Four days had already passed since Souei met with the Lizardman chieftain and agreed that our reinforcements would arrive in seven days.
Just as I had planned, I spent those days training nothing but Shunpo like a madman.
I put my sword practice on hold because Hakurou had other duties to handle, and I didn’t want to overburden the old man anyway—though I doubted he would have minded much.
Either way, I spent the last few days practicing Shunpo practically from sunrise to sunset.
After all that effort and leg soreness, I can finally use Shunpo effortlessly, even in the heat of battle.
Before, using it demanded my absolute concentration, and even then, its effectiveness wasn’t great.
Now it has become second nature, something I can execute instantaneously.
Although just like in Bleach, I can still significantly improve my efficiency and the distance covered with each step.
At the very least, quick activation and natural execution have been thoroughly mastered.
Another interesting thing I learned was that thanks to my Unique Skill Anomaly, sensing how my energy fluctuates—regardless of what kind of energy it is—is difficult for beings at a power level similar to mine.
However, if an individual is significantly more powerful than me, they can see through this ability without much trouble.
In truth, Shunpo is a basic technique that’s easy to figure out, and I doubt beings like Guy Crimson would ever need it.
But knowing that my custom creation wouldn’t be easily copied by others made me a bit happy—just silly thoughts of mine, I guess.
Still, this realization was quite useful, as that protective characteristic applies to all my techniques.
On another note, on the third day—meaning yesterday—I also had the sparring match with the black-haired ogre girl, just as I had wanted.
After asking her what she thought of the idea and receiving a cheerful, enthusiastic response saying she’d love to, we had our little sparring session in a secluded spot far from the village.
I have to say, I was thoroughly surprised.
It wasn’t anything crazy like her suddenly being stronger than Benimaru or anything like that; after all, she was still an unevolved ogre.
What was truly surprising was that even as an unevolved ogre, she displayed power significantly superior to what the others possessed before their evolution.
Whether it was from watching me or the wolves, or because the story of her being the leader of the ogre group when they were kids was genuinely true, she somehow knew how to use the skill Coercion as well as Aura.
I could understand her learning Battlewill after years of hand-to-hand combat training, but seriously, Coercion too?
Considering her power level, that’s a crazy combination.
Practically anyone at her level—and obviously anyone inferior—would feel the overwhelming effects of both skills activated simultaneously.
My surprise didn’t end there.
Living up to her frame of standing just over 180 cm tall, she possessed brutal physical strength.
Not to the point of being a problem for me, but I’m certain her raw strength was slightly superior even to Shuna’s, despite Shuna now being a Kijin.
As she explained to me herself, it was because she had learned the Common Skill Strengthen.
Combined with her already formidable natural strength, it made her a force to be reckoned with.
Lastly, but no less surprising, out of the two elements she knew how to use—fire and lightning—she had managed to unlock the Extra Skill lightning Manipulation.
Now, it’s natural to think this level of growth is rather abnormal—even I thought so—but Speculator clarified that it wasn’t all that shocking.
Its words were:
Speculator: “She is a combatant whose main strengths lie in physical power and endurance, having trained in Battlewill since childhood; thus, Aura and the Common Skill Strengthen make logical sense. Get faster updates on novelping.com.
In the case of lightning Manipulation and Coercion, the simplest explanation is that she possesses an affinity for lightning and a natural talent for leadership or commanding respect.”
In short, her results were the product of years of hard work combined with pretty insane innate talent.
When we finished the fight, she seemed a bit downcast over not being able to land a single hit on me.
No matter what she tried—coating her curved greatsword with fire or lightning, or using her clearly superior combat experience to trick me—none of it was enough.
Not wanting to leave her feeling down, I praised her immense progress and talent, telling her it was astonishing how much she had grown over these past few days.
Although I said it mainly to cheer her up, it wasn’t like I was lying.
Either way, keeping her power level in mind, she shouldn’t have any trouble against the Orcs, which was the main thing.
Apart from training, I also kept close tabs on events as they unfolded.
For that, I used my two shadow clones as spies to keep me updated on the exact timeline of events.
Here is what has happened so far:
Four days after the meeting with Souei, the Lizardman chieftain’s strategy was working flawlessly.
Thanks to constant rotation shifts, secret shortcuts, and a strictly defensive posture, the Lizardmen had not suffered a single casualty.
But before the remaining three days could pass, Gabiru returned to the caverns after recruiting 7,000 goblins.
After a heated argument—backed by his guards and the goblins—Gabiru demanded his father’s surrender.
He forcibly seized the Water Vortex Spear, symbol of the tribe’s leader, which recognized Gabiru as its new wielder.
