The dirt at his feet was tan, and there were no plants of any kind around. His eyes lit up as he found a familiar sight, a tree. It was thin and black, but a tree nonetheless. Vincent’s voice came from his side, “Should we capture a few and question them?”

  “Hm?” Ace was suddenly faced with a moral dilemma. After fighting Mogtar, he realized that Mogtar was a living intelligent creature like him. Did he really have the right to invade another planet and slaughter them like in the challenges? As he looked at the fleeing orcs, finding them all to be children and woman, his will to fight evaporated into thin air.

  Vincent realized this and added, “We don’t have to kill them, just tie them up and ask them a few questions. After that, we can let them go.”

  Ace felt like a heavy weight was lifted off his shoulders. He let out a sigh of relief as he said, “Let’s do that.”

  A moment later, a female orc was kneeling on the ground in front of them. Ace used his gravity to delicately force her to the ground, causing her to be uninjured. They had targeted a lone orc, not wanting to capture a child. Ace wouldn’t forgive himself if he captured a child and interrogated them.

  Ace released his gravity, causing the female orc to be bewildered. She raised her head warily and looked at the humans. Both parties looked at each other in silence for a few moments. The female orc gathered her courage and spoke quietly, “Mo-Mogtar… where is he?”

  Ace looked solemnly at the female orc as he said quietly, “Dead. I killed him.”

  The female orc collapsed to the ground as she howled miserably, “NOOO! What are we going to do? What are we going to do?!”

  Ace looked quietly at the female orc. As he sensed her sorrow with his sensory field, he felt like he was the bad guy. However, after recalling that Mogtar had destroyed Moscow, he let out a snort, “Mogtar invaded my planet and murdered millions of my people, I was just defending my planet.”

  The female orc quieted down as she collected her emotions. A moment later she stood up and slapped her chest with her fist, “You fought Mogtar and defeated him, this makes you a great warrior. I have no complaints. Only, please don’t massacre us. I will serve you if you let me live.”

  Ace was surprised at her attitude, didn’t she seem a little too calm facing her enemy? However, this made things quicker as he gave a nod, “Tell me the name of this planet.”

  “The name of this planet is Rogdul.” The female orc said, her voice tinged with pride.

  A quick flurry of questions and answers began as Ace asked question after question. A few minutes later, Ace turned to Vincent and spoke with him telepathically, “It looks like the situation is favorable for us. The planet is divided into four clans and all of them are currently at war. They are called Gulm, Mash, Ragash, and Baugh. They are about on the same levels of strength, but now that we killed Mogtar, Clan Baugh should be the weakest.”

  “Hm.” Vincent responded distractedly.

  “What’s wrong?” Ace noticed Vincent staring absentmindedly at the sky. What he saw caused his mouth to drop in shock, “Oh.”

  The star that this planet orbited was massive. It took up almost the entire sky, preventing them from seeing anything else. Strangely, the temperature of the planet was about the same as Earth. Another fascinating sight was that massive pieces of rock hovered in the sky, appearing just outside the planet itself.

  The female orc followed their line of sight and spotted the rocks in the sky. Her voice was tinged with sadness as she spoke, “Those floating pieces of rock were once apart of this planet. I’m not too sure as to the reason why, but apparently our planet was destroyed by a powerful foe.”

  “Eh?” Vincent and Ace looked at the female orc in shock, unable to believe what she just said, “You said this planet is destroyed?”

  Ace looked around at the land, finding it to be completely fine, “It looks normal to me…”

  The female orc shook her head, “You haven’t seen the great chasm. It divides the planet into four great lands, each occupied by a clan.”

  Vincent and Ace looked at eachother, still unable to believe the orc. If what she said was true, wouldn’t the planet be falling apart?

  At this time, Ace spoke aloud, “Let’s go back and inform the others.”

  “Okay.” Vincent agreed and turned around. A moment later, they were back at the portal. As Vincent put his hand through it, his eye winced in pain.

  Ace noticed Vincent had paused and asked, “What’s wrong? Why did you stop?”

  Vincent pulled back his arm, causing Ace to widen his eyes in surprise, “What happened to your hand?”

  Vincent’s hand had been obliterated, causing his wrist to pour out blood. However, a second later his hand regenerated. Vincent’s face fell as he informed Ace of a hologram that appeared before him.

  Notice

  You cannot return until you conquer this planet.

  “WHAT!?” Ace roared out in shock, he felt like he had just been hit in the gut by a curveball.

  Chapter 83

  “What does it mean we can’t return home?!” Ace roared, startling the female orc behind them. He tried moving through the portal, but the result was the same as when Vincent tried.

  Vincent opened his hologram and tried communicating with his contacts through telepathy. However, all he felt was emptiness, the connection was unable to be formed. He shook his head as he said, “I can’t use telepathy to talk to Dragon or Sasha.”

  Ace looked at his own contact list to try the same thing, however it was to no avail. He glared at the portal as he said, “They’re only a few seconds away, yet it can’t connect? That’s so stupid!”

