CH 95

Tauro and his team were searching for Bob and the others, trying to avoid the monsters.

“Isn’t the encounter rate with orcs pretty high?”

Shin wondered when Tauro reported that he had spotted an orc for the umpteenth time by using his “true eye” to detect presences.

“Yes, this might be a bit high.”

Aeris concurred with Shin’s question.

“…Could there be a settlement nearby?”

Tauro mentioned the possibility but it didn’t seem to fit with the orcs here.

If there were, it wouldn’t be surprising if there was a sense of unity between them, but there wasn’t.

“I know it’s unlikely, but… there isn’t a dungeon, is there?”

Aeris said, letting her imagination run wild.

“A dungeon?”

Tauro was surprised to see a fantasy element after a long time.

As I recall, dungeons are rare in this world and are strictly controlled by each country considering the danger.

Some high-ranking adventurers enter dungeons at the request of the government, but most of the time it’s soldiers from the government that enter the dungeons in teams to figure out what’s going on.

The details are classified and not widely known.

Tauro had never heard much of it, so he had lost sight of the possibility.

“Oh, it’s random. I’ve heard that dungeons are regularly infested with monsters, so I was just wondering if there were any Orcs there.”

Aeris faked a laugh, as if she thought it was a ridiculous story.

“Is it that strange?”

Tauro questioned.

“That’s right. There are only two known dungeons in this country and they’re said to have existed before the country was founded, so they’re hundreds of years old. If there was one here, it would have been a big deal a long time ago. So forget it.”

Well, that certainly sounded unrealistic.

Tauro was convinced and thought of another possibility.

If that’s the case, could it be that they had moved in individually from elsewhere?

I hadn’t heard of any food shortages in the neighborhood, but what about it?

No, we have to search for Bob and the others before we could think about it.

“Anyway, let’s look for them now.”

The three of them nodded to Tauro and once again decided to continue onward, bypassing the orcs.

Finally, Tauro felt the presence of several monsters.

Using his True Eye, he could see that there were nearly twenty Orcs clustered together at the bottom of the bare mountain slope.

A few of them seemed to be trying to climb up the slope, but they were tumbling down.

He didn’t know what they were doing, so he let Aeris and the others know and decided to approach and visually check it out.

As they approached the Orcs with Tauro in the lead, Tauro’s “sense of presence” caught a human being.

The presence was coming from the top of the slope the Orcs were trying to climb.

Looking up, they saw a hollow in the middle of the slope.

There seemed to be a hole and when he used my “true eye” he could see the silhouettes of four people.

One of them was lying down in the back and one was beside him.

The other two were looking down near the opening and I could catch a glimpse of their figures with my naked eye.

“Maybe one of them was injured, but the other three seemed to be okay. I’ll get the B-team searching the next area and you three keep an eye on the orcs and don’t take any chances until I come back.”

Tauro reminded everyone and the three nodded.

Tauro decided to use his “presence block” skill and went straight through to the area where the other team would be.

As soon as he had made some progress, he set up a bonfire and threw the red bag that the guild had given him into it to burn.

As soon as he did it, red smoke rose up.

The Orcs would see it, but he thought it was more important to get the other teams to notice and come towards them.

Then a thief from the B-team, who was relatively close by, appeared quickly.

“You found them?”

When he saw Tauro, he came out of the bushes!

“Yes! They’re being cornered by Orcs on a slope in that direction, the four of them  seem to be okay, but there are wounded people.”

“Understood.”

After a short reply, the man disappeared in the direction where he thought his companions were, and after waiting for a moment he came back with the others.

“We’ll go ahead, you stay here and wait for the rest of the team to arrive. How many orcs are there?”

“About twenty, sir.”

The B-team nodded and disappeared into the bushes in the direction Tauro was pointing, led by the thief.

The other two teams soon appeared where Tauro was waiting.

“Is the B-team ahead?”

Tauro nodded and said, “I’ll show you the way,” to which the C-team and D-team quickly followed Tauro’s lead.