This young master truly has the ambition of a hero.

Chapter 119: Orcs

On the south bank of the fjord, Dick controlled the five fire demon puppets he had summoned, preventing the orc army from crossing the ice bridge to land. Meanwhile, the ship girl squad led by Belfast bombarded the entire ice bridge from the side. In an instant, the sound of ship cannons and screams rang out, and the firelight reflected the blood.

This ambush, which nearly resulted in a massacre, went more smoothly than Dick had imagined.

The orcs suffered from underestimating their opponents and lack of intelligence, but the most crucial factor was that they were unaware of the existence of the ship girls.

Belfast has always been Dick's hidden trump card; the firepower of her twelve six-inch guns is enough to determine the victory of a battle at crucial moments.

Just like now, tens of thousands of orcs attempted to sneak across the fjord but were ambushed halfway across. The orc soldiers, trapped on the ice bridge with no way to move forward or backward, were in no different from sitting ducks.

The bombardment lasted less than three minutes. No matter how hard the shamans tried to cast spells, they could only watch helplessly as the ice bridge shattered into a pile of ice shards carried away by the bombardment. Some unlucky ones even died directly from the bombardment, without even a chance to escape.

On the cliff on the north bank, the orc leader finally learned about the situation below from the soldiers who had escaped. He was furious, but could only let out a powerless roar towards the opposite bank.

It was clearly a premeditated ambush by the humans, who had specifically prepared strategic weapons like the "magic cannon." However, due to underestimating the enemy and misjudging the situation, he sent tens of thousands of orc soldiers to be bombed by the enemy's cannons.

At this moment, several black crows flew back from below the cliff and landed in front of the orc leader, transforming into several shamans with dusty faces, among whom was an old shaman whom the orc leader greatly respected.

"teacher!"

"We've fallen for their trap! Retreat!"

"And the people down there..."

"It's hopeless."

With a single sentence, the old shaman sealed the fate of tens of thousands of orc soldiers.

The old shaman didn't not want to save them, but he lacked the ability. After the ice bridge was destroyed, almost all the orcs on it fell into the water. The seawater was freezing cold at this time of year, and even with the orcs' physique, they would freeze after soaking for three to five minutes, eventually sinking to the bottom of the sea in despair to become fish food.

Moreover, the human army's artillery fire was relentless, giving them no chance to rescue people.

Knowing his smuggling plan had failed, the orc leader had no choice but to accept the defeat. After gathering a small number of soldiers who still had a chance of escaping, he led the remaining troops in a swift retreat. Because he was unsure whether his current location was within range of the human magic cannons, he dared not linger at the edge of the cliff.

When they retreated in disarray to their rear camp and began to take stock of their numbers, the orc commander realized that he had lost more than 8,000 men in this battle. Forty percent of the entire eastern army was left in the cold waters of the fjord, neither able to set foot on the southern shore that the orcs longed for, nor able to return to the rear alive.

Perhaps the only good news is that the military rations, which were previously insufficient, are now plentiful.

Meanwhile, on the south bank of the fjord, Dick was warming himself by a fire while scrutinizing the bruised and battered orc leader that Red Leaf had dragged back.

This wasn't the first time Dick had seen an orc, but unlike the orc slaves in the capital who were nearly lifeless from being enslaved by magic and torture, this guy was still very wild. Even after being beaten black and blue by Hongye, he remained unruly and cursed incessantly after seeing Dick. He finally shut his mouth after receiving more than a dozen slaps from Hongye.

What bothered Dick more than the metal armor on this guy was his appearance, which was clearly that of a human-beast hybrid.

"Interesting, a half-orc?"

"You won't get any information out of me."

"Wow! You can speak human language too? Who taught you?"

"..."

The captured orc leader remained silent, and Dick didn't waste any words with him. He simply took out a syringe from his spatial bracelet and handed it to Hongye, asking her to give the orc an injection.

The syringe contained a confession agent specially prepared by Lily. Considering the physical condition of the orcs, Dick was afraid that one dose wouldn't be effective enough, so he took out another one.

The orc leader mistook the syringe for some kind of torture device and struggled desperately, but Dick used his telekinesis to restrain his limbs. He could only watch helplessly as the needle pierced his body. As the potion was injected, he suddenly felt dizzy, and the number of humans in front of him multiplied, wriggling and deforming like slimes.

