Chương 121: They Were Looking in the Wrong Direction

Sieghart did not fly directly toward the largest fires after crossing the battlefield. Instead, he curved far around the western edge of the orc encampment before beginning a slow descent. The ground beneath him changed from trampled grass into a maze of shallow trenches, supply pits, abandoned carts, crude hide shelters, weapon racks, and blackened patches where campfires had burned for days.

Farther ahead, hundreds of torches illuminated the main camp in uneven orange lines, but the outer perimeter remained mostly dark, with only occasional watchfires marking important routes and defensive positions. The smell reached Sieghart long before his boots touched the ground. Smoke, blood, sweat, burned meat, animal dung, old leather, and something rotten all mixed together beneath the cold night air.

Enhanced Smell made that combination far worse than necessary, so Sieghart immediately reduced the spell instead of experiencing the entire enemy camp through his nose in painful detail. He landed behind a low rocky rise, using only a thin burst of Wind Magic during the final seconds so his boots touched dirt without producing enough noise to carry.

Once on the ground, Sieghart dismissed most of the wind around himself and crouched behind the stones, allowing darkness to hide his altered figure while he studied the camp ahead. Flying had been effective the previous night, but repeating the same approach would make the pattern too obvious. People remembered strange methods far longer than Sieghart wanted them remembering faces.

Several defenders had already seen a mysterious figure rise above the walls before Giant Fireballs began raining across the orc backline, and rumors had apparently spread through town by morning. If another unidentified mage appeared overhead tonight and attacked the Orc King directly, even Phantom Image might not stop people from connecting both incidents to the same person. Besides, the orcs were already preparing for another aerial attack.

Sieghart preferred them staring upward while he moved beneath their noses and learned what their defenses actually looked like. He activated Enhanced Smell again, carefully limiting its intensity, then inhaled once while ignoring the stronger odors and searching instead for concentrations of sweat, leather, metal, and fresh movement. Three separate scents stood out from the surrounding camp.

One remained somewhere to his left, while two more occupied positions farther ahead near a cluster of rocks and broken wagons. Scouts, most likely. None carried visible torches, and their placement covered the easiest routes toward the interior without making their positions obvious to anyone approaching from outside. Sieghart approved of that. The orcs might be cannibalistic monsters carrying corrupted cores, but apparently they still understood that standing beside bright lights defeated the purpose of hiding.

He formed a thin Wind Blade above his right hand, compressing the air until the edge became nearly invisible even to him unless moonlight caught the distortion at exactly the right angle. The first scout stood behind a broken stone marker roughly twenty meters away. Sieghart could smell leather, old blood, and enough iron to suggest the orc was carrying a weapon. He released the blade.

A faint whistle crossed the darkness, followed by a wet impact and the heavy sound of a body collapsing behind the rocks without any warning shout. Sieghart remained motionless for several breaths. The distant camp continued talking, laughing, hammering, eating, and arguing loudly enough that one missing scout did not attract immediate attention. The other two scouts were positioned more carefully.

Their scents remained close together, probably allowing each to notice if the other suddenly disappeared or stopped moving for too long. Sieghart shifted sideways until stacked supply crates gave him a narrow angle between them. He prepared two Wind Blades and released both with only a fraction of a second between attacks. The first blade struck cleanly. The second scout turned toward the sound, but the follow-up spell reached its throat before it could shout or raise whatever signal it carried.

Both bodies dropped almost together. Sieghart waited again, watching the nearby routes and listening for changes in movement, but nothing in the surrounding camp reacted to their deaths. He approached the closest corpse while keeping another Wind Blade ready. The orc resembled the warriors from the battlefield, with thick body hair, oversized muscles, crude armor, and sharp tusks. Sieghart did not bother cutting the torso open this time.

Telekinesis had improved enough that he could manipulate smaller objects through existing wounds if he could sense their position clearly. He focused on the dark-red presence inside the body, then pulled carefully. Something shifted beneath the ribs before a corrupted core slid through damaged flesh and floated toward his hand. That was much cleaner than digging through a corpse manually. Sieghart caught the core, absorbed it immediately, and watched the dark-red crystal crumble into dust against his palm.

The familiar reward followed, granting another small amount of personal experience alongside progress toward Reinforcement Magic. No suspicious spell appeared, which Sieghart considered an unexpectedly welcome development. He repeated the process with the remaining two scouts, extracting both cores telekinetically and absorbing them before continuing deeper into the camp without leaving anything obviously valuable behind. The rewards remained identical.

