Chapter 173 – Betrayal
“Kweek, cut the dimwit with that sword.”
Someone reacted fiercely the moment I finished speaking.
“Kweek!! Don’t say something so ridiculous!!”
The leader, who had been watching the situation while keeping the dimwit hidden behind him, roared.
“Don’t shout!”
At the same time, Lia lowered her voice and scolded the leader.
“Kweek, how dare a mere human—”
A shadow fell over the leader, who had briefly been overwhelmed by her forcefulness.
It was Ratel, who had already picked up the holy relic.
“K-Kweek......”
Fear appeared on the leader’s face when Ratel looked ready to slice through the dimwit’s neck at any moment.
I was bewildered by the sudden confrontation.
It wasn’t as though I actually needed the dimwit’s neck.
Regretting that I had not simply asked for a few drops of his blood from the beginning, I hurriedly opened my mouth.
“Kweek, wait. I’m not telling you to kill him. Kweek, we only need to sprinkle some of his blood here.”
All four of them turned toward me.
“Kweek! You should have said that from the beginning!”
“I told you not to shout!”
“Kweek, you’re even louder!!”
“I said stop shouting!”
Ignoring the leader and Lia as they created a complete mess, Ratel indicated the dimwit with his eyes.
His gaze asked whether that was truly all he needed to do, so I raised my vanishing hand.
That’s enough, so hurry up and do it.
Ratel sighed and attempted to pull the dimwit away from the leader.
Once again, however, the leader refused to surrender the dimwit easily.
“Kweek, isn’t it dangerous? Kweek, that bastard only cut his hand once, and look what happened to him.”
Ratel frowned at the leader’s sharp observation.
“Wouldn’t it be better for him to go painlessly like that than to die painfully by my hand?”
I told you, I’m not dying yet.
While the two of them confronted each other after Ratel arbitrarily sent me off to the afterlife, the dimwit cautiously emerged from behind the leader.
“Kweek, you idiot! What are you doing?!”
The leader tried to grab him and hide him again, but the dimwit slipped past his hand and approached me.
“K-Kweek, if you need blood, I’ll give it to you.”
His speech was clumsy, but his voice was resolute.
“Kweek, you h-helped us.”
His vacant eyes looked straight at me without wavering.
“Kweek, thanks to you, the punishment is all over. Kweek, I’ll help you too.”
Honestly, it was difficult for me to understand what kind of help the dimwit thought I had given him.
From beginning to end, I had merely manipulated the two orcs however I pleased.
Still, I was hardly in a position to reject something I could obtain so easily.
For some reason, even the leader had fallen silent.
It would be better to finish this before the dimwit changed his mind again.
“Kweek, then cut the dimwit’s arm. Kweek, a few drops of blood will be enough.”
At my urging, Ratel silently made a shallow cut on the dimwit’s arm.
The dimwit watched the wound on his arm heal more quietly than expected.
Drops of green blood clinging to the tip of the sword fell into the black fog.
And, surprisingly, absolutely nothing happened.
“......This really is the outcome you imagined, isn’t it, Ran?”
Breaking the silence, Lia looked up at me anxiously and asked.
It was anticlimactic, but this was the result I had wanted.
“Kweek, yes. What just happened made one thing fairly certain. Kweek, I’ll be able to return.”
“Is that really true?!”
Lia unconsciously raised her voice, then covered her mouth when she realized what she had done.
“How can you be so certain?”
Ratel asked after tossing the dimwit back to the leader.
“Kweek, everything that happens has a reason and a purpose.”
Perhaps my answer sounded rather absurd, because Ratel and Lia both looked at me as though I were spouting nonsense.
“Kweek, there is a reason I’m transforming like this, and the power transforming me has a purpose. Kweek, I won’t die until that purpose is fulfilled.”
More precisely, it would probably be more accurate to say that the power would not let me die.
I could not explain at length.
Perhaps speaking also sent shocks through my body, because the rate of disintegration began accelerating.
Before the plague-like phenomenon could climb up my neck, I hurriedly spoke.
“Kweek, I’ll return. Kweek, so remember just one thing. Kweek, you must not kill those orcs until I come back.”
Having hastily finished speaking, I looked at the two of them and waited for an answer.
Unlike Lia, who reluctantly nodded, the protagonist bastard did not move his head even once, intensifying my unease.
I could already picture him remaining silent now, only to stubbornly do whatever he wanted later.
Even if I confronted him afterward, he would obviously insist that he had never agreed.
“Kweek, wait here. Kweek, if you wait quietly, I’ll be back soon.”
