Max’s ring shone as he took three arrows in his hand. At the same time, his oppoook a round shield and began charging at him, a red essence bursting out from its body.

  ‘Aura too?!’ Max was dismayed. ‘Ngh, to think I let a powerful high et this close to me!’

  Inwardly kig himself for being iive, Max shot an arrow as his thoughts kicked into gear. The orc, tilting its shield up, easily deflected the headshot attempt.

  ‘This is actually pretty bad.’

  After missing his shot on the demon before, Max lost the boost from [Successive Speed], so his arrows had returo normal velocity. Now, he only had his own abilities to fall ba.

  “You! The blood-haired archer! You killed my brother!! Prepare to die!!”

  Max loosed two more arrows, targeting the orc’s outer extremities, but with swift and precise shield movements, it mao deflect both. As the gap between them closed, it realised there would no longer be time for this sort of reactive blog and smartly tucked its face behind the shield.

  “Blood-haired? My hair is pink!” Max raised his aim.

  Shik!

  Right ohe orc lowered its shield to peek at Max and took an arrow directly to the eye.

  “GUAAAH!!!” The orc clutched its fad screamed in pain. Reag Max’s location, it swung out blindly with the shield.

  Rolling uhe attack, Max traded pces with the oro longer ered by the broken wall, he wasted no time bolting the other dire along the battlements, not missing an opportunity to shoot at the orc’s exposed nape as he ran.

  Tk!

  ‘W-what?’ To Max’s shock, the arrow only peed a thumb’s width deep. ‘Oh, no, no, no, the aura is enduraype?!’

  As if the super-tough skin of a high orc wasn’t enough of a challeo get through, this guy was also a BOSS monster with an aura ability increasing physical damage resista really was too much.

  The high orc spun around and Max saw that it was actually foaming at the mouth in rage.

  “You... YOU SLIMY BASTAARD!! I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON YOUR OWN DISHONOUR!!!”

  “Well that’s a new one.”

  Max took double arrows and tried a multi-shot, aimed at its head a simultaneously.

  Thck!

  The orc blocked the headshot but had a toe shot ly off.

  ‘As expected, it’s not smart enough to blod dodge at the same time.’

  “GRAGGHHHH!!!”

  Although Max had accumuted some damage, the situation was still dire. The orc came back to its senses and charged at him with renewed fury. Firing off more shots, Max tried tipping over a lit brazier to spread fire between them, but, as the fire had no time to build, the orc simply ran through it unfazed.

  ‘Guh, these shots are barely pierg at all... If it weren’t for that damn assassin earlier; I was less than a minute away from buying armour-pierg arrows.’ Max mentally pined between shots.

  An arrow ripped through the orc’s ankle, making it stumble. “I will rip your eyes out and shove them down your throat, and then cut your stomach open ahem to you again.”

  “Well that’s just unnecessary.”

  Despite his pyful words and sangfroid expression, Max’s mind inning in overdrive.

  ‘Gaining on me… Seven, no, six seds. I don’t think I finish it off in time; not when it has such a strong aura ability. Then, what if I…’

  After the stunt Max had just pulled, the oritted to proteg its fad was extremely relut to peek out from behind its shield. Noting this, Max quietly switched dire, instead running toward the orc.

  “It’s absolutely necessary for scum like y– Uh?” The orc peered out from behind its shield to fiy battlements. Before it could realise why, Max manoeuvred around its destroyed eye and delivered a heavy kick to the ribs, sending it reeling into the palisade.

  “Argh! YOU F*G SWINE!!” Losing its shield, the orc tumbled over the side, barely managing to grab hold of a stake to avoid falling.

  Max appeared over the stake and fired an arrow into its remaining eye. “Die already!”

  SHIK.

  Aura dissipating, the orc limply let go and dropped to the ground, but not before throwing a parting gift with its spare arm.

  Dink.

  A loick of dynamite arced over the palisade and nded directly into a fire brazier.

  “NO!” Max lu the brazier and threw it over the side, but the fuse had already been lit.