Whatever method strengthened these orcs appeared consistent enough that the System recognized the same reinforcement principles each time instead of producing unrelated branches. Sieghart moved forward more carefully after that. The outer positions looked crude from above, but ground level revealed overlapping patrol routes, hidden alarms, prepared kill zones, and several concealed obstacles. Thin cords stretched across narrow paths with scraps of metal tied along them.

Shallow pits were covered with grass, while sentries watched angles that prevented easy movement between supply structures. They were not stupid. That bothered Sieghart more than their physical strength because powerful enemies became much worse once they understood how to organize, adapt, and predict an opponent. Whatever corruption had done to these orcs, it had not reduced them into mindless beasts. They still used patrols, signals, discipline, bait positions, and formations built around mutual protection.

Sieghart avoided another patrol rather than killing it, slipping behind stacked crates while four armed orcs passed close enough that Enhanced Smell became unnecessary for tracking their movement. One carried a hooded lantern, another held a bow, and the remaining two watched opposite directions while walking. It was a proper formation rather than a random group wandering camp. Killing everyone would eventually announce that someone had infiltrated the perimeter.

Sieghart needed time more than additional experience, so he allowed the patrol to disappear before moving again. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings. The central camp grew brighter with every step. More torches appeared between rough barricades, large tents, supply wagons, tethered beasts, cooking pits, weapon racks, and heavily guarded paths. Sieghart stopped behind a low barricade made from sharpened logs.

Beyond it, dozens of orcs prepared weapons, ate, sharpened axes, repaired armor, and argued around several low fires. He could hear their voices, but not the words. The combination of distance, crackling fire, moving equipment, and hundreds of overlapping conversations turned everything into an indistinct growl. That was irritating because hearing what the enemy expected could reveal more than simply watching their patrols. Sieghart touched one ear while remembering how he had created Enhanced Smell.

The principle should be similar enough to attempt carefully. Both senses depended upon delicate biological structures, nerves, and information traveling toward his brain, which made reckless experimentation particularly unappealing. He began with Protection, reinforcing the surrounding tissue before feeding a very thin layer of mana into both ears and focusing on sensitivity rather than brute force. A faint pressure appeared first.

Sieghart immediately stopped increasing the mana, waited for pain, dizziness, or imbalance, then continued only after nothing unpleasant happened. The battlefield sounds sharpened gradually. Metal scraping stone, boots crushing grass, leather creaking, fire crackling, distant shouting, and even someone chewing nearby became annoyingly clear.

Sieghart almost reduced the effect after hearing the chewing, but the nearest conversation finally separated from the surrounding noise, so he maintained the enhancement and leaned closer. Several orcs sat around a fire roughly thirty meters away, checking weapons while speaking in low voices. One occasionally looked upward between sentences instead of watching the camp around him. That immediately caught Sieghart's attention.

Another orc followed the same habit, glancing toward the night sky whenever distant explosions flashed near the human walls. Sieghart focused harder on their voices. The improvised enhancement still did not trigger a System notification, but it worked well enough to make individual words understandable. The first orc looked toward the darkness overhead before tightening the strap around one forearm, speaking with the irritated tone of someone repeating a warning he considered obvious.

"The watcher still hasn't returned." The second warrior answered while checking the string on a heavy bow. A third orc sitting nearby stopped sharpening his axe and listened without looking away from the fire.

"Probably hiding from the fire mage."

"Or dead." The larger orc grunted.

"Then keep watching above." The second warrior looked toward the stars.

"He'll attack from there again." Sieghart remained completely still behind the barricade. The conversation was not about the human defenders, damaged walls, supply problems, or even the next planned assault. The warriors were discussing the mysterious mage who had attacked them yesterday, and every upward glance confirmed that Sieghart's previous tactics had become part of their defensive planning.

"He burned three supply groups."

"Four."

"Poisoned the western assault too." The first orc spat beside the fire.

"Smelled worse than a corpse pit." Sieghart almost felt offended. Almost. One of the orcs complained that additional watchers had been placed throughout the camp. Sieghart briefly wondered whether one of the scouts he had killed belonged to that new arrangement. Their archers had apparently repositioned as well, with several groups specifically ordered to watch high angles instead of concentrating entirely upon the walls and approaching human attackers. Sieghart almost smiled.

Yesterday's attack had changed their defensive planning enough that entire groups were now spending attention on a threat they believed would arrive from the sky. That was exactly why Sieghart had chosen the ground tonight, allowing yesterday's obvious tactics to become bait while he approached through the direction nobody currently considered important.

The largest orc near the fire suddenly interrupted the others and mentioned their ruler, immediately changing the tone of the conversation enough that Sieghart abandoned his amusement.

"The King already knows." The others stopped joking. One lowered his bow.

"About the flying human?"

"Everything." The larger warrior nodded toward the central camp.

