Chapter 85 A "Team"

He and I spoke well. I stood up and killed the knight as he kept repeating "Curse this life!" After I was done here, the quest read 29 enemies dealt with out of 30. I just needed one more

Turning my heels on the bloodbath, I faced the orcs. With light steps, I walked up to them, holding out the orcish dagger to the crazy orc. His thick fingers were placed on my hand, but he didn't take the weapon back. Instead, his fingers were wrapped around mine, as if with brotherly affection, and slid back the dagger to my chest.

His tanned red lips said it was my gift. I said thanks. After I asked to have my other weapons back, the warchief motioned to a nearby orc, and he went on his way to get the weapons. If I was setting out, I needed my weapon, and that's what I planned on doing. As they most likely understood that I had to go away (they didn't), some orc was sent to get them to me.

As I tilted my head back and peered up at the blue sky and clouds, I was addressed by the crazy orc. "You… go t' Ladafar, little monster. After, after. Yes. You go wiz me. Last stronghold o' da orcs an' demi-hooman. After. You come. Oh… Learn da," the orc spoke words I didn't understand, before he translated to me, "da orc tongue. Learn. After. To Ladafar."

Was Ladafar a good city, town, or whatever it served as to the people? I asked the question. The orc didn't seem to understand my question. He was right. I really needed to learn his tongue if I wanted to be chatting with him. "Where to, where to…? To… Ladafar? Hm. Hooman Gray Castle. Oh… Learn da orc tongue. Important. Proud tongue. No hooman."

"All right, sure," I said absent-mindedly, peering up at the blue sky, my arms crossed upon my chest.

"Fight hooman! Jus' like da fight," he said, pointing at the bloodbath. "Little monster, we… we… we…" What was he, some sort of broken record? After he couldn't find the words to express himself, he tapped my shoulder, got my attention, and produced an illustration with his hands. Taking all five fingers of one hand, he crossed them with all five fingers of his other hand. Like this, his hands were joined together, and they held strong when he tried to take them apart. "We… We… Ah… We…"

"We stick together, right?"

"Right!"

"We're a team."

"A dim!"

We had a little laugh, and the orc who went to fetch my weapon came back into the tent. After I received my good old shiny sword again, I then spoke to the old man. Yes, the old man. My old advisor. It had been five minutes since he was hiding around. My old man. The same old guy who sent his grandson to war. Didn't the old guy promise me he would be watching from afar, protecting his beloved grandson no matter what?

Yeah he did, and he kept his promise. Not that I needed him to, he had indeed watched over my security from a long distance ever since I showed up on the battlefield, so naturally, when I was captured by the orc soldier, the old uncle saw it. And so, what would such a senile man who was crazily loving his abducted grandson do? The grumpy old uncle got furious, tapped his foot on the ground, and cursed the orcs.

And now, there he was. Around. He was so well-hidden even I, about five minutes ago, when I first picked his presence up thanks to Mana Perception, couldn't pin down his location to a precise point. Naturally, thanks to whatever trick the skillful old man used, the orcs wouldn't smell his presence, not even the slightest bit of it. And now, the grumpy old man who had complained about his aching bones was ready to serve me as he promised.

With full lungs, I cried out. "Hold it only a little longer, old man! Don't attack!" And that was it. Why not attack right this instant? Because there was one thing I still wanted to do. Learn the orc tongue. Why was that? Well, the System asked me to.

Being out here on the battlefield, I was going about two quests simultaneously. One of them was about fighting on the battlefield. I still had one enemy to deal with before I could proceed with the next instructions of the mission. As for the second quest, the "voluntary quest," after I proved my loyalty to the orcs, I was now tasked with two next steps before I completed the quest.

First thing was that I needed to accept the crazy orc's dagger as his token of gratitude. The quest said the dagger would surely come in handy later down the road because it was a special dagger to the crazy orc—it was so special it could be proof to the orcs that I was their friend. In the future, the System repeated in the quest's text, the dagger would be useful. So I accepted it and the System read 1/1 dagger accepted. Now, the second thing to do was a little more tricky. I mentioned it, but I needed to learn the orc tongue.

As of now, I spoke two tongues. Elvish and Human. How did I come to learn said tongues? Well, I took over people who spoke said tongues. And so, that's why…

After I motioned to the crazy orc to approach me, he bent his back and brought his huge bulk to my height, giving me an ear. The orc gave me his ear, but I wasn't about to tell him a secret or anything so meek and full of affection. Quite the contrary. He gave me his ear, but I took his throat. With a rapid hand, I wrapped my fingers around his throat and brought him more down.

Choking, and with shock, the orc fell to his knees. Both terror and surprise were carved on his somber complexion. With a thud, every orc around noticed me as I clearly assaulted their brother.

My aura shot out from my body, plunging the little tent in dense, dark waves of mana twirling around me. Aaah, but that wouldn't do—I shouldn't break the orc's throat before I did what I needed to do.

The crazy orc's eyes were oh-so-widely open. With all his limbs, he tried to get off my grip, but there was nothing he could do. I mean, he certainly did have the strength to fly off my grip, but I was too quick to proceed with the next step.

Promptly undoing my Character and human form, I climbed into the demi-human's skin. The next second, the crazy orc was my Receptacle, and, standing up, though I coughed some blood, I waved to the other demi-humans to step back. Man, I felt strong. And it was right—as the crazy orc wasn't just any guy, he must have been at least level 35, I could be using him as a Receptacle just fine.

Or well, maybe not "just fine," but his body wasn't instantly overloaded with my overflowing mana from within. Still, before I got down to it and got to learn, in detail, the science of magical energy, how to properly regulate it and whatnot, any Receptacle still could barely support my overwhelming raw power.

With a husk, deep voice, I told the group of orcs I was all right, using a perfectly fluent orc tongue. "I'm all right," I, the crazy orc, said. "You guys... step back." What kind of wild shit, if you'll excuse me, was going down, however? I mean, that question was the orcs' question.

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Not mine. I knew what was going on. But damn, to the orcs, what was it that just happened in a split second? At once, the monster they recruited transformed back into the shapeless form it had, a devastatingly dreadful aura was cast on the whole tent, stealing every proud orc of their pride, making most of the low-level orcs scared senseless, and then… did the monster disappear? Wasn't the monster rather sucked in... the sturdy orc?

My words were hardly believable after what had just happened within a split second. I mean, come on. "What're ye saying?! Can't ye see the bastard… do what he did. Ah, damn it. Ain't it disappeared, too?!" I replied saying "it" had indeed disappeared.

The orc soldiers still didn't believe me. A handful of them approached me, the warchief was with them, one of them, some sort of shaman, made to assess the damage I had taken, but I brushed him off. "Away from me, you orcs—I mean, my brothers. It'll— It'll come back, the monster."

With a husky voice, one of the orc yelled that the monster had better come back, implying he would teach him not to mess with them.

"Orcs show 'im cooperation… an' that's what the monster pulls? I knew it, I knew it! Chief! Told you we can't trust them monsters…! Ain't they s'posed t' be braindead in the first place, eh?! A monster ain't no good, I told you…!"

"Look ye. We all knew that was risky… Shut ye trap, it was worth the risk—"

"Shut ye trap, y'say, damn it?!"

Going like this, the handful of bulky orcs, with growling voices and strong arms, continued to quarrel. Listening in on their conversation, for about two minutes, I asserted it was good enough. I didn't really know whether I had learned the orc tongue so easily, but I spoke with and heard them.