Chapter 148 : Chapter 148
Chapter 148 - Time Limit
The fact that the one-armed bastard had become the leader meant that he too had devoured the previous leader and become the boss who led the group.
Contrary to my expectation that even if he was stupid, he would at least remember the boss he had devoured, the bastard was visibly flustered and could not answer my question at all.
“Kkwek, you must’ve lived as that bastard’s subordinate at one point too, right? Kkwek, and yet you don’t remember anything?”
“Kkwek, wh-why does that matter?”
I asked again, but the leader avoided answering.
It seemed he really did not remember anything.
What exactly was the leader’s position to those bastards?
They said climbing to a higher place was a living creature’s instinct, but I had the feeling there was something beyond that.
“Kkwek, you said it yourself. Kkwek, that once I kill the leader, I’ll naturally come to know things like that. Kkwek, then does that mean if I kill you, I’ll come to know everything you know about humans?”
“Kkwe, kkwek, I said I’m the boss! Kkwek, I told you I don’t need the leader’s position!”
The bastard shouted, panicking ahead of time.
“Kkwek, you said that kind of thing doesn’t go according to my will anyway.”
“Kkwek, hmph, I take that back too. Kkwek, a lukewarm bastard like you doesn’t suit being the leader. Kkwek, you won’t be able to handle it.”
The bastard spoke as if becoming the boss would inevitably make one hate humans.
That was quite an obvious thing to say.
After all, every monster in this world hated humans anyway.
Come to think of it, the book never explained the reason for that.
But wasn’t that how things usually were?
Conflict began from small differences, and once it grew beyond control, the starting point vanished from everyone’s interests.
What remained was only emotion that had festered as far as it could.
When I did not seem to sympathize with his words at all, the leader struck his chest as if frustrated.
“Kkwek, we were deceived by humans. Kkwek, those bastards made us like this. Kkwek, we were deceived!”
“Kkwek, what promise did humans make?”
I asked while killing the expectation that I might finally learn the truth.
At last, the leader’s mouth slowly opened.
“Kkwek, those bastards didn’t give us what they promised. Kkwek, and......”
The leader suddenly stopped speaking.
“Kkwek, and what?”
When I pressed him for an answer, the leader frowned.
“Kkwek, I don’t know. Kkwek, I have no reason to teach you.”
......Should I just kill him here?
Perhaps my expression, mixed with pathetic disbelief and irritation, looked quite funny, because a smile appeared on the leader’s face.
It seemed he was pleased to see me getting angry.
“Kkwek, do you even know what you’re saying right now? Kkwek, doesn’t that mean you hate humans enough to kill them while knowing nothing?”
“Kkwek, and what about it?”
The leader asked, furrowing his brows.
What about it? Naturally, it was a serious problem.
“Kkwek, when you hate someone, you need to know the exact reason.”
“Kkwek, why would I need to?”
The leader asked as if he still could not understand.
To think he still did not know such an obvious truth. Orcs really had a lot of problems.
“Kkwek, because you can hate them more surely if you know the reason.”
Perhaps my answer was unexpected, or perhaps it was still difficult to understand, because the leader tilted his head to the side.
“Kkwek, what happens if it isn’t sure?”
“Kkwek, if your direction is wrong, you won’t be able to come back.”
By the time one realized that the reason one had been chasing meant nothing in the end, it was already too late.
Anger was like driving in a nail, so force needed to be concentrated in one place.
Just as no matter how much you struck a bent nail with a hammer, it was meaningless.
If the nail’s direction was bent even slightly, it would pierce a hole in the wrong place.
And once a hole was made, a mark remained no matter what one did.
After chewing over my words, the leader seemed to conclude that thinking was too annoying.
The bastard shook his head hard.
“Kkwek!! But it doesn’t change the fact that those bastards deceived us. Kkwek, we live like this because humans broke their promise.”
What did he mean by living like this?
If he was talking about being isolated and trapped on this island, then wasn’t that something to resent Sierra Abalan for?
“Kkwek, the one who trapped you here was Sierra Abalan.”
