Chapter 15: The Boar and the Orc

There was a mission to track wild animals.

To complete it, Exitra would have to move around in person.

— [So, how’s Exitra planning to track wild animals??]

— [If you shorten ‘wild animal’ to two syllables, it’s… ‘wild’…]

“Alright, everyone, let’s skip the lame jokes.”

“Oooh, that carve was clean!”

— [That guy’s head is full of nonsense!!]

— [LOL]

— [He just got insta-banned!]

— [But seriously, how are you going to track wild animals?]

“Hahaha, don’t worry about that. You all know what my class is, right?”

— [Huh? What’s a Spirit Mage gonna do?]

— [Does the Spirit Mage even have a tracking skill?]

— [???]

— [No one plays Spirit Mage, so no one knows anything about it. LOL]

Because it was considered such a trash class, barely anyone picked it.

That’s why neither streamers nor viewers had any idea what a Spirit Mage was actually capable of.

Exitra smiled at their reactions and summoned a spirit.

“Gnome!”

The Gnome was a spirit of earth.

When it came to anything related to the ground, it was Gnome’s specialty.

Wild animals, after all, walked on the ground.

So they had to leave behind some kind of trace.

No way they’d be smart enough to erase their tracks.

‘Even if one was that smart, there wouldn’t be any of those around here anyway.’

With Gnome’s help, it was possible to find those traces and follow them.

‘Track specific footprints. Highlight tracks.’

Vwoooom…

A faint light began to glow from Gnome’s body.

Before long, white lights appeared on the ground.

They were the footprints of a wild animal.

“Found it. See that glowing white trail? Those are the animal’s tracks. We just have to follow them to find it.”

— [Whoa…]

— [That white thing is a footprint? What the hell??]

— [The guild president is crying LOL]

— [President, are you crying? La-la-la~ ♪]

— [That emote is so annoying LOL who made that thing?]

The viewers were stunned.

No one had expected a so-called garbage-tier class like the Spirit Mage to have such a skill.

Exitra smirked as he looked at the glowing tracks and began to follow them.

“Alright then, let’s go catch ourselves a wild animal.”

“Damn it, is he ignoring me?!”

Alfredo gritted his teeth as he searched for animal tracks.

He just couldn’t let it go.

“I’ll never forgive this. What? If I can’t catch a wild animal, I should just say so?!”

He clenched his jaw.

Never in his life had he been so thoroughly humiliated.

He had grown up being called a genius.

There was no way he’d fail to catch a simple wild animal.

“I’ll catch dozens of them and bring them back! Let’s see what you say then!”

Fueled by rage, he began searching for tracks with renewed determination.

“Got it! Found something! You’ll see, I’m gonna catch this thing no matter what!”

As he tracked the animal’s trail, he slowly made his way toward where it was hiding.

But then… something started to feel off.

‘Why do I feel like I’ve been tricked somehow…?’

The uneasy sense that he was being used just wouldn’t go away.

***

“See it over there?”

Standing in front of Exitra was a wild boar the size of a grown man.

That one boar could probably feed thirty adult men.

Catching just that one would be enough to last them several days.

— [Whoa…]

— [Squeeeeaaaal!!! LOL what the heck!!]

— [Wait, why is another streamer there? Oh wait, never mind, it really is a pig. Got confused for a sec.]

— [Isn’t that ‘Pig President’? I swear I’ve seen that streamer before LOL]

— [Spirit Mage is totally broken. I saw a streamer who had to dig through poop to find animal tracks…]

[Notification: Real cheat class. Nerf Spirit Mage, please.]

The chat exploded.

Of course it did.

No one had imagined the supposedly useless Spirit Mage could pull something like this off.

But it made sense.

Barely anyone had ever cleared the tutorial using the Spirit Mage class.

Most players gave up during the early stages, so almost no information existed about the class.

Naturally, no one knew what it could really do.

“We’ve still got time, right?”

— [Yeah~]

— [Tick tock—20 minutes!]

— [Eep!!]

— [President, are you… nervous~?]

— [He found it way too fast!]

The so-called big spender of the chat, the guild president, stayed silent.

He hadn’t expected this either.

Based on what he saw from other streamers, it should’ve taken at least two hours just to find one.

No one had expected Exitra to locate one this quickly.

“Well then…”

Exitra quietly prepared to take down the boar.

With a single command to Gnome, taking out a wild boar would be easy.

But then—

The boar raised its head.

‘Wait—what?!’

Standing in front of them was a monster… with the face of a pig.

— [OMG! It’s an orc!]

— [Why’s the Pig President there…?]

— [What do you mean Pig President?! He doesn’t look like that LOL]

“Wait, when did this become an online game? Wasn’t it supposed to be single-player?”

It was the appearance of a classic fantasy monster: the orc.

A creature with a pig’s head and a human body.

Among early-game monsters, it was one of the stronger types.

“Guess I made a mistake.”

He had followed only the tracks of wild animals and missed the nearby monster’s trail.

