Chapter 142 : Chapter 142
Chapter 142 - This Time
Unless the leader’s weight had suddenly doubled, this was a ridiculous amount of weight.
When I looked down, I saw an orc clinging to the leader’s body.
He was soaked through and looked pathetic, but his sinister gaze alone was threatening enough.
“Kkwek!! Let go!!”
The leader shook his body violently to kick away the bastard clinging to him.
Thanks to that, a savage crunching sound rang out somewhere between my arm and torso.
At the instinctive fear that saying my arm felt like it was about to be torn off might no longer be an exaggeration, the strength left the hand holding him.
“Kkwek!! Don’t you let go!!”
The bastard, horrified by the sudden feeling of his body dropping downward, looked up at me and screamed this time.
Fortunately for the leader, who was busy shouting both up and down, I did not lose my grip on him.
After all, the fall of me, the leader, and the remaining orc was faster anyway.
CRACK, TING---
Unable to bear the weight of three orcs any longer, the rock crumbled, and the sword was pulled free.
The fall down the uneven pit was not smooth.
Only after several collisions did I barely manage to cling to the wall.
The fall had stopped, but a sense of crisis greater than the relief of survival covered me.
“......Kkwek, serve you right.”
This time, the leader looked down at me from above and muttered.
It was because the positions of the three orcs had completely changed during the process of plummeting downward.
Unlike the leader, who had luckily landed on a jutting ledge, I had only just barely managed to cling to the wall.
Even more unfortunately, the next target of the orc that had been clinging to the leader was me.
-Kkweeeek!!!
I swung the leader’s sword and threatened the bastard to keep his bared teeth in check.
If he had even a little reason, I might have tried bargaining.
-Kkweeeek!!!
At the sight of an opponent who could do nothing but howl, I quickly gave up on that option.
The orc, who had withdrawn for a moment, seemed annoyed by the sword in my hand and opened his mouth while aiming for my hand this time.
I tried kicking the bastard’s jaw to avoid him, but the hand bracing against the wall could not withstand the large movement and slipped, so I had to give even that up.
After barely regaining my balance, I suddenly looked up.
When I met the leader’s dry gaze as he watched me struggle, I could be certain of one thing.
That bastard had no intention of helping me at all.
If anything, he probably wanted to drop me together with that insane orc.
After all, he would never get another chance to deal with two orcs at once.
My head grew astonishingly calm.
Was it because I had never had any expectations of the leader?
I did not feel disappointed by the selfishness of the bastard trying to drop me together with an enemy.
Considering the obsession he had shown toward the leader’s position until now, it was not exactly a surprising choice either.
There was just one thing I wanted to confirm.
If I had avoided settling the hierarchy with the leader until the end, in other words, if I had not threatened him on the cliff, would he still have regarded me as a thorn in his side and tried to kill me like this?
“Kkwek, is the reason you’re trying to kill me because I threatened your position?”
Perhaps thinking it was absurdly carefree of me to ask such a question while I was on the verge of death, the leader let out a hollow laugh.
Soon, the bastard gave a small nod.
“Kkwek, you’re too strong to leave alive. Kkwek, it might be different if you were as stupid as the half-wit.”
When I gave a small laugh at the answer, which was more serious and ridiculous than expected, the leader frowned.
I opened my mouth to leave that bastard one final warning.
“Kkwek, I fell because of an accident.”
“Kkwek, what does that mean?”
The leader, who had been about to drop me at any moment, eventually could not hold back and asked.
“Kkwek, you’ll find out after you drop me and reach the top.”
If someone waiting above asked, he would realize that answering that way was his only path to survival.
The leader seemed to judge that I was spouting nonsense to buy time.
His gaze went back and forth between me and the orc holding onto both of my legs.
The final destination of his two eyes was my own.
The time our gazes met was not long.
It felt long because I could not breathe, but even at most, it probably was not more than five seconds.
It was enough time to understand what choice the bastard had made.
Without hesitation, I followed the leader’s outstretched hand with my eyes.
There was nothing rough about a movement with such a clear purpose.
Well, I did not watch for very long.
It was not as though continuing to watch the bastard would improve the situation.
Below, perhaps sensing that something was strange, the clinging orc stopped attacking and was struggling to climb up my body.
I stared quietly over the bastard’s shoulder into the darkness that showed no end.
Roughly calculating how long it had taken Ratel and his companions in the original work to reach the bottom, even if there was water gathered below, the impact might shatter my entire body.
Well, if I was lucky, I might survive, but I was relatively unlucky, so there was probably a higher chance of being smashed to pieces.
The one fortunate thing was that the farther down the pit went, the narrower it became.
If I could wedge this orc bastard clinging to me like a leech into the narrowed passage like a plug while falling, it felt like I might be able to survive.
In truth, I had no options left.
Rather than waste my strength struggling with the leader, it would be better for me to let go on my own.
After finishing my thoughts, I took one last deep breath in preparation for the fall.
It was the moment I was about to let go first before the leader’s hand touched me.
All of a sudden, the leader stopped moving.
I did the same.
WHOOOOSH---
The sound of wind tangling my ears was approaching quickly enough to stop us from moving.
A loud sound of wind that had no reason to be heard inside a deep pit.
“Kkwek!! What is that?!”
The flustered leader forgot about dropping me and looked around.
