SCREEEE! SCREEEE!
The cockatrices started swimming through the scalding water toward us. It would’ve been nice if they just sank like rocks, but they weren’t quite that dumb.
SPLASH! SPLASH!
The cockatrices used the small patches of ice forming on the surface as stepping stones, waddling and hopping forward. Whenever their feet dipped below the waterline, they’d paddle forward just enough to reach the next patch, then climb back up and repeat.
"BLEEAAARGH!!"
The penguin was still vomiting river water and raising the level. At the sa ti it was breathing cold air across the surface, generating small ice patches. The patches drifted between the cockatrices with the current, and the cockatrices hopped and paddled on them to cross the pit.
"Intercept them! Shoot everything down!!"
The rock throwing and arrow fire had already been going for a while, but I stomped hard on the ground and pushed the orcs forward. The aura flowing through my tattoos radiated out wide, and a red current began to run through the orcs’ eyes.
"""WRAAAH!!"""
The gargoyle fragnts the orcs launched were practically artillery fire. Since every throw carried killing intent behind it, the cockatrices couldn’t co through unscathed. rcifully, the cockatrices were on the receiving end of completely one-sided punishnt.
’Good thing they don’t have ranged attacks.’
I’d heard basilisks could fire petrification beams from their eyes, but thankfully cockatrices had nothing like that. A cockatrice just took a rock to the face from one of the elite orc soldiers and face-planted into the river water. No swimming ability ans it sinks straight down.
Bubble, bubble.
Bubbles started rising from below. I realized it was the Flare Panteras endlessly blasting flas: the entire cavity had beco one enormous pot, and the river water was slowly beginning to boil. Which ant if we just left things alone, the cockatrices would essentially get slow-cooked alive in the water.
To make that happen, we had to keep them from climbing out. I gripped the shovel handle tight with my hand, red tattoos burning across the skin. Since the whole thing was cast iron rather than a wooden handle, there was no risk of it snapping. No way it’d break from smashing cockatrices in the beak and skull either.
SCREEEE!!
The water level had already hit six ters, and the cockatrices were closing in on the edge of the 2nd intercept room pit. I’d counted at least twenty cockatrices taken down, but there were still plenty of bird-brains swarming around. A rough count put it sowhere around eighty, maybe pushing a hundred.
"All orcs, listen up!!"
I stepped toward the edge.
"When this fight’s over, we eat the cockatrices! I’ll cook them myself!"
"""WRAAAH!!!"""
"We win this! Everybody say it with ! The victory chant!"
SCREEEE!!
An ice patch ford under the lead cockatrice. It launched itself up off the ice, and I swung the shovel handle back over my shoulder like a baseball bat and shouted.
"FRIED CHICKEN!!"
"""FRIED CHICKEN!!"""
Glad none of the orcs did a "Ras" on that one, I thought, and I swung the shovel handle in a full arc at the airborne cockatrice.
SCREEEE!!
Just now, one neck snapped ninety degrees sideways. I kicked it into the water and sent it to the bottom.
***
CLANG, CLANG, CLANG!
Orc squad with shovels: holding the shore.
Cockatrice squad: doing everything possible to climb out.
The nurical advantage belonged to the cockatrices, but the orc squad was just barely holding them back.
CLANG, CRACK!!
Shovels t cockatrice beaks. The tallic ring of iron on iron rang out, sparks flew, and orcs and cockatrices traded blows. But with the orcs holding the high ground, fighting the cockatrices was tilted in their favor.
"Get back! Stay down!"
The orcs gripped their shovel handles and kept hamring downward. The cockatrices were trying to leap up and close the height gap, and the orcs were swinging their shovels down to pound the cockatrices’ heads relentlessly.
SCREEE!
The cockatrices dodged the orcs’ attacks as best they could while still frantically flapping toward the shore. There were only two ways for them to reach land.
Either flap their wings hard enough to lift themselves straight up, or wait for the water to fill all the way to the top.
The first option was basically impossible unless they pecked the orcs to death first. Even when the cockatrices pushed through the attacks and tried to climb, they couldn’t break through the orcs’ shovels, not with the combat boost from the red aura.
The second option wasn’t easy either. The river water that had been steadily rising had stopped climbing after hitting about six ters.
"Hff, hff, ghh..."
The penguin was completely out of mana. Using the river-summoning spell had been fine, but flooding so much water left nothing left to vomit up. Technically it was less like vomiting and more like expelling magic power, but either way, the penguin alone had exhausted every drop of stored river water.
"Heh."
Even so, the penguin couldn’t help cracking a small smile. It was a little hard for the cockatrices to climb out, sure, but it wasn’t completely impossible. The penguin rolled smoothly and dropped into the water with a splash. The lukewarm temperature made it shiver.
"Those things just never give up..."
The Flare Panteras on the other side of the ice wall were tirelessly blasting flas through the tiny holes without rest. Just as the penguin used mana to summon river water, the Flare Panteras were converting their own mana into fire and pouring it at the ice wall. It wasn’t enough to lt the wall itself, but it was more than enough to slowly heat the river water on the other side.
"Ugh... gotta end this fast."
The penguin stretched both arms back. The thick sll of dead cockatrice blood hung in the air. The penguin gritted its beak and pulled both arms forward hard.
"GO!!"
SSHHHHH
The river water started surging into waves centered on the penguin. A rolling swell rose in the pit, the cockatrices felt it and readied themselves to launch, and the orcs read what was coming and imdiately stepped back.
SCREEEEEE!!