  He looked back at the notification telling him to conquer the planet as he spoke to Vincent, “What does it mean by conquer? It can’t be that it wants us to create a territory the size of the planet, can it? That would be a ridiculous amount of points. How long would that take us to get? Years? Decades?”

  The female orc stood silently behind Vincent and Ace as they discussed what to do. She lowered her head and fell deep into thought. A moment later, she looked straight at the humans in front of her as she spoke out, “Uh, I can help you out.”

  “Hm?” They turned to look at her, giving her a quizzical glance.

  Ace took a better look at the female orc, finding that she had long black hair. It was braided, creating an intricate pattern. He realized he didn’t even know what to refer to her as. He introduced himself, “My name is A- Goliath, what’s your name?”

  The female orc raised her fist and slapped her chest, creating a loud thud, “My name is Magtha and I belong to Clan Baugh. We are famed for our qi manipulation abilities.”

  “Demon,” Vincent added from the side.

  Ace felt like he was speaking with a human, there were no differences in intelligence between this orc named Magtha and the people he interacted with. The only physical differences were the color of the skin and the differently shaped skull. They still shared the same number of limbs, two eyes, two ears, a nose, mouth, etc. He felt even worse considering he had to conquer the planet. He appraised Magtha as he said, “How can you help us?”

  “Ahem,” Magtha cleared her throat before she began to explain, “I couldn’t help but overhear what you were talking about, and it’s clear you don’t know much about the mercenary system. Am I correct?”

  “mercenary system?” Vincent and Ace glanced at each other before shaking their heads. This was the first time they heard this term.

  “Ahhh,” Magtha shook her head, “You don’t know such a simple thing? Whoever taught you guys sure did a terrible job.”

  Vincent’s ears perked up at her words, he deduced from what she said that they had a system of education that taught about the tattoo. He interrupted, “I’m just curious, but how long has your planet had the tattoo?”

  “Hmmm,” She raised her hand and rubbed her temple as she mused aloud, “it should be 14,530 years since the tattoo first arrived on planet Rogdul.”

  “WHAT?!” Their eyes nearly popped out of their heads from shock. 14,530 years? Wasn’t that an incredible large amount of time? Ace felt he didn’t hear her correctly, “14,530?”

  “Hm? That isn’t so strange, is it?” Magtha felt these two humans were behaving a bit strange. Suddenly, the dots connected in her head. They didn’t know about the mercenary system, and were shocked at her answer. This could only mean one thing. She asked to confirm her thoughts, “What about your planet?”

  Ace coughed a few times from embarrassment before saying quietly, “3 years…”

  “WHAT?!” This time, it was Magtha’s turn to be shocked. 3 years was an incredible short amount of time since the tattoo arrived. Two newbs had arrived in front of her. She doubted that they killed Mogtar, but you could only invade an invader’s planet after they have been killed. Otherwise, she wouldn’t believe them.

  A moment passed before she collected herself. Her eyes lit up as she looked at them in a new light, “You two must be the leaders of your planet, huh? There’s no way such newbs could kill Mogtar.”

  “N-Newbs?” Ace felt like he just got rejected by a girl. On Earth, everyone looked up to him, admiring his strength. Now this orc in front of him with stats just barely under 200 was calling him a newb? He turned his back to Magtha and began to sulk.

  Vincent took it a bit better, he understood what she meant. Being the leader of a planet gave you a lot of points, which increased the rate at which you gained strength. It was clear from what he heard from Magtha that their planet was constantly at war. The four clans, Gulm, Mash, Ragash, and Baugh constantly fought for territory. A world war hadn’t occurred on earth for decades, if you didn’t count the monster invasions.

  Vincent glanced at Ace, finding his behavior to be a bit funny. He nodded towards Magtha and motioned for her to continue, “What’s this about the mercenary system?”

  “Oh, right.” Magtha raised her chin and waved her hands as she began to teach, “You two should be familiar with dungeons and territories. A dungeon and territory are two sides of the same coin. At both places, you can summon all types of creatures. For example, orcs and humans can be purchased from both.”

  Ace turned back around when she began to speak, but he couldn’t help but speak up when he heard her, “A human can be summoned from a dungeon? I thought those were only for monsters.”

  Magtha snorted in disdain at her student’s question, “What an incredible naive way of viewing them. Define ‘Monster’. Are you telling me you haven’t had any incredibly evil humans on your planet?”

  Ace felt his back bend from embarrassment, it was like he was back in school and had been reprimanded by a teacher. However, Magtha was correct, one name that entered his mind was Hitler, a terrible human that lived years ago. In addition, there were all manner of criminals throughout history.

  Vincent felt like he understood, “So it’s based on the alignment of the species?”

  “Half right, half wrong.” Magtha glanced at Vincent, finding this one to be a bit smarter. She continued, “Don’t think of the creatures you can summon from dungeons and territories as species, but individuals.”

