Chapter 72.1
Orc Hero Story
The request reached Houston while he was back in his office after finishing lunch, picking his teeth with a toothpick. The messenger seemed to have arrived in quite a hurry, emanating a strong odor all around, with drool dripping from exhaustion. Houston didn’t mind the dirt; he had seen such sights on the battlefield many times.
That didn’t matter. What was crucial was the message the messenger carried:
“In the Blackhead Territory, there will be an interrogation of Bash, the ‘Orc Hero.’ We would like to ask you, Sir Houston, who is well acquainted with orcs, to assume the role of interrogator.”
The first thing Houston thought upon hearing this was, “This gives me a very bad feeling.” And it wasn’t just a regular bad feeling; it was a “very” bad feeling.
Houston’s intuitions of this kind often turned out to be accurate. Though sometimes he missed the mark, it tended to be right when it counted. Whenever he had a “bad feeling,” it coincided with a crisis and saved his life. Of the ten times he had this feeling in the past, nine were related to Bash’s appearances.
“Sir Bash as the subject of an interrogation? What the hell has happened?”
“Bash, the Orc Hero, has become a crucial witness in an incident at the demon checkpoint. This time, the interrogation will take place in the Blackhead Territory. However, there haven’t been many cases of interrogating orcs. Therefore, we would like to request that the one who knows orcs the best, Sir Houston, known as the ‘Pig Slayer,’ conducts the interrogation. Here is the official letter.”
Houston read the letter. In short, it explained that they had found Bash’s scribbles at the demon country checkpoint, and they wanted to know if he was collaborating with the enemy. Since the interrogation had to be conducted to the Orc Hero himself, Houston, who had defeated him several times, was chosen for the task. In essence, they wanted to extract information from Bash, but as they didn’t understand orcs well, they decided to bring in an expert.