Chapter 171 – Misfortune
The leader felt his blood run cold as he watched the dimwit’s body being held and shaken in the enemy’s grasp.
“Kweek, I told you to come closer!”
At the half-awakened orc’s threat, the leader ground his teeth and approached him.
It was because he had seen the bastard’s blade graze the dimwit’s neck when he let out that stupid roar moments ago.
The wound healed in an instant, but the blood left on the blade put the leader’s nerves on edge.
“Kweek, even if you kill him, you still won’t become the leader. Kweek, can’t you even figure that out?”
“Kweek, even if I don’t kill him, you’ll still do what I say.”
The half-awakened orc evidently had no intention of releasing the bait he had finally obtained.
And as though to prove his point, he drove the blade deep into the dimwit’s neck this time.
“Kweek!! Stop!!”
The leader finally lost his composure and shouted.
“Kweek, throw down your weapon too.”
The leader obediently complied with the order. Delight spread across the half-awakened orc’s face.
“Kweek, y-you always called us idiots, but you’re no different.”
It was blatant mockery, but the leader did not feel particularly upset.
After all, he wasn’t wrong.
The greater problem was that the dimwit still had not regained consciousness despite the terrible wound to his neck.
Why isn’t he waking up?
Could something have gone wrong when that bastard hit him earlier?
Or perhaps.......
“Kweek!! What are you standing there like an idiot for?!”
The leader, who had been staring blankly at the dimwit, abruptly raised his head.
When his gaze met those eyes glistening with desire, his mind strangely cleared.
Enough for another thought to enter a mind that had never considered anything except killing his opponent.
“Kweek, why do you want to become the leader?”
The orc’s face twisted at the leader’s question.
He know that expression well.
It’s the look someone makes when they think they’re hearing utter nonsense.
“Kweek, obviously, because that’s what I’m supposed to do. Kweek, everyone wants to become the leader.”
The leader nodded at the obvious answer. It was an ordinary answer, with nothing strange about it.
“Kweek, fine. Kweek, if you want the position, you can have it. Kweek, but let the dimwit go.”
At the leader’s proposal, the corners of the orc’s mouth curled into a sinister grin as he clutched the dimwit by the neck.
“Kweek, fine. If you let yourself be eaten without resisting, I will.”
A lie.
‘Once I’m dead, he intends to devour the dimwit too.’
Otherwise, he won’t be able to claim the leader’s position completely.
The leader swallowed a bitter smile and approached him. It was fortunate that the bastard was stupid.
He was such an idiot that, blinded by greed, he could not even recognize how transparent his own lie was.
The leader obediently discarded his sword and approached the enemy, who had opened his mouth.
The delighted orc inhaled roughly before charging at the leader.
With neither strength nor a weapon remaining, the leader rolled helplessly across the ground.
He had always been the hunter, but being on the receiving end felt unbelievably revolting.
It brought a fear and helplessness entirely different from simply having his life extinguished.
Pushing through that unpleasant sensation, someone surfaced in the leader’s mind.
No, saying that the person “surfaced” was not quite accurate.
He could not remember anything that would allow him to identify them.
He could not recall their personality, their voice, or even their face.
That person was the former leader whom he had devoured.
It was not because of some lingering affection or guilt toward the dead. The leader merely felt relieved.
There was no one left who remembered the one who had been eaten.
The leader alone remained aware of someone whose very existence had been severed from the world.
Even that was merely an inference he had made from the empty space left behind, rather than an actual memory of the dead leader.
He would probably meet the same fate.
Strangely enough, that fact brought the leader considerable relief.
However, this half-awakened orc would not be the one to consign him to that fate.
The leader firmly seized the head of the orc attempting to tear out his throat.
Just as the sharp teeth were about to sink into the leader’s neck—
“Kweek!!”
A familiar cry came from behind them.
A moment later, the sound of metal slicing through flesh and between bones brushed past his ears.
