Chapter 153 :

Chapter 153 - What Bothers Him

“Kweek...! Let go of me!”

Judging by the terrified sound of the leader’s voice coming from above, it seemed Ratel had safely caught the leader.

When I looked up, I saw Ratel’s rotten expression as he hung from the cliff with one arm.

In his other hand, the noose of the rope I had already untied long ago was fastened around the leader’s waist.

Perhaps supporting that weight with one arm was difficult, because I could feel Ratel cursing fiercely with his eyes.

Hoping it would be at least a little comforting to him, I spread both my arms wide so my own state could be clearly seen.

The dimwit was dangling beneath one arm that was not embedded in the wall.

It was my own way of comforting him, saying that one of my arms was dislocated too, so there was no need to be too angry.

“Kweek...!”

The leader, who discovered the dimwit in a similar situation to himself, let out a short scream.

“Kweek, what in the world is going on?! Kweek, why does the dimwit look like that?!”

The leader, who still had not grasped the situation, looked back and forth between me and Ratel and demanded an explanation.

Perhaps annoyed by the leader’s struggling, Ratel furrowed his brow.

“Stop pretending you do not know.”

“Kweek, what am I pretending not to know....”

“That you were deceived by the dimwit.”

Ratel shoved the cruel reality right before the leader’s eyes.

The leader stopped moving.

After hanging there blankly for a moment, the leader soon regained his proper role.

Judging by the way he looked back and forth between me and Ratel with an expression that seemed to say he wanted to tear us to death.

It was the dimwit who had deceived him, so I had no idea why he was glaring at us.

“Kweek, are you not discriminating too much? Kweek, in a way, all of us deceived you once.”

“Kweek, shut up!!”

Perhaps even hearing my voice irritated him, because he shouted.

Though he habitually flew into a rage, perhaps he thought my words had some point after all, because his gaze belatedly turned to the dimwit.

Contrary to my expectation that a huge uproar would break out, the expression of the leader looking at the dimwit changed strangely.

From that simple fellow, something rarely seen—

It seemed a more complicated emotion, different from what he felt toward me or Ratel, flickered across his face.

But I could not figure out what it was.

Because this time too, before my head could follow that change, the shock that covered his face hid everything else.

At the same time, feeling one heavy arm grow lighter, I realized what had happened.

“Kweek!! You idiot!!”

When I turned my head at the leader’s shout, I saw the dimwit growing farther away.

All that remained in my hand was the rope whose knot he had untied.

No matter how much he had chosen it himself, a fall was still a fall.

There was no way a fellow who had only gone back and forth between the island and the cave could swim.

But neither fear nor even the instinctive act of checking where he would fall appeared in him.

The dimwit’s quiet gaze did not know how to leave the leader.

Until the water swallowed him, and his figure vanished completely.

* * *

As soon as the two orcs and one human safely settled themselves on top of the cliff, Ratel released the hand that had been gripping my shoulder.

Ratel quietly looked down at me and the leader, who were both panting desperately.

It could not help but be a strange scene.

Because the only human among us had ended up saving the other two orcs.

The first to recover was the leader.

After catching his breath, the fellow looked back and forth between me and Ratel with confused eyes.

The confusion soon became realization, and that realization changed into anger again.

“Kweek, y-you….you bastards, from the very beginning...!”

The fellow, thinking he had been deceived, rose as if he would charge at us right away.

But Ratel, who no longer had anything to hold back for, moved faster.

Ratel lightly walked into the leader’s range, then grabbed the fellow by the neck and lifted him up.

“Kwee, Kweek!!”

With his body half floating in the air, the leader panicked and struggled.

But I knew very well how meaningless that resistance was.

After all, I had already experienced just how absurdly strong that bastard’s grip was.

To begin with, there was no way the resistance of a half-dead leader could work against a man who could lift even two orcs.

After being flustered for a moment by the situation that had unfolded in an instant, the leader grabbed Ratel’s arm with an enraged face.

Though his panic once again surpassed his anger at Ratel’s monstrous strength, which did not budge in the slightest.

“Kweek!! You….monster-like bastard...!”

The leader struggled to resist Ratel’s brute strength, which he had confirmed once again, but unlike the orc whose face grew darker as blood rushed to it, Ratel’s expression did not change.

Perhaps his airway was being blocked, because the leader desperately clawed at Ratel’s hand.

But the eyes looking at the leader who had grabbed his hand were calm.

“I told you earlier. From the beginning until now, when have I ever lied?”

The fellow’s voice as he tilted his head and asked was calm, but there was something oddly off about it.

“Kweek...!”

The leader struggled as if resentful, but as his strength gradually drained away, his force weakened.

The next target of the leader’s anger was me.

“Kweek, you….you knew from the start, didn’t you?! Kweek, you knew that this human was hiding his strength...!”

What a ridiculous thing to say, asking whether I knew.

I was the one who told him to hide it.

“Kweek, I told you, didn’t I? Kweek, that I would help you reclaim the leader’s position.”

Though there were some parts I had omitted.

“Kweek!! Joining hands with a human just to become the leader!!”

The leader exploded in anger again.

