A flash of gold briefly blinded Orion, forcing him to invest more mana into his [Light Exoskeleton] than he would have liked, but it had the side effect of letting him tank the punch from the roaring orc with little more than a grunt.

  Suppressing a sneer at the filthy creature that resembled a mix of a wild boar and a goblin, if the size of a very tall man and with enough muscle to shame many knights, Orion seized the moment of surprise at his survival to strike its chest with his palm, unleashing a point-blank [Infinite Laser].

  The orc gurgled, thick purple blood bubbling up in its mouth and dribbling down its tusked maw into its chest. It swayed, and for a moment, Orion feared it wouldn’t be enough, but after a couple of seconds that felt like an hour, it finally toppled.

  He took a deep breath, immediately regretting it as a foul stench filled his nostrils, combined with a sickly sweet aroma that had to be cooked flesh.

  Gagging, he dispelled [Light Exoskeleton] to avoid vomiting inside it, turning an already tough day into a disaster.

  SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

  +1.300 Exp

  “I don’t get why you engage them directly if you hate the smell so much,” Ophelia chuckled, patting the dust off her dress.

  She had refused to stay back when they attacked the monsters and had been sniping at a specific orc that sported the skulls of two humans on his belt with her gold magic from the beginning. During the time she managed to whittle him down, he had killed three of the nasty buggers, but considering she was nearly fifteen levels lower than him, and orcs in this region typically hovered around level thirty, it wasn’t a bad result.

  I doubt most new adventurers have the advantage of an entire A-rank team watching over them and stopping the rest of the war band from overwhelming them with numbers, so it’s not as impressive as it could have been, but it’s still better than most of our age-mates.

  “I’m trying to figure out how their magic-resistance works,” he replied, stepping away from the smoking carcass. Living in this world had desensitized him to violence and blood, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed getting the stench on his clothes.

  At least my lab coat is quite durable. It can withstand most tier-one magic, which should be enough to avoid getting soaked in the smell.

  The same couldn’t be said for his gloves and trousers, but if those were the only sacrifices he’d have to make by the end of the day, he’d see it as a win.

  “It works by resisting magic,” Ophelia said slowly, as if he were an idiot.

  Orion rolled his eyes and stepped away from her, already focusing on the next target. “I’m sure that’s enough for you, but I’m not satisfied with just a basic understanding. I need to know why.”

  “Hey, what do you mean by that?” She called after him, shaking a fist in his direction, which he ignored with an amused shake of his head.

  Admittedly, he’d been a bit worried about the feasibility of this whole trip, especially given how sudden it had been, but things seemed to be going well for now.

  Hunting orcs wasn’t as rewarding in experience as learning magic principles or testing new spells in practical duels, but he had already gained four thousand exp so far with just three kills. If he could reach his goal of killing thirty orcs by the end of the day, he’d have forty thousand exp, which should comfortably bring him to level forty-five.

  The plan depends on us finding more orcs like these, which might not always happen, but these lands are full of monsters. As long as I can fight something equivalent, it will still work just fine.

  At first, he’d been surprised by how few experience points he was earning from these fights, considering that if he lost here, he would end up in the stomach of a walking pig, but after fighting this last one, he had a better understanding of why that was.

  Orcs, like trolls, were known to have some degree of magic resistance. Not as much as their distant kin, but enough that they were considered very dangerous for beginners to approach, and in fact, they were among the deadliest foes for young mages.

  For Orion, killing them was simply a matter of increasing the power of his spells by about thirty percent more than he normally would. That small change was enough to break through their “magic resistance,” and this last test confirmed his initial suspicions.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  There was no such thing as magic resistance, or at least, orcs didn’t have it. The spells he cast worked perfectly, and the effects they had on orc flesh were exactly within the parameters he’d set.

  What they did have was a thick layer of blubber all around their bodies, and a hide tough enough to rival modern treated leather. Their resistance was purely biological, but since most tier one casters could only exert so much power with their spells, they often failed on their first attempts, and that was enough to convince a large part of the population of this supposed resistance to magic.

  Inflicting minor wounds and using them as entry points for my lasers showed a marked increase in penetrating power, indicating that the leathery skin is really what blocks most spells, and it isn’t an innate trait of orcs. Of course, someone might say that it just means the resistance is focused in the skin, and I’m pretty sure if I looked on the market, I’d find orc leather armor advertised as having minor magical resistance. But I’d be very interested to see how it compares to well-treated cowhide. At the same thickness and weight, I’d bet a lot of money that the only difference would be how easily it reaches that level of durability.

  Watching his mother tear through another of the larger variants of the orcs with ease by turning the surrounding air into paralyzing poison and decapitating it with a strike of her potion knife, he felt more confident in his assessment than ever.

