Chapter 143

Ogre (2)

Two wolves began their hunt.

The blue wolf, Kai, struck first.

Wolf's Swordsmanship. Fourth Form.

Shadow Stalk.

Kai's sword flashed like lightning. Seeking an opening, the blade sliced into the ogre's flank and left a deep wound.

ROOOAAARRR!!

The ogre staggered, bleeding. But it did not fall. Its savage eyes flashed as it glared at Kai.

At that moment, the black wolf, Adrian, darted in from the side.

His claws tore through the ogre's hide. With attack after attack, he ripped its tough skin and solid muscles apart like paper.

"M-my gods!!"

"What in the world?!"

The dwarves cried out in shock.

And with good reason. The ogre's skin and muscle were harder than steel, too tough for even dwarf-forged swords to cut. Only an aura blade like the one Kai wielded could deal it any meaningful damage.

Yet Adrian was not using an aura blade. Even so, he was tearing into the ogre more deeply and more violently than an aura blade could.

"Impossible...!!"

Even as the dwarves stared in disbelief, the hunt continued. The two poured on relentless attacks, denying the ogre any room to move.

The black wolf and the blue wolf. Like a pack encircling its prey, the two wolves cut off the ogre's retreat—

Wolf's Swordsmanship. Fifth Form.

Dusk Hunt.

The encirclement had closed completely.

At some point... the strongest predator on land had begun to be driven onto the defensive.

The ogre had lost every opening through which it could escape.

Adrian shouted.

"Kai!!"

Kai held his breath and leaped forward. Like a wolf pouncing swiftly on its prey, his fast, powerful thrust pierced the ogre's defenses.

Wolf's Swordsmanship. Third Form.

Crimson Moon Strike.

Kai's sword skewered the ogre's head.

With its head destroyed, the ogre convulsed. It stumbled and swayed, and the watching dwarves erupted in astonishment.

"That monster...!"

"So quickly...!"

The ogre, the strongest predator on land. A monster that all the dwarves here could do nothing against, even if they attacked together.

Just two humans had hunted it down.

Every dwarf gaped.

Just then, Adrian's urgent voice rang out—

"It's not over yet!!"

BOOOM!

An enormous shadow descended on Kai.

* * *

One of the individual skills that made up the ogre's hybrid skill, Impregnable[S-].

◆Organ Replication System[A]

: Upon acquiring this skill, the player can [replicate] their [vital organs] and install [reserve organs]. These [reserve organs] activate [immediately] upon sustaining a [fatal injury] to keep the player alive, while [instantly activating] [platelets] to stop bleeding and rapidly multiplying surrounding cells to [heal] [injuries].

<This is a passive skill and applies permanently upon acquisition.>

An ogre healed most wounds on the spot. Its ability to recover was a match for a troll's.

In particular, its ability to replace vital organs made it superior to an ice troll's Regeneration[B+].

In other words, an ogre did not die even if its head was destroyed. More precisely, it would not die "as long as it had a replacement brain left."

Hard as it was to believe, that was the information Predatory Instincts[S] had given me. More importantly, I had witnessed it with my own eyes in my previous life.

I had warned Kai about this while explaining the plan. But surviving the loss of one's head was hard to grasp, especially in a monster like an ogre, whose very biological structure was fundamentally different—

"It's not over yet!!"

Kai seemed to have forgotten that for a moment.

KABOOOM!

The ogre's fist struck Kai squarely. The air split as though it had exploded, and the impact sent him hurtling away.

His flying body smashed through one jagged rock after another on the rocky mountain.

BANG! BANG! CRASH! BOOOM!

Only after flying dozens of meters did he slam into the ground. The impact could easily have shattered his entire body and killed him.

Immortal Link[E] should have kept him alive. Even so, those were not injuries he could easily recover from.

Sure enough, Kai could not get up.

Meanwhile, in the wound his strike had inflicted on the ogre, platelets instantly activated to stop the bleeding. Cells around the wound multiplied rapidly, closing the injury.

... What an absurd monster.

Actually, it hadn't been this bad before. The ogre I had seen in my previous life hadn't died when its brain was destroyed either, but it hadn't been able to rampage as if nothing had happened.

It seemed to be the amplifying effect of the hybrid skill, Impregnable[S-].

