"Bu... but... it is my FIRST combat exoskeleton armour! By law, I needed to show it off in front of my friends and family."

>

"It's not stupid! It is the rule every young bo-"

>

...

Lena worriedly glared at Romano and asked, "What happened to Oliver? WHy did he scream like that? Is he hurt? Why aren't you going there to help him? What if he is seriously injured?"

Romano tried his best to answer even a single question, but just as he would open his mouth to answer it, a new question would be shot at him. With a twitching eyebrow and the most faux smile ever, he somehow managed to utter, "I don't think the boss would be hurt so easily."

'And if someone as strong as him is in problem then we don't even need to consider small shrimps like ourselves.'

Emily softly asked Jeff, "Mr Jeff is everything okay with Oliver?"

"Yeah, the big boss is fine, just a scratch on that shiny robot of his."

Ashely gave a snort and said, "What was that dramatic scream for then? Felt like someone castrated him or something."

Jeff just gave a mirthless chuckle at the naive girl's antics and explained, "Well, when you are in a life-threating situation on a regular basis and your defensive equipment gets damaged during the start of a fight. I don't think that the scream was exaggerated. Though it was definitely... weird."

"Bu-" Ashely wanted to say something more, but she was completely cut off by a very worried and almost hysterical mother.

"Jeff! Why aren't you helping him out when he is clearly in danger? You already have the gun out, so start shooting quickly!"

Still laying down on the ground, Jeff answered in his usual tone, "Big boss ordered me to shoot only when our enemies try to approach the castle instead of fighting him."

Romano gave Jeff the look that clearly expressed the relief he was feeling for himself, and the remorse a sane human would feel for anyone in Jeff's position.

...

'I will kill every single of these motherfuckers!'

>

'...'

Oliver silently put his armour back into the inventory. Firmly gripped his machetes in his palm and dashed towards the grunt that had started it all. Before the hulking giant could even lift its giant battle axe, its throat had been completely mutilated by Oliver's left machete.

With one last glare at the dying grunt, Oliver jumped rightwards to dodge an attack from one of the raiders. He punched the snout of the wolf with all his might and completely shattered the front portion of its skull. While doing his best to stop his gag reflex at the grey material staining his palm, Oliver inserted both of his machetes deep into the crotch area of the orc riding the dead wolf.

Just for good measure he viciously twisted both of them, as much as he could, within the span of one-tenth of a second. He had already made a deep gash in another grunt by the time the raider's body touched the ground.

Although Oliver was faster and stronger than the orcs, he was still facing over two hundred of them. Obviously quite a few of them got lucky. By the time he received the third axe blow to his torso, his dear t-shirt had left his side.

'To be honest, I would have preferred if my jeans were gone. The feeling of wet pants sticking to your dick is really the nastiest. Especially, if the said wetness is due to a mixture of dark green and red blood.'

When Lena force *Cough* asked politely, Jeff to let her observe her son through the scope of his sniper rifle, she was clearly scared for her life by what she saw.

A half-naked human was swinging around two meter-long blades within a group of ferocious looking humanoid beasts. And... the human was actually winning, cutting down two, or sometimes even three of the ferocious beasts, with a swing of his blade. That wasn't what scared her most though. It was the brown bushy tail chilling at the back for her own blood-related son.

...

The carnage was quite beautiful in a way, just like how peaceful the death is.

After 3 minutes and 26 seconds, Oliver knocked out the third last orc.

'Hmm, eight orcs should be enough for the girls and Romano to gain some quality combat experience before actually entering front lines.'

He then looked over to the two weird orcs standing a bit farther away. One of them was clearly scared shitless, but he still didn't try to run away. The other one... the other one seemed like a complete muscle brain idiot.

He wasn't afraid of Oliver, his sparkling eyes seemed to be telling a completely different story. He gave a loud roar followed by some weird and gruff words. Oliver didn't bother responding to him.

He just tried to do what he had been doing until now. Kill it in the easiest and fastest way possible. The key word is tried because he failed spectacularly at it. The orc covered with weird ring decorations had somehow managed to grab his tail, in a quite firm grip.

Oliver instinctively wanted to sever his arm, but his limbs were completely paralyzed due to the intense nerve signals firing from his tail.

*Bang*

A loud boom echoed through the open skies, and a red flower bloomed in front of Oliver's eyes a second later.

A large bullet had managed to enter the right eye of the orc chief and left through the left side of his skull. It had also managed to take away a large chunk of brain matter and skull bones with itself.

Oliver gave a deep sigh of relief, trying to etch the feeling of intense fear of being completely paralyzed in the hands of your enemy deep in his brain.

'I can't let my overconfidence get the best of me ever again! I will also have to try and learn fighting while my tail is being gripped by someone.'

*Sigh* 'I will deal with that later. First, I should bring my captives to the castle.'

When Oliver knocked out the last, scared looking, orc he finally heard the sweet sound he was waiting for.

*Ding*

[Branch Mission 1 has been completed successfully. Please wait till the end of the main mission for the rewards to be completely calculated.]