ERode

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Can we expect a post from you today, Zeroth?

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Hahahaha. Cauterizing superficial cuts is like using a flamethrower to toast your bread.

Blades of Iron Roses: An Anime-Inspired Knight RP

_{@VitaVitaAR@Conscripts@PigeonOfAstora@Raineh Daze}

A healer, but one without aptitude. Born under the full moon, and thus having one's life molded by that expectation.

Did one need aptitude? Did one need to walk upon a singular path? Flickers of memories, some recent, some old, accompanied by flashes of remembered pains. It was no magic, but Serenity had learned how to heal alongside harm, how to disinfect and sew up her wounds, how to concoct salves and set broken bones. All for herself, and not anything close to the efficacy of a true master of the arts.

Still, healing.

"You are beloved." That much was certain, judging by the nature of the Danbalions. A noble family with few military achievements, one that, when she broke, allowed her to mend. "And you'll be beautiful, in time."

For what Saint wasn't, clad thusly in the blessings of Mayon?

But with Steffen stepping in, with Lein arriving alongside a foreigner from a faraway land, with Fanilly herself relaxing her stance, it looked as if any anticipation for combat was going to be stalled. So questions, then, could be left to be answered. Her knuckles cracked, her swordhand tightening, before she let out a small sigh.

"Erich was not the source," Serenity spoke, her shield lowering just enough so that her face could be seen. "The Knight-Witch was. I presume we've all shared the experience of being swallowed alive by Volkstraad as well? Except, of course, our guest from a faraway land."

Decibitus

---

~1450 | PARIS | FASHION SHOW VENUE

---

It had been twenty minutes since they had entered the venue.

It had been eight minutes since Celeste had been led away by a squad of skeletal monkeys.

For a human being, eight minutes was more than enough time to vacate the premises, and the guests of the fashion venue had vacated even earlier than that. With Lucian hoisted over Vera’s shoulder (Reapers were strong, but a princess carry was out of the question when she needed her sword arm free) and Edward’s floating swords leading the way, the trio of corporate employees charged straight down the direction that the model had pointed…and immediately hit a fork in the road.

It was a building, after all. Corridors intersected with one another. And while they could exhaustively search through every room and corner of the multi-story venue, there were two other ways of looking about: up on the roof, or down on the ground.

From the roof, they could search the crowds from above, in hopes of spotting a pink head amidst other, non-pink heads. A strategy may have to be formed with regards to how to quickly get off the roof, of course, but falling to one’s death wasn’t much of an issue when one could turn intangible and fly.

From the ground, they could travel down the wide streets more easily, giving them an expanded search radius. Though it would be difficult to find a specific person just by looking, in exchange, they would have the ability to actually ask the civilians where Celeste was. And who knows! Maybe one of them would even have her phone number!

Not, of course, that the Reapers did.

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

"As Akeno leaped after the fleeing monster, she almost landed right on top of it. At the same time, she grabbed one of the fowl beast's antlers, and using that for leverage she put all her weight behind each strike! The first elbow to the back of its head stunned the already disoriented creature, and it crashed to the ground before they reached the tangled pile of other runts and fiery chickens. The second came down with enough force to crack the horn where she held it. The third made a deepier, meatier sound, and Akeno felt bone give way under the strike as the horn came off in her hand. The Elwet's screeches ceased, and its legs feebly kicked the air slower and slower.

The enemies were vanguished!

Loot:

• Elwet Horn (Akeno)
• Lightly Bloodied Elwet (Lazash)
• Damaged Elwet (Grunthor)
• Mostly Intact Elwet (Akeno)

SYSTEM

As the Runts lay there, some still on top of their prey and all catching their breath, the forest around them was quiet...at least for the moment."

It had been a scramble near the end, the thrashing of a dying beast leaving its mark upon her flesh, but the Elwet had been stopped at the end. All the Elwets had been stopped, then slain, leaving nothing more than dead meat.