"You...how did you...get flattened..."

"Next, I'll ask questions, and you'll answer them."

"What... do you want to ask... I won't tell you even if you beat me to death."

"Then if I didn't kill you, you'll be able to talk, won't you?"

"Huh? Oh right!"

Seeing the orc squad leader's eyes, now brimming with intelligence under the influence of the potion, Dick inwardly praised Lily's potion before beginning his questioning. To his surprise, the orc cavalry squad leader who had led the vanguard ashore for reconnaissance was actually the younger brother of the opposing legion commander.

The captured orc's name was "Nag," and his leader brother was "Neg." Both brothers were half-orcs, and their father's identity was even more extraordinary—he was none other than the current Orc King, Ramon.

In other words, Dick's side actually captured an orc prince.

However, this orc prince is not very prestigious, because the Beast King Ramon has many offspring, more than 500, and most of them are half-orcs like him.

Dick learned that this Beast King Ramon had declared himself Beast King more than twenty years ago and then unified the originally loose Beastman tribes by force.

Before Ramon, the orcs had had several orc kings, but none of them had been able to truly unify the orc race. Ramon, however, was different. He not only possessed extraordinary strength but was also intelligent. He believed that the orcs had only brute force but no wisdom, and deserved to be driven by the humans to the desolate wasteland to eke out a living.

Orcs can indeed easily crush humans in one-on-one duels, but once a large-scale war begins, the situation is completely reversed.

Therefore, this guy came up with a way to improve the average stupidity of the orc race: actively interbreed with humans, capture human women, and breed smarter half-orcs.

He practiced what he preached, becoming a stud and gaining the support of the shamanic community.

During Ramon's reign as Beast King, the orcs repeatedly raided southwards, capturing humans indiscriminately, and intentionally taking women alive. Humans, due to the stereotype of orcs being cannibals, assumed these captured humans were simply food for the orcs, never considering any other possibilities.

While Ramon was "improving" the race, he was also secretly accumulating strength. He felt that the annual raids were just minor skirmishes that could not change the orcs' living conditions and that the damage caused by the raids was insignificant to the human race as a whole.

His plan was to launch a massive, concentrated invasion, conquering all human lands north of the Central Mountains. Then, they only needed to hold off a few mountain passes. They would gain vast tracts of "warm and fertile" land (relative to the wasteland), millions of human slaves, and the potential rise of the orcs.

Chapter 120: Forced Unity

The orcs on the wasteland had been preparing for this full-scale invasion for a long time, and finally gathered an army of more than 100,000, which split into three routes and attacked human territory.

They deliberately chose to launch their attack a month after the onset of winter.

Although winter's harsh cold and snowfall can have many adverse effects on marching and fighting, these climate-related inconveniences do not favor one side. Furthermore, orcs are physically stronger than humans, so their resistance to these negative effects is naturally higher.

On the other hand, although the human race has been cautiously guarding against the wasteland over the years, they still have a deep-rooted stereotype of the orcs, that is, they think they are a bunch of mindless beasts, and they never thought that these brutes would play tricks like deceiving the enemy.

After figuring out the enemy's situation, Dick couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, thanking God for his good fortune. He had only received some information from the merchants, so he had specially come to the fjord to inspect the coastal defenses, but it just so happened that he stopped the orc army's invasion and even dealt them a heavy blow.

Dick didn't know exactly how many orcs they had killed in this battle, but the initial estimate was over five thousand (actually more than eight thousand). Most of them drowned after falling into the water following the collapse of the ice bridge. Not many were actually killed directly by artillery fire. Dick's casualties were in the single digits, all of which were caused during the capture of prisoners.

It's only thanks to Lucoa's early discovery that Dick had time to prepare, which allowed him to deliver a fatal blow at the crucial moment.

Whether it was earlier or later, such a great victory could not have been achieved!

Having learned of the orcs' battle plan, Dick immediately ordered all messengers to be dispatched to deliver the message as quickly as possible, so that the border troops stationed in the north and the lords in various places could prepare for war.

This is not a civil war between nations, but an invasion by foreign races. If, as they plan, they crush the other territories with overwhelming force, even if only Laguge remains, it will not be able to escape unscathed.