The moment I finished giving him my final warning, I sensed another portion of my body crumbling into powder and scattering.
I could no longer look down because everything below my neck had disappeared, but the horror on their faces told me what had happened.
I saw Ratel and Lia reaching toward me.
I could not tell whether even the tips of their fingers managed to touch me.
For better or worse, my consciousness began fading along with my blurring vision.
Struggling to keep Lia within my dimming sight, I opened my mouth to speak one last time.
“Kweek, hold on just a little longer.”
Lia’s puzzled face was the last thing I saw before I completely lost consciousness.
“You’re finally awake, child. You seem to have grown quite a bit since I last saw you.”
A furry face curled its lips into an irritating grin as it mocked me.
As my scattered consciousness returned to its proper place, I opened my eyes at the sensation of someone crawling over my body.
Contrary to my fear that I might be forced to watch the process of an orc being created from a human, the surroundings were completely still.
A strangely familiar squirrel tail swayed back and forth, flaunting its abundant fur.
“Kweek.......”
When I tried to speak, my vocal cords moved like a long-neglected machine creaking back into operation.
The sound was not as loud as I had intended, but the owner of the tail quickly turned and looked at me.
Wearing the most irritating expression a squirrel’s face could possibly produce, El inspected me from every angle.
“Looking at you again, perhaps you’ve only grown sideways.”
When I showed no particular reaction, the corners of his eyes rose slightly.
“You never look surprised enough. That makes teasing you rather unsatisfying.”
Ignoring him, I surveyed the empty space around us.
“Kweek, were you the one who dragged me here?”
“Why do you assume that I brought you here? Perhaps I merely followed you inside.”
“Kweek, don’t play word games. Kweek, I know this isn’t where I’m supposed to be.”
El’s smile deepened at my irritated response.
“You’re always astonishingly perceptive.”
It hardly required perception.
This was merely a conclusion drawn from the information I had gathered through experience.
Despite hounding me like a creditor and demanding that I keep my promise ever since we entered the cave, Sierra’s remaining power had never managed to torment me beyond a certain point.
Once the same thing happened several times, the answer naturally became obvious.
My consent was absolutely essential to fulfilling that promise.
I did not know its precise activation condition, but the contract bound to that “promise” could not be forcibly carried out unless my consciousness was awake.
In other words, Sierra’s power did not want me wasting time here like this.
Not that I wanted to waste time here either.
I struggled to raise myself, then extended my hand toward El after he climbed down from my body.
“Kweek, I don’t have time to listen to you. Kweek, hurry up and climb aboard.”
Having stopped teasing me, El silently stared down at my outstretched palm.
Then he looked up at me with a puzzled expression.
“Kweek, what?”
“Don’t you think there’s something you need to resolve before that?”
I was about to reply that I planned to interrogate him later about how he had brought me to this place.
At that moment, I noticed the large, knobby green hand I had extended toward him.
The squirrel bastard noticed my fixed gaze and nodded as though I had finally begun to understand.
“Yes, the situation was so urgent that you must have temporarily forgotten. That is understandable. What matters is that I know how to restore your original body.”
I now understood the source of the arrogance with which he raised his chin and looked down at me despite being barely the size of my palm.
This was an opportunity that the squirrel bastard would never receive again.
It was his chance to turn our relationship to his advantage.
The bait he had chosen was a way to restore my human body.
“I shall return you to your original body. In exchange, from now on, you will—”
“Kweek, I don’t need it.”
“You don’t need...... What did you say?”
He stopped before he could arrogantly present his demand and stared at me.
“Kweek, why are you pretending you didn’t hear me? Kweek, I said I won’t make a deal with you.”
I meant exactly what I said.
Returning to human form was not an urgent matter for me.
I had begun speaking to warn him that he could not manipulate the situation however he pleased, but his unexpected reaction silenced me.
“You truly wouldn’t mind living in that form?”
His face was filled with excitement he could not conceal.
There were several things one had to remember when negotiating.
Never reveal your entire hand at once.
No matter how impatient or anxious you are, never let your opponent realize it.
Seeing El’s broad grin snapped me back to my senses as though the second rule had slapped me across the face.
I also realized that I was more shaken than I had thought.
Right. I had briefly forgotten that dealing with that bastard always had to be treated as a negotiation.
Fortunately, my defeat had not yet been decided.
I had not violated the first rule yet.
The thousand-year-old squirrel bastard continued grinning as though he could not contain his delight.
Wasn’t he planning to threaten me with the method of restoring my human body?
