Chapter 122 :

Chapter 122 - False Charge

An orc who has once become the boss leading the group does not go outside the cave.

Because guarding the place where the core is located is the boss’s role.

The last time that one-armed orc saw the sky outside was probably the day he ate the previous leader.

Since orcs cannot leave the island because of the river, the probability that he had contact with humans is also remarkably low.

That brings up one question.

Where exactly does his hatred toward humans, extreme enough to be called excessive, come from?

The leader orc thinks of humans, with whom he has never even exchanged words in his life, as though they were his lifelong enemies.

I had thought it was because of the predator-and-prey relationship between monsters and humans, but the word “promise” that came out of his mouth led me toward a strong premonition.

A premonition that perhaps there was a past between monsters and humans, involving a promise known only to the leader.

And another guess that, at the center of that past, the imperial family would be involved again this time.

Otherwise, there would have been no reason for that strange voice to speak to me, who was not even the protagonist.

So that meant there was one more thing I had to obtain before Ratel killed the leader.

“Kweeek, after blabbering like you were so great, this was all it was? Kweeek, calling a human into the cave so you could become the boss?”

The leader, who had neither the intention nor the need to hide the disgust filling his eyes, asked as if looking down on me.

“Kweeek, judging by your current state, I don’t think you’ll be able to regain your original seat even if you borrow a human’s strength.”

“Kweeeek, what?!”

At my answer, the sneer faded from the face of the one-armed orc whose nerves had been scraped, and aggression showed itself again.

“Kweeek, I told you earlier. Kweeek, I had plenty of chances to kill you. Kweeek, even without borrowing something like human strength, eating you would have been nothing.”

Whether he thought my words had a point, or whether he was thinking something else, the leader’s suspicion-filled gaze looked over me and Ratel.

Neither Ratel nor I had any reason to avoid his gaze.

After waiting with patience for a short while, the leader narrowed his eyes and finally opened his mouth.

“......Kweeek, do you really know nothing?”

What is it that I don’t know?

When I frowned at the question that had neither beginning nor end, the creature changed the subject, as if that alone was enough of an answer.

“Kweeek, fine. Kweeek, then why exactly did you keep me alive?”

He asked in a much softer voice.

It was a shift in words so blatant that it was almost stupid, but I decided to let it slide for now.

For now, persuading him came first.

“Kweeek, the orc cave returning to the way it was. Kweeek, I don’t care who becomes the boss.”

Doubt appeared on the leader’s face at my answer.

“Kweeek, that is what you want? Kweeek, not to lead the group?”

“Kweeek, why would I do something so annoying?”

This much was my sincere feeling of high purity.

Even if I ended up living my whole life as an orc, I would rather live alone than take the leader’s seat.

“Kweeek, then what exactly do you want?”

That would be cutting off the leader’s neck.

Aside from that honest answer, I wondered what there was that he would accept, and then opened my mouth as if I had remembered something.

“Kweeek, if you become the boss again, there is something I want you to do.”

“Kweeek, what is it?”

The leader asked with a face full of wariness.

It was not anything that grand.

“Kweeek, if you become the boss, I will live outside the cave.”

Perhaps my answer was unexpected, because his eyes widened.

“Kweeek, are you asking me to allow that?”

“Kweeek, I don’t need your permission. Kweeek, where I live is my freedom.”

At my firm answer, the leader frowned.

“Kweeek, then what is it?!”

“Kweeek, order the rest of your subordinates to leave me alone. Kweeek, whether outside or inside, even if someone finds me, tell them to treat me as if I’m not there. Kweeek, you just need to give the order as soon as you regain the boss seat.”

I felt gazes stabbing into me from both front and back.

From the front, the leader’s suspicious gaze, and from behind, Ratel’s unreadable gaze seemed to pierce through me.

“Kweeek, you want to live alone outside? Kweeek, under the sunlight? Kweeek, that is all you want?”

The leader, who had no concept of respecting taste, asked again.

It was a wish that had come out on impulse, but it was not so insignificant that it deserved the modifier “all”.

Because this was also my own kind of insurance against an unknown situation.

Insurance in case, by any chance, I really could not return to being human and had to live forever as an orc like this.

It was unknown whether Ratel would subjugate all the scattered orcs like in the original work.

In any case, with this body, I probably would not be able to roam around outside easily, and there was a high probability I would end up living on the island for the time being.

So it was a proposal for the sake of that unlikely situation.

If the leader left behind even a single order like that before he died, it would not be bad for me.

Well, that was only a story for when an unlikely possibility was layered on top of another unlikely possibility.

The leader, who had no way of knowing what was going on inside me, could not make a hasty decision because he was busy suspecting whether I had another intention.

“Kweeek, you seem to have forgotten, but I don’t care who becomes the boss. Kweeek, the reason I kept you alive is only because you were the easiest to find. Kweeek, if there is another orc who wants to become the boss, then I just have to help that one.”

When I added that, a hint of impatience crossed the leader’s face.

The one-armed orc was not so naive that he would instantly believe my words.

However, he was not so free of desperation that he could refuse either. In the end, he had no choice but to take one step back.