“Kweek, what do you gain from helping a human! Kweek!! Did you beg him to at least spare only you?!!”

“Kweek, why does that matter now? Kweek, there is no need to get that angry.”

I meant it as a way of telling him to calm down, but the leader’s anger erupted as if it had met oil.

“Kweek, nothing will change from the original plan. Kweek, you will fight for the leader’s position, and you will either win and reclaim your place, or fail and die.”

I got up and looked around.

After confirming that the path was cut off once in the opposite direction of the cliff we had climbed from far below, I signaled Ratel with my eyes.

Though he frowned for a moment, Ratel obediently placed the leader on the ground.

The moment his feet touched the ground, the leader charged at me.

Avoiding that obvious attack only required taking one step to the side.

“Kweek, save your stamina. Kweek, when the dimwit comes back, you will have to fight again.”

“Kweek, what nonsense are you spouting! Kweek, the dimwit died earlier!”

“Kweek, that much will not kill him. Kweek, he merely ran away for a while.”

He was not the half-dead leader, and if he were someone who would die that easily, he would not have been able to trouble Ratel so much in the original story.

The leader, who had fallen to the ground and was glaring at me as if he would kill me, gradually steadied his breathing.

After taking a short breath, the fellow’s murderous gaze soon turned toward Ratel.

“Kweek, once I reclaim my place again, that means this human will aim for my neck then.”

“Kweek, yes.”

“Kweek, there is no way I can beat that monster-like bastard!”

Perhaps displeased with my short affirmation, the fellow shouted again.

I looked down at the struggling fellow and tilted my head.

“Kweek, the situation has not changed. Kweek, the only thing that changed is you.”

Nothing had changed except the fact that he had realized Ratel was stronger than him.

The fellow still wanted the leader’s position, and we only needed one orc who had become the leader.

“Kweek, isn’t a contest of strength what you like best? Kweek, think simply. Kweek, if you win, you can get everything you want.”

“Kweek, what did you promise the human? Kweek, did you beg him to spare only you?”

It was probably the leader’s desperate attempt to provoke me, but it did not deal much of a blow.

“Kweek, it is not all that different. Kweek, I can survive only if that fellow cuts off the leader’s neck.”

At my calm answer, the leader glared at me with hatred and disgust.

Yes, since I had practically toyed with his life, this much anger was something I had expected.

“Kweek, nothing changes. Kweek, you will return to your place through the food storage, and the human will cut off your neck. Kweek, if you fight the human and win, that will not happen.”

Both he and I knew that was impossible.

Even the dimwit in the original story had offered his neck after resisting.

There was no way the half-dead leader could handle Ratel.

No, to begin with, he probably would not be able to reclaim the leader’s position again.

He had weakened to the point where even defeating the dimwit was impossible.

If all the leader had left for me was obvious provocation, then there was no longer any value in listening to him.

As I was about to get up, the leader who had been glaring at me opened his mouth.

“Kweek, the dimwit followed you.”

That was not a particularly obvious thing to say.

“Kweek, he did not follow me. Kweek, he only watched me while aiming for you. Kweek, to see whether I was aiming for your neck.”

The leader snorted.

“Kweek, do you think that bastard has the brains for that?”

I looked at the fellow who still believed in the dimwit.

Perhaps my silence irritated him, because the leader glared fiercely.

“Kweek, I did not like your eyes from the beginning. Kweek. Next time, I will definitely gouge out your eyes.”

The leader’s desperate attempt to threaten my corneas returned to a stale provocation again.

As if there had only been one or two people who disliked my eyes.

Even after I became Ran Abiran, there were many people who expressed regret about my eyes.

Seeing that I still heard such words even after becoming an orc, perhaps the expression that the eyes are the window to the heart was right after all.

When I turned my gaze to Ratel to say that we no longer had business with the leader, I saw the fellow standing obediently.

The problem was his expression.

It was not a face openly showing dissatisfaction, but there was something somehow unclear remaining on it.

When that fellow kept his mouth shut like that, there was a high chance he would do something unpleasant.

“Kweek, what is it?”

“What is?”

“Kweek, do not pretend you do not know. Kweek, what is bothering you?”

At the repeated question, the fellow frowned as if thinking for a moment, then slowly opened his mouth.

“....If the dimwit attacks, do you think that one-armed bastard will fight back?”

At the content, which was embarrassing to even call a question, I furrowed my brow.

“Kweek, of course he will fight back. Kweek, he is close to death, but he is not so far gone that he would be beaten without even resisting once.”

Why would he question it after seeing that leader bastard rampaging with his own two eyes just moments ago?

I turned my gaze to Ratel with doubt, then realized I had misunderstood the point of his question.

“....Kweek, do you think the leader will be unable to fight back, or do you think he will not fight back?”

“I do not know.”

At that answer, honest like him, and yet naive in a way unlike him, my brow furrowed.

“Kweek, what reason is there to agonize over either of those two?”

There should be no one who would obediently offer up his own life.

Ratel still gave no answer.

In other words, the fellow was now unable to abandon the absurd assumption that the leader would obediently give his life to the dimwit.