As the thick stench of blood spread and the pressure pinning down his body weakened, the leader silently wondered,
What kind of idiot deliberately makes such a loud noise immediately before launching a surprise attack?
Deciding that he had to teach that fool how to hunt properly before he died, the leader pushed himself up.
“K-Kweek, a-are you all right?”
The dimwit asked as he examined the leader.
Right. I knew you’d regained consciousness.
He was the kind of bastard who made a huge commotion over the slightest injury.
It would have been stranger if he had shown no reaction after his neck had been cut so deeply.
Just as the leader thought it remarkable that such a habitual whiner had managed to avoid being discovered, he noticed the dimwit’s faintly trembling hand.
The leader moved forward, forcing the dimwit—who was circling him with a terrified expression—to stay behind him.
“Kweek, this is nothing.”
After answering dismissively, the leader slowly approached the half-awakened orc writhing on the ground.
With the leader’s sword piercing his neck, the orc glared murderously at the leader and the dimwit.
“K-Kweek! You damned.......”
The leader calmly accepted the bitter curse mixed with the gurgling of bloody phlegm, then gestured to the dimwit.
The gesture meant for him to move back, and the dimwit obediently followed the leader’s order.
After confirming that the dimwit had moved far enough away, the leader silently looked down at the orc.
Under normal circumstances, perhaps this bastard would have been qualified to become the next leader.
Had the dimwit not helped him, the leader would undoubtedly have been devoured by him.
“Kweek, you did nothing wrong.”
The leader muttered in a calmer voice and state of mind than ever before.
“Kweek, you were simply unlucky this time.”
The leader did not waste any more words. He reached out and seized the orc by the neck.
Having become the predator once again, the leader opened his mouth and sank his molars into the defeated orc’s throat.
* * *
Wiping the blood from around his mouth, the leader practically crawled toward the dimwit.
Unable to endure even that much, the leader slumped sideways as though collapsing and turned his head toward the dimwit.
His battered head spun, and he could no longer feel the arm he had pushed beyond its limit while attacking the fallen orc.
His body could no longer withstand even the recoil of his own attacks, showing him that he truly had very little time remaining.
He felt an intense urge to close his eyes and comfortably drift off to sleep, but he still had something left to do.
The leader laboriously stretched out a hand toward the dimwit.
“Kweek, d-don’t move. Kweek, rest.”
Perhaps his instincts as an orc allowed him to sense the approach of death, because the dimwit’s eyes trembled anxiously.
“Kweek, shut up. Kweek, I know my own body. Kweek, I can’t die yet anyway.”
He still had something to do.
More precisely, there was something he had to pass on to the dimwit. It was more important than something as lukewarm as a final farewell.
“Kweek, listen carefully.”
“Kweek! No! Kweek! I-I won’t listen!”
Despite how much effort it had taken the leader to speak, the dimwit immediately rejected his words.
“Kweek! You have to listen! Kweek, there isn’t much time! Kweek, I’m going to die soon, and it’ll be too late once that happens!”
Losing his temper, the leader shrieked and tried to seize the dimwit. His hand stopped when it was barely a handspan away.
It was not because he suddenly pitied the poor dimwit and changed his mind.
It was because of the rumbling he could feel through the ground.
The noise was different from the simple shaking of the earth. It sounded as though something enormous was surging across the ground, and the leader desperately struggled to raise himself.
He realized far too late that the thunderous noise came from the floodwaters that had so relentlessly swept through the cavern.
“K-Kweek?”
Equally startled, the dimwit looked around.
“Kweek, you idiot! Run!”
The leader urgently shouted at the dimwit, but it was too late.
By the time he finished speaking, the stream of water rushing across the ground had already surrounded them.
It was not the leader’s fault that he had noticed it so late.
The water was moving differently from before.
Unlike the torrent that had previously crashed through the cavern as though intent on sweeping everything away, the water approached the two orcs slowly and gently.
Then, as though lifting something fragile, it carried the two orcs upon its surface.
Startled by its cautious movement, the leader struggled to escape.
