Late afternoon sun filtered through the dense leaves of the bush where we lay hidden. Below us, in a cleared-out section of the hills, was the Orc camp. It was a crude, brutal affair. Orcs with dull green skin and heavy, pig-like features were hammering sharpened logs into the ground to form a makeshift wall, their grunts and shouts echoing up to our hiding spot.
Kerina observed the scene with the still, focused intensity of a hawk, her eyes scanning every detail.
"I count fourteen. That's a full war band. And see the big one, with the tusked helm and the tattered banner on his back? That's their chieftain."
I watched them too, but my eyes weren't on their strength; they were on their strategy. "Their camp is disorganized. Their watch posts only cover the main trail. They're arrogant. They're not expecting an attack from the sides or from behind."
Kerina glanced at me, a flicker of surprise in her eyes at my tactical assessment. "Perhaps," she breathed. "But they are still fourteen Orcs, led by a chieftain."
I looked at the fourteen brutish Orcs below, then glanced at Kerina. She was assessing the threat with the eyes of a warrior. I, however, was assessing it as a resource management problem.
"Fourteen is a difficult number for two people," I whispered, continuing the gimmick of my power. "But numbers are what I do best. I can create more duplicates than that. I can overwhelm them, again and again."
A slow, challenging smile spread across Kerina's face. She shifted her position in the bush, settling in as if preparing to watch a show. "Is that so? An army of you against a war band of Orcs."
She gestured with her chin towards the camp below. "Alright then, strategist. Prove it. Go ahead. I'll be watching."
I met her challenging gaze with a confident smile of my own.
I drew the small, simple dagger Erik had given me. It wasn't much, but it was real. I took a deep breath, my mind reaching out, painting a picture of the scene below.
From her vantage point, Kerina's skeptical smirk slowly faded, replaced by an expression of pure astonishment. In the shadows at the base of the hill, a figure that looked exactly like me flickered into existence. Then another appeared beside a large boulder. Then two more materialized in the dark woods on the far side of the Orc camp. One by one, they appeared, silent and still, until at least twenty identical copies of me were positioned in a loose, menacing ring around the entire clearing.
It was an illusion of overwhelming force.
With the stage set, I gave the command. One of my duplicates gripped its dagger and stepped out from the shadows into the edge of the firelight, directly in view of the Orcs' crude watch post.
The Orcs at the watch post spotted my lone, tangible duplicate. With a guttural roar, two of them grabbed their crude axes and charged, expecting an easy kill. This was the opening I needed.
As they focused on the decoy in front of them, I made my move. The tangible illusion flickered, vanishing from its spot and reappearing in an instant, moving with the impossible speed of my superhuman passive. It was now directly behind a third Orc who was still watching from the campfire.
Before the Orc could even sense the danger, my illusion's dagger drew a clean, silent line across the back of its thick neck. The Orc dropped to the ground without a sound.
The two charging Orcs stopped, confused, seeing their comrade fall. As they turned, my tangible duplicate flickered again, appearing behind one of them. Another silent slice, and a second Orc fell.
Chaos erupted in the camp. The remaining Orcs and a few goblins who were cowering by the fire began shouting in alarm, spinning around, trying to find the attacker. As they panicked, the other, illusions I had placed in the trees began to step forward menacingly from the shadows.
From her hiding spot, Kerina watched, her eyes wide with disbelief. She wasn't seeing a trick. She was seeing what looked like an army of silent assassins striking with perfect, brutal efficiency.
The Orc chieftain let out a deafening roar that cut through the chaos, and the remaining warriors instantly rallied, forming a tight, defensive circle. They raised their crude shields and heavy axes, their brutish faces snarling at the silent figures of Hayato that were slowly emerging from the surrounding woods.
One of the tangible duplicates charged forward, dagger in hand, a blur of motion. It ducked under a wild axe swing from one Orc, but another warrior immediately brought a massive club down from the side.
CRUNCH!
The duplicate flickered violently and dissolved into nothingness. The Orcs bellowed in triumph.
Almost instantly, another Hayato appeared from behind a tree and sprinted towards their circle. This time, they were ready. Three Orcs broke formation to meet the charge. The duplicate was impossibly fast, weaving between them, its dagger leaving a shallow cut on one's arm.
But it was overwhelmed. An axe caught it in the back, and a club smashed it from the front. It, too, vanished.
Again and again, a new duplicate would appear, relentlessly pressing the attack. One was taken down by a thrown spear. Another managed to stab an Orc in the leg before being cornered and brutally smashed by three warriors at once.
The Orcs were strong and fought with a savage, desperate ferocity. They were winning each engagement, but the cost was mounting. They were tiring, and their numbers were slowly dwindling.
The chieftain roared an order, and the remaining Orcs tightened their circle around him. This time, the final duplicate didn't charge from the woods. It appeared directly in the center of their circle, right in front of the chieftain.
The chieftain swung his massive axe in a devastating arc. The duplicate ducked, the blade shearing through the air where its head had been. It lunged forward, plunging its small dagger deep into a gap in the chieftain's armor at his knee.
"GRAAAH!" the chieftain bellowed in pure agony.
With a backhand swing of his gauntlet, he smashed the duplicate, shattering the illusion instantly. He stood there, panting, a deep, bleeding wound in his leg, surrounded by his exhausted warriors.
As the chieftain roared in agony, clutching his bleeding knee, and before the other Orcs could even process what had happened, a new Hayato duplicate flickered into existence.
The other Orcs bellowed and raised their weapons, but the new duplicate ignored them completely. Its sole focus was the chieftain. It saw the blood pouring from the wound, and it attacked.
The duplicate lunged, its dagger a blur, aimed directly at the chieftain's bleeding leg. The chieftain tried to bring his axe around, but the injury had made him slow and clumsy. The dagger plunged deep into his thigh. He roared in pain and fell to one knee.
At the same time, two other Orcs brought their clubs down on the duplicate's back, smashing it into nothingness. But the damage was done.
Their leader was down. The remaining warriors looked at their fallen chieftain, then at the silent, menacing army of Hayatos that still surrounded them in the woods. A wave of primal fear finally broke their fighting spirit. With guttural shrieks of terror, the remaining Orcs dropped their weapons and fled in a disorganized, panicked rout, disappearing into the forest.
Silence fell over the camp, broken only by the pained groans of the incapacitated Orc chieftain.
With the last of the Orcs gone, the silent, illusory duplicates surrounding the camp faded into nothing, leaving the clearing eerily quiet. Kerina, still hidden in the bush, let out a long, low whistle of pure admiration.
"Not bad at all," she murmured to herself, thinking she was alone. "That was... impressive."
"Thanks," a calm voice said from right beside her. "Though, technically, I didn't do any of the actual work. The duplicate handled it."
Kerina didn't startle, but her entire body went rigid. She turned her head slowly, her eyes wide with disbelief. I was sitting there calmly beside her, not even a single leaf disturbed, as if I had been there the entire time.
She stared, her mind clearly struggling to reconcile the fact that she, a Rank-A adventurer, had failed to notice a person sitting two feet away from her.
"Since when," she whispered, her voice tight with shock, "have you been here?"
I met her shocked gaze with a calm one of my own. "The whole time, i never left this spot."
Kerina's eyes narrowed, her confusion hardening into insistence. "Don't be ridiculous. That's impossible, i was right here. I was watching. I clearly saw you get up, draw your dagger, and walk down the hill to start the attack."
"No," I corrected, my voice gentle but firm. "You saw what I wanted you to see. The 'me' that stood up and left this bush... he was just the first duplicate. I created him from here."
To Be Continued.