Sixty pounds of dead meat. Luxurious, by all means, even if there was little time to celebrate it. After all, one last Elwet had escaped, leaving deep gouges in the dirt where it had scrambled away. She would have to revise what her memories told her. These were creatures that were violent, yes, but cowardly as well. Territorial, but willing to abandon both territory and kin for the personal survival. Future plans would have to adjust for that. For the time being, however?

There would have to be delegation.

"Good work," she said. Gesturing towards Lazash, she pointed first to the patch of smouldering grass and dirt that the Elwet's fireball had left upon the terrain, then towards Grunthor. "You two stay here and watch our kill. Stoke a fire. Rub some spit and dirt into your wounds." Another gesture, this time towards Akeno. The horn looked like a more reliable weapon than a sharp rock or a long stick. "You go with me. We'll pursue the one that ran for two hundred paces, running. If there's no more sighting, we return. Then, we cook and eat, as four."

A firm nod.

"It will be good, to learn how much one must eat to digest a creature."

It would be better, if they had the ingredients to make a soup, but her hands were already filled with fortune.
_{@Kazemitsu@King Cosmos@Crusader Lord}

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

The weakest orc runt.

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Their kills? Our kills.

Anyhow, how exactly does the loot drop system work? I’m guessing it’s based off of their ability to actually butcher/salvage parts off the Elwet? Like we’d be able to get more Elwet Horns if we broke them off the Elwets?

Also, considering their 20 pound mass, how difficult is it for the Runts to carry one of em around?

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Guess I’ll post after Zeroth confirms the kill or not.

Expedition to Isekai

---

//Night 0 | Location: Nameless Forest - Clearing

_{@baraquiel@AThousandCurses}

“Ehehe…” Kumi scratched the back of her head bashfully at Asahi’s comment, sneaking a glance over towards Sasuke for his own reaction. The youth took a small, delicate bite, and then, after a moment of deliberation, nodded with his approval.

Well, he nodded with approval for most of the things he ate, so it was hard to tell which ones stood out over the others, and more importantly, Kumi wasn’t so blinded by Asahi’s moves that she didn’t catch him taking the opportunity to lean in closer to Sasuke. She pursed her lips, considered all her possibilities, calculated emotional damage, and then, at the end of it, decided to go for her suicide move. She would utilize Asahi’s question as an excuse to drag him away, ensuring that this nighttime encounter was a draw!

That was, until Shun showed up out of the blue.

“Oh, uh, I’ll make another for you real quick,” the gourmet girl said by reflex, only to immediately internally scream after. “And Asahi, I just rendered some fat from the giant wolverine to grill ‘em up. You…should come over. I’ll show you how!”

And with that, Kumi shuffled back over to the fire, crouching beside Masami, who clapped her on the shoulder in a consolatory manner.

“Our group,” Sasuke spoke, brushing the last grain of rice from the corner of his mouth with his thumb, “headed further away into the woods to collect wood. There was enough deadfall, but it would have been better if we had a saw.”

A pause.

“I heard you were alone in checking over the bags, Asahi. Thanks for that.”

_@OwO

Around Kuroshio Ogata Middle School, there were two ways of telling the Ito twins apart.

The first way, the boring way, was by checking to see which one wore glasses. If they did, they were Sohei. If they didn’t, they were Kunio. Rumors, of course, were such that Sohei only wore glasses to make himself look more respectable and responsible than his freespirited younger brother, but the fact of the matter was that when Sohei was playing sports, he would take off his glasses.

The second way, the fun way, the way that works when there were no glasses involved, was to see which one of them could be surprised in any way. If they could, they were Sohei. Kunio, after all, had developed a sense for danger a long time ago, obviously rooted in some dramatic trauma. And now? Kunio’s sense of danger popped up once more, and even before Rin could rustle her way into their conversation, he said “good luck”, flashed a v-sign with his fingers, and disappeared to join the others.

Rin had certainly heard two people talking, but by the time she poked her head out, there was only one left: Sohei. And Sohei, confused and certainly not too prepared, could only look at the wooden stick that Rin had handed him and say the first thing that came into his mind.

