Fun Times with Three Hundred Orcs (5)

The words hit like a slap. “Beast-like bastard?” Nathan wondered if he’d misheard. It sounded like something a country girl might shriek after running into bandits on a dark road. Who was calling who a beast here? These were the same filth who burned farmland, hung farmers from trees and roasted them alive, and hurled spears into the backs of knights.

With bloodshot eyes, Nathan hurled himself at the orc foaming at the mouth. Or tried to.

His body collapsed before it could reach its target. It wasn’t dizziness. His head had actually cleared thanks to the rage. Nathan ground his teeth and looked down. The ankle that had endured every kind of abuse was now twisted at a grotesque angle. Nagrik’s mocking, relieved laugh brushed past his ear.

He couldn’t remember ever being this furious in his life.

Forgetting the pain for a moment, Nathan rose unsteadily on one leg. In his hand was the warlord’s iron mace that had slipped from Nagrik’s belt while the orc crawled away like a dog.

Nathan didn’t swing it. He didn’t chase the fleeing orc. He simply took aim. Gripping the mace by its head, he weighed it carefully, like a boy preparing to throw a stone at a rabbit. Perhaps the memory of the cannonball Nagrik had hurled flashed through his mind—the one that had turned one of his own warriors into red mist. Nagrik’s laughter stopped cold.

“You done breaking everything?”

The elf arena master fidgeted, clawing at his thinning hair. Yet he couldn’t bring himself to make a decision. The constant nervous rubbing was turning his scalp into a wasteland.

What the hell do you want me to do, you balding pig?

The secretary, biting her lip, lifted the transmitter on her collar before the situation could spiral further.

“I’ll order the field troops to withdraw.”

“What the hell are you doing, you stupid whore! You want to see this arena burn?”

The arena master’s eyes bulged, then suddenly lit up as if an idea had struck him. He muttered under his breath.

“Five fighters left… five… Yes! That’s it!”

Nathan couldn’t throw the mace in time. Balancing on one leg was difficult enough, but the bleeding was the bigger problem. The knight was fighting a desperate battle against the blood blurring his vision. That gave Nagrik time.

The orc glanced toward the arena entrance with a flicker of hope. The doors burst open with a crash. Elf soldiers were rushing in.

The announcer’s warning screamed loud enough to rupture eardrums. But to Nathan it sounded distant, like something from a dream. He tilted his head in confusion.

He clearly remembered the rule: at most five would remain. The promised hour hadn’t passed yet, so the match shouldn’t have ended. Whether five or four were left made no difference. Strictly speaking, this was a rule violation. They were breaking the very promise they had set.

Why?

His mind, pushed to its limit after absorbing every kind of shock all day, skipped several logical steps. Pure instinct. A single realization flashed through Nathan’s head.

The way the crowd had gasped in terror the moment Bakama and Nagrik were in danger. Why? Perhaps because there were orcs in the stands who didn’t want to see them die—didn’t want all of them sent to the afterlife by Nathan’s hand?

‘So this was a rigged match from the start.’

Only then did Nathan understand Nagrik’s behavior. The cunning orc had given them an excuse. He must have realized how valuable he was to the elves.

“Both of you really know how to flip a man’s stomach.”

Back in the Federation, they called this kind of thing fraud. The dirty tricks of small-time crooks who scratched marks on the corners of cards or drilled holes in dice and threaded them with string. Under Federation law, elite knights could act in place of administrative agencies. In other words, they could dish out whatever punishment they saw fit to such swindlers in place of judges or victims.

Would the Federation’s law reach this place? He didn’t know. But it didn’t matter to Nathan. No matter where he was, he would exercise a knight’s ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠authority.

‘I just need to split that bastard’s skull open.’

“Fuck off.”

The mace’s weight shifted. Thwuck.

A new pain bloomed without warning. Nathan, who had dropped the orc’s mace behind him, spotted the spike embedded in his wrist.

“Crazy bastards.”

He immediately rolled sideways. More spikes flew in succession, slamming into the spot where he had just been. But piercing flesh wasn’t the only function of those spikes. The moment a sinister tick sounded, a violent electric shock exploded in his wrist.

The delayed impact made Nathan’s eyes bulge in terror. For a brief moment his world went first black, then blinding white. He found it strangely fascinating that he was screaming with all his strength yet couldn’t hear a single sound in his own ears.

Nathan twisted his already ruined ankle again. As his body toppled, he heard something slicing through the air. Gritting his teeth, the knight ripped out the spike that was furiously spitting electricity. Then, using his good hand, he hauled up the orc’s corpse.

Using the hideous body as a shield, Nathan squeezed his eyes shut and pressed himself to the ground. A sickening series of thuds followed as countless skewers sank into the orc’s skin. It sounded like darts hitting a tavern board.

