There were also a few stray goblins still in the garden, but they were knocked out pretty fast. The orc, though, seemed weirdly unaffected and just slowly walked toward the back door.
With a click of his tongue, Ashton turned around, "Fucking warlords..."
It was an annoying trait. Of course, he wasn't sure if it was exactly that trait, but it was very clearly something along that line. That size difference, that clear combat experience that far surpassed the other orcs, as well as its superior intelligence and leadership ability made it obvious that there was some special trait at play. That wasn't just a simple personal difference. The orcs that were running around here were already the more physically powerful specimen, but this one? That went far beyond what was normal. And warlords were truly sons of bitches that Ashton genuinely did not care for.
"What kind of maniac would send a warlord here in the first quest anyway..?" Ashton sighed and turned around. He walked out of the bedroom, picking up the body of one of the goblins that he had killed up here, dragging it to the edge of the stairs. He waited for a moment, soon hearing the rushing footsteps of the red wolf.
And then, roughly when the wolf had run onto the stairs, Ashton threw the goblin corpse right down there. The wolf, unable to dodge because of these insanely narrow stairs that were even a pain to get the staff up through, was thrown back down and buried. Ashton walked down the stairs and crushed the red wolf's head as it was trying to get out from under the goblin's corpse. It was already incredibly weak, so it wasn't a surprise, that...
[You have killed a [Red Wolf]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 17 Coins]
Ashton stepped over the two corpses, and then looked down the hallway next to the stairs.
"There you are. Barely fit in here, huh?" Ashton pointed out, looking at the orc, pushing its way through. It had a large, shockingly high-quality, two-edged war-axe in its hand. The moment that it saw Ashton, it raised the axe up and slashed down, cutting into the wooden ceiling and tearing it apart. But the orc did so with ease, as if the wood was just some paper.
Ashton dodged into the adjacent kitchen, stepping onto a goblin's body as he did. The orc pushed its way through the doorway, which was clearly far too small for it, and the axe briefly got stuck. It kept tugging on it, and then in a single moment, the axe got unstuck and swung diagonally up in front of Ashton.
He had already moved far enough away, so the attack didn't hit. Ashton moved to the edge of the small wooden kitchen table, and kicked it on its side before pushing it forward.
It was almost immediately torn into splinters, but Ashton used that moment where he was hidden to move forward and hit the orc's right knee with his staff straight on, and then flicked his wrist to make the wisp hit it just a moment later at an angle from the side. The orc flinched slightly, but didn't buckle just yet. Ashton continued to lower his stance, pushing himself away from the orc with his staff.
It tried to slash down at him with the axe, hitting away a part of the already-destroyed table. As the orc looked past these pieces of wood, Ashton threw a half-broken glass from the ground right into the monster's face. It broke even more and splinters of glass got into the orc's eyes. It screamed loudly and tried to get the glass out of its eyes. It wasn't a powerful attack, and it didn't even seem like it was even really bleeding, but it was painful. Even monsters felt pain, that was clear. And the biological instinct of trying to get something out of your eye was something that almost every being with eyes possessed.
While this was happening, Ashton ran through the kitchen to get back out of the door, but the orc swung his arm wildly. It did end up hitting Ashton, but not with the axe head, but rather its fist. That was mostly just wild flailing as it roughly noticed Ashton try to get past it, rather than an actual attack.
It would probably cause a massive bruise in a bit, but it wasn't too bad. Ashton was thrown through the hallway and hit the side of the stairway, but that wasn't a big deal. Ashton continued through to the livingroom, but before he could even fully make his way inside, the orc threw the axe down the hallway. Ashton barely dodged out of the way before the axe got stuck in the back of the couch, actually cutting into the corpse of one of the goblins and spilling guts all over the furniture.
"Oh man, I actually thought that was a pretty cute couch!" Ashton groaned, approaching the nearby bookshelf. Though, rather than books, it was covered in tons of little ceramic corgi figures, which Ashton quickly grabbed and threw at the orc. For no reason in particular, to be honest, he was just buying a little bit of time, trying to cause more and more small cuts all over the monster's body as the corgis shattered.
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The orc groaned, and with heavy steps, walked up to the couch and pulled out its axe.
And by then, Ashton came to a conclusion. He probably couldn't beat this monster with just his staff. He needed the wisp's help, but as he had established, if he used both the wisp and staff individually, it weakened their power. And channelling the wisp through the staff wasn't an option either — his range went far beyond this room. And using his staff so close to his body would make it useless as a weapon, and he could just channel the wisp on its own. But he couldn't afford that either. Ashton had to use both, he knew that for sure.
There was something that had bothered him the whole time. There was no way the system was so rigid with something like his channelling range. While it was unlikely he could just push past that range, there had to be a way to manipulate his effective range within its given limits.
