Chapter 123 : Chapter 123
Chapter 123 : Change of Plan
The resistance of the leader, who thought he had already been deceived once, was fiercer than before.
In other words, it meant things had become damn difficult for me.
“Kkwek!!!”
Pushing away the fellow who had started snapping his jaws to bite my neck again, I glared at the culprit of this mess, Ratel.
The protagonist's fellow was, naturally, looking down at me without a shred of guilt.
Rather, he even seemed to be enjoying me being in this state.
You, just you wait and see later.
Swallowing the line that a third-rate villain would say, I clenched my fist to resolve the urgent matter at hand.
When I swung my fist slowly for a threat this time too, the leader faltered for a moment to avoid it.
Not missing the moment, I quickly opened my mouth.
“Kkwek, you should already know what is above here.”
The words that came out after painfully overcoming adversity were that much more effective.
Because the movements of the orc, who had been attacking me like a madman, stopped for a moment.
“Kkwek, are you talking about food storage?”
The leader asked with a growl, without loosening the strength in the hand holding me.
“Kkwek, yes, and there is only one passage leading to that food storage.”
“Kkwek, what about that? Kkwek, answer properly!”
The fellow could not hold back his frustration and urged for an explanation.
“Kkwek, that one and only passage has collapsed now.”
It was the clear answer the fellow wanted, but the reaction was not very good.
The leader's green face even looked as if it had turned pale.
***
If orcs were asked to pick the most important place in the cave, the center, which they used as their nest, would naturally come out first.
If they were asked to pick the next most important thing, then the food storage would naturally come out.
It was the place where they stored the prey they had hunted under the leader's orders.
Of course, in the original work, it is one of the places that Ratel turns into a complete mess.
Perhaps because the news that the only path to the food storage had collapsed while winter was approaching was quite shocking, the one-armed orc could not speak for a while.
“Kkwek, what kind of lie are you telling now…….”
“Kkwek, if it sounds like a lie, go check it yourself. Kkwek, though I don't know if there's a need to specifically do that, considering the water disaster earlier.”
“Kkwek!! Damn it!!”
The leader, who had maintained silence with his mouth open, spat out a curse and stood up.
Then he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and lifted me up.
Whether I scowled or not at the leader's foul habit of reaching out with his hands first whenever he got angry, the fellow thrust his face at me threateningly.
“Kkwek, you definitely have other schemes. Kkwek, joining hands with a human fellow from the start to use dirty tricks…….”
“Kkwek, so are you going to kill me or something?”
“Kkwek, I'm going to kill you right now!”
The excited fellow shouted.
“Kkwek, then you'll have to throw away all the food you've gathered until now.”
The warning that he would have to starve this winter calmed the one-armed orc's agitated emotions.
Stopping the paranoid patient's sophistry, I roughly brushed off his hand.
“Kkwek, or there is also the method of listening to me and reclaiming both the leader position and the food storage.”
To the leader who was huffing and puffing incessantly, my sweet proposal was a temptation hard to refuse.
He was being told that everything he had lost in an instant would be returned to him.
No matter how suspicious the opponent was, he wouldn't be able to just ignore it.
The silence that arrived as he stopped his attack meant it was safe to see it as his agreement to engage in a deal with me.
“Kkwek, just because the one remaining path has collapsed doesn't mean there is no way to enter the food storage. Kkwek, you might not know, but it's not the first time the path to the food storage has collapsed.”
“Kkwek, what does that mean?”
“Kkwek, it means this vast maze has repeatedly collapsed and been rebuilt while numerous leaders were being replaced.”
For the sake of the leader, who was standing in an awkward posture and clearly had an expression of not yet understanding, I picked up a pebble rolling around nearby.
And I began to draw the structure around the food storage on the floor.
Three pairs of eyes followed the lines created by the friction between the rock and the small stone.
Fortunately, the two orcs and one human kept silent until the drawing took some shape.
Having established the form to some extent, I raised my head and looked at the three of them.
“Kkwek, this is our current location. Kkwek, if we go up through this path, it leads to the passage connected to the food storage. Kkwek, but this place will be sunken right now because of the river water.”
I pointed to the two-way fork below the place where the food storage and the passage were connected.
“Kkwek, so we are going to break through this blocked passage over here again.”
I thought I had said something quite important, but none of the three showed much reaction.
Usually, shouldn't a question like why a human bait is needed come up at around this point?
As I raised my head in wonder, the two orcs and one human with their gazes still fixed on the floor caught my eye.
