Chapter 31.

As White planned on a war of attrition, she stayed hidden for as long as she could by crawling along the ground through the underbrush.

Unfortunately, it didn't take very long before a lone patrolling orc spotted her and immediately outed her location with a loud shout to alert the other orcs.

"LITTLE HUUUMAAAN HEEERE!"

The fat orc immediately charged toward her intending to quickly restrain her. Midget White was quick to react. She jumped up to her feet and dove to the side of the orc just barely avoiding being grabbed. She tumbled into a roll behind the orc with her sword in hand. Kneeling on one leg she unleashed an awkward two-handed slash diagonally upward from right to left.

Her eyes lit up as she backed away to put some distance between herself and the orc when she noticed the orc lost a single HP. The orc turned around and chuckled sinisterly, "Hehehe. That tickled a bit. Now be a good little huuuman and hold still so you don't get hurt before we have our fun with you.��

The little girl saw the one HP the orc lost as hope, she ignored the orc's words and ran toward the orc for a second exchange fully intent on a fight. The orc's expression turned perverse. "It seems you're in a rush. Don't worry, I won't be too rough with you. Hehehe."

Right when Midget White arrived in front of the overconfident orc, he opened his arms wide and tried to grab her. She'd predicted his actions and preemptively ducked down just outside of arm's reach. She slashed at the orc's right leg shaving away another HP. She jumped back and ran away toward a tree.

The orc laughed sinisterly, seemingly enjoying every second of it. His stats were much higher than hers, so he caught up to her by the time she arrived at the base of the tree.

"Where do you think you're running to, little huuuman."

In spite of the tree blocking her path forward and the orc directly behind her, she didn't slow down; rather, jumped with all the might her little body could muster.

Without hesitation, fully utilizing her forward momentum, she took five steps up the tree trunk, she kicked off the trunk propelling her body up as she gracefully flipped and rotated her body in the air. She utilized the full force of gravity to increase the weight behind her strike and aimed directly for the orcs head.

It was a critical hit on a weak point that took away 30 HP in one go.

"RAWWWWWW! LITTLE HUUUMAAAN THAT ACTUALLY STUNG A LITTLE MORE THAN BEING TICKLED!"

Enraged that he'd taken that amount of damage in a single blow from the insignificant fly buzzing around him, the fat orc turned around with a contorted expression with greatly distorted facial features.

The orc wouldn't allow her to do that again, that much was certain. Though 30 HP was a great improvement from 1 HP, it was just a drop in the ocean. After all, the orc had 2000 HP.

However, Midget White was not deterred. She didn't waver, what she had to do hadn't changed, her expression was one of tranquility and patience. The earlier fear that appeared had slowly faded away as she entered her combat mode. Her survival instincts were screaming. The adrenaline was already flowing through her body. She had to fight. That is, run while fighting to survive by buying herself time. She couldn't show weakness by letting her enemy think she was overwhelmed by their numbers.

She had to alternate between the two, fight and flight. Not only did she have to deal with this orc, to make matters worse other orcs had already arrived as back up.

"Oh, this huuuman not bad. She probably real tight with that tiny body. Hahaha." A second uncouth orc who'd just arrived at the scene remarked.

Altogether, three additional orcs arrived at once bringing the total number of orcs at the scene to four. Midget White's expression didn't change though. No matter how many more showed up, what she planned remained the same. Fight to survive and stall until the chance to turn the tables arrives.

Endure.

Persevere.

Give them hell.

Those were the only three things going through her mind.

Now that she was surrounded by four orcs she barely had any opportunities to land a hit on them. She continued to narrowly avoid their attempts to grab and pin her down. When they inevitably grew fed up and enraged by the pesky elusive fly always just barely slipping through their fingertips, they threw out furious fists. Without blinking once, she calmly analyzed every action they took and just barely dodged their successive blows.

As time passed by, more and more orcs encircled the area. There was now a wall of orcs blocking every path. There was nowhere left to run was what I thought when I saw it. However, when the wall of orcs shrank the circle around her, Midget White jumped up off of a tree trunk then danced about midair by kicking off of the top of the orcs' heads to get out.

