Chapter 761: Revenge
Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
To start, the “light healing potion” was never a recommended potion to use in the dark world. It was supposed to heal up a total of 60 life points. For knights, 60 might not be a lot, but it was plenty for saving the life of a sickly prince like Prince Horace.
Abel was steady when he took the dagger out of Prince Horace’s wound. If he were just a little shaky, the blade would’ve scraped against the heart and do unrecoverable damage. That being said, the potion still managed to take effect as soon as it was consumed.
Prince Horace opened his eyes, drowsily, “Where am I?”
King Ambrose was about to cry, “You’re awake, Horace!”
“Father!”
Tears started falling down Prince Horace’s cheek. It was the first time that he had experienced something this dangerous. The thought of almost being dead made his emotion become very unstable.
“It’s fine. It’s fine,” King Ambrose said. He was not an emperor at this moment. Now, he was just a father that was calming down his son.
Prince Horace finally thought of something, “Dunmore is dead, Father. He died bringing down four bearmen with him.”
Talking about Dunmore was the least that Prince Horace could do. If he didn’t do so, no one would remember the great sacrifice Head Commander Dunmore made to protect him. The man didn’t fear the bearmen. At the brink of death, he managed to rely on nothing but his honor and dedication to the dignity of humanity.
King Ambrose patted Prince Horace on the head, “Don’t you worry about Dunmore, Horace. He will get the reward that he deserves, and so will his family. I’m not going to let a hero die without anyone to recognize him.”
“And sorry,” King Ambrose turned to Abel, “Excuse us for leaving you like this, Grandmaster Abel, but we are all very grateful for the miraculous help you are giving us.”
Abel bowed and said, “No, no, that’s okay, King Ambrose. I’ll be leaving if you no longer need my service.”
King Ambrose turned to Prince Derek, “Derek, send Grandmaster Abel away for me.”
If King Ambrose decided to give Abel gifts here, that would’ve ruined the relationship between them. What he asked Abel to do today was a favor, not some trade. This way, the gifts would definitely have to wait for another day.
Abel asked Prince Derek on the way back, “Your Highness. Do you mind if I asked you what happened?”
It was a genuine question to ask. The Orc Empire should be retiring after the war, but they launched an attack this serious. It was like they were planning to start the great war all over again.
Prince Derek sighed, “I’ll be honest with you, Grandmaster Abel. The Empire has suffered greatly because of this surprise attack. Horace wasn’t the only one that was hurt. A massacre was what happened in the duchy of Larvid. Even the griffin knights we sent were all eliminated during the ambush.”
There was no point in hiding anything. The other two empires would know soon enough, and most of the major associations would too. Prince Derek was telling Abel all this to demonstrate how honest the Kingdom of St. Ellis could be to him.
Abel was just shocked to hear about all this. Prince Derek was telling him that all the griffin knights they sent were killed. It was right in the heart of the human world, no less. The truth was very close to his guesses. The orcs were using half the total of the pace eagles at their disposal for this operation. They must’ve dedicated a lot to try to make this surprise attack work.
Abel spoke with some anger, “Has the Orc Empire gone insane? How dare they intrude into our civilization like this.”
Prince Derek shook his head, “The worst part is that they’ve captured the griffins. They’ve captured about ten of them in total.”
“Are they trying to breed their own griffins, then?”
Prince Derek continued to shake his head, “That won’t be too likely, Grandmaster Abel. While they did capture both male and female, the way of raising them is difficult unless you’re a professional. Unless they have their own griffin knights, it will take at least several decades, if not centuries, for them to somehow create their own army consisting of them.”
Abel knew how Griffins behaved. The Kingdom of St. Ellis sent four to him as gifts, so it was only natural that he knew how to raise them. They were special: apart from meat, they also required a special feed that was produced straight from the Kingdom of St. Ellis. Upon researching, he discovered that this special feed was made from a plant grown in a mana-rich environment. He figured that out about a month ago, and that’s when he figured out how to produce this kind of stuff on his own instead of having to buy it.
Anyways, it was mysterious that orcs wanted to capture them. The orcs had no access to mana, so they had no ways of finding crops that would be grown in a mana-rich environment. The griffins would die after being weakened for several months. To Abel, it was simply too much of a shame to let such elegant creatures be lost like this.
Abel said as he was on the teleportation circle, “I’ll see you off then, Your Highness.”
“Farewell, Grandmaster Abel,” Prince Derek bowed as he said goodbye.
As expected, the whole thing made big news in the human world. Many major changes started happening. The most obvious one would be the relocation of the military. Large numbers of wizards and knights were deployed at Miracle City once again.
New missions were assigned at Miracle City. This time, rewards would be given for killing any orc. More would be given for killing orcs of higher ranks. For orcs about the level of a head wolfrider captain, the reward could go up as high as ten thousand gold coins.
Now, ten thousand gold coins were not all that valuable for powerful wizards. Money was not very valuable for them apart from buying rune cards, spell circles, and other sorts of magic items. However, for those who were starting to learn about spells, ten thousand gold coins were a very big fortune for them to handle. It was the same for knights. They saw this change as a great opportunity to start turning their lives around.
Again, since the Orc Empire had lost the war at Miracle City, they started sending a lot fewer orcs to harass the humans outside their own territories. The humans knew that, so for a change, instead of targeting just the orc battlefield, they started entering into the Orc Empire to hunt down any orcs that they could find. Yes, it was not something that was very often seen in history.