“Kkwek, do you have any questions up to this point?”
“I have one.”
It was a question aimed at the leader, but it was Ratel who responded.
When I looked at him with eyes asking what he could possibly be curious about, Ratel, who took his eyes off the floor, opened his mouth with a serious face.
“Is something wrong with my eyes? I thought I clearly saw you drawing with your hand just now, so why is what's drawn worse than something drawn with feet?”
……The ways the fellow screwed me over were becoming increasingly diverse.
***
Ratel's evaluation that my drawing was worse than one done with feet, to my wounded pride, gained the agreement of the two orcs.
“Kkwek, it seems you move your mouth better than your hands. Kkwek, just explain with words instead.”
At the leader's declaration of giving up after looking this way and that at different angles to understand my drawing, the remaining one also nodded his head vigorously.
At the confident assertion of the two orcs, I eventually had no choice but to put down the pebble, whose tip had worn blunt.
“……Kkwek, then listen well. Kkwek, from now on, we will head toward the collapsed passage closest to here. Kkwek, and we will create a new entrance by breaking through the blocked path.”
“Kkwek, what does that have to do with taking that human fellow along?”
The leader, whose patience quickly ran out as expected, cut in.
“Kkwek, it means he is perfect as bait.”
“Kkwek, bait?”
The leader reacted belatedly to the reason for the human's existence, which had been forgotten due to Ratel's sudden murder notice.
“Kkwek, yes, bait. Kkwek, if we use this fellow, we will be able to find the one who dragged you down from the leader position.”
Having calmed his excitement at the words that he could reclaim his position, the leader glared at me as if telling me to continue the explanation quickly.
I glanced once at Ratel, who was peaceful even in the midst of this, and then completely blocked him from the leader's view.
“Kkwek, if a human bleeds, the orcs will swarm. Kkwek, since there is only one passage now, they will all swarm to one place.”
“Kkwek, even if we herd them into one place, how are you going to pick out the one who attacked me?”
“Kkwek, do you know what orcs do when they go outside once the leader is gone?”
At my out-of-the-blue question, the leader's brow furrowed, as if only one thing came to mind right away.
“Kkwek, they must be targeting me.”
That too.
“Kkwek, they are stuffing whatever hunted food they can into their mouths. Kkwek, since they don't need your permission, they are filling their bellies as greedily as they want.”
Whether he hadn't managed to think that far yet, anger dwelled on the fellow's face after he stood blankly for a moment.
“Kkwek, they are acting as they please.”
As if it quite hurt his pride that his authority had been thrown to the ground, the leader muttered quietly.
“Kkwek, thanks to that, we'll be able to easily catch the one who attacked you.”
I pointed with my eyes at Ratel, who was standing with his arms crossed, toward the fellow who was waiting for an explanation with a bewildered face.
“Kkwek, since there is no leader, everyone's eyes will turn when they see a human. Kkwek, they will charge to eat him up.”
Even though I knew it was meaningless, I pointed with my finger at a part of the food storage drawn on the floor.
“Kkwek, and when that moment comes, I plan to block the entrance again.”
The eyes of the leader, who was following my movements, flashed.
He was the leader who had mistaken me, who could talk, for a leader candidate.
Compared to other individuals, it wouldn't be a stretch to see his intelligence as being higher.
When all the orcs charged at the food in front of them, if there was an orc that sensed the danger of the food storage being closed off, there was a high probability that fellow was the individual we were looking for.
The leader was a fellow whose temper was like crap and who was impatient, but he wasn't stupid.
“Kkwek, are you saying I just need to kill the fellow who charges to protect the storage?”
When I, having saved the trouble of a long explanation, nodded my head, the fellow looked at me with strange eyes.
“Kkwek, what is the reason you are teaching me such a thing?”
At the fellow's reasonable question, I shrugged my shoulders.
“Kkwek, don't misunderstand. Kkwek, I'm not just teaching you. Kkwek, anyway, without my guidance, you won't even be able to go to the food storage.”
So just listen to me quietly.
The one-armed orc, who grasped the hidden meaning of my words, glared at me and slowly stood up.
The leader, regardless of his crappy personality, was not a stupid fellow.
“……Kkwek, I won't take my eyes off that human fellow and you. Kkwek, if you try to do even a bit of nonsense, I'll kill you immediately.”
The fellow, who expressed his intention to do as I wished in the most arrogant way possible, stood up and led the way.
