"Boom!!"
With a single slash, Shion cut through the earthy yellow hungry dragons emitted by the Orc Lord, and she and Souka retreated again and again.
There was no helping it. The nature of those things was far too peculiar, possessing the terrifying ability to devour the magicules of others.
If they made contact, even the two of them would be at a disadvantage.
"Damn it!"
Frustrating. Absolutely frustrating.
In terms of raw combat power, Shion and Souka weren't afraid of the Orc Lord, who merely had a surplus of magicules.
But his regeneration was just too broken.
Even if they cut off his head, he could recover instantly.
If they couldn't finish it in one blow, then what awaited them was an endless, exhausting battle.
Worse still, the Orc Lord could continue devouring the remaining Orc Tribe members during this time, raising his magicule ceiling even further.
"Shion and Souka are struggling, huh."
Rimuru looked toward Rin. "You gonna step in?"
"Almost."
Rin wasn't worried about their safety.
Shion and Souka hadn't even brought out their full power yet.
The former had her Oni-God Transformation, the latter her Dragon King Transformation.
Only when they unleashed their complete forms would their true strength emerge.
They still might not be able to kill the Orc Lord outright, but defeating and sealing him was certainly possible.
"Hey, hey, Rin-senpai, are you serious?"
Rimuru's expression twitched slightly. "If you get involved, won't this whole canyon get leveled?"
"You..."
Rin rubbed his forehead in exasperation. "Do I seem like that kind of reckless person to you?"
"Uh..."
Rimuru couldn't forget that image of Rin holding a universe in his palm, ready to crush it like a toy at any time.
Compared to that power, the fight between the Orc Lord and the two women was child's play.
"A mere Orc Lord."
Rin said, "Someone like him doesn't need me to step in."
"Eh?"
With a crisp verbal tic, Rin's little darling, a green kimono-clad girl with starry eyes, appeared behind Shion and Souka.
"This is..."
"Lady Ogerpon?!"
At the sight of her, Shion instantly ignored the Orc Lord and ran over with a smile. "Big sister's finally making a move?"
"Mm."
Ogerpon nodded. "Because I received Rin's command."
"Master's command?"
Souka overheard and immediately appeared beside her. "Pardon me, are you also one of Rin-sama's Dependent?"
Indeed. A Dependent.
Unlike those who merely received a name, Souka had officially been granted the position of dependent by Rin.
That alone showed Rin's expectations for the girl's future.
He hadn't planned to turn her into a ninja like Souei, as in the original storyline.
For a girl capable of inheriting his Dragon King factor, Rin intended to grant far greater treatment.
"Hello."
Ogerpon greeted Souka, then, under the latter's stunned gaze, calmly walked forward.
For a moment, Ogerpon and the Orc Lord stood facing each other.
One small, one towering.
A striking contrast.
"This..."
Rimuru frowned. "Are you sure about this?"
"Don't worry. Ogerpon is very strong."
"Even if you say that..."
In Rimuru's eyes, Ogerpon was still just a middle school-aged girl.
Sending her against the Orc Lord, who stood over five meters tall, was genuinely concerning.
"Hmm?"
Across from her, Gelmud also felt deeply insulted. "You're sending that girl to die?"
"Huh?"
Being underestimated made Ogerpon mad too.
The girl summoned her Ivy Cudgel, and a brilliant green light radiated from her hand, bathing the wetland in its glow and restoring vitality to the damaged terrain.
"Such powerful life force..."
It was Souka's first time seeing Ogerpon, so she didn't know how strong the girl truly was.
But Shion was already a hardcore fan.
"Go, Ogerpon-sama!"
"Beat him up!"
"Ogerpon-sama is mighty!"
"We're so lucky to see Ogerpon-sama in action!"
"Ogerpon-sama is so cute..."
"..."
It was clearly a serious battlefield, yet the mood was more like a fan event. The tension was nowhere to be found.
"Enough!!!"
The Onis' flippant attitude pushed Gelmud into a fury.
His gaze toward Ogerpon brimmed with killing intent.
"Trash like you should grovel beneath me!"
"I! Am a Demon Lord!!!"
"A True Demon Lord who has surpassed Clayman! Who surpasses all monsters!!!"
Gelmud bellowed, releasing a massive amount of accumulated magicules and condensing a thick brown domain around him.
The next moment, absorbing the blood and flesh of the Orc Tribe and Lizardmen scattered across the ground, he summoned a ferocious reddish-brown hungry dragon that shot toward the sky!
"All of you Onis, die!!"
"I, Gelmud, will rise atop your corpses and ascend to the throne of Demon Lord!"
"I will become the strongest Demon Lord in this world!!!"
The roaring Gelmud rode the gluttonous dragon, charging toward Ogerpon and the other Onis.
But none of the Onis even tried to move.
Only Souka quietly gathered power behind the scenes, preparing to intercept Gelmud's most powerful strike.
"This guy sure talks a lot."
Ogerpon tightened her grip on her Ivy Cudgel, and without using any magic or technique, she simply swung forward.
A strike that couldn't have been simpler.
No dramatic special effects.
No overwhelming aura.
But as that Ivy Cudgel came down, the enormous hungry dragon spanning hundreds of meters, and the massive Orc Lord Gelmud, were torn to shreds by that one strike from a slender hand.
"Thud!"
The Ivy Cudgel landed.
Immediately afterward, ripples spread from Ogerpon's feet across the wetland.
"Boom~"
An invisible force swept across the land, ignoring the Orc Tribe and Lizardmen as it blasted straight toward the cliff ahead.
"Plop~"
In the next moment, as the Orc Lord's shattered body crashed to the ground, the mist covering the entire wetland dissipated.
And then, a shocking sight met Souka's eyes.
The towering cliff that once stood to the west of the wetland had vanished.
In its place was a flat passage, thousands of meters wide.
(To be continued.)