Savage Ascension: Starting with God-Tier Plunder Ability-Chapter 46: Walking Golden Goblins

’Has that crazy bastard lost it?’

Rowan cursed Keireon inwardly. Since the guy had the mercenary group backing him, if Rowan picked a fight, he’d clearly lose ten out of ten times. Rowan wasn’t one to fight battles he’d lose. He could only swallow it down.

’I’ll flatten that nose someday.’

Rowan had already killed one guy who relied only on his size. He was the one who’d slit Sendabil’s throat with a dagger while the man gasped for breath. Keireon wasn’t scary. After the confrontation with Sendabil, Rowan had thought about slitting big guys’ throats too.

That confidence had brought him this far. He’d paid escort fees to follow complete strangers.

He’d paid the fees but was mobilized for battle because Rowan also wanted to get his hands on silver coins.

Bedum withdrew to the rear like a ghost. He’d follow them slowly while staying hidden. Even with distance between them, no one looked back. It meant they trusted Bedum that much. To Rowan, who kept looking back, Sen said:

"Don’t keep looking back. It tips off the enemy."

"Yes."

Answering, Rowan also split off to the side. Unlike Sen, who was essentially working alone, Rowan had reliable allies following him.

The brown wolf Dono, who’d grown much bigger from eating well, and the crow Kaiya, who watched movements from the trees, would protect Rowan.

As Yuval and Keireon had advised, Rowan focused on finding the orc.

He gauged the height of broken branches. When he found thick trees good for climbing, he examined them carefully. Kaiya looked around from above.

The wolf Dono sniffed around, sticking his nose here and there.

’Is there even one here? This is bad.’

After an hour without finding any trace, Rowan was starting to doubt the orc’s existence.

"Caw."

Kaiya approached, cawing, and pointed with his wing in one direction. Rowan moved very carefully.

’What’s there?’

It was an unusually straight tree. Strangely, there were no other trees around it, just small weeds, flowers, or bushes. He could instinctively tell it was artificial. It could’ve been mistaken for a clearing with just one lucky tree, but the absence of other trees caught Rowan’s attention.

’Can this be called an orc’s trace?’

He tilted his head. Was a well-grown tree an orc’s trace? He couldn’t tell. After searching nearby and confirming there was no orc, Rowan approached the tree, sweeping the clearing’s ground with a branch just in case there might be traps.

’No traps either. Maybe it’s not a trace.’

Just as he thought that, Dono started digging under the tree.

’There’s something!’

Rowan helped dig as well. He scraped away dirt with his scabbard. Immediately, a rotten smell wafted out. Rowan pulled Dono back and carefully examined the area beneath the tree with his scabbard. The excavated spot revealed various animal innards, their rotting smell rising from the ground.

’What’s this? Did they put it there to use as fertilizer? There’s also a bit of a medicinal herb smell.’

Gathering inedible parts and putting them under a tree? It wasn’t something that made sense. Rowan replaced the excavated dirt and plucked leaves to wipe off the rotting smell from his scabbard.

Dono cleaned the smell from his front paws with dirt.

He soon found another trace. It was a pure white bear’s spine. It was so thick it had survived intact, but the problem was it was tied with vine rope to a branch and left dangling.

’Is this a warning?’

It seemed to announce that the orc hunted bears alone too. An ordinary villager would’ve pissed themselves and run. But Rowan was a hunter who didn’t fear fire and had even caught the Mavros lyko black wolf that used darkness for hunting. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

’Pathetic.’

He wanted to see the orc’s face. It would definitely be different from novels. But before that, the promised time came, so Rowan returned.

"Why are you so late?"

Yuval said as soon as Rowan arrived.

"Wasn’t it to meet again at the entrance when the sun reached midday?"

"I meant when it arrived, not you."

There was a small misunderstanding between them.

"Did you see the orc?"

"No. All I saw was rotted innards under a tree and a bear’s spine tied up."

At his words, Keireon grinned and teased Sen.

"Oh no! The guy who was dreaming of being a ranger lost to a hunter?"

Keireon shouted the words exaggeratedly and widened his eyes. At his antics, Merein giggled.

"Don’t do that. We didn’t even bet."

"Defeat, defeat."

Keireon grinned while poking at Sen’s pride.

Yuval proceeded with business regardless.

"That’s called an orc tree and bear warning. It’s solid proof that an orc exists."

"Proof?"

"The trees orcs manage are orc trees. They have distinctly different quality from ordinary trees. They have such tremendous durability they can bend ordinary iron swords straight, so the logs fetch high prices."

Orc trees, grown using unique methods including animal innards, were powerful timber weapons far from ordinary.

"The bear marker is a warning signal aimed at humans. If they see humans nearby, they hang one at the entrance."

"Seems like they don’t hang many."

Yuval nodded at Rowan’s words.

"Even if you say you didn’t see the warning, orcs are the type to throw axes first. The bear warning is really just tradition. They do it because they’re orcs who think about tradition, though it’s a hassle—in reality, orcs actually welcome humans entering their territory."

"What do you mean by welcome?"

At Rowan’s question, Yuval answered immediately.

"Humans have more fat than you’d think so they’re good eating, and they carry good stuff so they’re perfect as loot."

At those words, Rowan frowned.

’So to orcs, humans are walking golden goblins.’

Yuval, who stated this matter-of-factly, seemed to have dealt with such orcs quite a bit.

"The sun’s still up, will we continue tracking?"

"If we’d seen him, we’d track him, but since we didn’t, we need to pull back early."

Yuval spent the day that way. Especially in the mountains, the work of finding enemies consumed far more body and mind than expected, so it couldn’t be done for long.

If they’d been certain the target orc was nearby, they could’ve pushed on, but since they hadn’t seen a hair of him, they had to call it for today.