Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

'Rustle!'

"Man, they really need to do something about their village layout. Do they not have a town planner or something?" I groaned as I shoved my way through a huge bush that was standing randomly in the middle of a road. Why did no one move this thing?

"Well, I don't think orcs really care about layouts and stuff," Luke answered while he walked beside me, "especially not in this area. I don't see many houses around here, probably the majority of them don't even live here."

I sighed and nodded in agreement. After all, most of the buildings here looked like workshops or factories. No, not modern factories like in Korea. Based on their signs, they only made simple products like bricks, clays, leather, and some handcrafted stuff like tablewares or cloth.

How did I know? Well, even though those orcs couldn't write, but they displayed large, wonky drawings of the products they offered. I almost mistook the symbol for a bowl and a plate for a bra. I mean, if you put a drawing of a round bowl next to a round plate, they kinda looked like... You know...

Anyway! As the sun began to rise higher, we strolled towards their 'hideout' that was actually disguised as a blacksmith. Perfect to store and hide weapons, not a bad choice. Moreover, this area was conveniently located pretty far from the village's center, and more towards the less crowded industrial areas.

The storefront looked simple and reputable, with handwritten--no, hand-drawn wooden store sign. I also saw a little yellow bell above the door to alert the owner whenever someone was coming. Through the hole on the wall that I presumed was meant to be a window, I could see a few orcs already working despite it being so early in the morning. All in all, not suspicious at all.

But alas, our aim wasn't the front door, but rather, the back.

Supposedly, their hideout was located underneath this blacksmithing workshop, and it was accessible either through the head blacksmith via a secret password, or through the secret door behind the cabinet just to the right of the backdoor.

"It should be this cabinet, right?" General Zhang asked as he observed a worn-down wooden cabinet that was used to store supplies like ropes, tapes, mechanic tools, and other miscellaneous items, including a few suspicious-looking liquids.

"Yeah." General Emilio answered.

"Wait, before we enter, let's loot the heck out of this cabinet. They got some good stuff." I said as I quickly stepped forward and opened my backpack. It would be a waste to pass up this opportunity. Other than confirming our kills, another crucial thing to always remember was to loot everything useful. Emphasis on 'useful', wouldn't be good to bring dead weight.

Hmm, tapes and ropes would definitely be useful. What else... A chain? Sure. What about these liquids?

As soon as I reached out for one of the bottles, Luke grabbed my hands.

"Don't touch anything. It may be corrosive or poisoned." He frowned as he took the bottle himself, before twisting the cap and sniffed the liquid inside it.

"Gah, that's true... I was careless," I scratched my cheek in embarrassment, "but the same goes for you."

"Nah, I'm not a human, I literally exude acid from my crystals as a serpent. You really think this will kill me?" He said as he poured some of the liquid into his palm, "this is just motor oil."

"Oh, give me that. Might be useful." I grabbed it from his hands and pretended to shove it inside my bag, when actually, I opened my inventory and put it inside. Didn't want the oil to accidentally spill on other things, so better be safe.

"Are you done?" General Emilio asked.

"Ah, yes. Now go ahead and wreck it or something." I nodded happily and stepped backwards as I saw general Zhang walking closer to the cabinet.

"Open sesame!" General Zhang giggled as he pushed the old cabinet aside, revealing an iron door behind it.

"Huh, an iron door. Pretty good considering most of the houses here use wood or something, I guess." I nodded in approval.

"Let's go inside then, excuse us~" General Zhang hummed while he raised his leg.

'BAM!'

The loud noise reverberated through the air right when his heels connected with the iron door's hinges. It was a great idea to break the door's hinges instead of just blindly hitting the door, but unfortunately, it didn't work quite as well as I thought it would be.

"Hm? It didn't open." He tilted his head.

"Well, you didn't even try. Stop playing around," I sighed, "and do it fast, that sound will 100% attract attention. We'll get spotted in no time."

"I'll stand guard." General Emilio chimed in and brandished his spear while he turned around with his back facing us, ready to take any enemies that might pop out.

