The Gods’ Gacha Game: Return of the God-King

Chapter 132: Reconnaissance and Infiltration

The cracked earth beneath my boots stretched endlessly as I trudged through the barren wasteland, the faint sulfuric stench carried by the wind burning slightly in my nostrils. The air here was cold and dry, and every breath felt like inhaling dust. After nearly half an hour of walking, faint traces of movement began to emerge along my path—disturbed patches of sand, clawed footprints, and shards of bone half-buried in the grit.

Unfortunately, my Mana Sense hadn’t evolved into “Mana Detection” yet, so I couldn’t perceive things unrelated to magic. Still, the trail wasn’t difficult to follow because the tracks were too obvious and uniform. Whatever left them was too organized to be a random gathering, which led me to believe that it was probably a monster camp… and it was leading somewhere to the east.

I crouched low and silently approached the edge of a jagged ridge overlooking a wide depression. From there, I peered down and saw them.

Hundreds of monsters had gathered below—goblinoid creatures with patchy green skin, long-armed gnolls with crude spears, and hulking ogres tending to crude fortifications made of stone and bone. The camp stretched far across the basin, lit by flickering bonfires. Makeshift totems, carved from skulls and featuring blood symbols, jutted from the ground, pulsing faintly with a reddish energy. It wasn’t just a random mob of beasts; it was a militarized force.

“No, it is better to call them an army of monsters preparing for war…” I muttered.

I couldn’t shake the thought that the tenth scenario might force us to face this very army head-on, perhaps in a massive defensive siege. But there were far too many of them. Even if most were below Gimmel rank, sheer numbers alone could crush any resistance. Fighting thousands of coordinated monsters at once would be nothing short of suicide.

“Hah… no wonder this scenario focuses on reconnaissance. There’s no way one or two people could wipe out a camp like this, let alone three of them.” I shook my head half in resignation. “Well, at least not through direct confrontation.”

Carefully, I changed my position and focused on the heart of the camp. There, on a raised platform forged from scavenged metal and bones, stood a towering figure draped in tattered crimson robes.  The flickering firelight reflected off its skeletal mask and its red eyes as lesser monsters knelt in reverence around it. Even from this distance, I could tell it was a powerful Daleth-rank boss monster.

So that’s their leader… or at least, the one commanding this camp.

I moved to an even higher ridge and squinted into the horizon. Although I almost couldn’t see them, I spotted outlines of what appeared to be two other monster camps or settlements in the distance from their smoke columns and occasional glint of torchlight. Adding to this one, there were exactly three of them, which was what the scenario demanded.

Of course, the scenario wasn’t as simple as finding and looking at them from afar. I needed to get close to be able to gather information, just as I did with this monster camp. However, each of them was tightly guarded, and not just by ground patrols. There appeared to be harpies circling overhead, scanning the wasteland. Even with Stealth Movements and the cursed coat dampening my presence, closing the distance under their watch would be a gamble.

“To gain the most information is to join them. There’s no other choice, it seems.”

A slow grin crept across my face as I took out the Mask of a Thousand Races. If I became one of them, perhaps one of the gnolls, I could move through the camp and sabotage them from the inside. It would even be possible to cause chaos once I understood their command structure. It was risky, but the payoff would be enormous.

Time to begin the infiltration.

***

I got close to one of the smaller camps, my form now fully altered into that of a gnoll. My hands had become thick and calloused, the skin rough like cured hide. Each movement felt alien, yet disturbingly natural. My voice, when I muttered to myself, rasped with a gravelly growl that grated against my ears. Even the air I exhaled carried the faint musk of a beast. A long, crooked snout had replaced my nose, twitching involuntarily as it caught the acrid scent of smoke and blood drifting from the camp.

Under the cover of the barren hills, the patrols didn’t so much as glance my way. Drunkenness and complacency were universal languages; they translated poorly into vigilance. The gnoll patrols paid me little attention, their dull yellow eyes flicking past me with bored indifference, focusing instead on drinking stale mead.

When I finally reached the camp’s outskirts, the sight before me was almost pitiful. Many of the monsters were sprawled around a large bonfire, their crude weapons cast aside as they drank from horns and broken clay jugs. The air reeked of fermented blood-mead and burnt meat. Half of them were already snoring, and the rest were too drunk to stand straight.

I stopped in my tracks, scanning for threats and finding nothing. My disguise had passed the first test, and I managed to enter the camp without any trouble.

Then a hoarse voice slurred from the fire pit. “Heeey, c–comrade! Come join us fer… hic… some drink!”

I turned slightly, forcing my snout to move the way theirs did when speaking. “Are you talking to me?” I growled back, deep and guttural.