In other words, the ogre I had seen in my previous life apparently possessed only Organ Replication System[A], not Impregnable[S-].

'It's too strong.'

It was vastly stronger than the ogre I had fought in my previous life.

Muscular strength, defense, recovery. It lacked nothing.

No, it didn't merely lack weaknesses. It was overwhelming.

Overwhelming strength. Overwhelming defense. And an abnormal ability to recover.

It was nearly perfect as a combat organism. It wasn't called an Evolutionary Perfect Form for nothing.

Even so, Monomolecular Blade[S] could rip through its overwhelming defenses.

But there was a drawback. Ironically, its contact area was too thin: only a single molecule wide.

Immediately after being cut by Monomolecular Blade[S], the severed surfaces were likely to stick back together through mutual attraction. That was especially true of something with an ogre's healing ability.

So I needed to take additional measures to prevent the torn flesh from rejoining, either cutting it off entirely or immediately burning it.

The problem was the enormous disparity in our sizes. Against a monster a full twenty meters tall, Monomolecular Blade[S] alone couldn't deal a fatal blow.

'If I could use Bone Blade....'

Combining Bone Blade with Monomolecular Blade[S] would let me cut straight through the ogre. Just as I had with Blake, I could slice through everything regardless of its defenses or ability to heal.

But I could only create Bone Blade with Hyper Regeneration[A]. That required at least 3,200 Sanity.

My current Sanity, however...

[Sanity] - 540/ℵ0

...was nowhere near enough.

'This is going to be tough.'

Things weren't looking good. With Kai out of the fight, the ogre had already fully recovered from its injuries.

'The Arcanoheart first.'

I quickly pulled back and reached toward the runaway Arcanoheart.

◆Error: Player ownership cannot be verified.

◆Cannot store in Inventory.

But it wouldn't go into my Inventory.

I'd expected as much. I had neither the time nor the leeway to explain ownership and all that to Brumbar right now.

... Things really weren't looking good.

ROOOAAARRR!

The ogre had healed every wound. It looked so unscathed that one would never have known its head had been destroyed.

For now, we had to get the Arcanoheart away from it.

"Hurry and move the Arcanoheart—!"

"We can't!!" Brumbar shouted. "The spatial stabilizer is broken!"

I followed Brumbar's glance and saw shattered wreckage strewn around the Arcanoheart.

Apparently, that was the spatial stabilizer or whatever it was.

"If we transport the Arcanoheart like this, it could trigger gravitational collapse! That could bring down the core itself!!"

Complicated terms flew out, but the point was simple.

"We mustn't move the Arcanoheart!"

Move it carelessly, and it would explode.

No wonder. I'd been wondering why they were simply holding it in place instead of moving it.

We absolutely could not let the Arcanoheart explode.

◆Arcanoheart

: This device is a [core] that collects and refines mana found in the [natural world] (atmospheric mana, ley lines, etc.), converting it into [high-density mana plasma].

The highly compressed mana plasma generates high-output energy through a [fusion process]. The energy produced is processed into [aether] and can be utilized as the desired form of energy, including [magical power, aura, gravitational fields, etc.].

A power source that extracted virtually limitless energy through mana nuclear fusion.

If it exploded, we were all finished. Fortunately, Seraphia was controlling the runaway energy, but...

"Nnngh...!!"

She was struggling.

Her mastery of her Authority was still short of the Sovereign of Bitter Cold's. No, quite apart from that, controlling the Arcanoheart's runaway energy at all was absurd.

Brumbar was taking the runaway energy Seraphia couldn't control with his entire body.

"Graaagh!!"

He was forcibly suppressing it to keep it from erupting completely.

Brumbar was physically holding down the Arcanoheart's runaway pulses. It was only possible thanks to his powerful body and Unbreakable[A+].

Even so, every pulse that escaped twisted and tore his muscles. But he gritted his teeth and kept holding on.

Brumbar couldn't move. Seraphia had to control the runaway energy. Kai was currently unable to fight.

He needed time to recover, and so did the injured dwarves.

Ultimately, I had to subdue the ogre alone.

Should I use Predator[M]?

But using Predator[M] would leave both my body and my skills overloaded. The question was whether I could even kill the ogre with it.

... I didn't know. I wasn't confident.

The plan had gone awry the moment the ogre tunneled in to attack. I had to come up with a countermeasure.

