As the other teams spread out and checked the corpses, they began to pile the Ogres into great mounds, preparing for either burial or cremation, so that the rotting Ogre flesh didn’t attract swarms of scavengers.
They might not be brave enough to come too close to the Elites, but they would pick away at the edges of the battlefield, and gorging themselves on Commander Rank Ogres might be enough to increase a few of the lowest Common Grade monsters strength to the point that they might be a real threat to the villages and mines.
It didn’t really take much for the average village to be threatened. An Awakened Rank boar would be a nuisance to outlying farms, but a Swarm of Awakened Rank rodents would be a nightmare to try to purge from the village.
The problem was that it was beginning to get dark already, which would make it difficult for the teams to work on the cleanup, and far too easy to miss valuables as they worked.
Part of their job was to collect the magical items off the bodies and ensure that valuables from the anomaly were not left on the ground to be collected by other monsters, which the presence of multiple magical items would attract.
Karl watched the annoyed and dejected faces of the newly arrived teams, who were making a strategy to deal with the mess.
“Why don’t I send my beasts to take care of it? They can sense magical items more easily than any of us, and they’re strong enough to pile the bodies.” Karl suggested.
[Oh, he’s thinking ahead. We can take the really good bits and give them the rest.] Hawk replied greedily.
[Don’t you have enough? Let the little ones get something. It’s not like you actually need anything here. Rae already got the best stuff off them.] Karl sighed.
[Why don’t we have Hawk and Rae loot, while Thor and Ophelia stack the bodies? Then, when we’re done, Hawk can set them all on fire.] Remi suggested helpfully.
[Thor and Ophelia?] Karl asked.
[They’re the two biggest.] Remi replied, dipping her head in the Remi equivalent of a shrug.
[I notice that you didn’t include yourself in that deployment.]
Remi pouted at him. [I don’t have hands, how am I supposed to loot anything?]
[You have water control. You can strip them of armour, rings and weapons as well as anyone else.]
Thor chuckled. [Oh, you got called out. Time to join the cleanup team, little sister. You three go ahead, and I will get the bear to help me pack the trash.]
The Cerro wandered over and gently headbutted Ophelia, who was talking to Bob, then looked at the Ogres, and motioned for her to follow.
“Did I just get drafted to help clean up?” She asked incredulously.
“Your bear form is second biggest on the team. Plus, now that you’re fully bear, I can enlarge you without you having to rage.” Karl laughed.
Ophelia frowned. “Why do I get the feeling that I just became an honorary member of the beast squad?”
“I mean, you are a four-metre bear in disguise. Thor thinks you’re a big cuddly new friend.”
Thor nodded happily and bumped Ophelia again, encouraging her to come clean with him.
“Fine, but I will have you know that I’m not a maid.” She informed the Cerro, who promptly began tossing Ogre bodies on a pile.
She transformed and Karl cast [Brutality] on everyone, so they could toss about the Ogre corpses more easily.
The new arrivals seemed shocked to see them already at work while they were still making plans, but the last bits of daylight were already fading and Karl didn’t know if anyone knew a good light spell.
The border forces would use them for night raids, but Karl had never seen anyone on his team actually cast one beyond the minor one they taught mages.
“Are they doing the work for us?” One of the government security guards asked.
“Yeah. They will load the bags on the Lightning Cerro with magical items, as they can sense them from a distance. Then they will stack the bodies and the Dragonhawk will light them on fire.” Karl explained.
“Oh, that’s a Dragonhawk? I thought it was a baby Vermilion Bird,” the security guard replied, while giving Hawk a suspicious look.
“He has been evolving as he gained power. He just reached Royal Rank, and the change in coloration happened then.”
The security team shook their heads at the thought of a Royal Rank Dragonhawk loose in the area, but he seemed to be quite tame, and wasn’t getting aggressive even when he got close to the strange humans.
As they got into it, Ophelia was beginning to enjoy herself, scooping the bodies up with her claws and tossing them across the battlefield onto the nearest pile. She could see why Thor was so into it, and why he was using both his upper horns and his tail to swat bodies.
The answer to Karl’s question about light came from the Bureau team. Jill cast a bright light above the battlefield to supplement the light coming from the newly formed dungeon entrance.
The work was going quickly, and Thor had already dropped off two sets of bags at the camp so he could continue to get loaded down with loot from the Ogres.
Now that they weren’t planning to keep or carry any of it, they were just taking anything magical and putting it in the bags. The others could sort it out and load it in a vehicle to take it away.
That was somehow satisfying even to Ophelia, who was doing her best not to laugh as the corpses piled up and Thor’s loot bags filled again.
[Hey Boss, that’s all the loot. Now, we just need to move the last bodies, and big brother Hawk can light them on fire.] Remi informed them a few minutes later, right before she came slithering into the camp, terrifying the workers who hadn’t known she was here.
The squeals of terrified humans made the other beasts and the Nature Priests laugh, while Remi just slithered up Karl’s back to look around with her head a metre above his.
“A little warning would be appreciated, man. You can’t just surprise us with a venomous snake.” One of the church’s workers complained.
“There is a giant spider out there as well, kindly don’t attack them as they’re coming off shift, they put in significant effort to gather all that loot before they stacked the Ogres.” Karl reminded them.
Colonel Valerie gestured toward the piles. “You can have Hawk light them up now. Just ask him to make sure they’re burning hot and not billowing smoke. This is going to smell bad no matter what, and roast Ogre doesn’t smell much better than day old dead Ogre in the sun.”
One of the clerics chuckled, and a golden barrier surrounded the camp area, which was just outside the battlefield, where Karl’s team had finished the fight.
Anything closer would have been soaked with blood, so they had chosen to camp further from the Anomaly, instead of setting up a defensive perimeter around it.
The Cleric’s spell took effect, and Karl noticed that the smell of sweaty bodies instantly vanished. That was a valuable skill for anyone to have in the field, removing scents from a camp. That was the easiest way for monsters to track you down while you were sleeping, but today, it was more important to keep the smell of burning Ogres out.