“Who else, eh? Hah! You standin’ there all alone like some lost pup. C’mon—hic—sit yer furry ass down! Ain’t good drinkin’ without comrades!” He waved me in with a crooked grin, the horn of mead wobbling dangerously in his hand before he caught it again.

It appeared that gnolls liked to call each other “comrade,” a strange show of unity among creatures otherwise prone to tearing each other apart. In their drunken state, the word sounded almost like a desperate plea—to pretend they were more than beasts.

Fine. I’d play along.

I shuffled closer to the fire, claws scraping against the dirt as I lowered myself among them. Their laughter rose in broken growls and howls, echoing into the cold wasteland night as I accepted the horned mug they shoved at me; the rim was sticky, and the mug reeked of blood and rot—a mead brewed from spoiled honey and whatever passed for yeast among beasts. I couldn’t help but wince at the horrible stench of it, as having transformed into a gnoll made my sense of smell stronger.

Do I really have to drink this?

“What d’you waitin’ fer? Drink—drink! We drink tonight an’ party fer three days! After that—hic

—we smash the hairless monkeys holing in that town up ahead an’ take all their things!” the same gnoll slurred. He thumped my back hard enough to stagger me, forcing the horn to my lips.The moment I drank, my stomach churned. The drink was foul—burnt, metallic, sour—like it had been brewed in a crucible with rusted nails. My throat clenched, but I swallowed, keeping my face loose and stupid to sell the disguise.

Poison-Paralysis Resistance has leveled up.

What the heck? I nearly choked when the System notification popped up before my eyes.

“Ha! You a weak drinker or somethin’, comrade?” the gnoll beside me barked, snorting half a laugh and half a hiccup. Drool was hanging from his fangs, making him look extra stupid.

I was certain the drink wasn’t poisoned since it came from the same horn the gnoll had been guzzling. If it were venomous, he’d already be writhing on the ground. The only reasonable conclusion was that their mead was so foul and crudely brewed that my body had mistaken it for a toxic substance.

“It’s nothing,” I said with a raspy chuckle, shaking my head as if embarrassed. “Haven’t had a proper drink in… some time.”

That seemed to satisfy him. The gnoll gave another wheezing laugh and shoved a half-roasted bone into my hands, telling me to eat and drink more. For some reason, the shape of the bone was familiar… slender, rounded at one end. It looked disturbingly like a human femur. No, it couldn’t be… right?

Still, after sharing in their vile drink, I had been accepted without question. Gnolls were simple-minded creatures. To them, drinking together was the same as bleeding together—a crude kind of camaraderie that bound their pack. Through that drunken fellowship, I was able to gather a lot of information by piecing together valuable scraps uttered by them. Of course, I secretly put away the bone into my inventory without as much as a bite. It was just too barbaric and risky.

The most important thing I discovered was that the place they planned to attack in three days was almost certainly the same town where Istellise and the refugees had taken shelter. Worse yet, the three monster camps I’d scouted weren’t at their full force. Rumor had it they were backed by an enormous, one-eyed creature capable of devouring other monsters in a single bite. It must be a powerful Daleth-rank monster…

“Comraade… hic I ain’t lyin’, I heard it straight from the top,” the gnoll slurred, reeking of rotgut. “Dunno if the great leader’ll bring that big fella to the raid this time, though—hic—but if he does, hah, no one’s makin’ it out alive!”

I simply nodded, playing along, then pressed for more details—subtle questions disguised as drunken curiosity. I asked about their previous raids, their chain of command, the tribes they’d fought alongside, and who commanded them all. The gnolls answered eagerly, too intoxicated to notice the careful direction of my questions, and what I learned was quite shocking.

This whole army wasn’t an accident of cooperation—it was being unified under a single banner. Every camp, from the smallest goblin nest to the ogre battalions, answered to one great leader. Yet none of them knew his name or what race he was. They called him only “the Prophet,” or “the Red-Eyed One.” According to them, he appeared out of nowhere a few moons ago, radiating power that made even the fiercest chieftains kneel.

“The Prophet,” one of the gnolls spoke, leaning in too close. “He speaks… in all our tongues, he does. Says the gods are angry. Says we’ll take the frontier, an’ the world after.” His breath reeked of rot, and his words dripped with awe rather than fear. “He even makes the dead walk again. Saw it myself, I did! Bone men, with fire in their skulls, marching behind him…”

I masked my reaction with a lazy grin, though a cold realization struck me. The red-eyed figure they described—draped in tattered crimson robes, radiating command through sheer presence—was the same one I’d seen standing atop the central platform in the main camp. That wasn’t just a random leader or a powerful monster. This so-called “Prophet” was the true mind behind it all—the source of order among chaos, the intelligence uniting the entire frontier’s monster horde.

If he was as terrifying as these gnolls claimed, then wasn’t it possible their great leader was something far beyond even Daleth rank?