  However, that didn’t mean orcs weren’t dangerous, as was quickly demonstrated by the massive one that noticed his approach and was heading to intercept him.

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed Elodie moving to take it down before it could attack him, but he stopped her. “Let me have it!” He called, and the Paladin halted.

  She was clearly uncomfortable letting him fight a monster that was probably tier two, but she didn’t go against his word.

  Soon, Orion couldn’t focus on her anymore, even though she was quickly becoming the most interesting member of the entire team.

  Where the common orcs he had fought before could be physically compared to humans in both size and strength, if on the higher end of the spectrum, the beast he was about to face now was clearly above them.

  Ten feet tall and weighing what must have been at least a ton of blubber and hardened muscle, it was a genuinely threatening sight, especially because of the iron cudgel it wielded that was large enough to splatter him in one hit.

  Orion had no intention of staying in the path of such a brutish weapon, much less being struck by it. He quickly reformed [Light Exoskeleton] and dodged to the side, avoiding a blow that caused grass and dirt to explode outward as the orc roared its battle cry.

  “[Penetrate], [Infinite Laser]” Orion chanted, pulling Light mana from the local Field and shaping it into a deadly weapon.

  As before, he was not using the CC. The power boost it granted him was significant, and if this were a less controlled environment, he wouldn’t have hesitated to use it, but Orion was fully aware of the risks of depending on a focus to handle all his work.

  Given the opportunity, it was worth taking a small risk to keep his skills sharp.

  The laser, enhanced by the metaspell, easily pierced the orc’s tough hide, but unlike its weaker kin, this one didn’t fall with a single hit. Instead, it kept charging at him, bellowing in pain and anger.

  Thanks to the enhanced physicality provided by [Light Exoskeleton], he had no trouble dodging the next hit, but he was caught off guard when the ground rippled beneath his feet, turning into mud and slowing him down for a critical moment.

  The next thing he knew, he was flying through the air and then crashing against the side of a hill, rolling several feet through the tall grass before coming to a stop.

  “Well, that didn’t go well.”

  Flexing his back muscles, he rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding having his insides squashed by the sheer inertia of the blow.

  This damn thing is much stronger than the other orcs. I guess I can’t mess around with it.

  Part of him was annoyed at having to immediately find refuge in the CC when he’d decided not to use it for as long as possible, but if there was one thing Orion prided himself on beyond his scientific skills, it was his common sense.

  He knew when to push and when to stop. It was a hard lesson to learn for someone like him, who had very little social awareness, but over the years of this new life, he learned it, and that same common sense told him holding back now would be a very stupid mistake.

  The orc was just reeling back for another blow, aiming for a lethal strike given the poor condition [Light Exoskeleton] was in, but Orion didn’t let it go further than that.

  “[Maximize Magic] [Infinite Laser].”

  What had once been a narrow beam, capable of cutting into the hard flesh but not enough to stop the monster’s charge, transformed into a huge burst of energy.

  The orc was sent flying back, howling in pain and anger as its skin blistered and its blood boiled.

  Orion didn’t let it suffer any longer, rising with a grunt and firing a final, more focused laser at its head, splitting it in two and ending its struggles.

  SYSTEM NOTIFICATION

  +10.700 Exp

  Yeah, that one was a lot more dangerous.

  Even then, the reward from this life-and-death battle was less than learning a single metaspell. Truly, the System didn’t reward anyone for straying off the traced path.

  “You almost scared us, kid,” he heard from behind, and Orion turned to see Seothyn on the hilltop, watching him and the orc with a sharp gaze.

  Next to him, Elodie held her sword ready, clearly prepared to intervene.

  “I’m fine; if anything, this proved the durability of my body enhancement spell,” he replied, earning a startled laugh from the elf and a worried look from the paladin.

  “You are quite something, aren't you?” Seothyn chuckled. “Who’d think about that in this situation? You almost got squished like a bug, kid.”

  Orion shrugged. “I know the limits of my magic. I could have ended it from the start, as you saw.”

  “Yes, you could have, couldn’t you?” Seothyn murmured, eyeing him thoughtfully, but before he could ask what was on his mind, they heard a loud roar that shook the ground.

  Their attention was immediately drawn north, where Asteria had been tearing through the remaining orcs, and Orion felt his knees lock and his arms freeze as if some sort of paralysis had been forced upon him.

  There, emerging from a distant thicket, was a massive humanoid creature. Much larger than even the war orcs, possibly twice as tall, with an awkward but clearly powerful build, and eyes that glowed with dull malevolence.

  It held a massive wooden club, much larger than Orion himself, and despite its size, it moved very quickly.

  Soon, the forest troll was bearing down on the frozen Asteria, its yellow, root-like teeth bared for all to see.