The cockatrices spread their wings and rode the wave up high. The ones standing as tall as the orcs rode the surge and managed to plant their feet on land. The penguin landed on both feet at the rear, riding the wave it had created.
"HA! Did you really think sothing like that could stop us?!"
"...Heh heh."
The orc at the front, holding a bent iron shovel, pulled his lip into a smirk toward the penguin. Red tattoos glead across his face. The penguin imdiately recognized this as the one who’d been pulling every dirty trick on them.
"You—you little—!"
"’Little’? Rude, for a first eting. This is exactly why people need to broaden their hearts. Tsk, tsk."
The orc’s gaze ran up and down the penguin. The mascot suit hid the body, but that look was unmistakably looking down on the penguin.
"Hey. What’s your na?"
"What do you want with my na?"
"I’d like to know the na of whoever’s going to be squirming under ."
"...You disgusting pervert. I’m a birdman, you idiot!"
"So? No holes? As long as there’s a hole to put it in, I can work with that. I don’t have a preference; gender’s not a dealbreaker for . But wow, calling soone an idiot the second you et them? Pretty thin on warmth. Why are you walking around hiding behind a mascot suit? Actually, I don’t even need to ask. You’re probably more of a man than most n..."
"Stop making fun of my chest, I swear to god!"
The penguin flew into a rage and opened its beak at the orc. A tiny water droplet shot out like a bullet, and the orc tilted his head just slightly to dodge it.
"Was that it? You were just puking up rivers of water a second ago and now all you can squeeze out is one little drop? Guess you’re not a bird, more like a two-second bird. Or maybe you shot your load already and there’s nothing left?"
"...You’re genuinely the most disgusting creature I’ve ever t. If you have a legion, it’s definitely the Lust Legion."
"...Heh heh heh."
The orc just laughed and handed the shovel to the orc next to him. Then he pulled off the robe (soaked through with moisture) and handed it to the elf beside him. The penguin and every cockatrice froze like they’d all been hit with a petrification spell.
"Heh, scared off by how attractive I am?"
The orc was wearing a black outfit that clung to his body like a second skin. The way the robe seed to ld with his skin left the penguin with nowhere to look. More accurately, the eyes couldn’t help but zero in on one specific place.
"...Squawk."
Sothing hard and unmistakable was poking out from the orc’s lower half. Not just a bulge in the front, but a wide hole in the fabric with a long, thick column jutting right out through it. The penguin swallowed hard at the sheer size of it.
"Hey, penguin."
The orc leaned his upper body back slightly and showed it off deliberately. The way it stood straight up and curved slightly at the tip had the penguin instinctively checking sothing inside itself.
"I’m putting it in."
"Wh—in where?! Putting WHAT in?!"
"!!"
The orc was completely shaless about it. The penguin felt both exasperated and furious. Not a single soul had ever had the nerve to say sothing that brazen to its face. The penguin drew up mana and snapped its beak wide open.
"Eldest daughter of Halphas. My na is... Shax."
The penguin (Shax) spoke with a firm voice, and the cockatrices all shook their bodies from side to side and flung the water off their feathers. Shax planted a foot forward.
"I’m going to kill you and throw you and every last one of your orcs into this river water!!"
"Flat-chested types really do have the worst attitudes. But wow, you seem pretty furious? You didn’t even notice this."
The orc stomped the ground a couple of tis with his foot. The third leg that ca with it bobbed up and down, and Shax montarily couldn’t process what the orc was saying.
"...Don’t tell ?!"
Shax looked down. The orc nodded with a smirk.
"Up here, dumbass."
"What—"
The ceiling behind where Shax and the cockatrices were standing began to cave in. Shax had probably been looking down, not up, and never noticed.
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE!
Mounds of dirt ca crashing down from the ceiling at the edge of the pit. So of the slis that had been chewing through the ceiling and were still active collapsed it in several spots. Instead of digesting what they’d eaten, they expelled it straight downward, and stalactite-shaped blobs of sli started dropping from the ceiling.
SCREEEE!!
THUD, THWUMP, SPLASH!
Most of the cockatrices had managed to leap up and reach land, but a handful near the rear took stalactites to the head and went straight under.
"AAAARGH!!"
Shax let out an irritated scream and threw an arm up. Clutched in the hand (frozen solid) were wet feathers that looked like they’d been yanked straight from the cockatrice right beside it. I read the direction of Shax’s eyes.
The ceiling.
Shax had zeroed in on the slis’ hiding spots with hawk-like precision.
"Oh, damn it! Get up and hide!!"
"Too late!"
FWAPAP! The ice feathers Shax launched shot up and buried themselves in the ceiling. Each one hit a sli with pinpoint accuracy, and sli fluid started dripping down from above like blood.
"You monster! How could you kill those adorable little slis like that?!"
"You were the one shooting them with arrows, beating them, crushing them, drowning them, and trying to burn them to death!"
"...They’re not cute so it’s fine!"
SCREEEEEE!!
The cockatrices scread and flapped their wings wildly. Just like how harpies found Andras beautiful, birds apparently had their own avian sensibilities.
’Either way, they’re both just a pain in the ass.’
Best to kill them all first and sort it out later. We’d worn their numbers down enough: ti for an all-out brawl.
"Quick question. Anyone waiting to attack from behind you?"
"...I’ll tell you since I’m going to win anyway. No!"
"Heh, is that right?"
I raised the shovel high.
"Then let’s have so fun, Legion Princess!!"
Fight on the battlefield, after-party in bed.
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