The Grimoire System

Chapter 6 [Saila Frid]

Clang!

A giant silver battle axe collided with a large rusted sword, neither of them being pushed back by the slightest.

"Hmph!" The burly man wielding the battle axe jumped backwards before he snorted in displeasure as looked at the ugly orc facing him.

"I gave you a chance but since you are so stubborn then don't blame me, Mountain Fall!" He cried out and jumped high in the air.

The blades of his giant battle axe started to shine brightly as a tremendous amount of power welled up inside them.

Booom!

He crashed down heavily with his battle axe on the orc who raised it's rusted sword to defend.

But alas the strike this time wasn't anything like before and it broke the sword into pieces and fell on the orc like a mountain, completely crushing it's body splattering it's remains all over the place and creating a deep crater on the ground.

"Damn bastard! We should be arriving there in a week! Fuck you and your calculation errors!" Raiden, who's body was now covered in orc blood, bellowed as he looked at kane.

However Kane was currently too engaged to care about Raiden's temper tantrum.

"What's happening? No matter how I look at it, my calculations based on all the maps we have collected is correct! We should have arrived at the cave three days ago!" He sat on the ground with dozens of maps opened in front of him.

"Aww~ why so tense? It's only some miscalculations, it's not like it hasn't happened before or anything right?" The girl who was dressed like a witch leaned on a tree and looked at Kane teasingly.

"Cut it out Riri! Can't you see he is trying to focus!" Saila was sitting not far away from her reprimanded in a stern but cute voice.

"Ah~ the holy maiden Saila to the rescue! How touching~ hahaha!" Riri gave Saila a meaningful look as she spoke.

Thud!

Suddenly, a shadow jumped down from a tree and approached the group, it was the bald man with the twin swords on his back.

"Mokuzen, did you find any clues?" Raiden hurriedly folded the maps and stood up.

"No... However I did find something very unusual" Mokuzen shook his head before speaking with an odd expression.

"Unusual? What did you see?" Riri immediately perked up at the mention of something unusual.

"It's easier if you see it yourselves" He gestured for the group to follow him and walked towards a certain direction.

"Gaaah! Now what is this nonsense? It better be something really unusual!" Raiden hurled the giant battle axe on his shoulder and followed along with the rest.

After walking for a couple of minutes they arrived at a riverbank and there they saw something unbelievable.

A huge and muscular orc was squatting near the riverbank with the carcass of a large herbivore beast in front of it.

It used a small sword to butcher it into smaller pieces before washing and placing them in a wooden basket.

The hideous orc's human-like behavior left Kane and the party speechless for a couple of minutes.

"That's an orc, right?" Raiden, who couldn't bear it anymore, spoke with an unsure tone.

"It displays an intellectual level of at least an orc chief, however, as we can see, it's merely an orc warrior or champion at best. It's highly likely that the orc in front of us is a mutated orc, one who gained an intelligence boost" Kane analyzed the scene playing in front of him.

As someone from a once elite adventurer family, Kane was the most knowledgeable about monsters among the group.

"It's a rarely seen mutation but it does happen, we call them intelligent orcs and most of the time they evolve into orc chieftains or other higher level classes like orc lord"

"S-So the orc in front of us might become an o-orc chieftain or even an orc l-lord?" Saila stuttered as her face darkened, her small body was slightly trembling.

"Saila... Can't you keep your know it all personality under check sometimes? Now look, you made Saila upset!" Riri glared at Kane and reprimanded with a stern voice.

"Ah! I'm an idiot! Saila, I'm so sorry, i didn't mean to bring up bad memories!" Kane smacked the back of his head and apologised to Saila.

"N-No, it's fine... It's past, sooner I later I will have to overcome it of I want to truly be a part of the team!" Saila felt even more sad as she looked at Kane apologising to her, she clenched her teeth and resolved her mind and looked at the orc.

"An orc lord... an.. orc.. lord!! Pheew!" She breathed in and out and her body finally started relaxing but her gaze became even more intense.

"I.. I will avenge them.. No matter what I have to do.. I will make sure no orc lord is able to cause the same tragedy ever again!" She exhaled a long breath and all tension finally left her body, her eyes were now burning with absolute confidence and fighting spirit.

