Chapter 134 :

Chapter 134 - Proof

If I had to name something convenient after being possessed into the world of a book, the first thing would definitely be the goodwill of animals.

For the most part, they were not wary of me, and as long as it was not something too unreasonable, they would even run errands for me. Well, unless I went out of my way to pluck out a bunch of their nose hairs, they were not a threat either.

There was no ability more helpful than this when living alone in the forest.

Because of that, I had been thinking it would be quite a shame if, after becoming an orc, I could no longer transform into other animals.

“Kwee, kweeek...”

That did not mean I wanted a monster to act close to me, though.

I turned around and glared at the dimwit, who showed no sign of knowing how to stay away from my side.

“Kweeek, this is your final warning. Kweeek, walk at least three steps away from me.”

At my stiff order, the dimwit grew restless.

After hesitating, the bastard glanced at me and Ratel, then lifted his heel.

His toes, bent pitifully, moved precariously three times.

Those steps fell far short of his original stride, and they looked more like three handspans than three steps.

When I stared at the bastard because it was so ridiculous how he tried to insist that three handspans were three steps, the dimwit flinched again and retreated one more step.

It was that same petty little step.

“Kwee, kweeek...!”

Then, with a determined face as if he could not yield any more than that, he waited for me to take the lead.

“Kweeek!! What are you doing right now!”

Unable to keep watching, the leader tried to drag the dimwit away.

“Kweeeeeek!!!”

However, the dimwit shook off the leader’s hand as if fiercely resisting.

The one-armed orc must have been quite shocked, because he could not even get angry and only looked down at his own hand.

Well, as far as I remembered, the two orcs had maintained a fairly one-sided relationship.

It was the first time the dimwit had openly refused the leader’s order like that.

The leader stood rooted to the spot for a long time, with the face of a child who had been hit for the first time in his life.

When the leader, who had been standing there in a daze like someone slapped instead by an unfaithful lover, raised his head, his resentful gaze turned toward me.

....Am I the affair partner?

* * *

After giving the leader the shock of his lifetime, the dimwit followed behind me like a bird following the first creature it saw after hatching from an egg.

But birds were at least useful. The dimwit did not have a single helpful point for me.

“....Kweeek, if you cling to me again this time, you’ll end up walking alone with that human, so behave yourself.”

“Kweeek!!”

In the end, when I could no longer endure it and drew my sword, the dimwit screamed.

However, despite being unable to hide his fear, the bastard did not seem to have any intention of stepping back.

What the hell is this?

The bastard rolled his eyes while looking back and forth between me and Ratel, then as if something had occurred to him, he suddenly lowered his head to the ground and began moving around.

After wandering around so restlessly that it was distracting, the thing the bastard finally picked up was an ordinary pebble rolling nearby.

“Kweeek!!”

After crying out in excitement, what the bastard did was lean over and scribble something on the ground.

Could it be that orcs could write too?

Thinking that I might be able to witness with my own eyes an evolution that surpassed the limits of a race never mentioned in the original work, I approached the bastard.

“....”

What the bastard had drawn on the ground was not writing.

“Kweeek!!”

The bastard looked up at me and eagerly pointed with his finger at what he had drawn.

After glancing at the result, Ratel snorted.

“At this rate, doesn’t he draw better than you? It looks exactly the same.”

I looked down at the result of the dimwit drawing me.

The protagonist bastard had said it looked like a rat wearing a hat, but to my eyes, it was not that hard to recognize.

I’ll see how well you draw later.

“Kweeek, so, what about this?”

Perhaps reassured by the smile on Ratel’s face, even if it was a mocking one, the dimwit relaxed his stiff expression and began pointing again.

“Kwee, kweeek...!”

“What is he saying?”

When Ratel’s expression grew fierce again, the dimwit shrank back once more.

The bastard timidly watched for reactions and raised his finger again, pointing to one part of the drawing.

