Sword God
They say humans are creatures of adaptation. Never had those words felt more distant than they did today.
"Cough!"
"Hey, Frey. You alright?"
A dry cough escaped my throat. The cause was obvious enough — the stench that stabbed at my nose, the filth of this place. The middle-aged man wore a worried look.
I slowly shook my head.
"I'm fine."
"Don't push yourself."
"...Yes."
Hans, the middle-aged man I'd met in this filthy prison, let out a small sigh.
"The important thing is not to lose hope. A rescue party's going to be here soon."
Hans held out a rice ball. It was a rice ball made with not a grain of consideration for human beings. Even as a joke, it didn't look edible.
Growl.
"Damn it."
My body betrayed my thoughts. Irritation surged, and I — who had been sitting slumped — buried my face in my knees.
Three days had passed since I awoke in an unknown world, an unknown place. From the first day until now, it had been an unbroken chain of things I could not understand.
The place I woke was a prison. The crude bars on the window and the inner walls woven from scraps of wood looked to be in wretched condition. The problem was that I didn't even have the strength to escape this crude cell. Or rather, more precisely — I didn't know how to use my strength.
"Goddamn game."
"What?"
"...It's nothing. You eat it, Uncle Hans."
At my meaningless mutter, Hans immediately sent me a worried look. Whether he did or not, I thought with my face still buried.
I'm not crazy.
Over the past few days, I had grasped the situation with perfect clarity. This was not modern Earth. I thought of the orcs who came once a day to inspect the prison. Anyone in their right mind would realize this place was different from the world I knew.
Silvering? What's certain is that this is a world I don't know.
According to what Hans had explained — why I had been captured here, what the orcs wanted —
This is the world inside the game. I'm a rookie mercenary who went out on a subjugation and got captured.
Thud.
With my head still buried, I struck the inner wall of the prison. The painfully tingling hand spoke for the reality of my present situation. What good was being the owner of the Conqueror title, the symbol of a ranker? I couldn't even get out of this goddamn prison.
I slowly lifted my head and glanced around. Just three days ago, there had been a few more men in the cell. But those damned orcs had grabbed them and taken them away. Thanks to that, only a handful of people remained, trembling with fear.
They said they took them to the processing plant.
The processing plant. I recalled what the men imprisoned with me had said, and pieced together the situation from the information I'd been given.
"A meat processing plant."
That brought a rather horrific fact to mind. As I remembered, orcs ate meat. The problem was that it wasn't ordinary livestock — they ate the flesh of every living creature that moved. Perhaps that was why the orcs kidnapped other races. It was their way of enjoying their meat fresh.
Absolutely not.
My body trembled of its own accord. I recalled one orc who had scanned the prisoners with greedy eyes that morning. The bastard had smacked his lips as if I had rather caught his fancy.
"Escape."
I mouthed a word that still felt thoroughly awkward. If I was going to become orc feed sitting quietly here, I might as well try to break out.
I traced back through my memory, retracing what I had done in front of the computer. Traits. The character I had created was one I'd loaded with countless traits of overwhelming performance. And as it happened... I had lost consciousness the moment the game started. For better or worse, I had become that character. That was the conclusion I'd reached thanks to benefiting from the trait called Composure on the very first day.
And that meant I might be able to exert far greater power than I thought.
Unarmed combat is dangerous. For safety, I need a weapon. A sword.
I decided to struggle for survival against the threat I faced. Most of the traits I'd added were Mythic-grade — the kind possessed by Silvering's powerful NPCs, the Transcendents. A good example: Sword God was a trait that, as the name suggested, drew one's talent for the sword to its absolute limit.
The problem was that I didn't have a sword. Most of the positive traits, too, had been built faithfully to a late-bloomer concept.
"A gamble is too dangerous in this situation."
It wasn't that I hadn't considered escaping this place barehanded. The problem was that the opponents were orcs. Orcs were monsters of roughly level 10. I couldn't see it, but a number reading Level 1 was probably floating above my head right now.
Orcs were strong. As levels and equipment improved, they got pushed out of players' interest — but they weren't called the grim reapers of the early game for nothing. Early-cycle players even called them Hate-orcs, that's how much they despised them.
Arming myself and everyone else. That's the only way.
Orcs carried their weapons on them twenty-four hours a day, three hundred sixty-five days a year. Which meant the most dangerous moment was also the easiest moment to escape.
BANG!
"AAAAAGH!"
While I was organizing my thoughts, a tremendous scream rang out. I looked through the gap that was awkward to even call a window, checking the situation outside. A face I remembered. The man who had been dragged out that morning.
"GRAAAAH!"
The man was howling, naked. His whole body was blooming with livid bruises, as if he'd been beaten by orcs.
"You goddamn orc bastards! You think I'll just sit here and get eaten?!"
Plenty of orcs had gathered at the commotion. Even with his life hanging by a thread, the man hurled thick curses at them.
And then.
SLASH!
One orc appeared and, without hesitation, cleaved the man with an axe. A bastard whose bulk looked twice that of the other orcs. He gave a greasy smile toward the man's bisected corpse, then vanished from the spot.
"...Damn it."
Watching that scene, the strength left my legs and I slumped to the floor. From the start, thanks to the traits Composure and Clear Mirror Still Water, my heart didn't waver. But a sticky, unpleasant feeling bound my entire body all the same.
The next morning. Recalling the sight of one more man being dragged away, I thought.
Was an axe a sword?