“This is a spear, right? Why are we swinging them?”

_@Yankee

“Ah, Masato,” Mayumi turned, shifting over to give him some space to sit down. “Given up following uniform regulations?”

It was a joke, but delivered like that, the only response from the entire group was a total silence. Awkward…

“Yo, Prez,” Hiroshi said, restarting whatever the hell that was with his trademark sharktooth grin. “We were talking about that sorta stuff too. Night watch and all. Not that you’re going to stay up all night doing that, though you’re good for going first if ya want.”

“Keep the fire low if you are.” Hana glanced towards the night sky. A half-moon stood above, patchy clouds covering foreign stars. “It’ll ruin your vision.”

Mayumi spoke up as well, having coughed out whatever had possessed her in that moment. “It’d be best to move, but we can’t really, right? Considering all those that got hurt. The bus is destroyed, but we can build around it. Make a better shelter out of it.”

“One got away,” Hana replied. “Three is too small for a pack. They’ll be back here.” And even if the smell of a gasoline fire was gone, the smell of a cooking fire took its place.

“Read in the news that the incident in Mexico three years back took two weeks to resolve.” As always, Hiroshi had remembered what most others had forgotten.

A flight headed to Cancun from Los Angeles disappeared partway through. Search and rescue parties had taken a half-day to arrive at the last pinged location of the missing aircraft, within which they found a Portal, and from there, the UN established an elite strike force to retrieve the missing passengers. The operation began two days after locating the Portal. And still, despite all that, it had taken thirteen days after, for the Portal to be closed and those within it to return.

The strike force had survived with no casualties. The passengers and crew, despite the safe landing their airplane had made on the Otherside, had their numbers cut down by 338, from an original number around 500. Perhaps the larger number meant they attracted more attention from the monsters of the Otherside. Perhaps the environment there was harsher than the summer-kissed forest that the students found themselves in. Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances.

But Masato knew. If he hadn’t changed in some way when he arrived upon this Side, he would be dead. If none of them had changed in any way, they would all have been dead.

“Two weeks,” Hiroshi continued, “is too long to be staying in one spot. If nothing else, it’d be good to find a place closer to water. Still. We’d have to make stretchers too.”

“Medicine first,” was Juro’s sole contribution.

There was something about Hiroshi's expression that made it appear as if he was already dismissing the idea, even before he spoke up. “Medicine...dunno how you and Duncan did it, Prez, but water and cloth won’t cut it for what Yuudai and Yuki’ve got.” Hiroshi leaned in closer. “Don’t suppose you came across any herbs or something in the forest?”

_@Nakushita

"We share the same family name," Ayano responded, flicking Ayana on the forehead. "Of course they know. Not like I'd lie when they ask."

It really could've been worse though. On the lower end of the spectrum, Ayana could have been bald by now, while in worst case scenario, she'd be dead, having accomplished nothing. Ayano had always figured her half-sister to be on the reckless, airheaded side of things, but in this case? The short-haired girl fell into a quiet contemplation. Was it just luck? Or was there something else at play here?

Well, not like she had a way to figure that out.

"Some of the others had the same thing happen. Heard Duncan had it the worst, but made it out alright."

"Not that your clothes are in any sorta good shape, Ayana~" Ayane spoke up then, looking over the scorch marks and tears that marred the school uniform she was in. It wasn't nearing levels that would be considered risque, but the light material used for summer uniforms hadn't stood the test of a suplex inside a burning bus all that well. "Got anything you could swap out into?"

Why Were We Reincarnated as Orcs?!

Presumably it shouldn’t be too hard to 4v1 the final bird, so after that, Esfir’s likely gonna suggest they go follow the final one that got away. Probs encounter the other Runt that way, and depending on how things go, there’ll either be four runts or five runts heading for the locations that Lazash learned about.

Generally speaking, I’m good for Akeno soloing her own bird, unless King Cosmos wants another to assist.