Chapter 180 – The Dimwit and the Leader (1)
The power contained within the first holy relic had been safely eliminated, and Ratel had obtained its power.
That meant Ratel’s group had accomplished all of its original objectives.
The problem was that my own plan had been completely derailed.
I had no choice but to admit it now. I had come too far to remain a bystander or observer in this world.
The moment the small power created within the cave passed to Ratel—or perhaps long before that—I had become someone who could no longer escape the protagonist’s journey.
“I feel as though we’ve won the first battle of a war. It feels good, but I’m worried about the battles ahead. What we gained is valuable, but what we lost wasn’t insignificant either.”
I reassured Jing when he tried to stop me and raised myself.
“What did you gain from this battle, Jing?”
A troubled look entered his smile.
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I don’t know whether I should say I gained something or lost something.”
Only after carefully examining me to ensure I was fit to hold a conversation did Jing continue.
“While I was being devoured by the holy relic, I witnessed a strange scene. I believe it was a memory of the past. The scene was extremely familiar.”
“You probably read about it somewhere.”
It was most likely a scene from one of the history books he had read countless times since childhood.
Jing’s eyes widened at my calm response.
“......Did you see it as well, Lord Ran?”
“Ratel and I also witnessed a memory of the past. I don’t know whether it was the same scene......but I believe the people involved were the same.”
“So it was as I thought.”
Jing nodded bitterly.
We did not need to think deeply to determine the identity of the imperial family member who had slaughtered the orcs inside the cave.
Countless books already existed praising that person’s battles, and people throughout the world spoke of them.
However, none of those books would have described the scene we had witnessed with our own eyes.
“That was undoubtedly Sierra Abiran.”
No one could have imagined her treacherously breaking her promise to the monsters.
“This isn’t the first time our common knowledge has been overturned. Besides, now we know whom her descendants inherited their insufferable personalities from.”
When I spoke lightly to the solemn-looking Jing, he chuckled as though agreeing.
“Yes, you’re absolutely right. Ah, and inside the cave...... Gasp!”
Jing, whose expression had become somewhat more relaxed, was about to finish his story when he suddenly choked.
The cause of his sudden difficulty breathing was the protagonist, who had abruptly shot upright without warning.
“A-are you all right?”
Jing hurriedly asked, even though he looked far closer to death than the bastard who had sprung upright like a coiled spring.
After looking between Jing and me, Ratel opened his mouth.
“Yes. I’m perfectly fine.”
Yes, he certainly looked that way.
He rose without even blinking. As expected of the protagonist, his recovery was extraordinary.
His stamina was incomparable to mine. I remained sprawled on the ground, unable to move so much as a finger, while he approached with heavy footsteps.
“Tell me now. What kind of gamble did you make?”
That was the first thing he wanted to say after waking up?
Instead of answering, I turned toward Jing.
“Are we the only ones who survived?”
Jing, who had been examining Ratel and me with concern, abruptly shook his head as though only then remembering.
“There are others. One of them went out to find food a little while ago...... Ah, he’s coming now.”
“K-Kweek......! You’re awake!!”
The moment Jing finished speaking, a familiar voice came from nearby.
Judging by Ratel’s expression when he turned toward the voice, I could tell that I had won the gamble.
While he remained stunned, the violent pounding of the ground drew closer.
“Kweek!! If you’re awake, let’s go! Kweek, there’s something I want to show you!!”
The dimwit’s face as he looked down at me seemed brighter than the sunlight he was blocking.
“You mustn’t move yet. If you truly insist on getting up, I’ll carry you.”
Jing firmly stopped me when I tried to rise.
“The ground and your back are probably equally hard. I think I can simply crawl there.”
“That argument won’t work.”
Refusing to yield even an inch, Jing turned his back toward me and continued.
“Either climb onto my back or remain lying here for another half day. Choose one.”
I disliked both options.
Pain was something I could endure. I did not want to borrow someone else’s back, especially the back of another injured person, but I also did not want to wait another half day.
“We’re only moving to the cave entrance. You’re worrying too much. I told you I can crawl.”
