Awoken by rain It was now the fifth and last day off the trail.
After seeing the orc army Diedrich felt he needed to get even stronger as he knew if he was ever targeted by such an army alone he had no chance of escaping.
So with renewed vigour Diedrich started the day and was even more determined to kill as many orcs as possible, although a bit more discreetly.
After 3 hours of fighting and searching Diedrich felt ecstatic as he had found a group of 30 slingshot orcs with 15 orc warriors and a few common orcs, This would be the biggest group Diedrich would have faced up to this point however he felt optimistic.
And eventually he was successful, it had taken him two hours, but after constant guerilla warfare he had successfully eliminated them all,
[Point score: 975✩✩✩]
When Diedrich heard his score he knew that he probably would have another upgrade after reaching 1000 points, so he quickly went on the hunt for more orcs and after half an hour of searching and killing, he made it.
[killed orc warrior +5]
[Point score: 1001✩✩✩✩]
After the energy encompassed him he felt stronger again. Diedrich still had half the day left, he knew he couldn't upgrade again in this timeframe so he was wondering what to do.
He thought about fighting the orc leader, but after careful consideration abandoned the idea as he wasn't confident in fighting it, if he had to guess he was now maybe equal in strength to the goblin leader so fighting the orc leader was not an option.
Diedrich however was intrigued about the black cubes and wanted to see if the one in the orc leader's lair looked different, although he couldn't fight it directly he was confident that he could escape. Diedrich made up his mind and decided to go to the orc lair.
Stationed in front of the orc lair were a few guards, after quickly dispatching them he entered the lair. The orc lair looked the same as the goblin's layer, it went under the ground and opened to large doors, and behind them was a big cavern.
Unlike last time Diedrich didn't recklessly walk in as the orc leader could be awake so he sneakily peaked into the cavern while staying inconspicuous.
As Diedrich looked at the inside of the area he quickly noticed a black cube a bit larger than the one in the goblin's lair floating above a throne that stood in the middle of the hall, the throne this time seemed to be made out of stone instead of wood.
Diedrich quickly spotted the orc leader sleeping on the throne, the orc leader looked like a regular orc however much larger and more vicious.
It was a lot fatter than the other orcs and its two tusks were at least 30 centimeters making it look even more menacing, however, what made the orc leader look most imposing was the huge stone axe it held in its hand.
Diedrich knew the orc leader would be nothing but trouble however he was very curious about the black cube floating above its throne, and wanted to see if it would have a reaction with the black cube from the goblin layer.
So he had a little internal discussion.
"Diedrich curiosity killed the cat you know that so contain YOURSELF!!, but I really want the cube, it could be something very important to this trial and I could always escape, so I'm going for it".
Having lost the battle to curiosity Diedrich made a quick plan.
Unlike last time Diedrich wasn't going to attack the orc leader and would prioritise escaping above all so his plan which was quite simple was to throw a rock to the back of the cave, lure the orc with the noise and quickly go to the black cube while staying out of the orcs sight by using the throne as cover, destroy it and run out.
Diedrich knew his plan was full of holes but he thought it would be manageable, as even if he didn't have enough time to destroy the black cube he could always run.
Diedrich took a rock and slingshot from a dead orc he killed in front of the cave. After getting back to the cavern with the leader he pulled the slingshot back as far as he could and shot the rock, managing to hit the very back wall off the cave which was 200 meters away from where he was.
"Klunk"
When the orc leader heard this noise he angrily woke up and walked to where he heard the sound.
Diedrich saw this and quickly and as quietly as possible dashed to the throne, luckily the orc leader hadn't noticed him and was still looking for what made the noise. Diedrich was now in front of the cube and quickly slashed at it with his sword.
"fffBOOm"
The black cube immediately imploded and alerted the orc leader.
When the orc leader saw a human standing beside his throne it was enraged and dashed towards him.
Diedrich saw the orc leader running at him and quickly took the now small black cube and dashed for the exit.
From what Diedrich could see the orc leader was much faster than the goblin leader, and a bit faster than him but not by much, so Diedrich was able to quickly run out of the hall.
Once back above ground, Diedrich planned to keep running and lose the orc leader in the forest however he no longer heard the orc leader roaring behind him and when he looked behind the orc leader wasn't there.
Diedrich was puzzled as when he listened very carefully he could still hear the orc leader roar softly.
After waiting a bit to see if the orc leader would exit the cave and it not happening Diedrich went back down into the layer and stood just in front of the entrance to the cavern, there between the two humongous doors stood an angry orc leader pounding his giant axe against an invisible barrier like the one surrounding the forest.
As Diedrich saw this he smiled and leisurely walked back into the forest.
While walking Diedrich found an open quiet area and sat down, there was no reason to hide in trees anymore as first of all he was stronger than all the monsters he had encountered and he was confident he could run away should an orc army show up.
While sitting on the ground he took both cubes out of his bag. He put each cube in one hand and inspected them, the cube from the orc layer was a bit bigger than the goblins one however that was the only difference, they were both small black metallic cubes that were about three times the size of dice.
While meticulously observing the cubes Diedrich wanted to put them together and see if a reaction would occur, Diedrich slowly put the cubes together, and waited for something to happen but nothing did.
Disappointed that he had pulled off that stunt with the orc leader for seemingly no reason he put the cubes back in his bag, before he lay on the soft green moss looking blankly at the sky through the leaves.
For the first time, Diedrich didn't know what to do. He still had about 4 hours to waste and was bored.
Thinking about how he could spend his time he eventually settled with finding the group he had helped at the beginning, and seeing how they were doing.
3 hours later Diedrich had finally found the goblin lair where he had slain the goblin leader before, he had searched all over and eventually picked a direction that led him to a familiar place. Diedrich's speed was now significantly faster and after 10 minutes he was back at the camp.