Orc and 400 Madmen: Day 2 - The Silver Flash from the Peak
On the second day, a magnificent orc had set up camp on an unnamed peak in the Black Rock Mountains, lounging in the sunlight along with his worthless underlings sprawled out beneath him. Calling myself magnificent felt a bit off, but if I thought I was cool, wasn't that what mattered? Back in my imagination, I was always Park Sword or Kim So-hyun, but whenever I looked in the mirror, it was just Frog Pepe staring back. Now that I was an orc, by this world's standards, wasn't I pretty damn handsome and cool-looking? Where the hell was I lacking? Bluntly put, among orcs, I was a top-tier stud! Fuck, right on cue with the self-praise came a crashing wave of depression, making me want to escape to dreamland—but I couldn't even do that!
-Kuuuuhhh!
-Kuuuung! Kwaaaang!
Unlike me, swaying gently in a hammock woven from tangled bushes, these idiots were just flopping down wherever their backs hit the ground, snoring loud enough to bring the mountain crumbling down. No way I could get any proper sleep with that racket.
"Aish."
I quietly brushed myself off and stood, peering down at the humans currently surrounding us. Patrols of human scum were shuffling back and forth between outposts spaced at regular intervals.
"Tch, they're really grinding away. Total greenhorns with zero field experience."
Honestly, anyone at officer rank or higher was probably just telling the grunts below to keep tabs on us while they holed up in some strategy meeting, sucking on honey sticks. Hell, even I, the leader of this pack, was doing exactly that. Humans weren't exactly saints compared to the Demon King's army—weaker, maybe, but no angels. Sure, as a reincarnated human myself, I wanted to trust those bastards... but humans were tool-using animals by nature. And with tools overflowing to make their lives comfy, why wouldn't they use them? Even if I was an orc now, I'd been human once.
"Yeah, this endless patrolling is annoying enough, but if some bigwig showed up right about now—huh?"
Speak of the devil—even tigers come when mentioned. The human side suddenly got noisy; someone important must've arrived.
"What's that? A silver flash?"
Something shiny was moving around, and every time it passed an outpost, the soldiers there were snapping salutes, bowing their heads, total pandemonium.
Silver-haired and high-ranking...
"Ah."
Was that the "Dragon Mountain" or whatever my minions had called her? According to their stories, the hero hailed by the alliance was a stunner so gorgeous even monsters like them popped their eyes out. Too far to see clearly now, but a beauty, huh...? How hot was she for them to call her that? These guys whose standard for females was "fuckable first, looks second"?
Curiosity bubbled up big time. At my age, prime horniness years, would she match my tastes? Sure, her being in charge of the Demon King's army and a serial killer of them was a red flag, but I knew better. Hero or not, as long as she was a female knight, there was no way she could beat an orc like me! Total bullshit logic, I knew. If the kids' tales about the hero's skills were true, I'd be minced meat hanging in a Majang-dong butcher shop after one spin of her blade. But this was a challenge to myself as an orc, not the old human me.
Above all, what orc in the world hated a beauty?! And a female knight to boot! Orcs and female knights! Female knights and orcs—it was destiny! My brain, pickled in Hitomi galleries, was working overtime, my dick swelling majestically as drool pooled with ugly, depraved lust.
Someday, when we met, I'd offer her some honey porridge. If she accepted, gentlemanly romance. If not, a rough seedy motel grind! Watching my minions usually, I always told myself I was different from those pure beasts since I'd been human. Bullshit. Now a beauty (probably) dangled in front of me, and poof—my humanity vanished.
Farewell, humanity. Our bond was this shallow... Partings pave the way for meetings. Parting sadly today with my old pal humanity would be the stepping stone to a new encounter with the nameless beauty (probably).
Anyway, her hair sparkled extra bright, making her visible. Honestly, from this height—like the 30th or 40th floor of an apartment—spotting faces below was weird. What a shame. Smacking my lips in disappointment, I shelved dreams of the nameless beauty for later and resumed observing the human ants crawling at my feet like on a playground.
Suddenly, one corner got rowdy. From the racket, it didn't sound human, so without turning, I called out.
"What?"
"Boss, slacking's fine, but this is boring!"
Sun Bat, the bat-type monster who turned into a sunflower at midday, his tension skyrocketing, flexed his wings like a bodybuilder and whined at me. His kind usually slept days and roamed nights like proper bats, but this mutant had his rhythm flipped. Slept fine at night, but couldn't during the day.