Since even the environment around the territory was randomly generated, no matter how well Exitra knew the game, he couldn’t know everything.

Drip… drip…

The orc was drooling.

It looked like it hadn’t eaten in days.

— [MOMOMOMO?]

— [So what’s the deal with it and Chairman Pig?]

— [LOL are they filming a romance arc right now?]

— [Wait, if an orc eats a wild boar, is that cannibalism?]

— [Aren’t orcs and wild boars completely different species?]

— [????]

— [Dude, how would I know, you degenerate weeb!]

“Well… one thing’s for sure,” Exitra said, staring at the orc.

“That thing has its eyes on me.”

[ButcherShopOwner has donated 5,000 won.]

<Take down the orc using only one elemental spirit—I’ll donate 50,000 won. Deal? Only one elemental spirit? So, like, if it’s water, then just water? Or fire and only fire?>

— [No complaints, right? No ‘fire’-ing off objections. LOL]

— [Ah, here we go again.]

— [Lame joke.]

— [Are you middle-aged? Why are you making dad jokes… though I laughed too. Does that make me a dad now?]

Taking down an orc using only one element was a tough challenge.

Spirits were the elemental mage’s hands and feet—losing all but one was like tying both hands before a fight.

“It’s hard, but… sure, deal! Only one element, right?”

[ButcherShopOwner has donated 1,000 won.]

<Yup, that’s all you need.>

“Okay then, let’s do this.”

Exitra smiled and turned his eyes toward the orc.

The wild boar froze at the sight of the orc.

Of course it did.

Imagine seeing something with a face like yours, standing on two legs, looking at you like you’re dinner.

‘Who wouldn’t be terrified?’

“Alright then,” Exitra summoned his spirits.

And just to confirm, he asked again.

“Only one element, right?”

Six brown-colored spirits formed around him.

They were six earth-elemental gnomes.

“You never said I couldn’t summon multiples of the same element.”

— [What?]

— [??? : Wait, that’s not what I meant!]

— [No way, wait a sec, this isn’t what I asked for!]

— [Oh god, is this the debut of another scam-baiting streamer?]

***

The chat went wild at the appearance of six gnomes.

With the basic summoning skill, the max number of spirits one could summon was twenty.

But no rule said they had to be of different elements.

Summoning twenty spirits of the same type was perfectly allowed.

‘Well, summoning that many doesn’t necessarily make them stronger…’

There was no synergy from using many spirits of the same element.

But it did increase the number of actions that could be performed simultaneously.

One spirit could do one task.

So with six spirits, you could perform six tasks at once.

Also, spirits had limited range for their abilities.

Summoning multiple of the same type could expand that area and create a larger-scale attack zone.

‘Not a bad approach. But… it also means more to manage.’

The more spirits you summoned, the more commands you had to issue.

And it drained spiritual power quickly.

“Phew…”

After pinpointing the orc’s position, Exitra began issuing orders to the spirits.

‘Set position.’

‘Set direction.’

‘Determine attack method.’

‘Time the strike.’

‘Set traps along its escape route.’

‘Set power level.’

He gave detailed instructions to each spirit.

How to attack, from where, and how strongly.

He even had to plan for the possibility that the orc might dodge, setting traps accordingly.

He was processing countless thoughts at once and issuing orders in a perfectly organized system.

A feat no ordinary person could ever hope to achieve.

But Exitra had a skill.

‘Multitask!’

Thanks to the Multitasking skill, Exitra could think about multiple things simultaneously if he focused.

As long as his mental strength held out, he could juggle up to twenty streams of thought at once.

‘Looks like I’ll be short on spirit power.’

The orc was tough.

To take it down in one shot, he needed to pierce its hide and strike a vital point.

That would require a massive burst of spirit power.

But his current reserves might not be enough.

‘Guess I’ll boost my stats.’

Exitra opened his status window.

***

[Name: Raiders Exitra]

[Title: Official Successor]

[Class: Spirit Mage]

[HP: 500 / 500]

[Spirit Power: 750 / 1,000]

[<Stats>]

[Strength: 5]

[Agility: 5]

[Endurance: 5]

[Wisdom: 5]

[Spirit Power: 10]

[Points: 15]

He dumped all 15 points into Spirit Power.

His max spirit power now reached around 2,500.

Though he had spent some while tracking, what remained was more than enough.

— [Dumped it all into spirit power, LOL]

— [Doesn’t matter early on. Spirit mages need tons of it anyway.]

— [You said that on purpose, didn’t you? Spirit power = stamina, right? LOL]

— [Later, you’ll need to balance the stats properly.]

The chat got a bit noisy over his point allocation, but Exitra had no time to pay attention.

He was fully focused on executing the attack.

‘Kill it in one shot. Maximum efficiency.’

After double-checking all his calculations, Exitra glared sharply at the orc.

“Phew… Attack!”

***

Boom!

A stone pillar burst from the ground, shooting straight upward.

At the same time, the orc’s agonized scream echoed through the forest.

[-GUAAAAAAARGH!!!!]