"He said to let him come." Sieghart's expression became serious. The surrounding warriors had stopped laughing, and even the one sharpening his axe finally looked toward the deeper camp with obvious respect. The Orc King apparently expected another attack and had given orders regarding Sieghart specifically. That meant yesterday's bombardment had attracted considerably more attention than simple battlefield harassment.

"Archers won't bring him down."

"They don't need to." The larger orc grinned.

"The King will." Another warrior laughed.

"Then the flying human dies tonight." Sieghart shifted slightly behind the sharpened logs, examining the central camp while keeping his enhanced hearing active enough to catch anything else the group revealed. So the Orc King was not merely aware of the previous bombardment. He apparently expected its mysterious caster to return and felt confident enough to prepare a personal response. That meant approaching from above would have been exactly the mistake the enemy expected.

Sieghart felt briefly pleased before remembering that clever positioning did not make the King weaker. Somewhere deeper inside the illuminated camp waited an enemy powerful enough to break the northern army, surrounded by warriors who already knew Sieghart might come looking for him. The sensible response would have been retreating, gathering more information, and returning with support. Sieghart acknowledged that option for several seconds before dismissing it almost immediately.

He had come here to find the Orc King, examine his power, and determine whether the ruler possessed the same kind of corrupted core carried by ordinary warriors. If the King's corruption represented an advanced version of the reinforcement used by his soldiers, absorbing that core might provide far more information than dozens of ordinary warriors ever could. That possibility was dangerous. It was also exactly why Sieghart had come.

He moved slowly along the barricade until another stack of supply crates concealed him, studying guard positions and looking for a route that avoided the most heavily illuminated paths. The deeper camp possessed noticeably better organization. Larger warriors guarded intersections, archers occupied elevated platforms, and several chained beasts rested beside handlers who occasionally checked the surrounding darkness. Sieghart suspected those creatures would become troublesome.

Enhanced Smell allowed him to locate hidden orcs, but animals might possess noses capable of detecting him without any magical assistance. He changed direction accordingly, choosing a path farther downwind while avoiding the nearest tethered beasts. There was no reason to test whether Phantom Image also fooled noses. It probably did not. Another patrol crossed twenty meters ahead, forcing Sieghart behind a cart loaded with bundled spears.

He waited while six warriors passed, listening to their conversation without exposing himself. They were discussing him too. One complained about remaining on guard while everyone else fought. Another answered that nobody wanted the fire mage reaching the center. Apparently, Sieghart had become a security problem. That was new. Usually, he had to introduce himself before becoming one.

He waited until the patrol disappeared behind another line of tents, then continued deeper while keeping Wind Blades prepared near both hands. Every few dozen meters, Sieghart detected another hidden watcher through smell or hearing. Some he avoided completely, while isolated scouts disappeared beneath silent Wind Blades whenever they blocked the safest route. Each kill was followed by the same process.

Telekinesis extracted the corrupted core through the nearest wound, Sieghart absorbed it, and Reinforcement Magic received another small amount of progress. The repetition was becoming disturbingly efficient. Sieghart reminded himself that collecting cores was not the actual objective tonight, even if watching Reinforcement Magic progress made every successful infiltration feel slightly more rewarding. He wanted the King.

Eventually, the camp opened enough for Sieghart to see several enormous torches burning around a central area enclosed by sharpened barricades and guarded from multiple directions. Several large tents stood inside, but one was noticeably different. Thick dark hides formed its walls, while enormous tusks and human-made weapons had been mounted along the supporting poles. Sieghart's expression hardened when he recognized some of those decorations. Several swords displayed familiar human craftsmanship.

A broken shield carried a northern military emblem. One spear still had dried blood around the shaft. Trophies. That tent probably belonged to someone important. Perhaps the King. Sieghart crouched behind another supply rack and enhanced his hearing carefully, searching through the nearby conversations for anything confirming his suspicion. Voices overlapped everywhere, but several words repeatedly reached him from guards surrounding the enclosure. King. Battle. Mage. Sky. They were definitely preparing for him.

Sieghart looked upward briefly. Several archers occupied platforms with their bows pointed toward the darkness above rather than toward the human walls. Others continuously scanned the stars. Almost nobody looked backward. Sieghart allowed himself a small smile as he remained concealed behind their defensive perimeter, watching guards prepare for an enemy who had already passed most of them.

The Orc King wanted to meet the mysterious mage from the sky, and his warriors had arranged half their defenses around ensuring that encounter happened on their terms. Unfortunately for them, Sieghart had changed the terms before entering the camp. Their archers watched the heavens, their scouts expected descending fire, and their strongest warriors guarded against another aerial assault.