"Hmm? I think this door is fortified with mana." General Zhang said as he leaned closer towards the door, inspecting it.

"Oh? Let me also check." I raised an eyebrow and focused my sight on the door. As soon as I did it, I faintly saw a glowing yellow aura around it. So, an earth element user? Just like general Owen...

"Anyway, this time I'll throw the door flying in just one kick," he chuckled excitedly, "little cub, let's make a bet. Do you think I can send this door flying for at least 100 meters? 200 meters?"

"But this door leads to the underground, and they have a store behind this wall." I frowned.

"I can send this door through multiple walls." He grinned mischievously.

"Hmm, I think I can also do that." I pouted and puffed my cheeks. I was also strong, you know...

"Alright, now observe~" He raised his arms this time, and I felt a strong magic power gathering around him.

"Be careful not to get us caught up in your freaky antic." I sighed and stepped back a little. How much power was this eel really keeping from us?

"Alright, kaaaameeeee--"

...Wait, that was also a thing here!? How the heck!? Did someone bring cartoons from my era to this era? But??

"--haaaaameeeeee..."

"Who's there?"

A foreign voice came from behind the door, alerting us all. It was undoubtedly a feminine voice, and although it was slightly muffled through the door, I could still hear a little squeak in her voice.

"...Was that our language? Huh? There's someone else inside? An elf maybe?" I whispered at both generals and Luke, who looked just as confused as I was.

"Is it either Jeanne or that girl?" General Emilio frowned.

"No. I'm 100% sure." I replied shortly. Well, I had a solid reason to believe why.

"Hmm, 100%? That's very confident of you, little cub~" General Zhang giggled and winked at me.

"... Trust me, I can guarantee that much." I sighed. Although the woman's voice was hard to differentiate from Jeanne's since it was pretty muffled, but I wouldn't say I was 100% sure if I didn't have proof.

While we were walking here, I was constantly checking on my mentalist skill every minute. The moment Jeanne's name and Firiell's name popped up, I instantly knew that they were within a 1 km range from us.

And of course, I shot a message--well, a few messages to both Jeanne and Firiell. It cost me a lot of mana to do so, which was why I hated using that skill, but it was worth it. Well, I couldn't complain much since it was a low-grade skill, anyway.

The content of my messages was basically 'hello we r coming, pls stay away from the backdoor, thenk', and then 2 more repeats of the same message, and then 'pls notice me' for like, 3 messages, followed by 'i hope u guys got these messages', and finally, another repeat of the first message.

...Well, I mean... This skill didn't have a 'read' feature, you know? I couldn't have known if they got my messages or not, so better just spam them to be sure, right? Like, what if they were sleeping when I sent the messages, or bathing, or just doing something else that might distract them? At least I didn't spam them with ads. Wait, I could make money out of this skill using ads.

"Then, is it an enemy? Ooh fun~" General Zhang clapped his hands in delight, bringing my focus back to this mysterious woman behind the door, instead of thinking about 30 seconds ads.

"Well..." I pondered, "perhaps."

I still wasn't sure about that, since if she was another human, then why didn't her name appear on my list? But on the other hand, if she was an elf, then why would she be in the orc's hideout? Their loyalty to their kin was hella strong, man. Ah well, it didn't really matter what she was, either way, she wasn't exactly friendly to us.

"Answer me. Or I'll have to treat you as intruders." The stern voice behind the door said to us. Was it just me, or did they sound a little bit shaky?

"Hey, hurry up." General Emilio alerted us, right after we heard some orc growls getting louder and louder.

"We're not intruders!" I shouted, trying to maybe persuade her. She sounded a bit terrified, so might as well shot my shot, right?

"Then why did you kick our door?" She shouted back, this time more aggressive than before. Oh well, time to do this the hard way, then.

"We were knocking, respectfully!" Well, knocking with a foot, but still knocking, regardless, "anyway, we're coming in! Pizza delivery!" I shouted.

"Pizza delivery? But we didn't--"

I grinned and cocked my rifle, "pizza delivery with extra death, coming right up!"

'BANG! BANG!'