When the barrage finally stopped, Nathan snapped his eyes open. He immediately kicked the orc’s body away. The corpse convulsed violently from the successive electric shocks.

‘Now what?’

Nathan gasped for breath. He could see them through the gap between the legs of the standing, twitching orc corpse. The long-eared soldiers were charging toward him. The closer they came, the wider Nagrik’s smile grew….

The moment the corpse finished its macabre dance and collapsed, the elf soldiers halted. They began arguing among themselves. Every face wore a troubled expression.

Nathan, who had been preparing to roll away in anticipation of the next attack, was bewildered. Nagrik, who had been offering prayers of gratitude to the gods of the abyss, felt the same.

“What the hell?”

Aren’t you supposed to protect me? Don’t you have money riding on me?

Disappointment, and an even greater anxiety, shattered the orc’s expression. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. Please.

Shaking uncontrollably, Nagrik scanned his surroundings and suddenly locked eyes with Nathan, who had closed the distance.

“Hello.”

----------

“Looks like those bastards can’t protect you anymore.”

Nagrik lowered his head deeply. At first glance, it looked like resignation—accepting death. Nathan limped closer, pretending to be fooled. Not actually fooled, but acting like it.

A curved blade flew from behind the orc. The bastard had been pretending to brace himself on the ground while secretly gripping the sword behind his back. He had probably planned to swing it the moment Nathan threw the mace.

But the fiercely swung blade met nothing. Nathan had leaned his body at an angle to dodge. While Nagrik frantically tried to recover his stance, Nathan charged.

The next instant, Nagrik realized both his arms were pinned and that Nathan was straddling him. When he tried to throw the human off, he discovered his arm joints had been dislocated.

“Gaaaah—!”

“It’s been one disgusting day. Shall we say our goodbyes now?”

Nathan drew the broken sword from his waist and gripped it reversed. The target was the gaping wound on the orc’s neck. All he had to do was drive it in and twist hard. But what was this ominous feeling?

“Stop, you Sapiens bastard—! Uwaaaaah—!”

“Ah, for fuck’s sake, just shut—”

Nathan couldn’t finish. A lightning bolt slammed into his exhausted back. There was no other way to describe the agony. It felt as if every drop of blood in his veins had vaporized. This heat. The pain that scorched his mind struck without warning.

“I bet two hundred years’ worth of salary on Nagrik—! I can’t lose it all because of you—!”

“Calm down, Inario! Someone stop that guy!”

“There was an order to withdraw without further interference! Lower the launcher!”

When he had been impaled by a spear and lost consciousness, had Aspen felt this way too? The sensation of bloody foam bubbling from his mouth, eyes, and nose. He couldn’t see anything. It felt like irreversible aftereffects would remain. Assuming he survived at all.

It was unfair.

‘No matter what, survive and come back. Survive and remember me.’

‘We pray for the safe return of Knight Nathan. May his body remain in one piece until he reaches headquarters.’

‘[Right now on your tablet! Bet on your champion—up to five at most!]’

Ending like this was just too unfair.

In place of the blood dried by lightning, pure rage flowed through his veins.

“That’s enough, you sons of bitches—!”

Right before his consciousness collapsed again under the electric current running through his flesh. Right before the other soldiers who had bet on Nagrik rushed in and desperately hooked him to drag him down. Amid the audience’s screams that sounded like they were witnessing the end of the world, Nathan finally drove the broken sword into Nagrik’s neck bone.

“Then why isn’t my money back on the tablet! You damn frauds!”

“That was my daughter’s medicine money! Bring our Bakama back—!”

“Why did you kill him… whyyyy….”

It was bizarre. People were screaming in despair. They wailed over the deaths of the orc leaders as if they had lost their own children. It was the first time in his life that Nathan had done his duty as a knight and received condemnation for it. No one seemed to care that two knights had fallen either.

What the hell was going on?

Even if their ears were a little longer, they still wore human faces, didn’t they? His cooked eyelids twitched in disbelief. He had killed many kinds of monsters in his life, but he had never seen monsters like these.

This might be the last thing he heard in his life. And yet all that reached him were these hideous, vicious words.

“He killed… the orcs….”

Even his possible last words were pathetic. Nathan cursed himself.

‘Aspen, you win. “Survive and remember me”? Your last words are on another level. I learned something good. Next time… I’ll use it…’

----------

“Wake up.”

Teacher, I’m sorry but you’re not a necromancer, and I don’t appear to be a corpse. Can’t you tell from how heavy my eyelids still are?

“I said wake up—!”

It was wet. Cold. Extremely so. Nathan opened his eyes. He felt water dripping steadily from his hair. Droplets ran down his cheeks and repeatedly entered his mouth. The occasional fishy smell was probably from the black orc blood that had splattered across his face.