I fixed my gaze over the shoulder of the bastard shaking his head around in panic.
I could feel something approaching from within the darkness.
Along with the vague expectation that I knew what it was without needing to narrow my eyes and check, an anxiety I could not ignore circled through my head.
......Isn’t that too fast?
WHOOOOOSH-----
As if mocking my worry, the sound of wind only grew louder and did not weaken in the slightest.
It seemed I was not the only one horrified, because the leech orc also hurriedly tried to pull away from me and move to the wall.
But the source of the sound revealed itself faster than that.
I took my eyes off the orc, who still had one arm holding onto me and had not managed to stick to the wall, and stared blankly at the black someone preparing to land.
But I could not observe him for long.
Because someone who had arrived faster than expected shot past the leader and me like a bullet.
THUD!!
Immediately after, a powerful impact struck the lower area where the leech orc had been clinging.
-Kkweeeeeek!!!!
The leech orc vanished into the darkness with a scream.
I was the same in that the impact and pain, which exceeded my expectations, nearly made me lose the hand holding onto the wall.
Damn it, I knew he was too fast.
“I’m sick of your lies now.”
The owner of the voice scolding me leisurely passed by me as I clung stubbornly to the wall and stood beside the leader.
The expression on the leader’s face as he stared blankly at him was quite worth seeing.
My expression as I looked up at the hero who had landed from the sky probably was not all that different.
Ratel, who had dropped an orc into the depths in an instant, was looking down at me with his face twisted as much as it could be.
“I’ve been taken in by your scams several times before, but this one was among the worst.”
My surprise at his hero-like entrance lasted only a moment. The repeated word scam brought me back to reality with an unpleasant feeling.
“Kkwek, scam? I only told you to go to the other side.”
When I protested my innocence, another wrinkle appeared between the bastard’s brows.
“That’s what people call a scam. Deliberately leading the other party into a misunderstanding.”
“Kkwek, it wasn’t even enough to call leading. Kkwek, I only told you to jump in.”
At my claim that it was simply because he was that simple, Ratel twisted his mouth.
“You sure can babble even in that state. Your life is in my hands right now.”
Compared to his dissatisfied reply, the bastard reached out to me without wasting time.
I quietly looked at the offered hand.
Then I placed the leader’s sword, which I held in one hand, into that hand.
Without gripping the handle of the sword I had handed him, Ratel twitched one eyebrow.
It felt as if I could hear the bastard’s voice asking, What are you doing right now?
It’d be strange for you to pull me up in this situation.
I gestured with my eyes toward the leader, who was staring stupidly at us beside him.
The fact that Ratel had jumped down this far and arrived here was already physical ability beyond the category of human.
Right now, the leader seemed half out of his mind from the sudden situation, but even so, if Ratel went so far as to pull up an orc, there was no way he would not draw suspicion.
When Ratel’s gaze turned toward the leader, the leader happened to tremble as if he had suddenly come back to his senses.
“Kkwe, kkwek, human bastard, how did you......?”
As if he had lost interest in the leader, who could not continue speaking properly, Ratel turned his gaze back, sighed, and accepted the leader’s sword.
Finally free in all four limbs, I began lightly climbing the wall.
***
The leader blankly followed Ran’s back as he climbed the wall as if nothing had happened, despite the retaliation that would surely come.
What had just happened?
He had tried to kill the bastard who threatened his position.
He had been right on the verge of killing him.
If not for the human bastard who had appeared from the sky, it definitely would have happened.
Those three things were everything the leader had entered into his head.
If he were to add one more thing, it would be that the orc bastard climbing the wall ahead was insane.
Leaving behind someone who had tried to kill him and going away just like that, even showing his back as he left.
That was something that could not happen unless he was quite insane.
Or was he planning to deal with him above, in front of the half-wit?
His thoughts continued one after another, but like most baseless worries, they were of no particular use.
The leader could not keep up with the situation that had been resolved in an instant, but there was no one kind enough to explain it to him.
There was only one person who would snap him out of sitting there stupidly.
CLATTER!
The leader, who had been lost in stupid thoughts, was startled by the loud sound ringing in front of him and looked down.
It was his sword, which had been taken by that arrogant bastard.
When he lifted his head again, the human stood there, looking down at him in the same posture from which he had thrown the sword.
The leader was about to shout and ask what kind of arrogant nonsense this was, but the moment his eyes met the human’s, his body trembled without him realizing it.
The human’s eyes held a deep, unconcealed loathing.
Pure loathing and hostility, without even the slightest trace of fear mixed in.
The leader was already as accustomed as he could be to the gazes of orc bastards full of killing intent aimed at his neck.
But strangely, before those golden eyes that seemed to see through everything about him, he could not move at all.
The leader’s gaze moved beyond Ratel.
Toward the direction where that one stubborn orc had fallen a moment earlier.
Ratel, who had been looking down at the leader as he rolled his eyes without making even the smallest sound of breathing, finally released him from his gaze.
“Pick it up.”
Even at the human’s arrogant gesture with his eyes toward the sword, the leader could not bring himself to say anything. He only stared blankly as the human turned his back on him and climbed upward.
At this moment, the leader had gained one secret he could not tell anyone.
The shameful secret that he had been so overwhelmed by a mere human that he had even watched for a chance to jump downward and run away.