“So you admit you aren’t in any condition to walk on two feet.”
“Why am I outside in the first place? You said Lia was resting inside the cave.”
“We brought you out to dry in the sunlight.”
“I’m not laundry. Why are you drying me in the sun?”
“Remaining wet would only worsen your condition. Even now, you’re sprawled out like a wet rag.”
I glared at Jing, who was unusually determined to argue over every word today.
The dimwit standing beside us cautiously studied the mood before offering a suggestion.
“K-Kweek, then I’ll carry him. Kweek, I’m good at carrying things too. Kweek, I don’t drop them as often anymore.”
I decided to borrow Jing’s back.
Right. When it came to safety, excessive preparation was always better than insufficient preparation.
When I awkwardly climbed onto Jing’s back, my height became similar to when I had been an orc.
“Kweek!! Hurry up and follow me!!”
Perhaps excited that our eyes were now level, the dimwit took the lead and began guiding us.
I could feel Ratel’s gaze burning into the back of my head as he followed at the rear, but I did not speak first.
Perhaps it was because I felt somewhat nervous too.
The dimwit’s steps were light as he excitedly guided us.
Before long, a large tree with a rotten, broken base came into view. Apparently spotting his destination, the dimwit quickened his pace.
His brisk walk soon became a run.
“Hey, wait!”
Unable to run while carrying me, Jing urgently called out. The dimwit continued accelerating as though he could not hear him.
What finally stopped the excited dimwit was a tree root protruding from the ground.
His leg caught on the motionless, hook-shaped root, and he fell spectacularly.
“Kweek!!”
The dimwit screamed and rolled several times before plunging into a hole hidden behind the broken tree stump.
No, he nearly plunged into it.
Two arms suddenly emerged from the hole and caught him.
“Kweek!! How many times has this happened now?! Kweek!! How many more times must I tell you to walk instead of running when you come inside?!”
At the familiar, forceful voice from within, I unconsciously released a small sigh of relief.
The leader had returned alive. And his severed body had been restored.
* * *
The leader welcomed us while sitting on a floor covered with dry leaves.
A short distance away, Lia slept curled up on another bed of gathered leaves.
Considering that the leader was not particularly surprised to see the three humans who had followed the dimwit inside, he appeared to have completely recovered.
No, was “recovered” even an adequate description?
After examining his right arm, I turned and met Ratel’s gaze. He had also been staring at the leader.
His eyes had widened slightly in surprise, but they returned to normal when he looked at me.
“Was that your gamble?”
“Yes. I calculated that he might survive. This was where the First Emperor’s original promise was made, and my role was to twist that contract.”
“How did that save the leader?”
“Do you remember when I became mixed into the fog?”
Apparently, it was not a pleasant memory because he frowned.
“You’ll also remember that I returned to my original body when I emerged. You can think of it as expelling the substance that forms monsters from my body by borrowing Sierra’s power.”
It could also be described as making the substance move toward the side with the higher concentration.
The black fog was a substance produced to fulfill the contract.
I still did not know the contract’s original terms, but one thing was certain: its result was the creation of orcs.
Since I had overwritten it with my power, I thought I might be able to control the black fog as I wished.
Fortunately, the black fog seemed to have properly obeyed my command to reassemble the leader’s body.
“Why didn’t you tell me beforehand?”
Ratel asked in a low voice.
I could not sense any strong resentment or anger from him, so I answered without feeling burdened.
“Because it was literally a gamble. I wasn’t certain whether I could truly save him or whether it would accomplish nothing.”
I had merely decided that believing he would die only for him to survive was better than believing he might live only for him to die.
In other words, I had not wanted to give them pointless hope.
Ratel stared at me with an exasperated expression.
“Either way, everyone survived.”
Ratel readily accepted the unspoken suggestion that he should stop questioning me.
The dimwit, who had watched the humans engage in their unpleasant conversation, could not take his eyes off the leader, who looked healthier and calmer than before.
“Kweek, why do you keep staring at me like that?”
Even the leader’s pointless rebuke did not discourage him.
