A large individual on the fluffy - not to say pudgy - side pulled the hood of his cloak further over his face with his left hand before returning to picking up herbs.
There was a certain level of mastery in his movement as he picked only the freshly matured leaves, leaving the stalks, the old leaves, and fresh sprouts alone so that the plant could be harvested again in a few days.
There was something peculiar about the hooded lefthanded herb connoisseur.
In addition to wearing a hood, he had a triangular shield strapped to his right arm—or what remained of it—and although the shield was medium-sized, it looked relatively small compared to him.
Of course, that wasn't all. The interesting habit the individual had was that each time he picked a leaf off the plant, he would move it to his face and carefully smell it before storing it in the pouch strapped to his belt.
"...bhmmm… hmmm~"
As he finished picking clean one herb, he hummed, clearly in a good mood, while waddling a few steps towards another plant without standing up, using the side of his shield to lift an iron mace at his side a bit so it wouldn't get stuck and became a leaver leveraging his fall.
"...u-hiii…!"
"...!?"
All of a sudden, the echo of a Boarkin Orc squeal echoed through the forest, making the hooded individual raise his head in shock. He keenly listened in while trying to locate the real direction the voice carried over from.
"...bu-hi…!"
"...bu-hi…!"
"...prey…? Initiation…?"
The echo of a chant carried over, and the hooded individual straightened his back, looking around for any disturbance in his surroundings.
"Bha…?"
And then he gasped once he spotted the movement in the distance—the movement of someone or something rushing away from the human settlement.
"...I better… inphorm lady about it."
The individual breathed out, speaking to himself. Given his difficulty with speaking, it was easy to notice that he wasn't used to the common language of the center and eastern side of the Jewelboxia continent.
"Boarkins hunting other monsters so close human settlement… no good."
He added, lowering his head about to return to harvesting herbs when…
"...eeeeelp…!"
"!!!"
An echo of a desperate cry carried over the squeals of the monsters, causing the hooded individual to freeze up for a split second…
"BHIRGH!"
And the next moment, he ended up lunching himself in the direction the cry came with a grunt - trampling over the plants he had yet to harvest.
The hooded individual picked up quite the speed, charging through the forest like a truck aiming at the iseaki novel protagonist about to be send to a generic fantasy world, beelinging it directly towards the danger.
He knew the area well. The closer he got, the more certain he was that the Boarkin Orcs were chasing their unfortunate human victim towards a dead end—the stone wall at the very bottom of a several-dozen-foot-high cliff.
It wasn't a tactic their species would use when hunting for food—it was something they did purely for cruel fun.
"BGH...!"
The hooded individual gritted his teeth and increased his speed even more, doing his absolute best to catch up to the monsters before it would be too late for their victim.
And he began to do just that - unfortunately, his timing was slightly off - the monsters have succeeded in trapping their prey.
A short black-haired girl, all beaten up, bruised, and bloodied, was half-seating on the ground with her back against the foot of the cliff.
Blood was pouring from the wounds on her head and a sizable gash on her forehead, flooding her left eye and leaving her with just half of her vision. She was gritting her teeth as she was propping up a stone spear diagonally with her shaking arms, aiming it towards the closest Boarkin orc… that wasn't intimidated in the slightest by her desperate display.
"!"
The hooded individual gritted his teeth so hard he felt the taste of blood in his mouth. He reached towards the pouch at his belt and grabbed a fistful of herbs.
"...bu-h…!?"
"Enhanced…!"
As he passed the monster farthest from the girl, the hooded individual growled out loud, jumping up and winding up the shield strapped to the remains of his right arm while reaching out his left hand toward the severely wounded girl.
*****
That was it.
Her end of the line.
She was chased into a dead end and surrounded.
When she desperately tried to break through, one of the orcs picked her up and tossed her against the wall of the high cliff, and her stone armor shattered mid-flight, with the impact adding a few more bruises and cuts.
What's a few more?
The worst part was that the blood from the cuts on the top of her head, as well as her forehead, was all dripping into her eye, puddling in and adding insult to injury.
"...ghhh… stone… spear…"
The black-haired girl forced herself up against the wall and spat through her teeth, using the remains of her mana to create her last weapon.
Just like the incantation suggested, a stone spear.
She used it to prop herself up while holding it diagonally, with the dull end against the wall and the ground and the pointy end aimed at the nearest monster.
Even with her hazy vision obstructed by bloodied eye, the amusement of the approaching monsters was painfully obvious to her.
Those creatures weren't chasing her to eat her because of the hunger.
They weren't interested in her or her gear in the slightest - although at least half of them wore pieces of armor clearly made by humans…
No.
Those Boarkin orcs only wanted to torment her.
Laugh at the pathetic human desperately clinging to life while overtaken by fear.
"...h-hah…! You all c-can… go and f-fuc…"
"Enhanced heal!"
"BU-GHUIGH!?"
The girl spat out bile mixed with blood and began to growl at the laughing monsters when, out of nowhere, a hooded individual came flying from the side, throwing some leaves at her while shouting and slamming the edge of his shield into the side of the head of a Boarkin orc closest to her!
"Wha…?!"
The girl gasped in utter shock but then got completely speechless as she noticed that the leaves thrown by a stranger began swirling around her in a twister of green light that not only healed her wounds but refilled a sizable portion of her mana!