It was the final uphill path leading to the food storage.

Originally, this was the place where we had planned to use Ratel as bait.

“Kweeek, are you saying we should just kill this human here?”

“Kweeek!!!!!”

Thinking that was quite a bold choice, I pointed at Ratel, and the dimwit screamed.

It seemed that was not it either.

“Kweeek!! Kweeeeeek!!!”

The dimwit urgently pointed back and forth between the passage in the drawing and himself.

Next, he pointed with his finger at himself and Ratel, trying hard to say something.

“It seems like he’s saying he’ll become the bait instead.”

Ratel, who had been quietly watching what the bastard was doing, tossed that out.

The dimwit nodded violently, indicating that Ratel had gotten the correct answer.

There was only one question that came to mind at this sudden spirit of sacrifice.

Why go that far?

I was not the only one with a similar question.

“Kweeek!! What nonsense is that!!”

The leader, who had been unable to recover from the shock of the dimwit’s first rebellion in his life and had simply been watching the three of us, stepped forward in anger.

“Kweeek!!! Why should this bastard become the bait when that human bastard is right here! Kweeek, that makes no sense!!”

The excited bastard grabbed the dimwit by the back of the neck and roughly pulled him back.

“Kweeek!! If you’re an orc too, then stop him! Kweeek, this dimwit is spouting nonsense because he’s scared of that human bastard! Kweeek!! You disgrace to orcs!!”

The final rebuke seemed to be directed not at me, but at the dimwit, because the bastard planted his fist into the top of the dimwit’s head.

“Kweeek, I haven’t said I’ll use him as bait yet. Kweeek, the dimwit stepped forward on his own. Kweeek, so stop yelling loudly and shut your mouth.”

When I spoke with a furrowed brow, the leader flinched slightly and glared at me in dissatisfaction.

Though I was calling him a dimwit, the leader orc in the original work was not a stupid bastard.

If anything, would it not be more accurate to call him cunning?

Even though he was not an especially strong opponent, the reason the orc subjugation in the original work took time was because he had served quite well as a strategist for an orc.

Ratel, who had chased the leader in the original work, only managed to cut off his neck after going around and around until he finally reached the center of the orc cave.

Well, as is common with villains in heroic novels, the boss orc ultimately could not stand against the protagonist.

The boss in the original work died inside the pit where the one-armed orc had been sleeping.

So that meant this proposal might also have some trap hidden in it.

Whether the target was me, Ratel, or the one-armed leader, I did not know.

I looked into the eyes of the bastard, who was being held by the leader and blankly looking up at me.

“....Kweeek, anyway, there is no value in listening to what this dimwit says. Kweeek, this bastard is stupid, so there’s nothing he knows how to....”

The leader’s harsh evaluation of the dimwit, which he muttered while holding him, could not continue to the end.

“Kwee, kweeek...!”

The dimwit, who had shaken off the leader’s hand, hurriedly approached me.

The bastard glanced at the leader’s reaction, then eagerly pointed at the drawing and himself again.

From the stubbornly clear self-expression, I could feel the bastard’s firm will.

Thinking that the leader’s face looked quite worth seeing, as if he had been struck by lightning three times in a row, I opened my mouth.

“Kweeek, try doing whatever you want. Kweeek, I don’t care if there are two baits. Kweeek, as long as the leader is decided.”

At my answer, dissatisfaction rose again on the leader’s face, but I ignored it.

There was nothing for me to lose by watching what the dimwit did for a while.

“Kweeek, if there are two baits, that’s actually better. Kweeek, if the number of baits increases, we can lure the orcs more effectively, right?”

“Kweeek!!!”

At my question, the dimwit answered confidently.

“Kweeek, weren’t you willing to do anything as long as you could reclaim the leader position too?”

At my question, the leader, who had been glaring at me with dissatisfied eyes, pressed his mouth shut even more tightly.

“Kweeek!!”

