Chapter 164 — Circumstances
Did the leader know?
That someone had been secretly watching the one who secretly watched the humans.
That the stalker-like dimwit had even kidnapped me for his sake and planned to use me as a substitute human.
That someone who cared about him that much had been right beside him all along.
“Kweek, s-so, you should r-run away with me too.”
That the dimwit was persistently asking me to play the role of a substitute human.
“Kweek, let’s say I follow you. Kweek, then what are you going to do? Kweek, do you really think you can keep fooling the leader by pretending you can’t speak?”
When I pressed him, the dimwit’s expression hardened, as though he had also given that matter some thought.
“K-Kweek, b-but if the leader finds out, kkweek, he’ll g-get angry.”
I quietly watched the dimwit muttering gloomily, then rose to my feet.
“Kweek? W-What are you doing?”
“Kweek, what do you think? Kweek, we have to go back.”
I had no intention of listening to the dimwit’s idiotic worries. It would be more productive to think about how to find Ratel and the leader.
However, I had only taken a few steps when I was forced to stop.
The dimwit had blocked my path with an unexpectedly resolute expression.
“K-Kweek...! You can’t go!”
“Kweek, and how are you planning to stop me this time? Kweek, are you going to throw me into the river again?”
“Kweek, th-that was because I d-didn’t know you could drown. Kweek, I-I won’t kill you. Kweek, if that s-scary human finds out, it’ll be bad.”
Come to think of it, he had been firmly convinced all this time that Ratel would kill him if I died.
“Kweek, did he say that himself? Kweek, did he say he would kill the leader if you killed me?”
The dimwit, who had been trembling as though the very thought terrified him, shook his head.
“Kweek, n-no, he didn’t. Kweek, but he told me to w-watch you. Kweek, until you g-get sick of living with the orcs.”
Come to think of it, he had said there was some sort of deal between them.
Remembering the threat Ratel had once confessed to making, I stepped closer to the dimwit, who still showed no intention of moving aside.
He flinched, but held his ground with surprising firmness.
“Kweek, a-anyway, he said he’d k-kill the leader. Kweek, he said he needed the leader’s n-neck. Kweek, s-so if I d-don’t eat the leader’s neck, the leader will keep living. Kweek, if you’re there, th-then...”
After rambling on about why he had to keep me here, the dimwit cautiously studied my expression.
“Kweek, none of that will help. Kweek, you can’t spend your whole life running away.”
A powerful premonition flashed through my mind, and I stared at the dimwit.
“Kweek, th-that’s….true.”
The dimwit rolled his eyes before nodding once.
“Kweek, and by now, the leader is probably alone with that human. Kweek, according to you, if I die, the leader dies too. From that human’s perspective, wouldn’t it look like I drowned? Kweek, after you dragged me away, no less.”
“Kweek!! Th-That’s right too! Kweek!! Th-The leader is with the h-human!! Kweek!! He’s in danger!!”
Only then did he seem to remember that he had left the leader alone with Ratel. He leaped into the air and screamed.
However, the momentum that made it seem as though he would sprint away at once quickly faded.
“K-Kweek, b-but he p-probably won’t kill him. Kweek, he said he w-wouldn’t kill him until I ate the leader.”
The dimwit suddenly crouched down like a deflated balloon and muttered weakly.
What now?
Wondering whether there was another problem I had failed to consider, I questioned him, and the dimwit rolled his eyes.
“Kweek, what is it now? Kweek, why did you suddenly change your mind?”
It was indeed a problem I had not anticipated.
A pathetically trivial one.
“Kweek, w-what if I get scolded?”
Why should I care?
I felt not the slightest sympathy for the creature looking up at me with such a pitiful expression.
“Kweek, the leader won’t scold you.”
When I answered decisively, the dimwit’s face brightened.
“Kweek, by the time you make up your mind to return to the leader, he probably won’t be in any condition to get angry with you.”
“Kweek!! W-What does that mean?!”
“Kweek, it means there are countless ways to take revenge without killing someone. Kweek, humans can be far crueler than you imagine.”
I stared into his trembling eyes and lowered my voice.
“Kweek, I can’t even imagine what that foul-tempered human might do to the leader.”