  BOOOMMMM!!!!

  With a deafening crack, the dynamite detonated on the side of the wall. Max’s feet were violently ripped from the battlements as a shockwave smmed him skyward.

  Fwack!

  Narrowly managing to shield his fa time, Max was buffeted by splintered wood, with the rgest piece striking him in the chest and sending him spinning. His ears rang as debris zipped past, the battlefield blurrih him. Expeg a painful crash to the ground, he braced for impact but instead found himself nding on top of a thatched roof. Unfortunately, the roof was steeply ined and quickly betrayed him. Using a rge portion of his impaergy, Max was sent rolling down the roof and smashing against the side of an adjat building, apanied by an uhy-sounding bodily crack.

  “...Ow.”

  “Wait, I’m alive?”

  Max’s s pulsed red, indig he was close to death. Attempting bring up his status, he realised his arm was broken, so he used the other arm to do it.

  [Abnormal Status: Minor internal bleeding (chest), major hearing loss, tinnitus]

  [dition: Fractured ribs (7, 8, 9, 10), bruising (chest, left shoulder, left arm, left leg), broken arm (left), dislocated shoulder (left), muscle damage (left leg), tremors (left leg)]

  “Hm, no wonder I’m in excruciating pain.” Max sat up aed how well his limbs could move. “Should I turn the paiing down? ...No, I deserve this. I didn’t even bring a health potion, after all.”

  Looking around, he had a surprisingly good view of the battlefield from here, positioned slightly uphill from most of the fighting. Unfortunately, it seemed like he’d nded behind enemy lines; it was uhat he would be able to reach a healer from here before bleeding out.

  Max observed the wall in the distance, where a new hole had appeared he top.

  “Wow, I flew really far.”

  Searg for possible survival options, his gaze drifted onto white and violet colours.

  “Eh, they’re still fighting?”

  Max was amazed. In most cases, swhts were anticlimactic events whily sted a few seds, but Virtus had been fighting this demon for well over a mihis indicated that both batants were highly skilled. Although small injuries could be seen on both of them, it seemed like Virtus was winning.

  “I wonder...”

  Max took out his bow, which he’d stowed away in his iory amidst the explosion. Thankfully, it seemed undamaged.

  Before he was ambushed by the high orc, he developed a theory about this demon which he really wao test out – preferably before bleeding to death. With a majestic fsh of his ring, an arroeared in his broken hand.

  “...”

  After moving the ring to his other hand, Max took the arrow and . Then, taking the bog it under his shoe, he pushed away with his foot to draw the b.

  “Hahaha, I haven’t dohis in a while.”

  Adjusting his footing slightly, Max grinned as he observed the demon in the distance. “Alright, now to test my theory...”

  Aiming the bow with his foot, he poioward the demon in the distance. Almost immediately, the demon turned and ied him.

  “Oh yeah, that’s a bingo; perception-type aura for sure.”

  Max’s eyes twinkled. Although there were a few different types of aura in HoL, none of them were perceptioed, which meant only ohing...

  ‘New tent!’

  “Given how it sensed Lemonade approag earlier, it probably has proximity dete, too.”

  An enemy like this would be fearsome in group bat, being able to seacks in all dires. If Virtus wasn’t here, the army losses would be unimagihe thing was a force of nature.

  “Hm? It keeps looking over here though... am I that scary?”

  Even while fighting Virtus, the demon’s eyes flicked to Max every other sed, as if he articurly wary of the moribund cripple.

  “Ehh? Oh!” Max realised what was going on. “He thinks I still have the missile arrows!”

  The demon believed a supersoniearly impossible-to-dodge arrow would e flying at him at any moment and was pletely on-edge as a result. Of course, no such arrow would e since he’d lost the bonus... but the demon had no way of knowing that.

  “Kekeke, oh noo~ better pay attention, I could shoot at any moment!” Max dangled his foot around in loops, maniputing his aim to zone in and out of the demon’s threat dete.