At that moment, nothing in the world seemed capable of diminishing his soaring happiness.
In truth, it had been quite some time since he had begun hearing the leader’s words.
No, was “hearing” the right word?
He had begun to understand them.
Yes, it had been quite some time since he started understanding.
He could not remember it clearly, but......yes, it had happened on that day.
The day he had been terribly hungry.
There was nothing unusual about an unremarkable orc like him failing to eat enough, so hunger itself had not been special.
His hunting skills were too poor to fill his empty stomach, and even the prey he had barely managed to catch.......
But there was one reason he remembered that otherwise ordinary day.
It was the first day the leader had ever spoken to him.
It was also the day the leader, who had always guarded the same place with almost frightening consistency, moved and left his position for the first time.
—Kweek, what are you staring at?!
And it was the day the leader immediately caught him watching.
The dimwit instinctively stepped backward in fear that he might be killed, but it was not a particularly good choice.
As he retreated, he tripped over another orc’s foot and fell flat on his back.
—Kweek!!
Disdain spread across the leader’s eyes as he looked at the dimwit orc, who had fallen with an undignified scream.
—......Kweek, pathetic bastard.
After muttering those words, the leader turned away as though he had lost interest.
The dimwit had expected a fist or kick to come flying at him immediately. Puzzled by the unexpectedly mild reaction, he cautiously backed away.
As far as the dimwit could remember, the leader had always been angry.
No, perhaps he had not been angry. Maybe his personality was simply terrible.
Either way, not a day passed without him shouting. And if shouting did not work, he swung his fists at anything within reach.
Even so, the dimwit was one of the more obedient members of the horde.
He had been timid since birth, and the leader’s orders were not particularly difficult.
Go out and hunt after sunset.
Pile whatever was hunted in the lower chamber, just as the leader instructed.
Kill every human on sight.
They were simple commands that required neither difficulty nor deep thought.
Therefore, the dimwit had never possessed any reason to hold what could be called a conversation with the leader.
He only had to obey orders, kill whatever he could defeat, and then behave exactly like the current leader if he ever became leader himself.
Other than the instincts engraved into his mind from birth, there had been no reason for him to develop any feelings toward the leader.
If anything existed, it was merely fear.
And all of that would have remained true if the dimwit had not followed the leader out of the cave.
That day was the first time the dimwit orc learned that another path led outside.
He had always moved behind the orcs born before him, so he had never considered the possibility that another path existed.
The dimwit orc’s mind, which had never received new information before, spun wildly as it struggled to process the overwhelming amount.
But there was no time to organize his thoughts.
The leader walked quickly, and merely following him in secret was exhausting.
The dimwit instinctively understood that if he lost sight of the leader here, he might remain lost forever.
However, the distance between him and the leader continued widening.
The dimwit was panting and beginning to regret following the leader when he saw a flickering light in the distance.
No, perhaps it wasn’t light.
Did light have arms and legs?
Did light have arms and legs.......
When he came to his senses, the light he had been chasing had disappeared. Instead, he saw another light far away that did not move.
Right. The leader went that way, didn’t he?
The dimwit cleared the distracting thoughts from his mind and cautiously approached the light.
The moment he realized it was sunlight, however, he immediately stopped.
Orcs could not stand beneath sunlight.
More precisely, standing in sunlight was painful for them, but either way.
Just as the dimwit instinctively stopped, the leader also halted for a moment.
After only a brief hesitation, however, the leader stepped outside.
As though entranced, the dimwit approached the cave entrance where the leader had been standing.
It was early dawn, before the sun had fully risen.
Even the tiny fragments of light stung his skin as though burning it.
Nevertheless, the dimwit did not retreat.
He could not take his eyes off the leader standing several steps ahead, as motionless as though he had been nailed in place.
As though he had forgotten the pain, the leader remained perfectly still and stared toward the far side of the river.
The dimwit followed his gaze.
Contrary to his expectation that something extraordinary must have captured the leader’s attention, there was nothing particularly remarkable there.
There was only a small box.
The dimwit knew what lived inside such small structures.
Humans.
It was a box where humans lived.
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