Gabiru ousted the chieftain, locked up his own sister (the guard captain), and assumed absolute command over all the Lizardman tribes.
I was also able to confirm that following the coup, Laplace showed up.
He was the mastermind behind the whole thing: he freed Gabiru’s men from the dungeon, broke the seal on the Water Vortex Spear, and guided the rebel troops through secret passages to catch the chieftain off guard without raising suspicion.
Not that any of this was news to me.
I also watched as the chieftain, taking advantage of the lax guards, helped his daughter escape and ordered her to reach the surface, locate Souei’s aura, and ask for our help before it was too late.
Less than two hours ago, Gabiru launched a massive assault with 8,000 Lizardmen and 7,000 goblins into the marshlands, leaving the caverns virtually defenseless with only a token force of 1,000 guards to protect the civilian shelter.
Leveraging the natural agility of Lizardmen in mud along with swift ambushes, they initially managed to corner and slaughter the first Orc battalions on the surface.
But everything began to shift when the Orcs started devouring the corpses of their own fallen, as well as the first Lizardman killed in battle.
This was where the Orcs acquired some Lizardman traits through the skill Food Chain, quickly surrounding Gabiru’s army and driving him to regret his actions.
As a small side note, even though my clones didn’t witness it directly, I knew Gabiru’s sister was likely being confronted by an Orc General who had pursued her, but oh well.
Returning to what mattered, Laplace was observing the battle unfold through three crystal balls linked to the vision of the Orc Generals just as Treyni appeared to confront him for disturbing the order of the forest.
In the end, Laplace managed to escape with his life thanks to his Anti-Magic and Stealth abilities, albeit after losing an arm.
Truly a leader worthy of respect.
That’s what was happening on enemy turf, so to speak.
On our side, while I was busy training, several things took place.
First, Rimuru informed all the village inhabitants of his plan and assembled a small strike force of just over a hundred.
The force consisted of about 100 Goblin Riders led by Gobta, along with Benimaru, Hakurou, Souei, Ranga, Shion, and my bodyguard.
Shuna, Rigur, and Rigurd were not included, as their job was to ensure Plan B was executed flawlessly should the need arise.
Although Shuna wanted to participate, Rimuru refused in order to protect her and prevent slowing down the group.
He also reasoned that civil leadership—keeping calm among the women and children while coordinating future diplomacy with the Treants and Dryads alongside Rigurd—suited her far better than a warrior’s role.
During this time, the combatants were outfitted with clothing crafted by Shuna using Rimuru’s Sticky Steel Thread and Hellmoth cocoons.
These garments were capable of adapting to the wearer’s size.
In my case, I simply asked her for a basic black shirt and loose, baggy white pants.
Everyone received the iconic outfits seen in the anime, along with armor and gear worn underneath that wasn’t visible on the surface.
We also stopped by Kurobe’s smithy, where everyone received their respective weapons just like in the original story.
Since I already had my basic katana, I told Kurobe not to bother forging anything for me.
After all, having a slightly better sword wouldn’t do me much good since I only knew basic swings anyway.
What didn’t surprise me much was that my bodyguard requested a weapon similar to Shion’s.
It was still a greatsword, though not as massive and slightly curved.
Since she had already mentioned what kind of weapon she liked to wield, I expected something along those lines.
Once everything was confirmed to be ready, Rimuru set out at the head of the 100 Goblin Riders and the Kijin.
We brought only minimal food supplies to maximize our movement speed.
The ogre girl and I didn’t leave with them at first because I wanted to keep training and she wanted to stay by my side.
I told Rimuru not to worry, since I could meet up with them in no time.
How?
Simple: using the Shadow Motion skill I had learned.
Even though I had been training exclusively in Shunpo, the very weak spatial manipulation around me granted by Anomaly, combined with Speculator and having multiple Shadow Motion users around me, made learning it surprisingly easy—it literally took me only 45 minutes.
It’s low-tier spatial manipulation, after all.
Thanks to that, the ogre girl and I were able to catch up and reunite with Rimuru and the others right as they were about to set up camp.
Right at that moment, Souei reported on Gabiru’s sister’s situation, and Rimuru decided we would launch our attack then and there.
After rescuing the chieftain’s daughter from the orcs—whom the Kijin and my ogre bodyguard cut through like flies—Shion once again volunteered Rimuru and me without warning, promising the Lizardman princess that we would save her father and the rest of her tribe after she revealed Gabiru’s coup d’état.
After Rimuru healed the Lizardman girl and ordered Souei to secure the chieftain and the remaining Lizardmen, we all headed toward the battlefield where Gabiru was fighting for his life.