***
Unlike their desire to rescue Ran and Ratel right away, Jing and Ria were unable to set sail easily.
It wasn't because they were busy fighting like the two who had fallen, nor because they were lost.
The reason was simple.
It was because of the damage to the boat, specifically the torn sail.
Jing sighed as he checked the state of the half-overturned boat and the sail.
The aftermath of the vortex was large, and there was also the influence of the direction of the wind he had created matching up better than expected.
There won't be an occasion to return the boat to the cabin of father and son.
No, does it not matter anyway since I'll never return?
Jing turned his gaze toward the small cabin visible across the river and the river that had become calm as if it were a lie.
Unlike the quiet surface of the water, Jing's heart was fluctuating greatly.
It was because of a single sentence that would not leave his head.
-It is a command.
Ran's voice would not be erased, as if it were still lingering in his ears.
So, Jing was in the middle of being surprised at himself for following Ran's words so easily at that one word, command.
He knew that he acted particularly soft and obedient toward Ran.
But he had not thought it was the same thing as the blind obedience he had practiced toward the Imperial Family.
He had merely believed it was a mark of gratitude toward a savior and an expression of human respect.
However, the moment he put the word command in his mouth, his body moved before his head as if it were a lie.
Before he knew it, he was holding Ratel just as Ran had said, and when he belatedly came to his senses, it was after he had been shoved into the boat's hold.
Jing sighed deeply once again as he looked at the island where orcs wandering occasionally could be faintly seen.
It was a jeer toward himself, who had passed off the black-haired prince trapped inside being constantly uncomfortable with him as simply the wall between people being high.
He had known.
That this was not merely an expression of liking and gratitude.
The realizations bloomed in succession.
Jing, who even understood what the wordless gaze of Ratel, who always looked at Ran and himself with dissatisfaction, signified, held his forehead in self-loathing.
They were two who were different yet similar.
Why on earth did they resemble each other to the point of swallowing important stories?
“I'm showing nothing but unsightly sides in many ways.”
Jing, having finished his self-mockery, gasped for breath and raised his head.
He could not ruin the future by falling into shame and regret.
Right now, there was a task he had to focus on immediately.
Rescuing Ran and Ratel, who would be isolated on the island without even a boat.
“Jing? Why are you doing that?”
At the bewildered voice coming from behind, Jing composed his expression and turned around.
“I took a moment for reflection. More than that, was there a private house nearby?”
At Jing's question, Ria stiffened her expression and shook her head.
“No, there's nothing but trees everywhere. I think we'll have to go all the way to Limis to find a place where people live.”
“There was nothing that could fix the boat at the place where we moored it, either. It shouldn't get too late.”
Agreeing with Jing's worried voice, Ria turned her gaze toward the river Jing had been looking at.
The river, which had regained its original appearance, was so quiet that it rather made one anxious.
“……Will both of them be safe? They didn't die, did they?”
Ria asked Jing with a trembling voice.
She herself did not know whether she wanted a truthful answer or simply an answer that could reassure her.
“Hmm? No, Miss Ria, you don't have to worry about that.”
At the assurance that was lighter than expected yet reassuring thanks to that, Ria looked at Jing with a dazed feeling.
“Both of them will be alive. They must have arrived at the island by now.”
Jing, who realized belatedly that Ria was worrying about the life and death of the two, quickly reassured Ria with an 'oops' face.
Surprised by the fact that Jing and she were agonizing over completely different problems, Ria's eyes widened.
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because it's a task Ran-nim chose.”
He was the one who had survived even against Prince Dito.
Jing could be certain that he would have had his own intentions this time as well.
Ria had no way of knowing the basis for such certainty of Jing's, but she couldn't completely deny it either.
Because an unfounded belief that somehow Ran wouldn't have recklessly thrown his body into the river also existed within her.
Ria's worry moved to the other person who had disappeared into the river.
“Then what about Ratel? Did Ratel also have a reason for making a reckless choice?”
“Ratel……, I think he probably didn't have much thought but……”
As Jing trailed off, Ria's face turned pale.
“What?! Was it Ratel, not Ran, that you were worrying about?”
“No, it's not. Ratel is also certainly alive.”
At the affirmation that he is alive, not just that he will be alive, the face of Ria, which had been full of worry, changed subtly.
“If it's not the two of you worrying about now, then what on earth is it?”
“It's correct that I am worrying about the two of them.”
Jing was always worried about whether the two would fight because of their strange stubbornness with each other.