"Bored?"
"Yeah!"
What could I do? Nothing fun to do here—wait, one thing.
"Hey, Sun Bat, c'mere."
I strolled off with hands clasped behind my back, and the bat dude happily scampered after me.
"Hehe! Heehee!"
Idiot's thrilled. Wasn't far anyway; my destination was still on this peak. We arrived at a corner of the summit—an edge where a side path was visible straight down if you looked vertically, but one misstep meant bungee-jumping into the abyss. A prime cliff spot.
Bonus: my personal piss spot.
"Boss? Why here?"
"Remember what I said? We can play with anything."
"Uh, yeah..."
"Thing is, I've been too indifferent, don't even know what each of you likes. Can't take care of the little details. Sorry."
Not that I care to learn later.
But Sun Bat looked touched, flexing his bumpy wing muscles like they might explode. Probably their species' thanks. As useless trivia piled up, I picked a random pebble from the ground and showed it to him.
"Here, what's this?"
"Rock!"
"Right, a rock. And if I drop it like this..."
No sooner said than the stone plummeted dozens of meters, whistling sharply downward.
Splack!
Splack!
Splack!
The impacts echoed. The place was so quiet, even a small toss like that boomed across the area.
Now we could play by chucking rocks one by one. Hardly a real toy, but Sun Bat—different sensibilities, I guess—closed his eyes and focused on the sounds.
One, another, one more... After about ten tosses to the ground, Sun Bat stared at me, eyes brimming with tears.
"Sounds like the noises back home sometimes."
"Home?"
Oh, right—these bat-related monsters lived in caves, bats' OG hometown. Probably the drip of cave dew or rocks falling sounded kinda like this to him.
But bats echolocate, right? Did they talk in ultrasound too? Big rocks dropping in a cave would echo like crazy. Never lived in one, so who knows. Anyway, leaving the sniveling bat to his emo moment alone, I headed back to the silver flash viewpoint.
Shouldn't have left him solo.
I figured he was just a dumb bat nutjob and ditched him—what disaster that'd unleash, I had no clue yet.
Hours later, down the mountain's side path, the nameless peak and its routes in the Black Rock Mountains were sealed tight by the human alliance's camp. Outposts dotted every ten-odd meters, under 24-hour watch for any surprises. Days allowed visual friend-foe ID without signals, but nights used torch semaphore like mini beacons.
Here, on a path barely wide for a cart, orders from above had them digging like idiots to build Outpost 47. Soldier Kenis, posted with his mentor and hometown buddy Ratchet, was excitedly gossiping about today's wild event.
Guard duty banned chit-chat, mentors and rookies couldn't even face each other—but strictly enforcing that'd break anyone before they broke the enemy. So they chatted slyly, eyes peeled.
Topic: Silveryia Isis, the unit commander who'd inspected earlier and starred in every soldier's filthy nighttime fantasies.
"But seriously, I was shocked."
"Me too, dude—you saw her face, right? Fuck, she wrecked me. Swear, I nearly dropped trou right there."
"I already blew my load and washed my pants."
Crude dick talk, but in a blood-soaked warzone, meeting women was rarer than stars. And one of the kingdom's top beauties was their commander—no, she'd even stopped at their outpost today. How pumped were they?
"Man, wish I had a girl like that. But look at us. Normally this time, I'd be picking up some street chick."
Ratchet grumbled, lighting a tiny pipe. But his rookie's smug winner's grin made him glare at Kenis.
"You—whatever it is, shut it. You're pissing me off."
"Yessir~ Kenis, with his future wife promised, will zip it!"
"Fuckin' punk."
Who're you mocking?
"Wait—what? Dude! You got a girl and still eyed the commander like—"
Words cut off mid-sentence.
-Splack... Thud...
"Damn, that noise again. What's with it?"
"Heard from the shift change guys—rocks rolling down somewhere over there."
"Rocks? What rocks?"
Kenis shrugged like how should I know? Ratchet puffed his pipe, griping.
"Heard it daytime too—what're the nearby outposts doing?"
"Still, doesn't seem big. If it was, it'd be chaos. No signals coming."
Yeah, with outposts everywhere, others'd handle it. Right then—
-Splack!
Not like they were alone here. But something felt off; Ratchet nudged Kenis.
"Hey, isn't this sound getting louder—"
Kwajik!
"Hehe... hit again."