They always narrowly missed whenever they tried to grab her out of the air because of their clumsy stumpy arms. What I was most impressed by was the fact that she was accomplishing all this with just her level 1 stats. I was genuinely curious as to how long she would really last like this. Six days was definitely impossible when exerting full concentration and pushing your body to its limits, but how long could she really make it while keeping this up?

Even after two hours, she never killed any of the orcs, but she did still occasionally damage them even if it only amounted to 1 HP. It was a shame that the orcs passively regenerated their HP back faster than she could dish out damage. Even the first orc she'd attacked had already long recovered the HP she'd shaved off by now.

She'd broken out of the encirclement several times now by jumping from one head to the next, but there were just more orcs lying in wait for her every time. She still never faltered when she saw them appear though. Rather, she kept her cool the entire way through. With stern eyes, she only ever looked toward the future, the next move, as she continued to narrowly dodge all their attacks.

After a while I got a bit tired watching the same scene unfold over and over again so I figured I'd take a short nap to pass the time. Perched on top of a tree, I lit a cigar with my back to the branch as I admired the sky. I shut my eyes and by the time the cigar ran out, I fell asleep.

…

Drip. Drip. Drip.

At some point, I was awoken by droplets of water that had fallen from overhead. When I opened my eyes the sky was already dark. It was already nighttime and there were dreary clouds out. It was set up for rain.

It didn't take long before my ears registered the sound of orcs crying out in rage. Mixed in were frantic footsteps running about below. It seemed she was still alive.

I sat up properly on the branch I was perched atop before I lowered my gaze back to the ground and saw her. The determined flames in her eyes still burned as strong as before I'd fallen asleep. I checked her status and confirmed there were five days remaining until she returned to her former strength.

Her clothes were drenched in sweat. Rather than only using their bare fists, at some point in time, these shameless orcs had taken out their weapons. She was battered and bruised all over her body, but she was still going. I could easily tell she hadn't been hit directly by them, rather the damage she accumulated was a result of the environment. If she'd been hit by them, she'd have long been dead with only a single blow.

After another hour watching her, the rain started to really pour down. Thunder rumbled amidst the darkened night sky. A bright white light momentarily lit up the view below where a girl weaved through the droves of orcs around her. The green of their skin was far more pronounced than it was during the day. The droplets of water on their bodies glistened while reflecting the lightning.

Boom!

Crackle. Crackle. Crackle.

A thunderous boom immediately followed the flash of white light. The sounds from below were momentarily overshadowed by the thunder's loud crash.

The little girl wavered not in the slightest from the abrupt boom, nor was she startled by the deafening crackle which followed that sounded like nature's derisive scorn. In fact, it felt like the powerful boom of thunder reinvigorated her will to struggle to the bitter end. If anything, it more so felt like it'd woken her up.

'She had a bad personality, but she's at least got guts,' I thought to myself. I'd at least give her that much.

I watched her struggle for a few more hours before I took another nap.

When I woke up again, it was still raining, but it was day time. The ground was soaked and littered with countless overlapping long streaks with dotted footprints across the ground in the dirt. The rain had softened the soil and she'd continually lost her footing throughout the night, but she was still alive. With the soil soaked and how dark it was last night, it was nearly impossible for her to avoid slipping all over the place. She'd been unable to lose them or break free from their tight encirclement all throughout the night.

Things continued in a back and forth struggle for three more days. The orcs were persistent to the extreme. Their lust never receded, it only grew with time. They wouldn't give up. If they gave up and really let this little girl go, it was far too great a humiliation for them. It was already bad enough that it had lasted this long.

She only had to last two more days, however, it seems luck was not on her side. Elites. Elite orcs in the encampment with too much pride to act before this finally lost their patience and made their appearance. They were… level 80.

The non-elite level 50 orcs were all fat and large. They could be considered fast with respect to the girl only because of their stat advantage. Though there was this stat advantage, she still had a more agile body which was what allowed her to survive up until this point.

Ten elites made their way through the crowd of orcs. It was clear they would not underestimate this little girl any longer. Their pride would no longer allow her to run about as she pleased. They were ripped with toned muscles all over their body and far more agile than the normal fat orcs.

She was quickly cornered by them and left with her back up against a tree. She could no longer dodge or avoid them; when she tested the water, an elite orc's hand shot out like lightning and latched onto her hair. Without hesitation, she'd cut a short portion of her hair off to escape.