Chapter 156 :

Chapter 156 - The Leader and the Dimwit (2)

Meeting the human child’s eyes did not change the leader’s plan.

So what if it was a human child?

Other animals had young too.

The leader had no reason to hesitate at all.

The human child’s existence only heightened the leader’s excitement.

Because whether the tree was cut down first or the humans above fell first, he was certain this was a fight he had already won.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

The louder the screams grew, the faster the leader’s hands moved as he chopped at the tree.

As the tree began to tilt, the screams began to turn into sobs.

Whether she judged that holding on any longer was meaningless, or whether she no longer had the strength to endure, the large human’s body gradually began to descend.

The human child began clinging to her parent.

It seemed she wanted to save her parent somehow.

Judging by that meaningless struggle.

For a moment, the leader, who had been watching the two, met the child’s eyes.

Those eyes, filled with resentment and fear, were begging him.

Please do not take my mother away from me.

But the leader did not think much of it.

To begin with, who would listen to the pleas of prey?

Besides, there was no reason to listen to the request of something like a human.

In any case, humans were all liars and disgusting creatures.

Was it not because of humans that we ended up hiding and living in caves like this?

Because they did not give us what they promised, so....but what was it they did not give us?

He paused for a moment at the gap in his logic, but the hesitation did not last long.

Because anger filled the empty gap in its place.

In any case, humans were creatures that were fine to kill.

When the leader began striking the tree again, the human child once more held tightly to her parent.

She would be better off running away during that time.

While thinking that both parent and child were utterly stupid, on the other hand, he could understand it too.

Well, if the parent died, the young left behind usually died as well.

To survive, she would have to save her parent.

Thinking simply, the leader continued doing what he had to do.

It was around the time he thought one more strike would be enough to bring the tree down.

The leader’s arm, which had been raised high to swing one last time, stopped.

It was not that sympathy he had never had before had suddenly welled up.

It was a slightly more realistic problem than that.

The leader lowered his arm, raised his head, and drew in the scent in the air to his heart’s content.

An unfamiliar scent was approaching.

A scent similar to the humans in the tree, yet different, was rushing in mixed with the smell of beasts.

Humans.

It was not one or two.

There were definitely at least dozens.

The leader was a skilled hunter.

And he was not stupid enough to face a situation where he would have to deal with dozens of humans just to catch the two before his eyes.

The leader abandoned the two humans and withdrew just like that.

“Kweeek, you are lucky.”

Along with that irritated mutter, as the leader moved away, a sigh of relief came from above.

That made him even angrier, but there was nothing he could do.

His physical condition was already bad enough.

If he was injured and remained in poor condition for days, the others might aim for his position and attack him.

Then there would be no reason to do this.

The leader turned away without lingering attachment.

And soon, his judgment proved to be right.

By the time he reached the small box where the humans lived, more than ten humans appeared along with the loud sound of horse hooves.

The leader, who had been coming out of the human house, thought for a moment.

Because the thought crossed his mind that if the large human and her child told them they had been attacked by orcs, those people might invade the cave.

Before that happened, he needed to decide whether to lead the fellows in the cave and attack the humans first, or hide.

Having decided to watch the situation, the leader hid behind the box and observed what the humans did.

The humans, who had been leading their horses toward the box, seemed to hear the screams of the two humans from the tree and stopped advancing, gathering beneath the tree.

Before long, the two humans came down from the nearly collapsed tree and safely set their feet on the ground.

The leader watched the large human repeatedly point at the box where she had lived, looking as if she might lose her breath at any moment.

They really are thinking of invading the cave.

The moment the leader was about to turn around to prepare for the coming battle without thinking any further—

Among the humans who had arrived late, one of the smallest-looking humans pushed the others aside and stepped forward.

It was a strange sight.

Judging by how the other humans split to either side at a single gesture from the smallest and weakest-looking human, that small individual seemed to have the highest rank among more than ten humans.

Does that one have something superior to the other humans?

The leader narrowed his eyes and examined the small human, but the only differences between the small individual and the other humans were that his body was excessively small, and the cloth draped over his body looked a little longer and softer.

Do humans have higher ranks the smaller they are?

Thinking that it was quite a laughable thing if true, the leader watched them a little longer.

The small human babbled something and waved his hand.

What is that bastard saying?

Perhaps his voice was as small as his body, because the leader could not tell exactly what he was saying, so he narrowed his eyes.

....Huh?

Ugeora?

....Kill her?

Unable to understand whether he had heard correctly, the leader blinked.

The large human who had fled the cabin suddenly dropped flat to the ground.

Then she began rubbing both hands toward the small human.

At the sight of the human suddenly turning into something like a fly, the leader tilted his head.

What the large human’s action meant soon became clear.

One of the humans who had appeared on horseback stepped forward.

Then he drew his sword just like that and planted it into the chest of the human lying flat on the ground.

What?

Flustered by the situation that had unfolded in an instant, the leader stretched his neck forward.