Water. Something he hadn’t even glimpsed for days. Nathan accepted it gladly. Then suddenly, a shocking realization made him shudder.

He was alive?

‘How… how the hell did I survive this?’

After playing tag with three hundred orcs for a week, getting a filthy greatsword buried in his side, having his skull flattened by a mace, and literally being fried by lightning—he was still breathing. If he had heard this story from a bard, he would have cursed the man’s entire bloodline for telling such an unrealistic tale.

Maybe it had all been a dream? Maybe he had secretly gone to the valley, gotten drunk on stolen liquor, and passed out? Maybe being dragged off to some unknown place, Aspen being sent flying by that overgrown alligator-headed chimera—maybe it had all happened in a nap?

“Well, something as ridiculous as being kidnapped by a flying saucer would never—”

A bucket of water crashed over him like a slap to wake him from his delusions. Nathan reflexively squeezed his eyes shut at the force of it. The sound of the thrown bucket clattering across the stone floor followed.

“Do you even know what you’ve done?”

Asking a man who had just woken up to solve a mystery was rather cruel.

‘If you’re going to splash me with stale-smelling water, don’t be surprised when I swallow the sarcasm I was about to spit out.’

He barely held back the retort. Even to himself, his inner vocabulary was bleak. It wasn’t so much a sense of humor as a foul mouth. All Aspen’s doing. Speaking of which, what had happened to Aspen?

“Aspen.”

“What?”

“Where’s Aspen?”

Smack. The sound was crisp. He must have slapped his own forehead with that meaty hand.

“You were singing ‘Aspen, Aspen’ even in the arena. Did you fall for him or something, you Sapiens worm? I asked first! What the hell did you do to mess up my arena operation? How are you still alive after taking a mace to the head!”

“…What exactly did I do?”

When Nathan asked back, the other party’s breathing grew ragged. The kind of heavy, fat-clogged breathing that would suggest obesity if the speaker were human. Even though his emotional agitation was obvious, the voice still tried to sound composed.

“Where should I even begin so that a fool like you can understand? Do you know what the most popular entertainment in the Heavens is?”

The Heavens? Nathan thought the bastard was joking.

“I’ve never lived in the sky, so how would I know?”

“Obviously it’s the arena business. There’s nothing more entertaining than watching blood fly. The next most popular entertainment is betting on who will win or lose in the arena.”

Nathan was dumbfounded. If this guy was seriously calling his homeland the Heavens, his vanity had reached an embarrassing level. His blurry vision gradually returned. The silhouette of the man who had been shouting became clear. He was a round, ball-shaped man with plenty of flesh.

“Combining airship tourism with arena business was a groundbreaking idea. It added realism to this stale industry. Freshly caught live fish from the Lower World fighting each other—people couldn’t get enough of it.”

He made a nervous gesture, and one of the soldiers flinched before handing over his spear. It was a bizarre weapon shaped like a stag beetle’s head.

“Especially today—the show was planned entirely around orcs. Lately, a drama about the orcs’ struggle has been ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠getting great ratings in the Heavens. Legion Commander Bakama and Chieftain Nagrik were the protagonists of the final chapter. Do you know how much I paid the broadcasting station to take over their material? Don’t answer. You wouldn’t be able to guess anyway.”

The fat man swung the spear with a whoosh as if demonstrating martial arts. His intention to assert authority was obvious. But Nathan only let out a scoff. Those motor skills, though.

“Besides, this business requires spending money everywhere. Fuel costs are no joke, and we need permits every time we go to an airfield. The perception-distortion magic costs twice as much.”

But when the bastard thrust the spear into Nathan’s body, Nathan finally understood. No real combat experience was needed to handle it. It wasn’t a weapon. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was a torture device. The horseshoe-shaped spearhead wasn’t sharp at all, but it crackled with electricity.

“Gaaah—!”

Pain he had already experienced, yet the stimulation was beyond description. The current raced through his entire body.

“And in that situation, an inedible poison fish got caught in the net and killed all the expensive fish. That poison fish is you.”

The arena master pressed the spearhead against Nathan’s throat with all his strength. It was clearly malicious, but Nathan could do nothing. If he could have shattered that lump of fat’s jaw, he would have done it before the spear even touched him. Nathan’s limbs were bound by some complicated torture device. The restraints on his arms and legs were solid iron. They probably hadn’t dared take any chances after seeing him snap chains with raw strength.

Finally the arena master pulled the spear away. Only then did Nathan urgently draw in a breath. His reply flew out with that first gulp of air.

“Nobody asked, yet here you are getting all excited. Don’t have any friends, huh?”

The arena master’s cheeks quivered. The lightning rod slammed down on Nathan’s neck once again.