When I corrected the leader’s misunderstanding, the bastard’s face stiffened.
“Kkwek, what?”
Various emotions whirled across the leader’s face as he stupidly asked back.
Anger, emptiness, fear, then anger again.
While those simple and clear changes passed by, the leader stared blankly into space as if he had lost his mind.
“Kkwek, hey, are you all right?”
When I called out, startled by his unusual state, the leader’s eyes, which had been blankly wandering around him, turned toward me.
After the quiet and violent fluctuation ended, the leader returned to his usual self, filled only with displeasure.
“Kkwek!! But it doesn’t change the fact that those bastards deceived us. Kkwek, we live like this because humans broke their promise.”
As if the memory in the middle had been erased whole, the leader repeated the same words.
As if even he himself did not realize he had just been struck by such intense emotional changes.
***
There was nothing in the original work about orcs suffering from short-term memory loss.
To be exact, there was no scene where the protagonist conversed with those bastards this much.
There had been no need to.
What reason was there to talk with monsters that could be slaughtered in the simplest way?
It was the same for all the monsters the protagonist met afterward.
Was there any need to face one another and exchange some warm, friendly conversation?
After all, they were bound to kill and be killed by each other.
Yes, kill and be killed by each other.
When I recalled the rule that had been hidden by the newly intervening truth, my head cleared.
Whatever Sierra Abalan had done in the past, and whatever promise the humans of the past had made with the orcs, there was a future that would not change.
Once my direction became clear, I could choose the next question to ask the leader, who was looking at me with a puzzled face.
For now, all I had to do was get whatever information I could get from the bastard.
Whether that truth would help the protagonist advance the story or not was a matter to judge later.
“Kkwek, since when do you have memories?”
“Kkwek, what?”
“Kkwek, I’m asking from where to where your memories after birth remain.”
The one-armed orc looked at me blankly, as if he had been struck on the head.
“Kkwe, kkwek, no. Kkwek, I barely remember anything before I became the boss. Kkwek, before that, I didn’t know anything and just......”
Perhaps my question had been too sudden, because the leader, who had been searching through his memories, trailed off.
“Kkwek, so you’re saying you have no memories from before that.”
And this was a problem I had never once thought about either.
That the old orc before my eyes had never once had anything one could call a conversation from birth until now.
A single orc’s lifespan was roughly around eighty years.
Judging by how far he had aged, his age was probably similar.
He would have gained the leader’s position during his healthiest period, so perhaps around ten years old.
If so, it meant the bastard had gone roughly seventy years without having anything one could call a conversation, aside from commands.
It also meant that until then, he had been repeating eating, moving, and fighting purely according to instinct like the other orcs, only to suddenly be dropped one day among comrades whose intelligence was far lower than his own.
The only one he could have spoken to had already been killed by his own hands.
That’s...... stifling.
“Kkwek, what?”
Perhaps I had muttered it out loud without realizing it, because the leader asked back.
“Kkwek, it’s nothing.”
After pushing away that pointless impression, I turned the topic back to my original purpose.
“Kkwek, so, what were the humans supposed to give you? Kkwek, don’t tell me you don’t remember this either.”
“Kkwek, I know that much!! Kkwek, who are you calling a fool......”
The bastard, whose temper had flared as he raised his voice, trailed off.
No matter how one looked at him, his face did not look like someone who remembered properly.
Judging by how much his eyes were trembling, the bastard himself did not seem to properly recognize his own state either.
I did not know whether it was a side effect of having the leader’s position taken from him ambiguously, or whether some device existed that had erased the name Sierra Abalan from his memories entirely.
The leader clutched his head as if trying to remember something.
“Kkwek, I, so......”
It was the moment the bastard, who had been clutching his head as if squeezing out his mind, opened his mouth.
“Kkwe, kkwek......”
What interrupted the leader’s effort was a timid cry.
“Kkwek, what is it!!”
The leader shouted at the sudden interruption and glared at the half-wit, who had approached at some point and joined the conversation.
