Chapter 74

I Received Permission to go Ham

So I waited on a spot where the flames weren’t that strong. They had a few paths to choose where they could push their way through; areas with less oil so the flames weren’t spreading as fast.

If they see me in one of these areas, the Hungry Ogres will surely choose that path to get to me.

「Gaaaaahhhhh!」

「Goooaaaahhhhh!」

「Gii… Giiaaahh!」

Surrounded by roaring flames, they started fighting among each other, exchanging blows. They were probably deciding who goes first.

Shortly after, the fighting stopped. The Hungry Ogres formed ranks and started charging at me, clumping up so that after those in the front fanned the flames away, the ones that followed will not receive as much damage.

As if I’d let them have their way.

「……Gah?」

A Hungry Ogre plunged into the fire and fell flat on its face after stepping on the Sticky Bombs I planted on the ground beforehand.

「Gaaaaaahhh! ..Gah? Gwooah?」

Collapsed, it let out a confused grunt as it tried to use its arms to get up. Its arms were stuck on the ground. I put some Sticky Bombs on there as well, after all.

「「「「「「Goooaaaahhhh!」」」」」」

Before I knew it, the rest of them were in the same dire strait. Tied down to the earth amidst the roaring flames, the Hungry Ogres writhed in agony as their whole body burned.

That’s right. The path straight to me was strewn with Sticky Bombs.

Sticky Bomb doesn’t deal any direct damage and has extremely low MP cost. As such, it’s very useful for use as traps by scattering them around. Though highly intelligent monsters like the Hungry Ogre won’t fall for it unless they’re hidden; like what I did, covering them in flames.

「Sticky Bomb… Ouch!」

I made sure to add more so they won’t escape. The flames were starting to spread to where I was. I need to get away soon or I’ll be swallowed by the flames as well.

「Blood Poison.」

For good measure, I cast poison magic on the Hungry Ogres so they don’t survive before making my escape. As I distanced myself from the flames…

「Anti-Flame.」

I cast a fire resistance spell on the immediate environment. It’s a spell usually used when facing fire-type monsters but it might work to stop the forest fire from spreading farther. The combustible forest is an important resource I need to kill monsters while consuming as little mana as possible so I want to leave as much of it unharmed as possible.

「Alright, on to the next ones.」

After verifying that the fire resistance spell was indeed working, I proceeded to search for my next target. With this method, I can conserve mana. For now, I’ll just reduce their number as much as I can.

◇

Four days later.

Luggage filled the town. It seems despite the townspeople’s complaints, they made preparations for the evacuation. While all this was going on, I kept on hunting Hungry Ogres, pushing them on the brink of annihilation. I’ve earned over two billion so far from the rewards.

「You’ve killed an incredible number of Hungry Ogres… What about the Emperor Ogre? You think you can kill it?」

I was about to go out on another hunt when the branch manager asked me a question. He’s been awfully busy lately — mostly from dealing with the evacuation and asking for funds for my reward — but he never fails to inform me in the morning about the situation in town and the government.

For now, there doesn’t seem to be any significant move from Cardinal Georgis. They probably didn’t take into account my interference. His office is far from here so unless he knew about it beforehand, he wouldn’t be able to respond quickly.

「I’m going to try to take on the Emperor Ogre today. There might be quite a huge forest fire. Will that be okay?」

「Yes. We’ve cleared the forest of people. Don’t worry about us and go wild.」

「Got it.」

With that, I made my way out of town. I’ve got tons of oil that I received from the guild in my Magic Storage. I used the trees as fuel when killing Hungry Ogres so I could save as much oil as possible… all for today.

The Demon Venom lets the monsters in its surroundings die and extracts their mana to empower surviving monsters. That special ability gives it a weakness… but just striking at that weakness won’t kill the Emperor Ogre. I won’t have much advantage fighting head-on so I’ll have to use a few backdoor methods.