The air inside the tent had grown chill. When I activated the Light Magic Tool, four shadows stretched across the floor. Curious about the situation outside, I stood from my chair and pulled back the entrance flap.
A gust of cold air rushed in, bringing with it the cacophony of battle and the shrieks of monsters. The sky had been dyed a deep madder red, but it was fading into darkness in the blink of an eye.
"The wind picks up around here at night. You should wrap a blanket around yourself before heading out," Garon remarked, watching the fabric of the tent snap in the breeze. A stack of blankets had already been prepared in the corner of the tent.
"And it was so warm during the day, too..." Neneva grumbled. She grabbed a blanket and bundled herself up until she was nothing more than a round, cozy ball of wool.
"Is it time?" Graymond asked, rising from his seat.
"I believe so," Garon replied. The four of us stepped out into the night in silence.
As we approached Knight Order Commander Olgos's tent, the aroma of roasted meat wafted toward us. It seemed Olgos was fueling up for the coming fight. A whole roasted Antelope sat upon his table, and he was devouring it with ravenous intensity.
"How can you fight after eating that much...?" Neneva asked with her usual lack of formality.
Olgos swallowed a massive mouthful of meat and turned toward us, meat juices glistening in his thick beard. "I told you, I’m only eighty percent full...!"
Eating an entire Antelope and calling it a light meal... He was every bit the glutton his appearance suggested.
Finished with his feast, Olgos drained a massive mug of water in a single go and let out a heavy breath. Then, he stood with a sudden, powerful surge of energy.
"Let’s go! Keep your eyes on me...!"
"We will!" Neneva chirped back.
As Olgos began his march, the knights and mercenaries resting nearby scrambled to their feet, shouting words of encouragement. Their eyes were bright with expectation and admiration. Those gazes eventually shifted to Neneva as well. By now, everyone knew she was the Saint.
A skinny girl with silver hair and red eyes—the only human existence capable of standing against the Evil Beings.
With both the Commander of the Asterion Knight Order and the Saint present, the men truly believed that even the appearance of a monster king would be no problem at all.
A crowd formed a corridor for Olgos to pass through. Ahead lay the defensive wall surrounding the Cave of Falling Shadows. Beyond those logs, knights and mercenaries were surely locked in a desperate struggle against an inexhaustible surge of monsters.
Olgos reached the wall, which was constructed of heavy logs piled as high as the man himself. From the other side came the sounds of brutal, close-quarters combat.
"Commander, your sword!"
Three members of the Knight Order struggled to carry a massive length of steel toward him. It was a thick, heavy slab of metal—Olgos’s primary weapon.
"The Magic Sword Gigantomachia..." Garon whispered.
Olgos snatched the magic sword with a single hand as if it weighed nothing and hoisted it onto his shoulder. Then, with a deep bend of his knees, he cleared the defensive wall with an incredible leap.
A heavy thud shook the earth. I hurried up a ladder set against the wall to see the scene within. Illuminated by flickering bonfires, the area near the cave entrance was dominated by a fresh crater. Around it lay a staggering amount of mangled flesh. Olgos had clearly made his entrance felt.
The remains soon dissolved into smoke, leaving behind only reddish-black Magic Stones. It was a known trait of dungeon-born monsters—they left no corpses behind.
Taking advantage of the gap Olgos had cleared with his first strike, the blood-soaked knights and mercenaries who had been holding the line inside the wall began to withdraw. Though they were caked in filth and gore, their faces wore expressions of relief. They shared an absolute, unwavering trust that they were safe now that Olgos had taken the field.
Shouldering that burden of hope, Olgos stood alone in the center of the clearing.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then, a low vibration began to echo from the depths of the Cave of Falling Shadows, growing louder by the second. A turbulent tide of violence gushed from the cavern's maw.
A swarm of Goblins and Kobolds led the charge, followed by heavy infantry Orcs with the heads of swine. Deeper still, Ogres dragging massive clubs and agile Lizardmen lurked, waiting for an opening. Their numbers easily exceeded a hundred. It was a "Parade" of such hopeless proportions that any sane person would have turned and fled.