Though he stopped moving when he saw the half-wit pushing over a half-eaten fish that was even more modest than his small voice.
At the sight of that obedient attitude, offering prey to him in a way anyone could understand, the anger disappeared from the leader’s expression.
“Kkwek, you call this prey too......”
The leader muttered in a much softer voice.
Unlike his grumbling tone, the one-armed bastard looked rather pleased.
Of course he would.
In any case, offering prey to him meant the half-wit still recognized the one-armed bastard as the leader.
But the half-wit shoved the leader’s mood, which had risen slightly, back into the mud.
“Kkwe, kkwek......”
Because the bastard carefully held out a whole fish in front of me as well.
The leader’s facial muscles crumpled.
My face as I looked at the half-wit probably was not much different.
Why are you giving this to me?
***
I looked down at the fish sitting there all alone with a complicated face.
There was no way the half-wit had suddenly been filled with some strange urge to feed me. No matter how one looked at it, this was the sight of an orc bringing food to his boss.
Which meant the half-wit had accepted me as his leader.
Thanks to that, I felt the one-armed leader glaring at me with ferocious force.
What changes just because you glare at me?
“Kkwek, I don’t need it.”
“Kkwe, kkwek?”
At my refusal, the half-wit looked puzzled and pushed the fish toward me again.
“Kkwek, I said I’m not eating it. Kkwek, give it to your leader.”
Perhaps embarrassed by the repeated refusal, the half-wit’s hand wandered helplessly over the fish.
“Kkwek!! Hurry up and accept it!! Kkwek!! Why aren’t you taking it?! Kkwek, are you saying you can’t accept what the half-wit gives you?!”
Perhaps that sight was frustrating enough to him, because in the end, the leader could not hold back and demanded an answer from me.
“Kkwek, half-wit or whatever, I don’t like eating fish raw.”
The amount I had stuffed into my stomach just so I would not die had been my limit.
On top of that, adding the meaning of an offering to a fish that already smelled fishy made it not just hard to stomach, but revolting.
The leader narrowed his eyes.
“Kkwek!! You ate food given by a human just fine, but you can’t eat what the half-wit gives you?”
I did not know why the conversation flew in that direction, but at that unwelcome misunderstanding, I shook my head.
“Kkwek, how is that the same as this? Kkwek, you hated it because a human gave it to you, and I hate this because it’s raw fish.”
“Kkwek, if you don’t like eating fish raw, what are you going to eat? Kkwek, are you going to tear up grass and eat that?”
Grass would be better.
The scales going down my throat, the slippery bodily fluids, and the fishy smell.
Not a single part of it was something a person could eat.
“Kkwek, whether I tear up grass or tear off a fish head, it’s not something for you to interfere with.”
When I sharply snapped at him, the leader shut his mouth with a flinching expression.
He seemed to listen well sometimes, but whenever something wounded his pride in front of the half-wit, he would jump in like that.
I could not tell whether he instinctively felt a sense of crisis from the half-wit, or whether he was simply acting out of pride.
The fully heated bastard rose from his seat.
Thanks to the hot-tempered bastard’s nature, and thanks to the half-wit’s intervention, my first chance to dig out the leader’s secret had flown away.
I did not take my eyes off the half-wit as he watched my reaction, then followed the leader away.
Of all times, was it really a coincidence that he had suddenly brought food to both of us right now?
***
Above the heads of Ran, Ratel, and their group as they continued their noisy operation, a quiet movement also took place.
It was a small change that happened in the orcs’ eternal home, where the one who guarded it had vanished.
The beginning was a small heat.
A small heat that began from the place the leader had protected all along.
The hot energy created in the mire where the touches of countless orc leaders and Ran had brushed past it gradually grew in size.
The moment the heat that had gathered and gathered finally exhaled a hot breath, the mire was no longer an empty space.
A black and hot form crawled out slowly and began filling the mire.
It was a heavy and slow movement.
As if refusing to allow haste to ruin the work, the black substance was shaping its result.
And this meant that Jing, who was wandering through some memory of the past, did not have much time left.