As though refusing to permit even that, however, the water accelerated and began carrying the leader and the dimwit away.
There was nothing the two orcs could do in the face of this bizarre natural phenomenon.
All they could do was cling tightly to each other and surrender themselves to the current.
Despite all their anxiety, the place to which the current carried the leader and the dimwit was so familiar that it left them feeling deflated.
It was the center of the cave, where the leader had spent most of his life.
His home, where the two waterfalls converged, came into view.
‘I thought I would never return here again. Well, perhaps meeting my death in the place where I was born wouldn’t be so bad either.’
Looking upon the quiet cave reminded him of the day the dimwit had first been born.
How could he possibly forget?
The fool had been shoved aside by the others and fallen below the moment he was born.
That idiot wandered around as though he were excited to be on an outing.
“Kweek, d-down here.”
The leader forced his exhausted body upright and approached the dimwit, who was pointing beneath the waterfall.
The dimwit appeared in most of the memories that remained with the leader.
Even though, upon reflection, the leader had not actually spent that much of his life with him.
It bothered him somewhat that most of those memories involved cleaning up the messes the dimwit had caused.
Suddenly finding the bastard irritating again, the leader tried to smack the dimwit on the head with his powerless hand.
Contrary to the leader’s intentions, however, his hand could not find its direction and merely flailed through the air.
The leader stared grimly at his violently trembling hand. He knew this meant that he truly had very little time left.
“Kweek, w-what’s wrong?”
The dimwit’s anxious gaze turned toward the leader’s hand.
The dimwit had suggested that they hide and live together, but unfortunately, the leader had no intention of doing that.
The leader intended to die by the dimwit’s hand. He planned to pass the leader’s position on to him.
* * *
The leader pondered.
What would be the easiest way to pass the leader’s position to an idiot?
No matter how much he thought about it, he could not imagine the dimwit managing to devour every last bit of his neck before he died.
It might be faster for the leader to be eaten by someone else first and then have the dimwit seize the leader’s position from them.
But why is this bastard so terrible at fighting?
It isn’t as though his physical abilities are particularly poor.
“Kweek, the l-leader is about to be born.”
The leader raised his head at the dimwit’s voice.
“Kweek, o-over there.”
The dimwit was pointing toward the center.
It was the leader’s territory, which he had briefly forgotten while distracted by the waterfalls.
The leader clicked his tongue at the ominous black energy slowly creeping out from the center.
Of all times, a new orc had to appear now.
The newly born orc would undoubtedly fight them for the leader’s position as well.
Thinking that matters had become troublesome, the leader tried to pull the dimwit away, but the dimwit planted his feet and resisted.
“Kweek, what is it? Kweek, nothing good will come from staying there.......”
“Kweek, w-wait. There’s a human.”
What kind of nonsense is that?
The leader followed the dimwit’s gaze and swallowed sharply.
There was a human.
The human had remained so quiet and motionless that the leader had not even noticed his existence.
And there was no possibility that a human capable of concealing his presence so skillfully was harmless.
The leader urgently grabbed the dimwit and hid him behind his back.
“Kweek......! Run, you idiot!”
However, the dimwit stood rooted to the spot as though the soles of his feet had been glued to the ground.
“Don’t do anything foolish. It’ll cause me trouble if you die.”
The response came from a thoroughly unwelcome direction.
The manner of speaking was familiar, but the voice was cold and unfamiliar.
Damn it. Why did this human bastard suddenly come back?
The leader turned toward the owner of the unwelcome voice.
His gaze traveled up the legs of the human who had approached without his noticing, until he met the golden eyes looking down at him.
At that moment, a chilling sensation ran across the back of the leader’s neck, raising goosebumps.
It was the same piercing hostility he had once sensed from the bastard after he failed to kill an insolent opponent.
The disgust from before was absent, but that did not matter.
The leader’s instincts were warning him.
Right now, this bastard was prepared to kill everyone, and they had to flee from this human immediately.
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