I felt something with my [Sense Presence] ability.
Because the ability's level had increased recently, the name of the species — though currently it's mostly only the temporary names that I've given them — will be displayed if I've already come across one and if I know their names, then it will also be displayed. Furthermore, it will indicate whether it's an ally or an enemy. It became a very handy ability.
So according to [Sense Presence], it seems that the ones coming over are Gobukichi-kun and two of his subordinates. I tried to get up from my bed wondering if something happened, then I noticed the beings lying down next to me and cuddling me tightly.
Because I couldn't bring myself to wake up the girls who were sleeping soundly due to the fatigue from last night's intense intercourse, I slipped through using [Metamorphosis] to not wake them up.
Then I exited the room sealed with threads and had a talk with Gobukichi-kun. According to him, three long-eared humanoids had come strutting up to the mine's entrance.
He judged that whether to attack and kill or invite them into the mine was an important decision that needed to be made by me as the leader. Because he couldn't make the decision by himself, he had the strangers wait outside.
This is the best course of action they could've done, it seems like their education is bearing fruit. If it was the former Gobukichi-kun, then he wouldn't have thought twice before attacking them.
For now I took out a bottle - filled with water from the lake where the Green lizards attacked me - from my [Item Box] and quickly washed myself with the water contained within it and prepared to give myself the minimum presentable appearance, then went to meet them. The strangers were [Elves] (temporary name). It was one man and two armed women who looked like his escorts.
The three had fairly good looks, in addition, both the man's ceremonial dress and the two women's light metal armor were high quality products. Although form of dress may differ between species, it is very easy for anyone to guess their respective social status.
The rapiers hanging from the hips of the two women in the back were [Rare]-Ranked magic items, other than that they also wore ring-type and bracelet-type magic items, all of them [Rare]-Ranked.
Unless you have the appropriate social status, collecting equipment of this quality is impossible.
Incidentally, although you may think "Weren't the adventurers from the last week equipping even better quality items?", however, most of their equipment were goods looted from dungeons. It is inevitable that high ranked adventurers will have high quality equipment.
For those who are weak to venture into dungeons, they would have to be rich to get hold of equipment of this quality, that's just how it is.
Their fairly high-handed attitude was another factor that hinted at their social status. Well, that might be a racial trait.
Even though they came without any appointment, the man said something like "you're late! Isn't it good courtesy to immediately come out to greet me?" with a self-important attitude, hearing that I did my best to suppress my urge to respond with remarks like "For someone who came without making an appointment, you sure act self-important you bastard, I'll tear you apart and eat you" in my heart, and asked the reason for their visit. He said "If you serve us blah blah blah".
Putting together what they said over the long chat, the main point was that they wanted me and my subordinates to become their subordinates — which appears to be closer to slaves than subordinates from the way he's talking.
Also, "There is information that supports that the inferior humans are preparing an attack aimed at getting the elves' treasure soon" in short they want to get some useful pawns for the war.
They concluded that I would be a good pawn because I killed the former [Lord of the Mountain] the Red bear — which seems to have become a rumor lately . Well, a black ogre wearing armor made of the Red bear's fur would stand out - . The Red bear had even been hunting elite elven hunters, that's why I who hunted it in turn appeared to be the most suitable pawn.
The rewards they offered me were a few months worth large amounts of food for all the goblins in our community and a [Unique]-Ranked magic item, in addition to the two elven beauties that came with him.
According to Gobujii, this is an exceptional reward for an ogre.
Buying a [Unique]-Ranked magic item, even the worst of them would cost at least 10 million gold. And of course the price varies by a lot depending on its abilities. It seems like some of them are worth more than 30 million gold.
The reward wasn't an [Artifact] as expected, but it's still extremely valuable.
The two elven maidens he brought were very beautiful. It's wrong of me to say this, but they were certainly more beautiful than Redhead and the other girls. Then again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
I was somewhat surprised by the reward, but it isn't hard to tell from the fact that they were willing to offer this much that they were at their wits' end. While on the surface they seem to show composure, perhaps they would easily lose against the humans when it comes to military strength. This is a standard tactic to recruit soldiers.
If they lose, the elven royalty would be enslaved, this was no laughing matter for them.
Fighting is about numbers in the end. Even if there are individuals with overwhelming power, there are plenty of stories about individuals with overwhelming power getting crushed by greater numbers, so they're trying to get more allies.
I would've gotten on board with this story if it was a few days ago, but we had already acquired many stronger and better quality magic items from Velvet's Inheritance, so my heart wasn't moved.
It's a shame about the two elven maidens, but I have no need for spies or traitors. While appearance is of course valuable, but for long term relations it's what's inside that's truly important.
In the end, I bluntly refused the elves' offer.
Leaving out the actual reason, I concluded the matter by saying "Why should I care about your situation?"
The inferior humans were not my problem and I have different concerns, so I don't want any part in the conflict breaking out between them due to interests and differences in opinions. Wars have both advantages and disadvantages, it's certainly convenient for me because it would be a good opportunity to obtain a lot of abilities and the rewards were nice. There are a lots of benefits, and only a few drawbacks.
