As a very experienced criminal gang who had gotten into countless fights and never been wiped out, the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves could easily handle a fight on a village-scale. Although the leader had ordered them to initiate attack, they did not assault impertinently. Rather, they were yelling "Banzai" and riding their wolves into battle. They dashed into a defensive position against the commercial corps, took the short bows from their back, aimed at Gerrard, and shot their arrows.
As an experienced criminal gang, the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves excelled at both horsemanship and archery, and they also had abundant battle experience. They had calculated the striking distance very carefully, so they didn't have to set foot in the area where old Soth had laid traps. They had managed to initiate an attack in the region where the commercial corp's arrows could not reach.
Tens of people shot their arrows at the same time, and these flying arrows were like a heavy rain of arrows, which was really terrifying. But Gerrard wasn't intimidated; he didn't even bother to block the arrows, apart from using his left hand to cover his eyes.
The archery of the Orcs was very good: more than half of the arrows met their target, and Gerrard was in danger of being hit and becoming a large sieve full of holes. Seeing this, everyone in the commercial corps was nearly frightened to death.
They heard a cracking sound, similar to that of a stone hitting against a tree. As soon as the arrows made contact with Gerrard, they just fell to the ground and he'd suffered neither wound nor blood.
Still, it was wrong to say that the arrows didn't work at all. Gerrard mumbled, "kind of itchy..." Kind of itchy, that's all.
Everyone was speechless. Sui Xiong felt as if he saw a pair of drooping wings rise up from the Orc's heads, and black water was dripping from the wings; there was also a pop-up notification saying "the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves has been demoralized". Of course, these were all illusions.
"Bloody Hands" Ruhr frowned a bit when he found that the arrows hadn't worked at all, but he didn't care about this too much. He had experienced numerous battles, and he had faced enemies clad in heavy armor more than once. So it was okay that arrows didn't work, since he had many ideas!
"Warlock, scorching curse!" he ordered in the Orc's language.
Then, three Orcs who had yet to join the assault rode their wolves and approached. After walking a while, they stopped and held up their right hands all at the same time.
All three of them were holding a one-foot-long magic wand. The wands were made of the war-craft's bones and engraved with magic alabaster, and red gemstones were mounted at the end of each wand.
The magic wands were kind of strange and no one in the commercial corps recognized them at first. Once the red energy wave began hovering around the magic wand, a young wizard named Palin finally recognized it. "Be careful! It is a magic wand that can increase their range!"
The spell in this world was not as powerful as those in the magic novels he'd read before. Here in this world, when one was practicing a magic spell, the biggest problem was the range. Since the wizards needed to use their Zen power to lock onto their target, most of the spells' range was twenty to thirty meters at most. A longer range could only be achieved when a Ray magic spell was practiced to lock onto a direction instead of locking onto a target via Zen power.
A distance of twenty to thirty meters was not long enough to be safe, so a wizard needed to be protected by a soldier in a real war. Once a wizard lost this protection, even a few advanced wizards might have been killed by a middle-rank archer.
Of course, if a wizard didn't withdraw when he knew he'd already lost his protection, or even confronted the archer himself, he probably wouldn't live long due to his low intelligence; he might be the kind of wizard who would probably have killed himself already by botching a spell while practicing.
To solve the problem of limited range, the technique of "increasing the range via spell" came out. Also, in order to universalize this technique, which could make the range of a spell two to three times longer than before, the magic wand was invented.
This expensive magic wand could only be used to enhance a wizard's ability of "increasing the range via spell". Although its price was fixed and high, it was still a treasured object that many wizards longed for. Combined with the "Armor Robe" that materialized the spell of "Mage Armor" and the "life-saving amulet" that materialized the spell of "Error Free Transmission", these three objects were known as the "three treasured objects of war", a standard set that every wizard of actual combat type dreamed of collecting.
Palin aimed to be a great and respectful adventurer, which meant that as a wizard, he needed to be a wizard who actually saw combat. So he had also been longing for the three treasured objects of war. Although the style of the range-increasing magic wand was very special and different from the one he saw in the magic shop, he still instantly recognized it when the three Orcs practiced the spell. However, he should have realized this earlier.
Hearing Palin's warning, Gerrard was shocked and hurried to get prepared. But the three Orcs had already practiced the spell, and three rays of crimson light were flying toward him.
The flight speed of the three lights wasn't too fast, and Gerrard was easily able to dodge them. But he knew that there were many innocent men behind him, and they would certainly die once hit by the spell if he only managed to dodge the three lights. So he gave up on the best choice for him and tried to absorb the force of the three spells with the big tree in his hand.
However, the three Orcs' positioning was very peculiar. Even if Gerrard could move very fast and the tree was indeed very big, he was only able to withstand two of the spells and was hit by a ray of crimson light.
The crimson light looked very normal, but it was cruelly powerful. The big tree in Gerrard's hands had been very healthy and strong with luxuriant foliage. But after the light made impact, the green leaves withered in the blink of an eye, and on the place that was hit by the light, tiny sparkles burst into two small flames.
