With the war brought to an end and the frost giant clan wiped out, the army of the Kingdom of Cinders swiftly cleared the messy battlefield, casually looting spoils of war while transporting the frost giants' slaves back to Northwind Keep.
Meanwhile, amid the smoke lingering over the battlefield, the players looted corpses with reckless abandon, thoroughly enjoying themselves.
"Good stuff! That frost giant eyeball is mine!"
"Can you brew a Giant Elixir with these fingers...?"
"What a huge bone club! Wonder how much broth you could boil out of this..."
"Hey, you think a giant's... could be some sort of potent tonic? We should slice a couple off to take back. Heh heh, who knows, maybe it'll come in handy in a future patch. Holy crap, this thing's heavy. Come help me carry it, my Strength isn't high enough to pick it up!"
"You're fucking disgusting! Keep that damn thing away from me!"
"Come on, don't you have an eye for value? When official launch hits, there'll be plenty of degenerates. This thing's gonna sell like hotcakes! Even just as a display piece, it's worth it!"
Like a flock of vultures refusing nothing, the players swept through the ruined battlefield, sending chills even through the ogres, who had their own tradition of cannibalism.
The ogre known as Datou sneered as he watched the indiscriminate pack of players.
"Hmph. What a bunch of barbarians."
"When we civilized ogres eat our elders, we always clean that stuff off first. They don't even bother to pick through it."
Datou casually ripped a scrap of flesh from a frost giant's arm. He glanced around, and only after confirming no one was looking did he stuff the meat into his mouth, chewing and swallowing with deep satisfaction.
"Datou, you're eating a humanoid again!"
A familiar voice rang in Datou's ear.
Terrified, he dropped the meat from his mouth to the ground and looked around in a trembling panic, but saw no sign of Trump's towering figure.
Just as he breathed a quiet sigh of relief, a magical forcefield shaped like a wooden club materialized above his head.
"Ow!"
"The boss is making less and less sense by the day."
Datou flung away the meat he had just picked back up, rubbing the lump on his head in grievance.
Inside the tent at the center of the camp, Trump felt the spell trigger and instantly broke into a gratified smile.
"Hmph. That's what happens to undisciplined bastards."
This was Trump's self-created second-level spell, Trump's Ogre Discipline. Upon detecting that an ogre under his command had violated established regulations, it alerted Trump and automatically created a magical club to knock the reckless brute senseless.
Trump was immensely proud of this. He firmly believed that sooner or later, he would cultivate the ogres into an enlightened, civilized race. When that day came, ogres would stand as the continent's symbols of wisdom and might, the most perfect beings second only to red dragons.
"Ow!"
Datou's wail sounded once more.
Trump's expression darkened, and his arms twitched slightly.
"Ow! Why again?!"
The familiar voice rang out yet again.
A thick gloom fell over Trump's face, his hideous features turning as dark as thunderclouds.
The ogre mage snatched a club off the ground, veins bulging along his arms, and stormed out of the tent in a fury.
"Datou! Do you have a death wish?!"
...
Mantou and Singo touched down, leading their wyverns as they scavenged the spoils. They gathered a few frost giant eyeballs, fingers, and similar crafting materials, but showed zero interest in the grotesquely oversized, crude weapons and armor.
Mantou complained, "I feel like we didn't even get to do anything before all these frost giants went down. We just stood here watching the faction boss's combat cutscene."
Singo asked, "So how many frost giants did you kill?"
Mantou rubbed his nose in embarrassment. "Didn't I successfully keep one tied down?"
"Scrub."
After giving his deadpan assessment, Singo continued, "The devs definitely botched the balance this time. They set the main quest difficulty way too high, leaving the players with practically no sense of participation. Only top-tier pros like me could manage to kill a frost giant or two and rack up some modest achievements."
Used to his blatant flexing, Mantou brushed it off and changed the subject: "What are we doing next? Just ten or so days of chill downtime left. My EXP is overflowing like crazy—I'm just waiting for the official launch to lift the level cap so I can blast through the levels."
Singo was about to answer when someone clapped a hand on his shoulder from behind.
"Singo!"
He turned his head to see a gleaming bald scalp—it was Tiansheng Zhankuang.
The veteran barbarian player was drenched in frost giant blood, a string of severed frost giant fingers hanging around his neck, grinning from ear to ear.
"Let me tell you, I had a blast just now! I popped Enlarge and Haste and charged straight in, leaped onto one from behind, wrapped my arms around the frost giant's neck, and slapped on a rear-naked choke—"
Getting worked up as he spoke, Tiansheng Zhankuang eagerly struck a pose.
"Snap! I choked that frost giant to death right then and there. Man, what a thrilling fight!"
"Oh, and another frost giant tried to ambush me from behind! I whipped around with a cleave..."
Listening to Tiansheng Zhankuang's excited storytelling and remembering how he himself had been pelted with boulders and chased across the sky, Mantou couldn't help breaking into a sweat of shame.
Truly, one man's joy was another man's sorrow.
"There you guys are!"
Another crisp female voice came over—it was Xiaye Qiuyu.
She hadn't scavenged any bizarre trinkets like frost giant eyeballs or fingers; instead, she had merely recorded several Everfrost runes to see if she could trigger them later.
"I got decent hauls this time. Fire really works wonders against frost giants."
Xiaye Qiuyu smelled faintly of gunpowder smoke, red scales faintly visible on her face—clear signs she had just cast spells using her dragon heritage. Word was she had joined a flame-caster player organization called the "Cult of the Five Fireballs," whose members were all fanatical Fireball enthusiasts just waiting for the official launch to blast Fireballs like mad.
Tiansheng Zhankuang rubbed his bald head sheepishly. "Qiuyu's playstyle has gotten way more violent lately. I was right in the middle of grappling a frost giant, and she blasted a fire spell right into it. Nearly torched me to a crisp alongside it."
Xiaye Qiuyu flushed slightly and defended herself, "W-well, you didn't burn to death, did you?"
The pro squad once jokingly dubbed the "Four Drudges" was gathered together once more.
Mantou was the first to make a suggestion: "Guys, since it's the tail end of the closed beta and the servers are shutting down in a few days anyway, and we're all here, how about we party up and explore the Khalkha Mountains? Maybe we can strike it lucky and snag an artifact or something."
Singo rubbed his chin, considered it for a moment, and said, "Works for me."
Tiansheng Zhankuang rubbed his polished, glossy bald head and chuckled, "Count me in."
Chapter 189