Chapter 157 : Chapter 157
Chapter 157: The Leader and the Half-wit (3)
Usually, newly born ones were born with forms so complete they could go out hunting right away.
The one born this time seemed to have a proper form, too.
But to the leader, who had already watched the births of several of them, it was visible.
That the bastard was somehow dim-witted compared to the other orcs.
The way he slowly blinked his eyes, the fact that he made no large movements, and just, looking at everything as a whole, there was no other way to explain it except to say he looked dim-witted.
It was the first time such a dim-witted orc had been born.
While the leader could not decide how he should treat this strange orc, the dim-witted bastard slowly opened his mouth.
“Kkwek......!”
The weak cry, as lifeless as his hazy eyes, seemed to drain all strength from him.
Still, what had to be settled had to be settled.
The leader took one step toward the bastard, who was blankly looking around.
“Kkwek. If you aren’t going to challenge me, then go join those bastards and do your work. Kkwek. You should be able to move around more or less now, shouldn’t you?”
At the stiff order, the born bastard blinked.
“Kkwek. If you understand, then hurry up and get lost!”
“Kkwek......!”
When the leader barked at that frustrating sight, only then did the dim-witted bastard let out one cry and begin moving his legs.
Thinking crawling would probably be faster than that, the leader followed him with his eyes.
It did not last very long.
The leader soon lost interest and turned away from the bastard as he disappeared among the group.
He was no great threat, so as long as he listened well to the leader’s orders, the rest did not matter.
The thought that he would probably live while being shoved around by the others did briefly cross his mind.
But this, too, did not remain in the leader’s head for long.
No, to be precise, it almost did not.
ROAAAAAR----
A massive sound of water echoed throughout the entire cave.
The leader immediately realized what had happened.
He did not know why, but the dried-up water was returning to its place.
That also meant the dried-up waterfall was beginning to flow again.
“Kkwek!! If you don’t want to die, everyone move back!!! Kkwek!! I said don’t stand where the water flows!!”
At the leader’s shout, the orcs who had been milling about in confusion all began retreating at once.
They were stupid bastards, but as befitted bastards who followed orders well enough, all of them obeyed without even knowing what was happening.
As the leader had expected, a terrifyingly fierce stream of water burst out from the dried-up entrance.
As if making up for the drought so far, the river water struck the once-dry ground.
The orcs, startled by the massive flow of water, scrambled over one another as they ran away from it.
Even the bastards who had already gotten far enough from the waterfall were too busy fleeing, unable to adjust to the sudden change, and veins bulged on the leader’s forehead.
“Kkwek!! Don’t get scared, you idiots!! Kkwek!! If you’ve dodged far enough, then just stay still!!”
At the leader’s roar, the orcs slowly began to regain their composure.
The leader clicked his tongue at the painfully slow understanding of those idiots, who realized so very quickly that they were not going to drown, and had just found his place to sit down.
“Kkweeeek!!!”
When he turned his head toward the source of the scream that rang in his ears, an unbelievable sight unfolded before the leader’s eyes.
Beside the orcs gathered together like one lump, a single orc was falling.
The leader stared in hollow disbelief at the bastard dropping below the waterfall.
It was the very orc he had thought looked dim-witted and would probably get shoved around here and there.
Still, he had not expected him to get shoved and sent flying this quickly.
Nor had he known the bastard was not merely dim-witted, but outright lacking.
Once he had fallen, there was no particular way to help him.
No, he had no desire to help a bastard who had fallen so stupidly like that either.
The leader looked down at the place where the half-wit, who would remain in memory as the orc that had died in the most absurd way, had disappeared.
Since becoming leader, he had seen many stupid bastards, but this was the first time he had seen a bastard that stupid, and the first time he had seen an orc meet such an empty end.
***
Between dawn and morning, the leader slowly looked around.
After confirming that everyone was lost in sleep, the leader stealthily rose to his feet.
The place his steps headed toward was outside the cave.
The sun had not yet fully risen in the dim dawn sky.
His skin stung from the small crumbs of sunlight, but the leader did not stop walking.
The reason he endured the pain and went outside was reconnaissance.
The traces left by those two orc bastards tearing into a human should still have remained in the human house.
Nevertheless, the outside was quiet, and the human house was tightly shut as if nothing had happened.
He did not know the reason, but it was clear the humans vanished when night came.
That was why the leader had left the cave in the early dawn.
Of course, that could not explain why the leader had secretly come out alone.
Because even the leader himself did not know that.
At last, the leader came outside the burrow and stared at the human house in the distance while keeping his body low.
But until dawn was coming to an end, the humans did not show themselves.
The more the sun revealed itself, the stronger the pain he felt on his skin became.
Just as he thought his skin would burn if he stayed any longer, it happened.
Clack.
Finally, the door opened.
What appeared from inside was a male human.
One who limped, at that.
He did not seem the slightest bit threatening. No, in that state, he looked as if he would surely die before lasting even a single day in the forest.
Bewildered by the sudden appearance of such a pathetically weak human, the leader leaned forward to examine him more closely.
If he had made that place his nest despite clearly knowing orcs lived there, he might be hiding some other power.
But it was soon revealed that the leader’s wariness was nothing but needless worry.
“Oh dear!”
Because the human, who had been walking unsteadily, toppled forward without strength.
At that utterly pathetic sight, the leader, drained of strength, frowned.
What? He’s just a cripple, isn’t he?
The leader had finished his primal contempt and judgment, and was just about to turn away.
“Father! Did you fall again?”
Along with a youthful voice, another human appeared through the opened door.
The leader stopped moving as if bewitched.
It was a human cub.
