The problem with going on a hunt with people who vastly outstripped him in power and experience, Orion was finding, was that they often considered extremely lethal hazards as minor inconveniences.

  Being trapped inside his body, unable to move even an inch as the troll approached his mother with murderous intent, was not something he would wish on his worst enemy.

  That level of helplessness and despair was soul-crushing. It was a primal kind of terror that drained his strength, stopping him from even trying to cast a spell, much less interfering in the fight.

  Soothing light washed over him moments later, and that all-consuming fear evaporated like dew under the sun, revealing it had been just a side-effect of the troll’s skill.

  Orion staggered back, gasping for air as he regained control of his body, but he was quickly thrown off balance as the earth shook.

  A familiar cloud of purple poison soon blocked his view of the battle, but its mere presence was enough to assure him that his mother was fine.

  “Holiest Moon, that thing’s enormous!" Bart exclaimed, even as he cast another restoration spell, freeing Ophelia from her frozen state.

  The other members of the Basilisk Fang seemed perfectly fine, meaning they were either immune to the fear-inducing roar or had already recovered from its effects, and more time had passed than Orion had realized.

  Is this like airplane safety? Parents and responsible adults should secure their own oxygen masks first before helping their children, or they risk going down together.

  The thought was so absurd it finally snapped him out of his funk, and Orion heaved himself up with a grunt, keeping his eyes on the swirling cloud of poison.

  “Don’t trolls have a powerful regeneration trait?” He asked. He trusted his mother to know how to use her best weapon, but this felt like a pretty bad matchup.

  “They do,” Seothyn answered. “Damn hardy, too. They can regenerate limbs, even organs, if you give ‘em some space. I wonder how your mother will account for that.”

  Given the way he was staring at the mist, as if he could see through it, he probably had a better idea of what was going on than Orion.

  “Do you think it’ll be enough?” He asked, biting his lip.

  The elf hummed, tilting his head and making a lock of hair fall artfully over his forehead. “I think she might be using something specifically designed for regenerating monsters, so yes, it probably is. The troll has lost a hand and several pounds of flesh from her attacks, which shouldn’t be enough to weaken it, but it is visibly slowing down.”

  Orion would have really appreciated being able to see the fight. Just that much would probably teach him more than an entire cycle of lessons, but unfortunately, that wasn’t to be. I might need to update the SDGs. Inspecting people is more than useful, but now that I have a better idea of how to enchant objects, I’m pretty sure I could add more features. Things like night vision, at least.

  That would have to be the first major project he undertook as soon as he ranked up. Doing it now would be something of a waste, since his Traits would improve along with his Class.

  More flashes of light followed, illuminating the mist like a thunderstorm, until Seothyn finally sighed. “Yeah, she’s done it.”

  A loud thump followed, shaking the ground beneath their feet, but luckily it wasn't strong enough to make Orion lose his balance. He watched as the poison began to vanish, as if being sucked away from its center, until a single figure was revealed.

  Asteria looked more rumpled than before, clearly having jumped around to avoid the troll’s blows, but despite a thin layer of sweat she wiped away with her hand, she appeared to be perfectly fine.

  Her eyes met his, and she waved, which he returned in kind, before a new knife appeared in her hands, recognizably designed to cut through tough materials, and she began dismantling the troll’s still twitching corpse.

  Orion hurried over as quickly as he could without breaking into a run, stopping only when she raised her hand before he could reach her. “I’m okay, moonbeam. I just need to harvest this big guy before its innate magic fully petrifies into its flesh. It’s one of the main ingredients for the potion I need to rank up.”

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  “Killing that wasn’t enough?” He asked, blinking in surprise, only for her to laugh aloud.

  “No, no, it wasn’t,” she replied between chuckles, flipping the knife in her hands before plunging it into the troll’s neck, causing a spurt of thick greenish-blue blood to sail just past her face. “I’d need at least a couple dozen of these guys, and even if we could find them, it’d be a pain to fight them all together. No, I’m a potion mistress, and I will advance like a potion mistress should.”

  Orion observed her work for a moment longer, soon realizing there wasn’t much he could do to assist. He was confident that without the heat of battle, he could muster a laser powerful enough to cut through the troll’s flesh, now that it couldn’t regenerate. However, this would cause damage, and her skill in separating muscles and sinews from bone suggested she was more than capable of handling it herself.

  It was that, along with the growing, vile smell, that convinced him to leave her to it. “Alright, I’ll go find something else to hunt, in that case. Was there anything specific you needed for this potion?”

  Asteria briefly looked up, offering him a loving smile that was only slightly marred by the blood splatters on her arms. “I think that’d be a lovely idea, moonbeam. There should be some orcs left in the area, since those guys tend to gather around the edges of a troll’s territory. If you happen to find their camp, try to look for their leader. Though be warned that there might be a shaman, since this area hasn’t been cleared in quite a while. If there is, keep away from it. They can reach up to the low third tier.”

