Volume 5 - CH 45

Act 5-45: Persuasion of The Combat Tribe I

The defense wasn’t simply seeking items for defense. In the end, it included personal defensive abilities. And everyone came to realize that after the previous incident. Moreover, we wouldn’t be able to develop in a better direction unless we had a standardized defense.

Thus, the first and best option was forming an alliance with the other tribes. That’s why I was currently visiting the high orc of the pig tribe’s village along with Chisi and Chato.

We were currently facing a fully armored pig-head mman inside a stone castle.

「Oioioi, lowly cats like you guys actually had the gall to offer an alliance with us, are you trying to make us die laughing?」

Though they were laughing loudly, they were visibly pissed off after hearing our proposal.

Well, sheep cats were undoubtedly a weak tribe even by North Grand standards. In short, they were akin to plebeians. And those plebeians were actually brave enough to seek cooperation with a strong combat tribe even by human standard. This is the reason why I said that there were limited ways to force them to hear our proposal.

「If you refuse cooperation based on equal standing, then the only way left is subordination, right?」

「Wait a minute, Gil!」

Colour drained from Chato’s face who stood beside me, he grabbed my shoulder and whispered.

「Sub… Ordination?」

One of the bigger orcs with brown skin stood up from his chair, and seized the huge hatchet on his arm. This one was the only monster with skin color closer to red. This particular orc seems to be a special one among them.

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「Yeah, either way, the entire North Grand would be destroyed. I don’t want to do this but, at this rate, what awaits us is total destruction.」

This was the truth. The northern demon king called Aldebaran, whose army was currently advancing to the south, was one of the four great demon kings. Humanity was in a heavily disadvantageous situation against the four great demon kings, before they summoned the monster from another world who was hailed as the hero.

And strangely enough, despite not knowing anything about myself, I was really knowledgeable about the political situation in this world. And yet, the revelation about this matter brought more worries to me.

「That’s nice words for a lowly cat. I shall reward you by chopping your head and exposed it to weather!」

My current appearance was changed to that of a―― sheep cat youth with my abilities, making me look like a sheep cat too.

According to my investigation, this ability was 『Transformation』. Its effect was to allow me to change my appearance to any creature in my imagination. Yes, the change wasn’t limited to outer appearance, the same goes for the inside too. Otherwise, I could keep my outer appearance and only change my inside or vice versa. I think the transformation that I did when I repelled the band of thieves from before was an inside transformation.

But then, there were several restrictions to this ability of mine. Regarding the inside transformation, it was only limited to anyone whom I have met before, outer appearance transformation wasn’t restricted by this, not to mention that I could literally change my outer appearance to just about anything as long as my imagination allowed it. And this transformation was what I used to change my current appearance.

I mean, it would be easier for them to have an audience with sheep cat rather than sheep cats mixing with humans, right?

「Enough with pretentious talk. Come at me!」

The orc was clearly pissed off when I beckoned with my hand.

「How dare you! Fine then, DIEEEEEEEEEEEE!」

He stepped forward, raising his hatchet, and brandished it toward me.

Seeing the approaching hatchet, I unsheathed the long sword hanging on my waist and parried the blow, redirecting its power.

「N-NHAAAAAA!?」

I quickly closed in toward the orc who had yet to recover from his shock, and landed a blow on his abdomen with the hilt of my sword.

The power behind my blow was enough to send the orc flying behind, and only stopped after he crashed against the wall behind him.

（As expected, there are no problems as long as I’m not using him.）

During an experiment with my newfound power, I found out that my body wouldn’t be exhausted unless I transformed into that black haired youth. Though my inside was currently transformed to the swordmaster in my dream, I found no problem with this transformation.

「…」

The orc stood up, lowering his stance. His conceit from before had disappeared, the real battle had only just started.

This was obvious from his stance. This guy was powerful. I couldn’t afford to have a leeway against him. I had a reason to win this fight. That’s why―― I readied my sword and rushed toward him.