As the saying goes, things have priorities, and at this critical juncture, even the biggest grudges must be put aside for now.

Those are 100,000 orcs. The consequences for humans who surrender to them are not simply becoming second-class subjects and being oppressed, but rather being turned into edible livestock!

So after thinking for a moment, Dick felt that it was not enough to just notify the lords in the north. He had to send this terrible news back to the capital through magical communication so that the central government of the empire could send troops over as soon as possible.

After Dick's message was sent, the surrounding lords quickly received it, but most, even after seeing the orc head that the messenger had deliberately displayed, remained skeptical of this horrifying news. Some simply didn't believe it at all, sarcastically remarking that Dick was delusional.

To these northern lords, the orcs' raids to the south were indeed terrifying; those man-eating beasts were more brutal than bandits and outlaws, but they were nothing more than a pack of wolves that posed a greater threat.

Their long-held belief led them to firmly believe that orcs were inherently stupid and not united. They fought independently in tribes, usually in groups of ten or twenty orcs, who would sneak into human territory to plunder. Large groups of hundreds or thousands were extremely rare.

But Dick is now telling them that the orcs have become smarter. One of them has become a beast king who, after seven years, has managed to unite the orc tribes of all sizes in the wasteland and raise an army of 100,000 to launch a full-scale invasion of the empire. This is simply a fantasy!

Count Hoffman, who had a previous feud with Dick, took the news very seriously and immediately ordered a full mobilization of his territory. He also sent a trusted retainer as a special envoy to Ragug to obtain more detailed information about the orc invasion.

When Hoffman's delegation entered Laguge, they immediately noticed the tense atmosphere. Several large villages along the way were fortifying their camps, and the towns were under complete martial law. Many private soldiers could be seen working on the outer city walls, clearly preparing to defend the city.

After showing his identification, the envoy quickly met Dick, who was now Earl of Lagug.

Upon first seeing Dick, the envoy was struck by Dick's youth and the deceptive nature of his boyish appearance. If his lord hadn't already suffered a loss at his hands and was familiar with Dick's many iron-fisted methods in Lagug, he might have genuinely mistaken him for a mere child and subconsciously underestimated him.

"It is a pleasure that you have taken the time out of your busy schedule to receive me, Your Excellency Earl Ragug."

The envoy introduced himself as "Oukis," a close attendant and secretary to Count Hoffmann. After a few brief pleasantries, they quickly got to the point.

Okis's visit had two main purposes: to verify the authenticity of the large-scale orc invasion, and if it was true, to gather as much detailed information as possible about the invasion. Before leaving, Hoffman specifically instructed Okis to allow him to make certain concessions to Dick on this issue, as long as they did not infringe upon their core interests.

Hoffman was not like those foolish and arrogant nouveau riche. He did not think Dick was a brat who would make silly jokes just to scare others. If it were true, and he was the first to know the news, he would also notify the other lords as quickly as possible, because this was not a disaster that one family could handle alone.

One hundred thousand orcs—that's about the number of people in Earl Hoffman's territory. If those beasts were to actually storm his lands, they could physically devour him and all his people.

So while the idiots were laughing and joking, Hoffman was sweating profusely.

As soon as Okis arrived in the town of Ragug, he believed the news. To prove it to his people, Dick had all the orc corpses retrieved from the fjord beheaded and built a mound of heads at the city gate.

Those are more than two thousand orc heads; there's no way to borrow heads from fellow villagers to fake it!

Dick didn't hold back on the details of the orcs' advance, sharing all the intelligence he had gathered by interrogating prisoners using confession agents, and also showing them his predictions of the enemy's possible marching routes on the map.

Dick bluntly told the other party that he had the ability to blockade the fjord. The orcs' eastern army had just suffered heavy casualties from his attack, while the other two orc armies were attacking from the land. No matter which route they took, they would have to crush Hoffman's territory before they could reach Ragug!

So everything Dick said at this moment was not a lie; he genuinely hoped that Earl Hoffmann could hold on for a few more days!

Chapter 121: Ramon

In order to obtain more information, Okis hoped to meet with any remaining orc prisoners.

Dick did not refuse and readily agreed to personally take Okis to the castle dungeon, where all the surviving high-ranking prisoners were being interrogated.

