. The club was going down pretty hard, but somehow at the last second Yumi got to him and put up her shield in time, but it was a really close shave where she’d barely gotten the edge of the shield under the blow to block and not the whole shield. If she’d been even a half a second later Akira would have a crushed spine right now. “Haa, haaaa,” she was breathing hard.

The ogre suddenly screamed in fury at her when he saw the kill was stolen away from him. It was the kind of scream that went to your very bones and made you want to piss yourself, it was so scary. He also had a nasty special skill called spittle scream. When he screamed he naturally sprayed the awful stench of his breath and a tons of nasty water and spit droplets from his mouth. Yuck. Yumi felt violated as the spittle hit her.

“Agghh,” she groaned. “his breath…so terrible…something rotten in there,” she had a gag reflex.

“Hang in there!” Asakura cried out frantically.

Akira was still trying to breathe and on all fours with the wind knocked out of him.

“Get up!” Yuriko cried. “Hurry!” she was frantic.

Several times the ogre tried to bash Yumi and her shield, but somehow it held to our utter astonishment. But it wasn’t completely a solid defense. Still even with the damage absorption and anti-grappling effects Yumi was really struggling. The ogre’s heavy long overhand swing hits were death traps, and when he hit her shield she had a huge rebound effect hit her knocking her back a bit because of its power. It looked like she ‘bounced’ away from the blow hitting her shield sending her about twelve inches backward each time. She managed to recover both balance, keep her feet under her, and stop moving back but I could see the stress she was dealing with. I’m sure she’d have a back ache tonight though.

It continued like this for some time. Each hit we were horrified and unable to do anything, but watch Yumi’s head and shoulders bounce with each hit to her shield. We also wanted to help but none of us had the same shock absorption and anti-grapple her skill had. So it was like we had our hands tied.

But none of us had a defense skill like this to help out. I felt like we were mice in front of a cat. In fact that’s probably what ogres were in comparison with humans on an ecology table…

“What the fuck?! How is it possible to have that much power?” the scared girl that was with us exclaimed.

None of us could even speak, it was so terrifying.

“Help!” Yumi pleaded desperately.

“Akira is still down. Help Shun,” Yuriko replied pulling me out of my nearly overcome state of battle fear paralysis, trying to get the other orc of Yumi’s shield. In fact whenever the ogre did a savage blow to the shield Yuriko had been desperately trying to keep the other orc from having an attack of opportunity in from the side. She’d somehow barely kept it from happening.

“Sh-u-n,” Akira pleaded. “H-he….lp….he-lp,” he gasped trying to breathe.

Near me Sensei and Rina created and opening and cut off another orc remaining that was trying to stop me from helping Akira.

I plunged forward moving closer to Akira, yet still wary of the ogre, and began my cure spell cast. But my stomach felt all jittery, since I’d never done it this way before, with such a threat near us.

It’s a lot scarier with an ogre trying to crush all of you next to you when you try to heal someone compared to when you are in a comfortable lean to shack. In fact, I almost lost concentration. I had to slow down and go step by step, to make sure I kept control. I pictured the energy forming and like sunlight coming into my hand, “Cure!”

The light blue spark was glowing strong in the air and was forming just above Akira, hovering in the air between my hands while I was inches away from pushing it into his chest and lungs.

The monsters are instantly alarmed!

But I hadn’t anticipated that might make the ogre even madder. He seemed to feel or know that I was doing something to snatch away his victory, though he wasn’t a magic user himself. I was bumped from the side by Yumi who had to run to counter the blow that was aimed at me. She protected me but I could feel terrible air vibration with Yumi’s shield almost bouncing into me on rebound.

Luckily the spell wasn’t disrupted. I had somehow managed to hang on!

“Hang in there Yumi! We need you,” Rina called out.

I began pouring the blue spark into Akira’s chest. Slowly the energy settled into him with menthol like feeling to it. He was still a bit hoarse but then the energy started to take effect, while Yumi protected us. I felt and heard two more blows that were much closer than I wanted them to be.

“I-I can finally breathe!” Akira said hoarsely. He struggled to his feet somehow while gritting his teeth. It was a desperate kind of picking himself and he almost fell back down.

“Those heals feel good Shun,” he said. He seemed to be back in his game again.

“We need you back in the fight!” I told him.

“Yes! Let’s do it!” Yuriko exclaimed.

Akira picked up his log just when the ogre started to get even more ferocious. It began trying to rush a whole flurry of blows on Yumi. They were coming at her so fast she almost tripped, and then after that she was almost knocked on her back. She was hanging on for dear life.

But I was surprised by what happened next. The next hit to Yumi’s magic shield, put a nasty looking jagged crack in the northwest section of her magic shield, accompanied by a terrible shower of sparks. The shield held, and stayed together, but seeing the crack appear made everyone wonder how much longer we would stay alive.

What?!

An ogre has enough power to damage a magic energy shield that’s not supposed to get damaged?!

How many hits would the shield be able to take? If a hit went against the section on the weak side of the cracked edge what would also happen then?

“What the hell?! I thought the shield’s are indestructible!” Yumi exclaimed. It seemed her courage to fight also had rested on her belief that the shield couldn’t break.

Would she run? She was obviously terrified.

“Stay calm Yumi! Just hang on a bit longer, we’ll pull him off you using Akira’s log strength attack,” I coached.

Somehow I kept her from running away in panic. But it looks like she’s still considering it!

The ogre bellowed his war cry again also trying to get her to run...which would be instant death. If she runs, she has to lower her shield and her back becomes exposed.

I was horrified too. Something monstrous had just nearly punctured through and damaged a supposedly indestructible mana shield. How the fudge could we supposedly win against that?!