Perhaps gaining strength from that silent agreement, the dimwit began walking in front.

The leader also reluctantly followed behind him.

“Kweeek, unless he hit his head while sleeping, it’s obvious he has some other scheme...”

“He’s probably trying to cling to the stronger side.”

As I watched the backs of the two orcs walking forward in a changed order and muttered, Ratel answered as if it were nothing.

“Kweeek, that’s too sudden. Kweeek, suddenly making that kind of resolve overnight. Kweeek, this is the bastard who trembled whenever you even flinched until now.”

“Isn’t he trying to avoid fighting that one-armed bastard?”

“Kweeek, is that it?”

Was he trying to avoid a situation where the two of them were left alone as much as possible?

No, that still did not explain the suspicious parts that did not sit right.

“If he was that suspicious, you could have just ignored what that dimwit said.”

From the way Ratel said that, it seemed my dissatisfaction had shown clearly on my face.

“Kweeek, I told you. Kweeek, I had nothing to lose in particular.”

I stared at Ratel as he walked down the path.

“What?”

The bastard noticed my gaze and asked.

“Kweeek, it’ll probably be fine. Kweeek, while you’re here.”

Perhaps my firm trust was unexpected, because Ratel raised one eyebrow.

It was a movement filled with doubt, as if asking whether he was really the person I was talking about.

“Are you saying that as long as the dimwit is afraid of me, he won’t be able to pull anything strange?”

Of course, that was also true.

“Kweeek, yeah. Kweeek, you have a nasty temper.”

As I moved forward, I added one piece of advice.

“Kweeek, still, it would be better not to underestimate him too much.”

After all, the orc leader in the original work had not been strong, but he had screwed Ratel over quite a few times.

Perhaps because the river had flowed backward once, every path we walked on was full of moisture.

If I had been in a human body, the discomfort index would have risen through the sky, but the orc’s thick hide actually seemed to welcome the humidity.

The steps of the other two orcs also seemed more lively instead.

“Kweeek!!”

The dimwit, in particular, was so noisy that he stepped in puddles here and there like a fish in water.

“Kweeek!! Can’t you walk quietly!!”

When the leader, unable to endure it, shouted, the dimwit stopped stepping in the muddy water.

The bastard pouted while watching the leader’s reaction, then timidly stepped lightly into a puddle.

“Kweeek, that bastard...!”

Just as the leader, angered by the timid rebellion, opened his mouth to scold him—

Fortunately, the dimwit stopped splashing.

It was thanks to a puddle so large that it could not even be compared to the ones we had seen before appearing in the distance.

The wide puddle, large enough to be called a small river rather than a puddle, continued far enough that its end could not be seen.

Though it was a little different from a river in that its height did not even reach the knees.

“At that distance, it would be better to rest here once.”

After checking the end of the puddle, Ratel muttered.

I briefly gauged the position of the puddle.

This was a place that had been described in quite some detail in the original work as well.

Though it differed from the book in that it was a dry floor there, not a puddle.

“Kweeek, you’re right. Kweeek, let’s rest around here. Kweeek, we won’t be able to do anything in the middle of the water.”

Agreeing with Ratel, I found a spot by the water and sat down.

The leader wore a displeased expression, as if there was something that bothered him, but he obediently followed me and sat down on the ground.

Of course, in a place far away from me.

Well, as long as he did not sleep and die with his nose buried in the puddle, I had no interest in where he settled down.

Rather, what we would use to fill our stomachs this time was a bigger problem for me.

Since we had all shared Ratel’s jerky, we would need something to eat this time.

Plop.

While I was thinking, I was startled by the sound of something small leaping up and turned my gaze to the puddle.

Plop.

This time, the water surface rippled again a few handspans away.

The small thing that had sprung up did not return to the water. Because Ratel quickly snatched it from outside the water.

Ratel opened his hand and showed it to me.

On the bastard’s palm, a tiny fish was wriggling.