  Just as the Demon turo gre at him with an angry expression, its eyes widened in arm. Dodging a fra of a sed too te, it let out a pained roar as a violet ha s into the air.

  “Woah... that worked?!”

  In Max’s mind, he was just uselessly trolling. He didn’t expect the demon to actually lose focus from something so stupid. This felt like he’d just bullied a kid with ADHD or something.

  Virtus closed in on the offensive, applying pressure to the maimed demon. After losing its posure, the demon began to devolve into panic, retreating a step with every exge and using its long arm length to maintain distahis only sted a few seds before Virtus shifted his swrip, ing his gau around the midse of his bde in a half-sw stance. Moving aggressively, he lunged forward and shoved the demon’s sword aside, not giving the demon any time to react as he closed the gap and hammered his boot into its chestpte.

  Bang!

  The demon was sent hurtling some distahe impaetal-oal robably really loud. This was what Max believed. In actuality, he had no idea, because he was pletely deaf after that explosion from before.

  The demon fell over backward and desperately crawled away from Virtus, roached irides. It seemed like this demon had never experienced fear before.

  ‘...Hm?’

  Max noticed a flying creature rag toward the two. ‘Imp!’

  Not b to ask questions, Max shifted his aim and released an arrow. Although rare, imps were one of the most hated enemies in HoL; they were capable of fast air manoeuvres which emboldehem to scout, harass, and attaemies as they pleased, whilst flying around the battlefield ag as though they were invincible.

  Of course, it was this exact arrogahat made them Max’s favourite species to fight. Also, because they flew away quite fast, shooting them on sight had bee almost a knee-jerk rea for him.

  Woosh!

  The arrow sailed past the imp, barely missing its wing.

  “What? I missed again?!”

  Max was aghast. He’d practiced this type of shot thousands of times – using one arm and oo aim. He should be able to easily hit a shot at thirty metres, even with shoes on like he had now.

  ‘Knee jerk... no, my knees actually jerked iion?’

  Putting his thoughts aside temporarily, he hastily prepared another arrow. The imp was already retreating in fear, abandoning its ally.

  “Noo, get back here!”

  Max loosed the shot, but this one was even more inaccurate, pathing off-course by several metres.

  “Nooooo!”

  Immensely disappointed, Max brought back his system panel:

  [Abnormal Status: Minor internal bleeding (chest), major hearing loss, tinnitus, hemic shock]

  “Haemic shock? What kind of dumb status effect is that? As if all the other injuries weren’t enough, now I have haemorrhoids which give me internal bodily earthquake?” Max grumbled. “Seriously, could you not have waited five more seds before doing that?”

  Greatly disappointed, Max could only take sotion in watg Virtus successfully decapitate the demon, finishing it off. After doing so, Virtus’s eyes searched the area before log onto Max.

  Seeing the poor state he was in, Virtus came running over and called out to him, “◇?????????”

  “Sorry, I’m currently deaf in both ears.” Max smiled wryly.

  “◇h.” Virtus nodded in uanding. Taking off his gau, he tapped a cealed ring to summon a red potion into his hand, tossing it over to Max.

  ‘Oh? He was also a walking dispensary!’ Max gratefully accepted and dowhe potion. “Ah, thank you, you saved me.”

  “Of course. But how did you get over here, weren’t you up on the wall?” Virtus questioned him.

  “My hearing came back quick... Yes, I was on the wall, but I was blown away by the enemy, so I ended up here.”

  Virtus narrowed his eyes. “Blown away? Then, you were busy admiring the enemy rather than fighting?”

  “…?” Max felt fused by Virtus’s sudden ge in demeanor. “Oh, blown– no, I mean I was actually blown away, like, by an explosion.”

  Virtus showed visible fusion.

  “That’s why I was deaf; I nded up there.” Max poio a sunken area of thatch rooftop.

  “Oh... Well, regardless... Erm, now that you’ve recovered, assist me with clearing out the rest of the orcs.”

  “Yes sir!”