The dungeon of Lagog Castle is very large. It is said that it was originally used as an underground shelter and icehouse. Later, it was converted into a dungeon by a governor who was particularly fond of capturing people. Because it is located on the west side of the castle, it is also known as the "West Icehouse".

After Dick took office as governor, he once considered turning the place back into a warehouse, but later found that the conversion was not worthwhile, so he continued to use it as a prison to hold important criminals.

Therefore, those who can be imprisoned in this place are not ordinary minor figures.

As Okis followed Dick through the corridor in the middle of the dungeon, a hand suddenly reached out from the iron window of one of the cells to grab him.

But before that hand could even touch Okis, it was deflected by a bolt of lightning that Dick casually flicked out.

Startled, Okis looked closely and realized that the prisoner shouting for his life from behind the iron bars looked somewhat familiar. After a moment's thought, he suddenly remembered.

"Yzak!?"

The prisoner who sought help from Okis was a former Mossad spy who had been captured along with other members of the Dead Tree Party.

This unfortunate fellow, who couldn't make it on Earth, originally served Count Hoffmann, using some "professional skills" from Earth to become the Count's head of secret agents. Later, however, he was forcibly taken by Hammuradi and eventually surrendered and was captured in Lagug.

Dick did not execute the man, but instead locked him in the dungeon, firstly because he still had information that could be extracted from him, and secondly to use as leverage against Count Hoffmann.

This grandson has done a lot of dirty work for Count Hoffmann, and some of his deeds, once exposed, would be enough to ruin his old master's reputation.

Although the nobles of this world are corrupt and decadent, they are extremely concerned about their reputation. They don't care about doing all sorts of evil deeds, as long as they are not discovered.

So ever since Hoffman fell into Dick's hands, and he subtly informed Hoffman that the old servant who knew a lot about him was still alive, the Earl was extra cautious and didn't cause any more trouble for Lagug.

While Yitzhak was safe in Dick's hands, he was frequently interrogated, living in constant fear. The immense mental pressure drove him to contemplate suicide.

This guy even offered to join Dick and become his new master, then help him fight against his old master, Hoffman.

Upon learning this, Dick couldn't help but sigh.

"An ungrateful bastard is still like this even in another world!"

Okis recognized the unshaven Ytzhak, but after glancing at Dick with a half-smile, he wisely pretended not to know him and ignored Ytzhak's cries for help.

"I'm sorry, he's a madman I'm keeping here. He acts like this towards everyone."

"Oh, he's a madman. No wonder."

The two exchanged a knowing smile and continued deeper into the dungeon, soon encountering the high-ranking orc prisoners who were being "specially monitored." There were eleven of them, all bound tightly with metal chains like dumplings.

Dick pointed to the eleven beasts and introduced their names and positions one by one.

"It seems that the orcs have adopted our human military system, setting up various types of troops and corresponding official positions in their army. The highest commander of the army is called 'Commander-in-Chief,' and below them are officers such as vanguard, infantry, and beast cavalry. The ranks are captains such as centurion, centurion, and chiliarch. For example, this guy is the younger brother of the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Route Army and is a centurion of the vanguard."

The guy Dick was pointing at was the orc leader that Red Leaf had captured back then.

Don't let their ferocious appearance fool you; they seem as rabid and deranged as dogs with rabies. Dick has a confession serum; no matter how unruly you are, one shot will turn you into a husky.

In front of Okis, Dick had the effects of the confession potion demonstrated on the spot, because he had already learned from Yzak that Count Hoffman also had alchemical potions with similar effects. Such mind-controlling potions are contraband under imperial law, but in reality… well, you know what I mean.

After having Okis personally interrogate several orcs, Okis's expression grew increasingly grave.

The Empire has indeed been too careless in recent years, failing to notice the orcs' progress and still believing them to be the same stupid beasts they once were.

"I never expected this, I really never expected... that such an incredible person would appear among the orcs!"

"There's nothing unbelievable about it. Orcs are indeed less civilized than other races as a whole, but with a large population, a few geniuses will inevitably emerge sooner or later."

"He must be eliminated!"

When Okis said this, his teeth were clenched with a fierce intensity. Dick also admitted that, from the human perspective, they truly could not allow such a powerful being to exist among the orcs!