I felt something with my [Presence Sensor].
Because the ability’s level had increased recently, the name of the species—though it’s only the temporary names I've given them—will be displayed if I've already come across one. If I know their real name, then that name will be displayed. Furthermore, it will indicate whether it’s an ally or an enemy. It was a handy ability.
Based on that, it seems that the ones coming over are Gobukichi-kun and two of his subordinates. I started to get up wondering if something happened, then I became aware of the beings lying down cuddling me tightly.
Because I couldn’t bring myself to wake the girls who were sleeping soundly due to the fatigue from last night’s intense orgy, I slipped through using [Metamorphosis] to not wake them up.
Then I exited the room made from thread and had a talk with Gobukichi-kun. According to them, three long-eared humanoids had come strutting up to the cave’s entrance.
Whether to attack, kill, or invite them into the cave was an important decision that needed to be made by me as the leader. Because they couldn’t make the decision themselves, they had the strangers wait outside.
This is exactly they should've done, their education was bearing fruit. If it was before I taught them, they wouldn’t have thought twice before attacking them.
For now I took out a bottle (filled with water from the lake) from my [Item Box], I quickly washed myself with the water inside to give myself the minimum presentable appearance and went to meet them. The strangers were “Elves (Tentative Name)”. It was one man and two armed women who looked like his escorts.
The three had fairly good looks, both the man’s ceremonial dress and the two women’s light metal armor were superior quality products. Taste and other things aside, it was easy to guess their respective social status.
Judging from their appearance, the rapiers hanging from the hips of the two women in the back were [Rare] class magic items, other than that they also had ring-type and bracelet-type magic items, all of them [Rare] class.
Unless you have the appropriate social status, collecting equipment of this quality is impossible.
Incidentally, although I thought “The adventurers last time had some nice equipment huh?”, most of their high quality equipment were goods looted from dungeons. It is inevitable that high level adventurers will get high quality equipment.
For those who don’t venture inside dungeons, you'd have to be rich to get ahold 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.
While suppressing violent remarks like “For someone who came along without making an appointment, they sure act self-important, let’s tear them apart and eat them.” in my heart, I asked the reason for the visit. It seems that we fell under their jurisdiction blah blah blah.
Putting together what they said over the long chat, it seems the main point was that they wanted my followers and I to become their subordinates—which appears to mean slaves by the way they're talking.
Also, “There is information that supports the inferior humans are preparing an attack aimed at getting the Elves’ treasure soon, and to make some preparation, we wanted to get some strong pawns”.
They concluded that I would be a good pawn, because I killed the original Lord of the Mountain “Red Bear”—which seemed to have become a rumor lately. Well, a black Ogre wearing armor made of Red Bear fur would stand out. The Red Bear had even preyed on the Elven hunters, so it appeared I was the most suitable.
The rewards they offered me were a large amount of food to be shared among the goblins and a [Unique] Class magic item and the two Elven beauties that came with him.
This is an exceptional reward for an ogre (according to Gobujii anyways).
Buying a [Unique] class magic item, even the worst of them, would cost over 10 million gold. And of course, the price varies by a lot depending on its abilities. It seems some of them are worth more than 30 million gold.
The reward wasn’t an [Artifact] as I 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 the 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 fighting strength. This is a typical story.
If they did 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 is plenty of precedent in stories where they get crushed by greater numbers.
I would’ve gotten on board with this story if it was a few days ago, but we had already acquired stronger and better quality magic items from Velvet's Inheritence, so my heart wasn’t moved.
It’s a shame about the two elven maidens, but well, 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 clearly 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 had different concerns, so I don't want any part of any conflict that breaks out between them. But regardless of the war being good or evil, it’s certainly convenient for me because it was be a good opportunity to obtain a lot of abilities, and the rewards were nice.
They had lots of quality goods, there were only a few drawbacks.
But 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 loud and clear “Show us some sincerity!”
“At the least, you could humbly get out”, I warned internally, though without any particular meaning.
A few seconds after, the Elven male’s face changed into a stupid expression. Apparently he thought he wouldn’t be refused. Using metaphors to call us fools, thinking that I wouldn’t notice — a common ogre has muscle for a brain, he thinks I am the same. He had an unforgettable condescending look.
Restarting —passing what would be a fatal amount of time on the battlefield — from the beginning, putting together what he’d seen and heard to understand what happened, the Elven male turned red from anger, before he could say anything I glared at him silently.
I overlapped [Evil Eye] and [Intimidating Glare] then used [Intimidation of the Strong], they worked perfectly.
Yep, it’s unexpected that you wouldn’t be able to breathe until I released [Intimidation of the Strong].
Finally able to breathe at last, his face paled from the terror which made me smirk, scaring him even more.
This was because an ogre’s face is scary among other things.
Making him this nervous gave me a feeling of satisfaction. Then I grabbed the Elven male by the neck with my silver arm and threw him down. I quickly moved into the other escorts’ line of sight, dragging the elf by his ear into his hidden escorts’ view and ordered them to lower their bows. An arrow was shot at my face at the same time, which I stopped it by grabbing it with my teeth.
I made some crunching sounds as I ate the arrow. I gave them a gaze that told them that if they did anything else I would shred his neck. Well, I merely flashed a grin and smiled.
They called out to me with a somewhat weak voice, but I just ignored them saying “Yeah, yeah, is that so”, while tightening my grip to send a message. I smiled again at the male elf who was giving orders loudly while in a state of disbelief, 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 well, if it’s about your home being invaded by humans, then I won’t hesitate to cooperate. Since we live in the same forest after all, I’ll go deal with it accordingly. I’ve decided to do this much.”
“But, if you’re considering getting some kind of revenge for this and any of my subordinates or important people get injured, you’re getting eaten. You and all your allies will be killed and eaten.”, using [Intimidation of the Strong] once again, I drilled this into their heads.
And to make it clear that I was capable of that much I took out [Kazikli Bey] from my Item Box, stabbed the ground with the red lance, and used its [Army of Blood-dyed Crimson Spears(Tepes)] ability.
[T/N : Tepes is the Romanian version of his Turkish nickname, it means "impaler" or "spike".]
Red lances 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 red lance in my hand.
I don’t understand the theory, but I can make red spears appear on anything stabbed by this Kazikli Bey and everything within a radius of 100 meters from the point it was stabbed into. This is only the second time I’ve used this ability, but having red spears come out of the ground and trees felt a bit surreal.
Well, its sharpness and length are good, it’s convenient for me who is an Ogre to use. I have nothing to be disatisfied about because it’s an optimal tactical weapon that specializes in “piercing and stabbing”.
However, there are