  Magtha grew quiet, allowing them to think for the answer on their own. As Ace fell into thought, Vincent’s eyes lit up as he immediately said, “So a morally corrupt human could be summoned from a dungeon, while a morally good human could be summoned from a territory?”

  “Correct!” Magtha snapped her finger at Vincent.

  “Ohhh!” Ace slapped his fist into the palm of his hand as he understood.

  Magtha’s eyes dimmed as she continued, “The creatures you can purchase from a dungeon and territory are tattoo users who have been killed. They are soulless, only mere puppets.”

  “What?” This answer was unexpected, causing them to blurt out in shock.

  Magtha quickly continued on, “There is a major difference between a dungeon and territory. For a dungeon, there is the option to become a mercenary, allowing you to be summoned by another dungeon. Your objective is to conquer the planet for the person who hired you. However, that doesn’t always have to be the case.”

  Their eyes lit up with understanding as Ace said, “So Mogtar killed the person who hired him, huh.”

  “I can understand why he did,” Magtha said as she recalled what they said, “He figured a planet that only had the tattoo for 3 years must be pretty weak. There was no reason to follow the orders of a weak human.”

  “Hm.” They didn’t respond. After all, it looked like their species was like a newborn baby, ignorant about the tattoo.

  “Anyway,” Magtha returned to the subject at hand, “For a territory, you can also sign up to be a mercenary, but instead of conquering a planet, you are defending the territory of the person who hired you. If you fail, you’ll lose points, and you’ll most likely die. Becoming a mercenary is extremely risky, you don’t know where you’re going, or who your enemies are going to be. Never use this option unless you are an idiot.”

  They now understood were Mogtar had come from, some human from their planet had summoned him, thinking to use him to conquer the planet for themselves.

  “Hm?” Vincent felt that her words were directed at someone in particular, “Then why did Mogtar sign up to become a mercenary? He should have been the leader of your clan, right?”

  “Haaah,” Magtha gave a long sigh as she recalled the past. She glanced at Vincent as she said, “I told you that our planet was destroyed by a powerful enemy in the past, right?”

  “Uhh, yeah.” Even now, he didn’t believe what she said. After all, he was standing on the planet perfectly fine.

  Magtha spat in disgust, “Well, Mogtar, that idiot, thought it would be a great idea to enter the great chasm. It’s a forbidden zone, and only warriors on Mogtar’s level can enter it. Even then, he returned sick with one foot in the grave. If the other clans had heard about it, I fear we would have been wiped out.”

  Ace grew confused. He respected Mogtar’s strength, and was unable to understand why he took such a risk, “Why would someone as strong as Mogtar risk his life to enter the great chasm?”

  Magtha shook her head, “I don’t know… but whatever he encountered in there, it changed him. He became more reckless, and made rash decisions. As a result, the clan split into two factions, one supporting him, and the other calling for his resignation.”

  Vincent chuckled inwardly, figuring that Magtha should be in the faction that didn’t like him. Ace’s eyes lit up as he said, “So that’s why he became a mercenary, a decision that you said you should never make.”

  “Right,” Magtha sighed as her shoulders fell, “a few weeks ago, he told the council of elders that he would become a mercenary. His decision shook the clan, but we were unable to stop him. Since then, we’ve kept his disappearance a secret, in fear that the other clans would find out and come to defeat us and absorb us into their clan.”

  Ace looked at Magtha’s defeated appearance. He felt like he was the one to cause her to be that way, after all, he was the one who killed Mogtar. Now their clan had lost their strongest expert, and was on the verge of collapse.

  A moment later, Magtha recovered the light in her eyes and perked up, “Ahem, we seem to have gone off track. I said I can help you. Your goal is conquer the planet, right?”

  They nodded their heads, even though they still didn’t know what that meant. Magtha laughed loudly, her voice full of cheer, “Well, I have good news for you two. You don’t need to setup a territory the size of the planet, that would be too expensive.”

  “Good!” Ace spoke aloud, a big weight lifting off his shoulders. That would have taken years, perhaps decades. At his side, Vincent also let out a sigh of relief.

  Magtha continued as her face scrunched together, a bloody light flashing in her eyes, “Just set up a dungeon and continue to expand the territory underneath it. Eventually, you’ll consume the entire planet!”

  Chapter 84

  Ace rubbed his chin as he mused aloud, “Hmm, I never thought about using a dungeon. I’ve never had to go on the offensive before….”

  “Well,” Vincent turned to look at the portal, “We have to use it to get home. Who knows if another human will summon a mercenary like Mogtar.”

  Ace seemed to freeze as he imagined another invader terrorizing Earth. If he and Vincent were gone, would Dragon and Sasha be enough? He shook his head, tossing the thought away. However, it didn’t leave, but took root and settled in the back of his mind. The fear of losing his family and loved ones pushed him forward. He looked at Magtha and figured she was the best person to ask any questions that plagued him, “What’s the best way to expand a dungeon?”

 

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