But he had not seen wrong.

A sword was embedded in the large human’s chest.

The large human, unable to even scream, collapsed onto the ground.

A moment later, the small human’s scream rang through the forest.

* * *

The leader could not understand the situation and could not take his eyes off the humans.

What is this? Why did they suddenly start killing each other?

Everything was full of things he could not understand.

What was most incomprehensible of all was the human child’s next action.

The human child did not run away this time either.

The stupid child shook her parent’s body as if unable to believe it.

Without realizing it, the leader clenched his fist and shouted inwardly.

You idiot, you should at least run away instead.

Or beg the remaining ones to spare you.

Just as your parent did.

But the human child merely struggled and strained to roll over the curled-up human corpse.

Perhaps it was difficult to roll the limp corpse, because the human child’s futile movements continued.

Eventually, the child gave up on turning the corpse over and moved her steps toward the dead human’s face.

The child’s small hands carefully lifted the fallen human’s head.

The leader blankly watched as the human child embraced the corpse’s head.

It was not that she did not know it was a corpse.

Death, especially the death of something that had been alive and moving moments ago, was not something one could ignore simply because one wanted to.

But as if that did not matter, no, as if that made her even more desperate, the human child held the dead one’s head even more tightly.

The human child was crying.

It was not as if doing that would bring the dead back to life.

The leader could not take his eyes off that sight.

He did not know why.

There was nothing new about a human child crying, but it simply happened that way.

And when he discovered the small human raising his hand again and giving some kind of order, one of his feet shot forward without him realizing it.

Startled by himself, he came to his senses and pulled his body back, and then he saw the child belatedly bowing her head to the ground and begging to be spared.

The moment he thought that somehow made him feel even worse, the small human urged the human holding the sword once more.

And the small human, too, met her death by the sharp sword.

The leader quietly watched the two humans rolling weakly on the ground, then soon left his spot.

After all, continuing to watch would not cause any change in the dead humans.

Before turning away, he saw the half-remaining human body through the hole pierced in the box.

Things that had not been visible before entered his eyes as well.

For example, the shabby wooden stick clutched tightly in the remaining corpse’s hand, which had clearly been used as a weapon.

In that instant, a realization passed through the leader’s mind.

It was not that his subordinates’ hunting skills were so terrible that they had let the human child go.

The half-remaining human’s resistance had been too fierce.

Whether it had been to divert attention from the other humans, or because he had truly had the reckless thought that he alone could face two orcs, the leader would never know.

But he had a feeling it was probably the former.

Leaving that strange feeling behind, the leader moved his feet toward the island.

Contrary to the leader’s worries, the humans did not invade the island.

After ordering the group not to lower their guard, the leader sat in his place and sank into thought.

Since it was not something he was very used to, even the leader himself was not aware that he was thinking.

He simply could not forget the sight of the human child.

The sight of her tightly embracing the dead human’s head.

The leader was used to death.

The prey his subordinates brought back every day also met death.

He himself had chased after those humans to kill them too.

So there should have been nothing new at all about the deaths of those two.

But whether something had gone wrong somehow, it bothered his nerves more than when his body had felt unwell over the past few days.

This time, it was even worse because he did not know the reason.

At this rate, his head felt as if it would start burning.

‘....Am I really burning up?’

The leader, who had been heating up over a problem that produced no answer, came back to his senses at the sudden hot energy he felt.

“Kweek!!”

Looking around, the leader was startled by the black energy that had somehow begun to slowly fill the surroundings, and he sprang to his feet.

It was not his head that was hot, but the ground.

It was the omen of a new orc being born.

The other orcs who noticed the change were also gathering nearby.

‘Damn it, to think I did not even notice this.’

The birth of a new orc meant that the number of targets he had to be wary of had increased again.

The leader, who had recently become sensitive to the appearance of new orcs, found it ridiculous that his attention had been scattered like this just because of humans.

Yes, it was a death he would forget by tomorrow anyway.

Since he thought the humans might invade, it was only bothering him for no reason.

Forcefully emptying his head of stray thoughts, the leader focused on the black shape that was gradually beginning to take form.

Settling the hierarchy with the newly created orc was also the leader’s role.

Because among them, there were sometimes fellows who attacked without knowing their place as soon as they were born.

The leader silently watched as the black mass growing in size clumped together and created arms, legs, and a head.

At last, as if fog were clearing, the black energy dispersed, and one green orc revealed itself.

It was an ordinary orc, neither particularly big nor small.

His first impression was that it did not seem like it would be a great threat, but the leader did not let his guard down.

Whether small or large, they were equally dangerous if they suddenly attacked.

The leader waited for the born orc to open its eyes.

Not long after, the newly born thing finally slowly lifted its eyelids.

In that instant, the leader was swept up in a strange feeling.

It was not that the fellow looked threatening, or strong, or anything like that.

No, rather, rather....did it not look a little blank?