Inside the dimwit’s overly active imagination, the leader’s funeral had apparently already begun.
I silently watched his face turn pale.
Once he found something even more frightening than having his secret discovered by the leader, the dimwit finally rose.
I had said all that, but I did not truly believe the leader was in danger.
No matter what Ratel did to him, I was confident he would not kill him.
After all, Ratel had noticed the unusual relationship between those two orcs even before I had.
He would not kill them recklessly.
Yes, that was precisely the problem.
There might be another reason Ratel refused to kill the leader besides merely wanting to absorb the power of the holy relic.
If he began to think that he did not want to kill either of those two orcs—
“Kweek!! Th-This way!! Kweek!! Hurry up!!”
The dimwit shouted before I could sink further into those ominous thoughts.
He had apparently already forgotten how he had been crouching in fear of being scolded by the leader. He was far ahead of me now, waving his hand.
When I followed him and closed the distance, the dimwit began guiding me as though he had been waiting for exactly that.
As I watched his confident back, an emotion slowly began to rise within me.
Calling it betrayal would be too dramatic….
Yes, it was irritation.
“Kweek!! Y-You’re slow! Kweek!! Hurry up!!”
So you knew the entire route from the beginning.
The dimwit moved without the slightest hesitation, to the point that it was surprising he had quietly followed behind me until now.
‘……’
“Kweek, even the leader didn’t seem to know all the paths. How do you know every route inside this cave?”
The dimwit, who had been hurrying ahead, flinched at my question.
“Kweek, th-the leader is g-good at smelling me. Kweek, if I d-don’t want to be caught, I have to f-follow while hiding carefully.”
The dimwit mumbled.
So my guess that the leader had secretly been watching the humans had been correct.
But if that was true, it made even less sense.
If the dimwit had learned the cave’s routes by following the leader, then the leader should have known the internal structure just as well as he did.
“Kweek, if you followed the leader, shouldn’t he know this place just as well as you do?”
Yet the leader had clearly been so ignorant of the cave that he had needed my guidance.
“Kweek, did the leader know the route but pretend not to, just like you?”
“Kweek, i-it’s different. Kweek, the leader doesn’t know this route well. Kweek, someone t-taught me the way.”
The omitted subject could hardly have been another orc like him.
Setting aside whether another creature existed that knew the cave that well, there was no reason anyone would show him such kindness in the first place.
“Kweek, who? Kweek, who taught you the way?”
“K-Kweek, w-well, that is, that is...”
The dimwit twisted his body through a narrow passage as he answered, then suddenly stopped speaking.
At first, I thought his speech had merely slowed because he was struggling to force out unfamiliar words.
But the way his eyes wandered blankly through empty space reminded me of something from the recent past.
My conversation with the leader, who had suddenly lost an entire piece of his memory.
“Kweek, hey! Hey!”
I grabbed the dimwit by the shoulders and shook him roughly. He looked as though his soul had left his body.
Before long, life returned to his eyes, and he looked at me as though nothing had happened.
“Kweek, th-the leader is g-good at smelling me. Kweek, if I d-don’t want to be caught, I have to f-follow while hiding carefully.”
He repeated the exact words he had spoken earlier, as though the conversation in between had been neatly carved out of his memory.
“Kweek, don’t you remember what just happened?”
I asked in hopes that some trace of the memory remained, but the dimwit only stared at me in confusion.
“Kweek, w-what are you talking about?”
“Kweek, you just said someone taught you the way….”
“Kkueeeeeek!!!”
The dimwit had not suddenly suffered a seizure.
The scream, which sounded like a pig being slaughtered, had come from deep inside the cave.
“K-Kweek!! Th-That’s the leader!!”
The dimwit snapped back to his senses, shook me off, and ran.
I withdrew the hand that had been gripping him and followed as he squeezed his body into the narrow passage.
Yes, for now, it was also important to reunite with Ratel and the leader as quickly as possible.
Not killing someone did not necessarily mean leaving every hair on their body untouched.
The leader might lose another arm or leg.
Still, his most important breath would remain, so it probably did not matter.
* * *
He could not breathe.