But one man stood directly in the path of that torrent.
"Hah!"
With a thunderous roar, Olgos swung the slab of steel from his shoulder in a wide, horizontal arc.
Magic Sword Gigantomachia. It was far too thick and gargantuan to be called a mere sword. The air itself seemed to scream as the blade cut through it.
Before the front row of Goblins and Kobolds could even register what was happening, they were pulverized. They weren't merely cut; the sheer mass and centrifugal force crushed their bones and flesh instantly, scattering them into a fine red mist.
"Gi—gya...?"
Seeing their comrades reduced to meat in a heartbeat, the following Orcs skidded to a halt. But Olgos’s momentum didn't falter. He used the weight of the sword to bring it back around in a devastating return stroke.
The Orcs raised their thick iron shields in a desperate defensive stance.
BOOM!
The impact sounded like a lightning strike. The Orcs' shields crumpled like wet paper, and the force of the blow crushed their bodies behind them. The Orcs, renowned for their thick fat and muscle, were obliterated, their contents splattering like overripe tomatoes.
The air grew thick with the scent of blood as the battlefield turned red.
"Shaaa!"
Seizing a momentary opening, several Lizardmen leapt into the air, aiming for Olgos from above. But Olgos didn't even shift his footing. He simply gave Gigantomachia a casual flick with one hand. The sheer wind pressure generated by the movement slammed the airborne Lizardmen into the dirt.
"Hah!"
He followed up with a vertical cleave—a blow that didn't just split the Lizardmen, but the earth itself. The ground erupted, and the resulting shockwave sent another dozen monsters tumbling through the air.
"Guooooh!"
Enraged by the slaughter of its kin, a massive Ogre lumbered forward. It stood three times the height of a man, its arms like logs as it swung a massive boulder overhead.
"Watch out!" Neneva cried out. Her worry, however, was misplaced.
The moment Gigantomachia made contact, the Ogre’s boulder disintegrated into dust. The impact traveled up the creature’s thick arms, and its entire upper body simply burst.
The area was heavy with the thick stench of death and rising dust. Standing in the center of the carnage, Olgos repositioned Gigantomachia on his shoulder. He looked like an incarnation of war, far more terrifying than any monster he faced.
"Phew..."
I realized I had forgotten to breathe while watching Olgos fight. I took a deep lungful of air, slowly steadying my racing heart.
Suddenly, a heavy thud echoed from deep within the Cave of Falling Shadows. It was followed by another, and another—the rhythmic footfalls of something gargantuan.
A massive tremor caused the defensive wall to creak and groan. Looking around, I saw the composure vanish from the faces of the knights and mercenaries. The atmosphere shifted instantly.
Something truly monstrous was emerging from the cave.
The ground shook so violently I could barely keep my footing. Then, the moonlight finally caught the newcomer’s form.
"You’ve got to be kidding..." someone whispered in a hoarse voice.
What emerged was a creature so massive it could be mistaken for a section of the castle wall. Its body was a mountain of thick fat and muscled armor. Upon its hideous, porcine face sat a distorted Golden Crown, digging into its brow. In its hand, it gripped a club that looked as if an ancient tree had been ripped straight from the earth.
"An Orc King..." Garon muttered beside me. He was craning his neck just to look at the thing. It was so enormous that Olgos looked like a small child by comparison.
"GUOOOOOOOOOH!"
The king roared, the sound vibrating through the air with enough force to make my skin crawl even from atop the wall.
"Quite the big frame you've got there...!" Olgos growled. For the first time, he settled into a proper stance with Gigantomachia. Everyone was certain they were about to witness a duel between titans.
However—
BOOM!
From further behind the Orc King, the bedrock of the cave entrance shattered from the inside. Something was forcibly widening the tunnel to make its way out.
"...Huh?" Olgos froze.
The Orc King let out a guttural laugh. Behind it, a second titan emerged—an Orc King wearing a Silver Crown. Two kings now stood side-by-side, looming over Olgos.
"No way... Two Orc Kings...?"
It was a vision of absolute despair.