It was different from the one that had died, but it was still a small human that looked small and weak.
The small human went over to its fallen parent and struggled with little grunts to help the larger human up.
It did not seem to be much help, since it was far smaller than the fallen human.
“I did not fall! I was only checking because something seemed to have fallen on the ground!”
“If you check twice, your other knee will give out too.”
“What did you say?! You damned brat. I don’t know who you take after, but that mouth of yours gets worse by the day......”
The human, who had risen with a grunt, grabbed the cub’s mouth and stretched it out like a duck’s bill.
When the small human flailed and tried to escape his grasp, the human with the bad leg chuckled.
After watching the two humans for a long while, the leader came back to his senses at the sensation of his skin burning.
The sun had already fully revealed itself.
While he returned to the burrow, and even after he returned, the leader kept chewing over the happy-looking sight of the two humans.
The leader himself did not know that the humans had touched something inside him.
It was just that the trivial sight of the young ones kept circling in his head.
It was not a pleasant feeling, so as soon as the sun set that day, the leader sent all his subordinates outside.
At his order to go hunt, gather fruit, or get whatever food they could find, all of them tilted their heads, but obediently left the center of the burrow.
Lying in the much quieter nest, the leader quietly listened to the sound of falling water.
He tried to sleep to air out the filthy feeling, but even that did not go as he wished.
The leader decided the reason was that his body was not in good condition.
It was absolutely not because he could not forget the sight of the small humans.
In truth, the skin burned by the sunlight still seemed to sting, even though the wound had healed.
Yes, if only to recover his body, he should not be doing something like worrying, which did not suit him and which he did not even know how to do.
It was better to sleep with that time.
Shaking his head hard to fling the thoughts from his mind, the leader closed his eyes to force himself to sleep.
But even this did not go according to the leader’s wishes.
“Kkweeeek......”
A faint cry came mixed in with the sound of water.
The leader sprang to his feet.
He had clearly ordered everyone to go out, so it seemed another bastard had disobeyed his order this time too.
He had thought they were listening well after he killed those two last time.
Seized by the thought that his position was being threatened, the leader sprang up.
Grinding his teeth with the thought of catching the bastard at once and making another example out of him, he looked around, but he saw no one.
The leader, puzzled, glanced around here and there.
I don’t think I misheard.
“Kkwek......!”
This time, too, a small cry reached him.
This time, it had enough strength for the leader to properly make out the direction it was coming from.
It also seemed like the bastard had used up the last of his strength.
The leader stuck his head out in the direction the sound was coming from, below the waterfall.
Did that sound come from there just now?
“Kkwek......!”
As if answering the question in his head, the cry came again.
The cry was coming from beyond the waterfall.
Was there space to enter in a place like that?
Equipped with doubt and wariness, the leader moved his feet.
After circling around the waterfall and reaching its edge, the leader carefully examined the place where the waterfall fell.
And before long, he realized there was a small space between the waterfall and the rock wall.
The pitiful cry was coming from inside it.
No matter how he looked at it, it was not the voice of someone who seemed to have entered there of his own will.
How would someone even get trapped in a place like that?
Admiring the stupidity of the one trapped in a place that would be hard to enter even if someone forced him to, the leader stuck his head toward the waterfall.
If he had gone in there on his own two feet, then he could not possibly be that stupid.
What half-wit would trap himself in there?
Hm? Half-wit?
At that somewhat familiar description, he suddenly remembered a certain existence he had forgotten.
The lacking bastard who had fallen below the waterfall as soon as he was born.
......Did he go in there and survive?
Remembering the face of the half-wit who had looked at him with unusually dim eyes, the leader slowly began climbing down the cliff.
Following the stream of water, the leader climbed down and reached the place where the cry was coming from.
As expected, there was a small space between the fierce stream of water and the gap in the cliff.
The leader discovered a glimpse of green through that gap.
When he brought his face closer to see in more detail, the situation became clearer.
As expected, the one trapped inside was that half-wit.
Whether he was lucky or unlucky, it seemed he had been thrown into the space in the wall while falling below the waterfall.
Up to this point, one could say he had been lucky, but the problem was the injury he had suffered.
No, to be precise, the injury he was carrying.
Perhaps something had gone wrong in the process of being flung into the cave, because a long stone protrusion was embedded in the neck of the bastard lying sprawled on the floor.
It seemed he had been unable to withstand the impact of being thrown into the cave, and his neck had been pierced by a stone icicle that fell from the ceiling.
Whether he was lucky or unlucky.
The moment the leader clicked his tongue, the half-wit, who had only been crying helplessly, turned his gaze toward him.
Through the small gap between the stream of water and the wall, the leader’s eyes met the half-wit’s.
The leader had not come all the way down to save the half-wit.
He had only wanted to see the source of the noise disturbing his rest with his own eyes and eliminate it.
Judging by the sight before him, if he left the bastard as he was, the bastard seemed likely to die on his own.
Either his neck would come completely off while he struggled, or his body would weaken beyond the point of recovery. Whichever it was, it would happen before the next sunrise.
The leader did not want to risk breaking through the waterfall and going inside.
So, after reaching the conclusion that there was no need to go through the trouble of entering and killing the bastard with his own hands, the leader turned his body to go back up.
“Kkwek......!”
Perhaps he had sensed that the leader was about to leave, because the half-wit cried desperately.
A plea that said he wanted to live was common enough.
And simply ignoring such pleas was just as common for the leader.
But the leader did not do that common thing.
If one had to pick a reason, it was probably that, of all days, the leader had seen the father and son of the cabin helping each other today, and that, of all things, the half-wit’s hand reaching toward the leader had reminded him of the hands of certain small humans asking for help.