Unfortunately, the answer was no. The trait I had added was Sword God, not Axe God. It was the single trait I'd chosen from the weapon-mastery category. My obsession with swords had come back to bite me. And that meant the most effective weapon for surviving this hell was a sword.
Goddamn it.
When I created the character, I hadn't given axes so much as a passing glance. To think that thoughtless action would come back to haunt me like this. A sword might be called the king of all weapons by some, but to orcs it was a despised object. A good example: since being imprisoned here, I had never seen an orc wearing a sword.
That fact immediately suggested that finding a sword inside the orc camp would require a special method. Killing hundreds of orcs in unarmed combat was too much of a burden.
To find a sword... I have to get out of the prison first.
I was lucky that my current body still had all its limbs intact, but the problem was that tomorrow I might be the one dragged out. My heart grew impatient of its own accord, but the impatience didn't last long.
This orc camp might look like a den of evil, but I was no ordinary beginner. Who was I, if not someone packed to the gills with trait power? As it happened, orcs had a habit of storing the spoils they seized in their warehouse.
Which meant.
The warehouse. I have to find the warehouse.
All my various thoughts ultimately converged on one thing. The most effective way to break this situation. The only hope of killing the orcs and escaping with the people.
If I don't move, I'll die.
It didn't take long to make the decision. Hans had said we were mercenaries hired by the northern imperial expedition. So waiting for a rescue party would also be a method. But the important fact was that the longer I hid in the prison relying on luck, the lower my survival rate would fall.
It wasn't that courage had suddenly welled up from a sleeping heart. I had simply evaluated the situation coldly, and only now found grounds to act.
Isn't this too dangerous a gamble?
I doubted myself countless times. Was I just deluding myself? Would the plan I had made end up getting even more people killed?
In the dank, humid air, I pressed my face to the small hole that resembled a window. It was so stifling. I did it because if I didn't, I felt like my chest would seize up.
"No."
I pulled my face away and spoke aloud. Even if I had woken up inside a game, this was no longer a game. This was reality. When you reached death, like in a game, it wasn't the character that died — it was you. Acting clearly looked like it would raise my survival rate more than sitting still.
"Kid."
"Hm?"
"Heh. You had a face that looked like you were thinking too hard."
"Ah, it's nothing."
Hans wore a pleased smile that didn't fit the situation. He came and sat beside me. After a stretch of silence, he spoke with difficulty.
"I know you're of noble birth, unlike us. You tried to hide it, but still."
"..."
"You've got your reasons, I'm sure. But this much is certain. You're the youngest of our Oak Mercenary Corps, a brother, and family."
A warm voice. From my perspective, what he was saying was a story I couldn't understand. Far from noble birth, I was someone who had lived on Earth.
"Don't you worry. I've no intention of letting you die."
At Hans's blind, bold declaration, I lost my words. If I had to put a feeling to it, their intimacy was simply unfamiliar. There was no reason for any particular emotion to stir.
Creak. Thud.
Just as I was about to answer Hans, the prison door was thrown open with sudden violence, and a massive red-skinned figure appeared.
"Orc...!"
Not only Hans, who had been talking, but the faces of the other men remaining in the prison went deathly pale. They took one man from the prison once a day. So I'd thought they wouldn't come anymore today...
It was a dark hour. It didn't look like a visit of good intent. On top of that, it was the orc who had been eyeing me all along.
Thud. Thud.
"Chwik!"
With a hideous sound, the orc immediately started walking.
"N-not the kid!"
In a situation where the bastard's purpose was obvious, Hans saw the orc's gleaming eyes and stood in its way.
"Uncle!"
Hans, whose only means of resisting the creature was a frail human body. He was brave, but reckless.
THUD!
"Guhk!"
The orc's massive fist slammed into Hans's lower abdomen.
"Bleeegh!"
Had the impact been beyond imagination? Hans staggered back several steps and retched violently.
Thud-thud-thud. Thud.
The orc's ensuing kicks trampled Hans without mercy.
"You son of a bitch...!"
Hans's body, which had stood in the orc's way with nothing but his bare flesh, soon went limp. Consciousness remained, but he couldn't put strength into his body, his hands trembling. I glared at the bastard with burning eyes.
"Chwi-chwi-chwi."
Whether it knew my thoughts or not, the orc sneered.
That is...?
Whether it did or not — in the urgent situation, I caught sight of the old dagger hanging at the orc's waist. Opportunity, by nature, does not always come. For me, who had been preparing to escape at any moment, this was not a crisis but a chance.
Spoils, perhaps? Even at a glance, it was ridiculously small for an orc to use. Yes — that was an object used by humans, not orcs.
Is a dagger a sword?
There was no time to think of an answer.
Whoosh.
I immediately lowered my stance and charged at the orc. The difference in strength was clear. At a glance it looked like a shoulder tackle, but what I was aiming for was not to break the bastard's stance.
Tap.
"Chwiiiik!"
Had it never imagined that a mere piece of prey would charge at it? The orc's eyes glowed red. And a massive axe rose high.
Grab.
It was not the orc that initiated action first. I knew. Even if orcs were born with inherently powerful strength, their agility did not match it.
Crunch.
I immediately tore the small scabbard from the bastard's waist and drew the dagger.
"Ah..."
I could feel it once more. This was not the Earth of reality, but another world.
Information about the dagger flooding into my mind. The power to deal with the monster before my eyes. The moment I gripped the dagger, countless methods of dealing with the beast before me welled up without end.
The dagger, having found its new master, danced in my hand without the slightest resistance.
SLASH!
And, becoming a single streak of light, it cleaved the orc's shoulder.