Saila Frid was from a small hunting village which used to exist on the outskirts of of great luminous forest, it was called the luminous village.

Most of the villagers were either hunters who hunted the beasts and monsters from the forest or merchants who would take the resources obtained from the forest to nearby towns and exchange them for the necessary supplies and tools.

The village was quite safe and rarely would hunters die due their carelessness.

It was thanks to the strict discipline and training one had to go through in order to be qualified as one.

Saila's father was a herbalist, he was from a traveler and one day he had gotten lost in the forest while searching for rare ingredients.

He was attacked by a wolf and almost killed but was saved by the hunters and brought to the village.

He lived in the village as a guest for some time but soon became quite popular as a trustworthy herbalist.

The small village where the only one who could treat injuries and illness was a dying old man with superficial knowledge of medicine had always been in need of a proper doctor and so he was quickly acknowledged by the villagers and the village chief.

Living his days in the peaceful village as a respected doctor her father quickly grew fond of the village and on one fateful day fell in love with her mother, the daughter of a veteran hunter.

Things developed rapidly and they soon got married and had their first child, who they named after a local legend about a holy spirit that protected the forest, Saila.

Life was peaceful and blissful but on that ill fated day a huge orc army lead by an orc lord passed through their forrest, burning the village to the ground.

The villagers were slaughtered and stored as ration for the orc army while the women were captured and to be used as sex slaves for their lord.

Saila who was jus eight years old, along with some other kids, was saved by a travelling priest who had been staying at the village at that time.

The priest took them back to the church where they were raised and became priests and priestesses.

However among the children who were saved that say, she was the one who was traumatised the most since she was the oldest among them and the one who had seen the most.

She had literally seen her father being beheaded by a hideous orc before his body was taken back to be used as food.

Looking at Saila burning with fighting spirit Kane, Riri, Raiden and Mokuzen couldn't help but smile.

They had been together for many years and among the group Saila was the most recent one to join since she joined only two years ago while the others knew each other for almost ten years.

Although she was the weakest, both physically and mentally, she was also the most caring, trustworthy and reliable among them.

She perfectly fulfilled her role as a healer and support mage while also going out of her way to help the team in any other way she could to the point of sometimes falling ill due to over exhaustion, in this matter the group were helpless because she just wouldn't take a no for an answer.

The group had found out about her tragic past during one of their quests which involved orcs.

After the group was put under immense danger during the quest, she had blamed herself and decided to recount her past even if it was very painful of a memory for her.

Now, looking at her finally coming to terms with her past and finding a new will to strive the group felt deeply happy for her.

"Aren't you forgetting something? You are not alone anymore, we are all in this together!" Riri pinched Saila's cheeks and said with a smile.

"She is right, your problems are our problems. We are a team after all!" Kane noded.

"Alright! So when do we begin our orc extermination crusade? I feel like I can take a dozen orc champions by myself!" Raiden, who was all fired up, clenched his battle axe tightly.

"You guys...sob.. Yeah! I'm not alone anymore!" Saila almost burst out in tears as she looked at the small but close group of friends.

"The orc is moving!" At that moment Mokuzen hurriedly pointed out.

The group immediately looked back at the riverbank and found that the orc was already done with butchering and cleaning the beast.

He was now carrying two baskets full of cleaned meat and walking towards a certain direction.

"Should we follow it?" Mokuzen looked back at the group, especially Saila and asked.

"Yes!" An replied with a sin affirmative word.

"Yeah, let's see where this fella leads use, we are lost anyways!" Raiden immediately agreed.

"Pffttt, you just want to kick some orc ass!" Riri added with a laugh.

"Sigh, Raiden is right though. We are completely off track now, might as well see where the orc leads us before we return" Kane also agreed.

As the orc moved through the forest slowly, the group followed from a safe distance.

Walking for about an hour they arrived at a small clearing, surrounding a hill.

"A cave!" Raiden exclaimed as he looked at the small hill.

A large cave opening could be seen leading inside the hill.

"This... I think we found our target!" Kane looked at the cave opening with an intense gaze.