  Dipping his head in acknowledgment, Orion headed toward the distant thicket. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

  “Is that it?” Ophelia murmured as they peeked from behind a moss-covered boulder into what looked like a very rudimentary settlement.

  “Gotta be,” he answered, eyeing the relatively solid mud structures.

  To be honest, that’s more than I expected from orcs. I haven’t exactly stopped to have a chat with them, so it could be my fault, but they didn’t seem like the kind to worry much about structural strength.

  Orcs weren’t exactly dumb animals; that much was widely understood. They, like all goblinoids and trolls, possessed a basic level of intelligence and a low cunning that made them more dangerous than their mere physical strength might suggest.

  Whether they were truly sapient or just on the high end of sentient, he didn’t know, but most monsters of a certain power blurred that line, with some even clearly exceeding it, yet they still posed a serious threat to human life.

  Harpies were a perfect example of that. Orion nearly lost his life to one during his first flying lesson, and he vividly remembered the calculating glint in her eyes.

  The harpy who nearly ate him for lunch knew she was hunting another sapient, but she didn’t care.

  That didn’t mean he thought her actions justified the extermination of her entire flock, as Seraphina had decided to do, but that was less relevant to the matter at hand.

  What the harpy taught him was that monsters could exhibit a high level of intelligence yet still choose to act savagely, and he was quite sure there was at least one orc with intelligence comparable to hers nearby, since the camp was so organized rather than the bivouac he’d expected to find.

  “Should we have a look? I can’t smell any orcs from here, so it might be empty," Ophelia offered, and Orion had to admit she was right. Orcs had a very distinct odor that made it hard for them to hide in anything but the dankest swamps, and his nose couldn’t pick up on anything besides the regular forest smells.

  Still, he looked to their chaperones for a second opinion, only to find none of them in sight.

  Now, the usual assumption would be that they got separated during their short trip through the woods, but there really wasn't enough time for that, and the path they followed was fairly straightforward, which meant their protectors were hiding intentionally.

  Why that was, Orion couldn’t possibly fathom, beyond it being some kind of lesson, but he wasn’t about to waste time looking for an elf in a forest.

  That’s a pretty good saying, actually. I might have to use that again.

  Left to their own devices, the two teenagers decided to test their luck and left the safety of the boulders, tentatively beginning to explore the orc camp.

  Orion kept the CC ready, with a [Light Shield] already prepared to be cast at the slightest disturbance, but he didn’t let the sudden disappearance of their protectors quell his curiosity and started poking around.

  As expected, the camp mainly centered around a main area, where a larger mud hut had been built from tougher dirt and included some detailing, like a few shelves, pots, and tools, all made from the same material.

  It was also the only hut with any kind of personal affect inside, if one didn’t count a few smelly mushrooms and half-eaten roots he found in the others.

  Eventually, he and Ophelia ended up back at the main hut, searching for anything interesting but not succeeding.

  “Are you sure she said there should be a shaman? The only vaguely shamanistic things I’ve seen were the mortar and pestle, but they were last used to make a mash of horned rabbit. I don’t think that’s very magical,” she complained, and Orion was about to reluctantly agree with her that there might not be a shaman after all, when he heard a whistle in the wind, and immediately activated his prepared shield, flooding it with as much mana as it could safely take.

  Golden light spread all around them, as the purity of the element was nowhere near as high here in the forest as it was in cities, but it proved to be strong enough, as something impacted it and made it buckle, yet was rebuffed.

  Orion instantly decreased the brightness and realized that what he’d sensed approaching wasn’t a mighty spell or even a lethal arrow, but just a simple bone.

  Not even a large one. It appeared to come from a pheasant or another wild bird of similar size, and [Verification Principle] told him it hadn’t been infused with any kind of spell or skill.

  It was only the physical power behind the throw that almost broke through his shield.

  Slowly, Orion stood up from the crouch he’d instinctively fallen into and took in the one who had just tried to take his life.

  It wasn’t as big as the troll, which was the one thing he’d feared most, and was probably even slightly smaller than the war orcs he’d fought earlier. But instead of the layer of blubber that gave its kin their awkward appearance, this orc was much leaner, and its muscles rippled at the slightest movement with barely contained power.

  It was also older than the others, with leathery skin on its face shaped by age and weather, yet Orion had no doubt that this was the most dangerous orc he had faced so far.

  Its eyes were crimson red, crinkling with sadistic joy upon meeting his, revealing that the orc was self-aware and clearly enjoyed the situation.

  No matter how intelligent it might be, in the end, it still wants to kill us.