The next day Blake stood outside near the gate of the base with Bret. Bret picked Dave and Gerad, who had gone out before with Blake since Blake knew them and wanted to make sure the team could work well together. Tina, Noa, Tel, and Ged were also there and fully combat-ready. Tina even had an XM250 assault rifle on her back and two pistols holstered under her arms. Along with a few grenades on her belt, she was looking very much like a soldier ready for war.
"Alright, since everyone is here we will move out." Blake waved his hand at the guard at the gate, and he slowly began lifting the gate. The group was just about to walk out when a white furball suddenly shot forward and jumped on Blake's back and to his shoulder. "Little Snow you want to come?"
"Kewh!" Little Snow was the little white fox. He named her snow because of her snow-white fur. With Snow's confirmation, Blake and his group left the base. Blake was not too worried about Snow getting hurt since he could recall her by force if needed.
Tina was quite excited about leaving the base for the first time in a while. She had not been out of the base except for around the base walls, so now she would get to see just how the world looked outside for the first time since the mana wave.
"The town is towards the east. We could have used one of the outpost's paths to get there faster, but I figured it would be best to let everyone take a look around since many of you do not get to leave the base much. In the future, more teams will be allowed out and can patrol around outside the outposts range. But only after they are sufficiently trained." Blake said as he stretched his arms and walked forward. Tina looked around in interest. While she had seen most of this stuff before, when they were redoing the base, it was still new and interesting to her.
The group walked for almost four hours before they reached their destination. They were only going to a town close by that one of their scout teams had come across. Bret raised his hand and signaled everyone to be quiet. He then knelt down, causing everyone to follow suit. Blake moved close to him and watched as Bret raised his hands, showing four fingers pointed to his eyes and then pointed forward. Blake turned and looked in the direction that he was signaling to see four orcs standing there with large mallets. In front of them were a bunch of dead goblins and a human girl's corpse on the ground. Orc number one raised his hand and smacked orc number two in the head. "Useless thing! Why did you smash the woman!?"
"She clawed my eye!" Orc number two argued back, his eye dripping in blood.
"So what! I will heal in just a few minutes, but you actually went and smashed her dead! Now, what do we do!? We can't reach our quota like this! The chief will kill us!" Orc number one yelled out. He couldn't contain his anger and smacked orc number two once more.
"Calm down! Smell the air. There are more women around." Orc number three cut in. This caused all the orc's eyes to grow excited. "Find them!"
Blake rubbed the spot between his brow as he looked at Noa and asked: "Why are these orcs so dumb?"
"They are a lower breed. See how small their tusks are? That means they were of a lower breed and less intelligent. They are basically grunts." Noa explained.
"Alright. Then, Tina, you go deal with them. This should be a warm-up for you, right?" Blake asked as he turned to Tina, whose eyes were full of fighting spirit. She happily nodded and said: "Leave it to me!"
With a big smile on her face Tina stood up and walked out of the bush they were all hiding behind, right into view of the orcs, and asked in a sweet voice: "Big orc brothers can you show me the way to the nearest Yar Bucks?"
"Huh? Hey! A woman!" Orc number four was the first to react, but it was already a little too late because Tina had already disappeared from where she stood and was in the air behind orc number four, who was closest to her with a pistol shoved in the back of his head. "Sweet dreams!"
*Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!* *Bang!*
According to her training, if she fired off four rounds at the soft spot of an orc's head, it would penetrate their skull and kill them. Luckily Lillia's training ground was on point on this as orc number four's body swayed and fell to the ground. "What!? What was that!?" Orc number one yelled out. He looked around but did not even see Tina any more. When he turned his head, he heard another four shots ring out and then another four. By the time he saw Tina again, who was now standing in front of him, blowing the tip of some strange weapon in her hand, his three brothers were all dead on the ground. "You!"
"Who me?" Tina asked with a smile as she pointed to herself in confusion. With a giggle, she waved her hand, and four spears of ice suddenly shot out and pierced through orc number one's arms and legs.
"Ahhh!" The orc let out a painful cry as he fell to the ground face-first. Tina walked over and knelt down next to him. "Since you guys like smashing things so much, I will give you a taste of what it is like."
With another wave of her hand, a huge rock appeared in the sky and fell down toward the orc's head. She knew this would not actually kill him, so she also made sure to shove a grenade in his mouth. As the rock slammed into orc number one's head, the grenade also went off, blowing it apart instantly, killing the orc.
Bret, who witnessed everything from start to finish, suddenly remembered something. He leaned over and nudged Blake: "Brother, remind me not to piss off your wives."
"Hahaha!" Blake let out a loud laugh as he patted Bret's back. "I think you need to worry about making progress with Rin."
"I have been! She now only kicks me if I try to hold her hand!" Bret had really made progress! Before, he could barely speak to her without being kicked by her. Now she lets him talk to her and will sometimes eat dinner with him, but any physical contact is still not allowed!
Blake smiled. To him, this was good news. His brother would soon finally have a proper elf wife! Although his taming was quite slow. Blake chuckled to himself as he watched Tina walk forward with a big smile on her face. "So what do you think!?"
"Very nicely done!" Blake replied with an approving nod. Tina skipped over and kissed his lips.
"This is not fair. How did you get so strong!?" Bret whined. He saw how quick Tina was, and he could never move that fast, even with magic boosting his abilities.
"Second evolution," Blake answered for Tina. "We are currently cultivating a mana cleansing herb that can help you reach the second evolution quicker, but right now, we are waiting for a few more to sprout. You and Mike are next on our list."
"Blake, how about you take me as your wife to, so I can get good stuff earlier as well? This way…. Ouch! Noa, why did you kick me!? Why do elves aim for the shins!?" Bret hopped around on one foot as he held his shin. Noa snorted and walked over and hugged Blake's arm. "No men allowed!"
"Hahaha!" Blake couldn't hold back his laughter. "Alright, enough messing around. Let's go."
Bret had an aggrieved look on his face as he rubbed his shin once more and continued forward, albeit with a small limp.
The group continued forward and only ran into a few monsters along the way. Tel and Ged were the ones to dispatch them. When they finally reached the town in question, they all made their way up a few of the bigger trees to get a bird's eye view. Blake looked out over the town and saw a huge group of human monsters gathering together. "This is really strange. While I have seen many human monsters in my past life gathering together naturally, it was nothing like this. It is like they are being called here."
"Blake, in the center. Look, there is one with a large belly. I do not think they are just gathering for no reason but coming together to protect the one in the middle." Noa said as she pointed out the area in the middle of the mass of human monsters.
"A pregnant human monster? Is that even possible?" Blake was confused. This was the first time he had ever seen or heard of such a creature. But for some reason, he had a bad feeling about the thing in that human monster's stomach. "We need to kill it as soon as possible."
"It won't be easy. I do not know what they used, but they have some kind of barrier up." Noa replied with a frown. "It's a strong one at that. Did human monsters also learn how to use magic that you know of?"
"No…. it may be something to do with the pregnant one. We can only try to wipe them all out. Can you pinpoint the source of the magic for the barrier?" Blake asked.
"I am not sure... I can only see the barrier around them, which is quite strange as it is. It's very powerful, something that even I might not be able to break."