Had my impatience caused me to overlook something?
No matter how hard I thought, there was no way to determine his intentions immediately.
“There’s no need to make such a frightening face. It is true that I know how to restore your human form.”
He spoke as though reassuring me, but now that I had calmed down, I noticed something.
His eyes were shining with anticipation as he tested my reaction.
Why does he care so much about whether I return to human form?
“Kweek, restoring my original body shouldn’t benefit you. Kweek, if I return to normal, you’ll lose your final opportunity to reveal yourself before Ratel.”
“Final opportunity?”
El repeated the words with a smile still on his face.
“Kweek, Ratel will continue to need royal blood, and you only need to prove that you can fulfill that role. Kweek, if your help saves Jing, Ratel won’t simply kill you.”
That also meant El would never be able to show himself before Ratel again if he allowed Jing to die.
Jing meant that much to Ratel.
If that squirrel bastard had seen Ratel’s reaction upon learning that Jing had been devoured, he would not have been in the mood to play word games.
“That would certainly be troublesome.”
El muttered with an expression that showed he was not troubled in the slightest.
“By the way, you all seem remarkably fond of Feedus’ child. He doesn’t appear particularly special to me.”
“Kweek, are you jealous because the protagonist follows someone who doesn’t look particularly special?”
Apparently amused by my words, the squirrel bastard chuckled.
“No, not at all. Yes, one cannot help who enters one’s heart. There is no need to worry too much. Feedus’ child is not dead yet.”
“Kweek, do you know what happened to Jing?”
The moment I blurted out the question, I realized that I had made another mistake.
Even I could hear the urgency in my voice, and it was obvious enough for El to notice as well.
His smile deepened.
A squirrel smiling broadly was a sight in which the eeriness overwhelmed the cuteness.
“Ha-ha. Of all the forms I’ve seen you take, I think this one suits you best. That strange speech habit is entertaining too.”
“Kweek, I’ll let you hear it as much as you want. Kweek, as long as you go outside and destroy the holy relic.”
I did not respond to his mockery, but apparently watching me grow impatient was entertaining enough. El finally scampered onto my palm.
“Feedus’ child is still alive. Although he is suffering pain close to death. Ah, and of course, he hasn’t become an orc either.”
After tapping my palm several times with his tail, he casually delivered the news.
He was not dead.
He had not become an orc either.
Relieved that the worst possibilities had been avoided, I exhaled.
El watched me and continued with a gentle smile.
“However, it is also true that he doesn’t have much time left. Before long, his entire body will disintegrate and be used as nourishment to create an orc. The process may already be halfway complete.”
“Kweek, anyone listening to you would think you desperately wanted that to happen.”
“Of course not, you ungrateful child. In fact, I have just returned from helping that Feedus child you all care so much about survive this long. Without me, he would already have disintegrated and become nourishment for the creation of an orc.”
As though this particular claim was completely sincere, El arrogantly raised his chin and boasted.
It did not seem to be a lie.
That meant he was not entirely opposed to saving Jing.
What in the world does he want?
When I looked at him questioningly, he spoke.
“You seem eager to leave and save that child of the Feedus family, but there is something you must do first.”
Looking as though he was enjoying himself immensely, El raised one finger.
“First, I shall restore your original body.”
“Kweek, do you want me to return to human form or not?”
“What are you talking about? Naturally, I want you to return. Even someone like you cannot live in that form forever.”
Despite trying to force something on me that I had never requested, he spoke as though he were displaying extraordinary generosity.
Judging by how relaxed he appeared, one thing seemed certain.
“Kweek, you seem convinced that you’ll still be useful even after I regain my original body. Do you think my half-blood won’t be enough to destroy the holy relic?”
Contrary to my expectation that El would immediately confirm my suspicion and flaunt his advantage, he tapped his chin as though considering the matter.
He still could not suppress the upward curl of his lips.
“That is probably not the case. You are rather fortunate, after all.”
Impossible.
This time, he had said something genuinely ridiculous.
“Kweek, if I were truly fortunate, I would never have met you in the first place.”
For the first time, El’s smile disappeared.
But only briefly.
Apparently, he had not expected sympathy or compassion from me anyway.
Either that, or his joy was simply too great for such a minor wound to matter.
Erasing the negative emotion in an instant, he smiled again.
“You will soon realize that I am right. You need only endure a little longer.”
“Kweek, what else are you telling me to wait for?”
At my irritated question, he raised his right hand. His finger pointed into the empty space where nothing could be seen.
“The moon has just risen outside.”
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