The leader looked up at the human gripping his throat with one hand and thought that he might be strangled to death before the others could ever take his head.
He had always known death could come at any moment and had prepared himself for many possibilities.
But this kind of humiliating death had not been among them.
The leader struggled to escape the human’s grasp, but it was useless.
What injured his pride even more was that the human strangling him was calmly looking down the cliff as though the leader did not matter.
“K-Kweek...! Looking down there won’t help! Kweek! They would’ve been swept far away by now!”
The leader managed to speak after barely securing a passage for air.
He regretted it immediately.
It only made him realize the even more humiliating truth that he had been able to breathe until now solely because of the human’s mercy.
“Kweek...!”
When the pressure around his throat increased, the leader instinctively grabbed the human’s hand.
The human’s gaze, which had remained fixed below the cliff, finally turned toward him.
The leader shuddered involuntarily under that cold stare.
However, he did not close his mouth and meekly watch the human’s mood.
He could not allow a monster like this to go down there.
“Kweek!! Chasing them now would be pointless! Kweek, you have no choice but to wait for that insolent bastard to come back!”
When the human stepped away from the cliff, the leader released a small sigh of relief.
A moment later, he nearly bit his tongue when the human hurled him onto the ground.
Groaning, the leader tried to rise, only to be forced back down by the foot pressing against his throat.
He could not ignore the fear that a single human foot, smaller than his own hand, might break his neck.
The leader’s hands trembled as he clutched Ratel’s leg while it pressed down harder and harder.
“K-Kweek...! If you kill me now, you’ll never obtain the leader’s head!”
Unable to endure any longer, the leader desperately cried out to save his life.
Ratel looked down at him and pressed harder with the leg crushing his throat.
He knew the leader was bluffing to buy time.
He also knew that the prince and the dimwit, who had been swept away below, were not dead.
Had the prince who had become an orc not said so himself?
Sierra’s power would not kill him.
Just as he had said, he had been swept away by water several times before, but it had never once posed a threat serious enough to kill him.
Ratel also understood that waiting here was the best way to avoid missing each other.
That was why his heart was unsettled.
He knew everything.
And yet, there was nothing he could do.
“Kweek! Stop taking your anger out on me and move this!”
Ratel, who had unconsciously increased the pressure in his leg, lowered his head.
The leader’s face had turned dark green, and he was choking for breath.
So this was merely a way to pass the time.
There was no telling how long it would take for the prince to return.
Ratel eased the pressure slightly.
“How do you feel right now?”
“K-Kweek...! You lunatics! Kweek!! Why the hell are you curious about something like that?!”
The leader greedily sucked in air and glared at Ratel with bloodshot eyes.
Ratel did not need the leader to explain who the other lunatic was.
“So, what did you tell the other lunatic?”
When Ratel refused to abandon the question, the leader stared in disgust at the calm lunatic above him.
He could not tell whether strange people simply gathered together, or whether the orc had become strange after spending time with a strange human.
One thing was certain.
Both of them were lunatics who would never give up until they received an answer.
The leader shuddered at the kindness of leaving him just enough air to speak and opened his mouth.
“Kweek, what do you think you’re asking?! Kweek, of course I feel terrible!!”
“Why? Because the dimwit abandoned you and ran away?”
At Ratel’s question, which struck a painful spot, the leader felt the strength drain from his body.
He had not realized it until now, but Ratel was right.
No, since the leader himself had pushed the dimwit away and told him to escape, saying he had been abandoned might not be entirely accurate.
Still, there was no denying that the dimwit had fled and left him behind.
Had their positions been reversed, the leader probably would not have left him.
So, when he thought about it carefully, he had every reason to be angry. He also had every right to feel wronged.
“...Kweek, no. That doesn’t matter.”
Strangely, however, he was not angry.
Perhaps his brain had stopped working properly because he could not breathe.
Unable to move beneath the human’s foot, the leader suddenly recalled the confident face of someone just as irritating as the human before him.
—If he’s the opponent, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to be fooled once.
“Kweek, it doesn’t matter.”
Before he realized it, the leader repeated the irritating bastard’s answer that echoed through his mind.
“....Kweek, it must have been that important to him.”
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