Chapter 157 :

Chapter 157 - The Leader and the Dimwit (3)

Usually, newly born ones are born with a complete form, enough to go hunting right away.

The fellow born this time also seemed to have taken proper shape, more or less.

But to the leader, who had already watched the births of several orcs, it was visible.

That the fellow was somehow blank compared to the other orcs.

The way he slowly blinked both eyes, the fact that he made no big movements, and just looking at him overall, there was no way to explain it except to say he looked blank.

This was the first time such a blank orc had been born.

While the leader could not decide how to deal with this strange orc, the blank fellow slowly opened his mouth.

“Kweek...!”

That weak cry, as feeble as his dull eyes, seemed to drain all strength from him.

Still, what had to be settled had to be settled.

The leader took one step closer to the fellow, who was blankly looking around.

“Kweek, if you are not going to attack me, then join those fellows and do your job. Kweek, you should be able to move around roughly now.”

At the stiff order, the newly born fellow blinked.

“Kweek, if you understood, then why can you not get lost already!”

“Kweek...!”

When the leader shouted at him in frustration at that suffocating sight, only then did the blank fellow let out one cry and begin moving his legs.

Thinking that even crawling would be faster than that, the leader followed the fellow with his eyes.

It did not last very long.

The leader soon lost interest and turned away from the fellow disappearing among the group.

Since he was not much of a threat, as long as he obeyed his orders, the leader did not care what happened to the rest.

Though the thought did briefly pass through his mind that the fellow would probably live while being shoved around by the others.

Even that did not remain in the leader’s head for long.

No, to be precise, it nearly did.

Kwaaaaaaaaa—

A tremendous sound of water swallowed the entire cave.

The leader immediately realized what had happened.

He did not know why, but the water that had dried up was returning to its place.

That also meant the waterfall that had dried up would begin flowing again.

“Kweek!! If you do not want to die, everyone move back!!! Kweek!! Do not stand where the water used to flow!!”

At the leader’s shout, the orcs who had been confused began retreating all at once.

They were stupid fellows, but as ones who followed orders well enough, they all obeyed the command without even knowing what was happening.

Just as the leader had expected, a terrifyingly fierce stream of water burst out from the dried-up entrance.

As if making up for the drought until now, the river water swept over the ground that had gone dry.

Startled by the massive flow of water, the orcs scrambled over one another to flee from it.

Seeing even those who had moved far enough from the waterfall still unable to adapt to the sudden change and busy fleeing, veins rose on the leader’s forehead.

“Kweek!! Do not be afraid, you idiots!! Kweek!! If you have moved away enough, just stay still!!”

At the leader’s roar, the orcs slowly began to regain their composure.

The leader clicked his tongue at the painfully slow understanding of those idiots, who realized far too late that they would not drown, and sat back down in his place.

It was at that moment.

“Kweeeek!!!”

When he turned his head toward the place where a scream had swallowed his ears, an unbelievable sight unfolded before the leader’s eyes.

Beside the orcs gathered together like a lump, one orc was falling.

The leader stared blankly at the fellow falling beneath the waterfall.

It was the very orc he had thought looked blank and would probably be shoved around by others.

But I did not know he would be shoved and sent flying right away like this.

Nor did I know he was not merely blank, but lacking.

Once he had fallen, there was no particular way to help him.

No, he had no desire to help a fellow who had fallen so stupidly either.

The leader looked down at the place where the dimwit, who would remain in his memory as the orc who died in the most absurd way, had disappeared.

After becoming leader, he had seen many stupid fellows, but this was the first time he had seen one that stupid, and the first time he had seen an orc meet such a hollow end.

* * *

Between dawn and morning, the leader slowly looked around.

After confirming that everyone was deeply asleep, the leader quietly rose to his feet.

The place his steps headed toward was outside the cave.

The sun had not yet fully risen in the dim dawn sky.

Tiny scraps of sunlight made his skin sting, but the leader did not stop walking.

The reason he endured the pain and came outside was reconnaissance.

The traces of the two orc bastards tearing into humans should have remained inside the human house.

Yet despite that, the outside was quiet, and the human house was firmly shut as if nothing had happened.

He did not know the reason, but it was clear that humans disappeared when night came.

That was why the leader had left the cave early at dawn.

Of course, that did not explain why the leader had come out alone and secretly.

Because even the leader himself did not know that.

At last, after leaving the cave, the leader lowered his body and looked at the human house in the distance.

But until dawn was nearly over, no human appeared.

The more the sun showed itself, the stronger the pain he felt on his skin became.

It was at the moment he thought that any more than this would make his skin burn.

Clack.

At last, the door opened.

The one who appeared from inside was a male human.

One who limped, at that.

He was no threat at all. No, with a body like that, it was obvious he would not last a single day in the forest and would die.

The leader, puzzled by the sudden appearance of such a weak human, leaned his body forward to get a closer look at him.

Since he had made that place his nest despite clearly knowing that orcs lived nearby, he might have been hiding some other power.

But it was soon revealed that the leader’s wariness had been nothing more than useless anxiety.

“Oh dear!”

Because the human, who had been walking unsteadily, powerlessly fell forward.

At that utterly pathetic sight, the leader lost strength and frowned.

What is this? He is just crippled.

The leader, having finished his instinctive contempt and judgment, was about to turn away.

It was at that moment.

“Father! Did you fall again?”

Along with a young voice, another human appeared through the opened door.

The leader stopped moving as if bewitched.

It was a human child.

Different from the one that had died, but still a small human who looked small and weak.