If even the big tree couldn't withstand the spell, what would happen if a human was hit by it?
Ruhr was smiling and felt like he had seen that pure, kind and young giant burst into a fizzy mess, or explode due to the sudden vaporized blood. This scene was one of his favorites, a scene he could never get sick of. However, this time he was disappointed since he could only see a wisp of smoke rising up. The powerful scorching curse hit Gerrard and only burned a piece of outer skin off his left arm.
"This spell is really vicious! Once a person is hit, both the inside and the outside of his body should suffer from extreme temperatures and definitely die… These are professional bandits who just practiced a spell that could kill a person the very first time!" Sui Xiong was a bit surprised, since he never thought that a group of bandits in the frontier areas could be so powerful. "But you don't need to worry, the magic energy stored in your gemstone is very abundant. The spell that confronts toughness with equal toughness can be directly offset by the magic; it can't harm you but will cause some surface-level skin trauma, and that's all. You will recover soon since you have a strong body."
Hearing Sui Xiong's words and seeing the big tree that was soon to become a torch, Gerrard was completely stunned. He knew that his body which Oscar had made for him was very strong, but he never thought that it was strong enough to withstand the scorching curse!
It was already amazing that his body could withstand a knife or a sword, but it never dawned on him that it could also defend against the powerful scotching curse! He thought that the toughness of his body must be outstanding among other war-crafts. Maybe...he could even fight against a huge dragon! He thought he was really very lucky to be protected by such a omnipotent real God!
Thinking of this, Gerrard became very confident. He let out a howl, waved the soon-to-be-torch tree trunk, and ran towards the Orc bandits. He was running faster than a horse, and he quickly stopped in front of an Orc wizard and gave him a good smash with the tree.
Right at this moment, a circle of white light appeared around the Orc wizard. The light was Mage Armor and its defensive power was as strong as chainmail. However, the spell did no good when facing Gerrard's powerful smash. It didn't last for a second, and crashed down in a big bang, along with the Orc wizard and the wolf he rode on, and they became the fertilizer that nourished the grass.
Seeing this, Ruhr was so frightened that his eyeballs were about to pop out. Luckily, his body reacted much faster than his brain, and he immediately turned around and ran as fast as he could to put distance between them. The members of the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves instantly raised a big whistle in the group, moved the wolves all together, and began to scatter in all directions. This caught Gerrard by surprise, and he had no idea which way he should go.
Gerrard was very experienced, but he wasn't a very smart guy. When he was on the adventure team, he'd always followed his captain's orders. Later, when he ran away and hid in the White Leaves Village and became the captain of guarding the village, he always stood by his duty and had no idea how to fight for power and money. The reason why the old officiant thought of him as a "cunning" guy was because of the great respect the villagers had for him for his willingness to teach his apprentices, and this was misinterpreted by the old officiant himself who always saw the bad in things.
Seeing the Orcs run away in all directions as soon as they felt they had suffered a setback in battle, Gerrard felt he was watching a nest of rabbits run away in all directions like a pack of fools.
"Hunt the three wizards down!" Sui Xiong ordered. In his view, the strongest people in the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves were the three wizards, and the threat from this gang of bandits would be significantly diminished if they were killed.
Hearing this, Gerrard instantly began to dash like a breeze and quickly caught up with an Orc wizard riding a wolf. He gave the wizard a good smash on the head with the big burning tree in his hand.
Bang! The wizard became a pile of fertilizer.
At that moment, the third Orc wizard fired off a spell, and the feet of the wolf he was riding were soon covered in green air. Then the wolf, which was running quickly to begin with, started running like the wind. Even Gerrard was shocked by its speed; he struggled to catch up with it, and gave up at last when the distance between him and the wizard was only increasing.
"Your Majesty, I am so sorry, I failed to fulfill the task… Please punish me!"
"It's fine, you have killed two wizards, you have done a good job." Sui Xiong was totally fine with this. "We will meet him again one day. Although he has managed to run away this time, he won't always be this lucky and will reap what he sows."
"Before that, it's time for you to eat supper now."
Gerrard sighed and was very annoyed by his own incompetence. He threw the big tree that had already become a torch on the ground, put out the fire with his feet and went back to the encampment of the commercial corps in very low spirits.
Seeing that their hero who had defeated the Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves was in such low spirits, the corps members were very confused and wanted to know why. When they heard that one of the Orc wizards had run away, all sorts of feelings began to well up in their minds.
The Cavalry of Orcs and Wolves was famous for its brutality and cruelty. Normally, anyone who came across them could only think about was how to run for their life, while for a powerful man, the concern was how to defeat it.
What a big difference. This was just like a Bronze Rank novice watching the pros competing with each other in an online game, unable to do anything but keep praising them to express his excitement and respect to the pros.
Pros, please accept my knees! (In the past, when one wanted to show his respect for someone, he would give the most precious thing he owned; for example, he could get on his knees.)