“......Kweeek, then what exactly is that human?”

With eyes containing disgust and suspicion, he pointed with his chin at Ratel, who was standing a step away with his arms crossed.

At the leader’s indication, the creature who had been watching us with a bored expression turned his gaze to me.

I met the golden eyes quietly staring at me, but I could not particularly read what was inside him.

The friendly conversation we had shared right before the leader woke up bothered me a great deal.

Unlike me, who felt somewhat relieved that its end had fizzled out, I had no way of knowing what he was thinking.

Ratel’s eyes, after his excitement had settled, had regained their stillness again, and this time there was nothing I could read from within them.

This was a slightly serious problem.

Because it also meant I could not be certain whether he would willingly go along with the con game I was about to begin.

Not expecting anything else, I opened my mouth with the hope that he would just quietly keep it shut.

“......Kweeek, that human also said there is something he desperately wants.”

You also want to hurry up and destroy the sacred object, then crush Dito and the imperial family, don’t you?

He, too, must have understood the meaning condensed in my words, which were spoken with the leader in mind.

Perhaps he read my desperation, or perhaps he also hated the idea of troublesome things happening, because he nodded very slightly.

At the quiet agreement, I swallowed a sigh of relief and looked back at the leader.

“Kweeek, thanks to that, I was able to deceive him and draw him in here.”

“Kweeek, you deceived him and brought him here?”

The leader narrowed his eyes and asked back.

If we matched our words well here, everything would be solved.

The leader would walk to the core on his own feet, and there would be no need to worry anxiously that he might die.

Seeing that the explanation that I had deceived a human and brought him here seemed to please him, and that the muscles around his mouth had loosened slightly, I continued.

“Kweeek, he is bait.”

“I came to cut off the leader’s neck.”

Of the voices that came out almost simultaneously, the latter was naturally not something that had come from my mouth.

No, what insane thing did I just hear?

When I turned my gaze in shock at that dizzyingly honest remark, that insane human, meaning Ratel, was also fixing his gaze on me.

I had a lot to say.

Was that nod just now a signal that you were going to properly screw me over this time? If so, it was a great success, you damned bastard. If there ever comes a day when I nod at you next time, take it as a signal that I’m going to kill you. Those words, unable to come out as sound, were caught by reason and circled inside my mouth.

While I was holding back my words, the protagonist bastard’s one eyebrow twitched with dissatisfaction even in the midst of all this.

“Bait?”

Is that what bothers you right now?

As if it was not enough that he had touched the temper of the leader I had barely calmed down, he had also ruined the plan to safely bring the creature all the way to the core, yet he was perfectly calm.

Yes, perhaps this was the price.

The price for provoking that young bastard’s temper with all sorts of cowardly words just to beat him once.

“Kweeek, you said you would cut off my neck?!”

The leader’s easily ignited temper caught fire again.

The excited creature puffed up his body as if he would charge at me and Ratel again at any moment.

“I said I came to cut off the leader’s neck. Have your ears gone bad with age too?”

At Ratel’s bold answer, which did not care about that at all, I pinched the bridge of my nose.

Right, I was foolish to think that he would obediently follow my words this time when he had screwed me over more than once or twice already.

There was not much time for self-reproach.

I pulled myself together and blocked the space between the leader and the protagonist bastard.

“Kweeek, this one is......”

“I make a living by cutting off monsters’ heads and selling them. Especially the heads of orc bosses. They sell for a very high price.”

It was my mistake.

The protagonist bastard’s rampage was only truly beginning now.

Because what he spat out after cutting me off was a lie more than enough to drive the situation toward the worst possible outcome.

“Kweeek!!! You cut off heads and sell them?!!”

The leader, who had seemed to find the very existence of humans hard to tolerate, was deeply enraged by Ratel’s lie.

But Ratel did not care about that.

No, rather, as if he had been waiting for that reaction from the leader, he continued lying.

“That orc lured me by saying he would let me cut off the leader’s neck.”

The damned protagonist bastard, who had thrown in a bomb, slowly raised his finger.

The tip of Ratel’s finger pointed at me like the arrowhead of a hunter.

His target was probably not my life.

He was probably just trying to injure me so I could not move around as I pleased.

Or it might simply have been to screw me over.

At Ratel’s false revelation, the leader’s gaze fixed on me again.

Looking at his half-turned eyes, I had a premonition. All my previous persuasion had become completely useless.

Thanks to someone who had suddenly screwed me over.

With gratitude in my heart, I glared at the protagonist bastard with all my might.

The creature who had been running his mouth as if his tongue had been oiled until just a moment ago was now standing with his mouth shut again.

As if saying, go ahead and do whatever you want now.

The urge to punch him just once tempted me, but I did not have the leisure to be caught up in something like that.

“Kweeek!!! So you really were aiming for my neck!! Kweeek!! I nearly fell for it!!”

Having concluded that I was his enemy, the leader charged at me.

At a glance, I thought I saw the corners of Ratel’s mouth rise beside me, but that must have been my imagination.

Because otherwise, I might get so angry that I would kill the leader who was charging at me.