... But there was no way.

Then I had to make one.

'I need to draw its attention to me.'

My mind raced. My experiences from my previous life. The evolutionary biology Iliana had taught me. They unfolded and recombined in my head in an instant, over and over.

The reason ogres went berserk at a dragon's biological wavelengths was to hunt baby dragons: hatchlings.

It was an instinct to ensure the survival of their species by reducing the numbers of their natural enemy, dragons.

Thus, the ogre's blind rage toward the Arcanoheart was rooted in the greatest motivation of any living thing: its survival instinct.

... I had to stimulate that instinct.

Without hesitation, I extended Dragon's Claw[A]. Then—

CRUNCH!

I ripped off my entire left shoulder, the one I'd gone to all that trouble to regenerate.

"W-what?!" Brumbar cried in alarm.

I paid him no mind. I had neither the time nor the leeway to explain.

I immediately kicked off the ground and leaped.

At a full twenty meters, this creature was enormous even for an ogre. That meant it needed a great deal of food.

An ogre's immense appetite was chiefly satisfied by monsters that reproduced rapidly. Orcs and goblins were prime examples.

But its favorite among them was the troll.

When an ogre found a troll, it captured it alive rather than eating it immediately. That way, it could keep tearing off pieces to eat until the troll's healing ability ran dry.

So I threw my severed left shoulder at the ogre.

"Hey!"

Its rage-filled eyes turned toward me. Then I activated Regeneration[B+].

GRRROAR?!

The look in its eyes changed abruptly. And with good reason: this wasn't merely a troll's Recovery.

It was an ice troll's Regeneration[B+].

"Want a bite?"

The ogre's eyes flashed.

Hunger. Then that turned into savagery.

Appetite, one of the three survival instincts. By stimulating it, I had succeeded in diverting the ogre's attention.

But that was all. Appetite alone wasn't enough to draw it fully toward me, so—

◆Current Sanity: 540.

◆Consuming 429 Sanity.

◆Berserk[?] will be applied at rank [B+].

◆Activating super-combination skill, Draconification[E]!

My control over Sanity consumption still wasn't perfect. But it had become more precise than when I fought Blake.

Intense power boiled up inside me. As all the dragon genetic material imprinted in my body manifested, the look in the ogre's eyes changed completely.

Its instinctive threat detection kicked in, and it recognized me as a hatchling.

Every nerve and sense focused wholly on me. And when all its savagery was directed at me alone, it charged.

It moved with incredible speed that belied its massive size.

... I couldn't dodge.

The very concept of dodging meant nothing against a charge that indiscriminately destroyed the surrounding landscape.

KABOOOOOM!!

A tremendous impact slammed into me. Muscles burst throughout my body. Flesh was crushed. Blood gushed out.

But the super-combination skill Draconification[E] converted one percent of the impact it mitigated into calories.

◆2,567Kcal accumulated.

The message flashed before my eyes. I had accumulated more calories than Regeneration[B+] required.

To the ogre, I was no different from a baby dragon that regenerated endlessly.

Its savagery ran wild.

THUD! THUD!

Shaking the earth, the ogre lunged at me again—

"Hahaha!"

I couldn't think straight through the strange sensation of terror mingled with pleasure.

The oppressive presence of the ogre, the strongest predator on land. My heart pounded madly with instinctive fear.

Every nerve in my body sharpened, my senses growing acutely sensitive. I was unmistakably terrified for my life.

And yet, a bizarre degree of pleasure bloomed within that fear.

Organ Replication System[A].

It didn't regenerate destroyed organs. It discarded them and "replaced" them with others.

The replicated organs functioned independently. Their structure and function were also a perfect match for the originals.

That was how the ogre could respond immediately without any loss of function, even when its head was destroyed.

In other words, it also had "multiple hearts" I could devour with Predation[S+].

The ogre's Impregnable[S-]. The five abilities that made it up.

Because Predation[S+] was imperfect, I couldn't acquire all of the ogre's abilities intact.

And ogres on this continent weren't merely scarce; they were on the verge of extinction. I couldn't expect to use Predation[S+] on more ogres.

But what if it had multiple hearts?

I could use Predation[S+] on several hearts from a single specimen, making the entirety of its Impregnable[S-] my own.

How could I—

"Hahahahahahaha!!"

How could I not go mad with pleasure!