However, being unilaterally ordered around with such an obvious condescending attitude, who wouldn't hate it? All the more if the job involves risking one's life. I wanted to shout out loud and clear "Show us some sincerity!"
"If you don't want to lose dignity, then you better leave this place quickly" I warned in my heart.
A few seconds after I refused the offer, the man's face stiffened into a stupid expression. Apparently he thought he wouldn't be refused. Using metaphors to call me a fool, thinking that I wouldn't notice — a common ogre has muscles for a brain, so he probably thought that I was the same - . He had an unforgettable condescending look.
Regaining his composure — passing what would be a fatal amount of time if this was a battlefield — and putting together what he'd seen and heard to understand what I meant, the elven man turned red from anger, however, before he could say anything I glared at him to silence him.
I overlapped [Evil Eye] and [Intimidating Glare] then activated [Intimidation of the Strong], they worked perfectly together.
I didn't expect it to happen, but it seems he couldn't even breathe until I released [Intimidation of the Strong].
Finally able to barely breathe, his face paled from the terror which made me involuntarily smirk, scaring him even more.
This was because an ogre's face is scary among other things.
Making him this scared gave me a feeling of satisfaction. Then I grabbed him by the neck with my silver arm and lifted him up. I glared at the two escorts who tried to react after watching this which stopped them, then whispered in the man's ear to order the escorts hiding in the forest to lower their bows. An arrow was shot at my face at the same time which I stopped by grabbing it with my teeth.
I made some crunching sounds as I ate the arrow, then I gave the man a look that told him that if they did anything else I would shred his neck. Well, I merely flashed a grin at him.
He mumbled about something with a weak voice, but I just ignored him saying "Just hurry up and give them the order" and tightened my grip on his neck. I smirked at him again seeing him loudly giving out orders in a panic and confirmed that the escorts who concealed themselves did as ordered by overlapping my [Enlarged Field of Vision] and [Predict], then without releasing him, I slowly warned the elf in his ear.
"I don't feel like taking part in your 'request', so I'm rejecting it this time, but if it's about this forest being invaded by humans, then I won't hesitate to cooperate. Since I'm also an inhabitant of this forest after all, if I need to, I'll deal with it accordingly. I've decided to do this much."
"But if you're thinking about getting revenge for this and hurt any of my subordinates, you're getting eaten. You and all your allies will be killed and eaten.", while activating [Intimidation of the Strong] I drilled this into his head.
To make it clear that I'm capable of doing that, I took out my vermilion spear [Starving Impaler of A Thousand Thorns (Kazıklı Bey)] from my [Item Box] and stabbed the ground with it, then used its unique ability [Army of Blood-dyed Crimson Spears (Tseng Pesch)].
Vermilion spears suddenly appeared in front of the eyes of all the elves that came today. Even the ones that should have been hidden from my view.
After displaying my power, the looks on the elves' faces changed. While watching them run back home I looked at the vermilion spear in my hand.
Although I don't understand the theory behind it, but I can make vermilion spears appear on anything physically connected to the point I stabbed using [Starving Impaler of A Thousand Thorns (Kazıklı Bey)] within a radius of 100 meters. This is only the second time I've used this ability, but seeing vermillion spears spring out from the ground and the trees felt a bit surreal.
Well, its sharpness and length are good, it's the most suitable weapon for me who specializes in 'piercing and stabbing', so I have nothing to be dissatisfied about.
However, there are many magical items that are capable of this and more, this world is really hard to comprehend.
From what I learned from my conversations with Redhead and the other girls, this world is something like a fantasy world with the technology of around the European medieval ages or even worse, so it's obvious that with the existence of such unreasonable items and over-technology that this world is severely distorted.
Some say that [Artifacts] are relics of the gods, but I still feel it's completely out of balance with the current level of the civilizations in this world.
Leaving that aside, doing this much I doubt the elves will even consider returning for revenge. It's highly unlikely, but I can't say that there's absolutely no chance. It's impossible to be sure of anything 100%.
Oh, yeah. Apparently, the elven man I threatened is one of the candidates for the position of the next clan chief for one of the elves' clans and that's why he was acting so self-important.
« The Elves Village » is located deep inside the Unexplored Zone that I have yet to map. Going to see it next time might be interesting.
By the way, I was able to guess and infer the elves meaning to some extent with my [Orc Language] ability.
It is convenient to use the languages I've learned with my abilities with species whose way of speaking is greatly different from ours like Green lizards, however, all humanoid species like ogres, goblins, elves and humans have similar languages. So even if I haven't learned their languages, it's still possible to have a conversation with them.
This is how I understood the man's speech. I still don't have an ability for the elves' language since I haven't eaten any elves yet, however, I managed to communicate with him nevertheless. Well, having the language's corresponding ability would make communication easier.
In short, the ability helps me with understanding the exact meaning of their words — namely their meaning within their dialect. For example, "Well done" turns into "I'm tired" due to difference in languages and "Scary" turns into "I'm tired". Basically, it helps me in understanding the meaning of some words with a differing meaning in different languages.
After chasing the elves away, I went hunting and spent the day as usual. Then after eating dinner, I spent a hot intense night.