The small human approached his fallen parent and struggled to help the large human up.

Though he was much smaller than the fallen human, so he did not seem to be much help.

“I did not fall! It only looked like something had dropped on the ground, so I was checking!”

“If you check twice, your other knee will go out too.”

“What did you say?! This brat, I do not know who you take after, but day by day that little mouth of yours gets more and more...”

The human who rose with a groan grabbed the child’s mouth and stretched it like a duck’s bill.

When the small human struggled and tried to escape from his grasp, the human with the bad leg giggled and laughed.

The leader, who had watched the two humans for a long while, came back to his senses at the sensation of his skin burning.

The sun had already fully revealed itself.

While returning to the cave, and even after he returned, the leader kept chewing over the cheerful-looking sight of the two humans.

Even the leader himself did not know what about humans had touched something within him.

It was just that the insignificant sight of the young ones kept circling in his head.

Because it did not feel particularly good, the leader sent all his subordinates outside as soon as the sun set that day.

At his order to go hunt, pick fruits, or bring back anything edible, everyone tilted their heads but obediently left the center of the cave.

Lying in the much quieter nest, the leader quietly listened to the sound of water falling.

He tried to sleep in order to air out his dirtied mood, but even that did not go as he wished.

The leader concluded that the reason was because his body was not in good condition.

It was absolutely not because he could not forget the sight of the small humans.

In fact, even though the wounds on his sunburned skin had healed, he still felt the illusion that they were stinging.

Yes, even for the sake of recovering his body, he should not be thinking about concerns that did not suit him and that he could not understand.

It was better to sleep during that time.

The leader shook his head hard to shake off the thoughts inside it, then closed his eyes to force himself to sleep.

But even this did not go according to the leader’s wishes.

“Kweeeek...”

A faint cry mixed into the sound of water.

The leader sprang up.

He had clearly told everyone to leave, but it seemed another fellow had disobeyed his order this time too.

He had thought they were listening well after he killed two of them last time.

Possessed by the thought that his position was being threatened, the leader sprang to his feet.

He looked around while grinding his teeth, intending to catch that one immediately and make him another example, but no one was visible.

The puzzled leader looked around here and there.

‘I do not think I heard wrong.’

“Kweek...!”

This time too, a small cry was heard.

This time, it had enough strength for the leader to properly recognize the direction the sound was coming from.

It also seemed like it had used up the last of its strength.

The leader turned his head toward the direction the sound was coming from, beneath the waterfall.

Did the sound come from there just now?

“Kweek...!”

As if answering the question in his head, the cry was heard once more.

The cry was coming from beyond the waterfall.

Was there a space somewhere like that?

The leader moved his feet, equipped with doubt and wariness.

Circling around the waterfall, the leader reached the end of the waterfall and carefully examined the place where the waterfall fell.

And soon, he realized there was a small space between the waterfall and the rock wall.

The pitiful cry was coming from within it.

No matter how he looked at it, it did not sound like a voice that had entered there willingly.

How does one even get trapped in a place like that?

Admiring the stupidity of the other party trapped in a place that would be hard to enter even if one were forced to, the leader stuck his head toward the waterfall.

If he had gone in there on his own two feet, then he could not possibly be any more stupid.

What sort of lacking fool traps himself in there?

Huh? A lacking fool?

At that somehow familiar description, a certain existence he had forgotten suddenly came to mind.

The lacking fellow who had fallen beneath the waterfall as soon as he was born.

‘….No way, did he go in there and survive?’

Recalling the dimwit’s face, which had looked at him with particularly blank eyes, the leader slowly began climbing down the cliff.

The leader descended along the stream of water and reached the point where the cry was coming from.

Between the fierce stream of water and the gap in the cliff, there was indeed a small space.

The leader discovered a glimpse of green visible through that gap.

When he brought his face closer to see more clearly, the situation became clearer.

As expected, the one trapped inside was that dimwit.

Whether he was lucky or unlucky, it seemed that while falling beneath the waterfall, he had been bounced into a space in the wall.

Up to that point, one could call him lucky, but the problem was the injury he had suffered.

No, to be precise, the injury he was wearing.

Perhaps something had gone wrong while he crashed into the cavern, because a long stone projection was embedded in the fellow’s neck as he lay sprawled on the ground.

It seemed that, unable to withstand the impact of rolling into the cavern, a stone icicle had fallen from the ceiling and pierced his neck.

Lucky, or unlucky.

It was the moment the leader clicked his tongue.

The dimwit, who had been crying weakly, turned his gaze toward the leader.

Through the small gap between the stream of water and the wall, the leader’s and dimwit’s gazes met.

The leader had not come down all the way there to save the dimwit in particular.

He had merely wanted to confirm with his own eyes and eliminate the source of the noise disturbing his rest.

From the looks of it, if left as he was, the fellow seemed likely to die on his own.

Either his neck would completely tear off as he struggled, or his body would weaken to the point that it could no longer recover. Either way, it would happen before the next sunrise.

The leader did not want to risk breaking through the waterfall and going inside.

So, having reached the conclusion that there was no need to go inside and kill the fellow with his own hands, the leader turned his body to go back up.

“Kweek...!”

Perhaps sensing that the leader was about to leave, the dimwit asked desperately.

Pleas about wanting to live were extremely common.

And simply ignoring them was just as common for the leader.

But the leader did not do that common thing.

If one had to pick a reason, it would be that, of all days, the leader had seen the father and son from the cabin helping each other today, and that, of all things, the dimwit’s hand reaching toward the leader reminded him of the hands of certain small humans asking for help.