Meaning, create a smaller range that covered just this room. Having this ability was still extremely new to him. Sure, he could control mana extremely well, but that was mostly a matter of practice. That didn't mean he knew every way to use his new magic.
Ashton continued to dodge all the orc's attacks, whether it was swings of the axe or it trying to throw things back at Ashton, or even just grab onto him.
In the end, it grabbed a vase, which had miraculously survived, and threw it at Ashton, and though he dodged away, he was still splashed with the water inside. The 'water'. The slightly yellow, rancid water. He looked over at the dead goblins and almost gagged.
"Oh, dude! Come on! I'm about to go talk to some kids! Do you know what-" Ashton yelled, basically vaulting over the dining table using his staff, "-kids say to people that smell like piss?! They will never let them forget it! Never! I don't want to be known as the guy that smells like goblin piss!"
As he stared at the orc, it almost seemed to laugh. Ashton narrowed his eyes, "Do you speak English?"
"Gruakh!" the orc grunted out, grabbing onto the edge of the table. It flipped it over, just as Ashton had done a moment ago, and kicked it at him. He was almost crushed between the table and the wall behind him. The orc clearly though that he was going to dodge down, but now that Ashton's power and speed stats had risen just that small amount more, he started not being as restricted anymore.
He jumped up, pushed the staff against the sideboard behind him, and used it to leap over the table being pushed at him. While the orc wrongly cut downward, Ashton leapt past it.
During this entire time, though, where Ashton had been focused on dodging rather than attacking, he was trying to get a grasp on something, anything, really, that could help him out with channelling the wisp. He had already made a breakthrough, so why not just make another?
His spirit stat was at 20 now with that level-up earlier, and something had changed. He could feel something... more, ever since he had started channelling the elementals before. Whenever he tried using the skill, a small wave of mana, an imperceptible amount, just like how you didn't notice all the other minuscule gases mixed in with out air, was mixed around everywhere in the general ambient mana within his range.
Most skills used mana in some way, so he didn't know why he hadn't realised this before, but the 'range' was defined through this extremely thin mist of his own mana. If he could just hold onto it and tighten it, just like how the wisp tightened up their own body when shrinking, Ashton could reduce his effective range.
He tried and tried and tried, and soon, Ashton managed to compress his range to just a few steps around him. It was extremely straining to do, but it was worth it. Because now, he could properly attack the orc.
Ashton spun his staff around, swapping it between his hands, making it roll over his shoulder and neck and elbow and even leg. In part, it appeared like some kind of party trick, but rather, it was just Ashton controlling the wisp in a pattern that allowed it to dodge past all of the orc's attempts at countering.
And each and every one of those attacks went straight onto the orc's knee.
Sometimes, Ashton faked the monster out, hitting it with his staff instead, and other times, he didn't attack it at all. Trickery was another one of Ashton's specialties. Though, the way that other summons back in Lumia put it... his combat specialty was just being kind of a dick and pissing off his opponents.
And that worked extremely, extremely well.
The orc continued rampaging through the livingroom while Ashton dodged and attacked and dodged and attacked. It didn't take long until this place was barely recognizable anymore.
And then, it finally happened. The orc's knee broke. It leg buckled as it tried putting weight onto it.
"Finally!" Ashton groaned, holding his hand to the side as he asked the backpacker for the last dose of the bottled poison mist. Without hesitation, he turned around and threw it onto the ground behind him while running out into garden, pulling the door shut behind him.
The entire living room was filled with the white mist, and the orc, unable to walk as fast as before, with small cuts all over its body, wasn't able to just run out of it like it did a moment ago.
While waiting, Ashton took care of the few goblins that were still laying out here, paralysed from the mist earlier. By the time he was done, the orc limped out, breaking the glass door with its axe.
It was breathing heavily, and Ashton could see that it was struggling with even just that.
Ashton stood there, while the orc lifted the axe over its head, and then... fell down onto the ground.
"Finally," Ashton groaned, and stepped up to the orc. Orcs were known for how sturdy and stupidly strong they were, and a warlord orc would be much worse. Ashton knew that he wouldn't be able to take this thing out through normal means, and physical attacks, unless they were very specifically focused, wouldn't work amazingly well.
However, he did also know that a monster this size weighed a lot, and that one of the main things that Sam would always complain about were his knees. And a monster way larger and heavier would struggle with its knees as well, to some degree. It really wasn't something that Ashton ever thought about in Lumia, though.
By the time these guys showed up, he was strong enough to not need to bother with these tricks.
Ashton bent down and grabbed the axe that the orc had dropped, holding it tightly in both hands. He pulled it over his head, and then swung it down. Once, then twice, then thrice. It took a few more attempts for him to get through the thick neck muscles, but before long, the deed was done.
[You have killed an [Orc*]. For your valiant effort, you are awarded 51 Coins]
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