A few days ago.
Shane stared at the two objects in his hands and was lost in thought.
Both were gifts from the Mountain King.
One was a rectangular Akashic Record.
And the other was a glowing blue orb.
Among them, Shane had focused on the blue orb first since he felt a familiar energy inside it.
How could he describe it?
Suddenly, memories from his past life surfaced.
Klein was charging at him with a holy sword in hand, while Shane himself wore a mask.
After days of battle, Shane got impaled by Klein’s sword, and as a result, the self born from his envy perished.
And within this blue orb, Shane could feel the same holiness he had sensed back then.
However, the blue orb before him seemed to carry a more destructive force than the holy sword Klein had wielded in his past life. It was likely because the owner of this power was different from that of Klein’s sword.
“I see. So this is what they call divinity.”
Shane didn’t fully understand the nature of this power.
From the outside, it only appeared to have an overwhelming aura.
In his past life, Klein had used the sacred sword to neutralize Origin.
Thanks to that, the persona of Envy had vanished.
From that perspective, the divinity of the Mountain King seemed to serve a very different purpose.
Shane pulled out the orc totem he had set aside earlier.
“It leans more toward domination.”
At that moment, Shane understood both the use of this divinity and why the Mountain King had entrusted it to him.
“It’s quite a good gift.”
Without hesitation, Shane brought the Mountain King’s divinity to his mouth and swallowed it.
***
The old orc Batukan stood quietly with its eyes closed. It was guarding the Mountain King’s temple as usual.
“Times… have changed.”
Though time passes and eras shift, such sayings never really applied to orcs.
In the harsh northern lands, there was rarely anything that could be called change.
But in the past few months, the orcs had been swept through a time of great upheaval.
It all began with the arrival of those who called themselves Nameless.
The current Chieftain Pagabutan and Elder Shaman Kargato betrayed the god who had sheltered the orc race by joining hands with the Nameless organization.
With the sole reason of winning the war against the humans and reclaiming their homeland, they had enforced cannibalism among their kin, and those who refused were all enslaved.
Mostly, the orcs who had just completed their coming-of-age ceremony followed them. They forgot their past and no longer visited the temple.
As a temple guardian, Batukan managed to survive the upheaval and avoid the fate of becoming a slave, but that did not bring him peace.
Was there truly any meaning in consuming their own kind to grow stronger?
Unable to answer that question, Batukan merely opened his closed eyes and looked at the girl bound in the corner.
The girl, with radiant silver hair that resembled one of the two moons hanging in the night sky, sat helplessly in chains and seemed to be unconscious.
“Had there ever been any glory for us orcs to begin with?”
The vampire girl who was trapped here for hundreds of years.
Her blood granted the orcs a special power and allowed them to survive even in the harsh northern lands.
The orc race had always survived by parasitizing other races.
So, did it really matter if he said anything about the current situation?
Even though they were the very race that had destroyed their homeland, Urbulak…
If they were to trace the root cause, it was likely the orcs’ arrogance in taking the lives of those young ones first.
But what about the humans?
Batukan was one of the few orcs who had survived the war with the humans fifty years ago.
Although fifty years had passed, the scenes from that time still had not faded from Batukan’s memory.
The humans he had faced fifty years ago seemed like the future the orc race had always dreamed of.
A race that did not covet the things of others, but grew on their own.
Though their bodies were weak, they grew through an unyielding curiosity for the future and united together to repel external enemies.
All of it was dazzling to Batukan, and at the same time, it brought him despair.
The orcs’ war had already occurred, and they had lost.
How had things come to this?
The first chieftain of the North, Argatu, had killed a Cyclops with its own strength.
That miracle had even astonished their god.
Before that glory, the orcs saw their future.
But now, not even that future remained.
“In the end, we will lose again.”
There was no evolution for orcs without glory.
Simply coveting the strength of others would not be enough to reclaim their homeland.
“A farsighted orc, aren’t you?”
“….…!”
At that moment, a voice came from behind Batukan.
When it turned around, there stood a figure shrouded in darkness and wearing a plain mask.
“……Who are you? This is not a place where those from Nameless are allowed to enter.”
Batukan thought the figure was someone sent by the organization and issued a command to expel him.
In reality, though Pagabutan and Kargato had cooperated with the organization, they had ensured that no one could enter this place.
It wasn’t out of concern for defiling the temple but to protect the vampire, which was the source of magic for the orcs.
However, the masked figure paid no heed to such matters and approached the girl bound by chains.
“I said leave!”
“A beautiful creature, indeed.”
Batukan tried to expel him at once, but for some reason, the aura emanating from the figure made Batukan feel as if he was facing a being he could not oppose.
Regardless of that.
The masked figure, Shane, continued to speak.
“Old orc. Orc who knows the glory of the past. Do you know why this creature is beautiful?”
“……I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“This vampire race survives by feeding on the blood of others. Without other races, they can’t survive.”
“……”
“What do you think is the reason they could be so strong despite everything?”
Strength.
The power the orcs had longed for so desperately.
As soon as the topic came up, Batukan shook his head quietly and answered.
“……I don’t know. How could a lowly orc like me know such a thing?”
“Their very existence follows the natural order of the world.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“To conquer and overcome others—this is one of the simplest laws of the world, is it not? The vampire race, more than anyone else, adheres to the laws set by the world.”
The same goes for humans.
They till the land, raise animals, and when the time comes, they slaughter and eat them.
But is this something that applies only to humans?
No.
From the bottom of the food chain, this is a process that has continued to unfold, even at this very moment.
“Then why are they particularly strong? In truth, there is no special reason. They were simply born as the world intended.”
“……If that’s the case, isn’t everything meaningless?”
“No, it’s not. In that case, you must learn from them, and if you can’t, then you should strive to become like them.”
“Isn’t that how we’ve ended up in this state?”
“It’s different. You haven’t acted on your own will, have you? Have you ever once tried to wield this power by your own volition? Have you researched it, developed it, and tested your own limits? No, you haven’t. You’ve simply waited with your heads out like baby birds, hoping the mother would catch your next meal.”
“……!”
There was a common misconception that orcs were simply a brutish and ignorant race.
But this was a grave misunderstanding.
Even though they couldn’t use magic themselves, they were a race capable of embedding magic into objects.
Although only a select few shamans could achieve such a feat, it was still something the race as a whole had accomplished.
“It’s time to leave the nest and spread your wings, isn’t it?”
“…What do you mean by that? Leave the nest?”
“Your legion has been defeated.”
“…….”
“You don’t seem very surprised.”
“I expected as much. The humans we faced fifty years ago weren’t so easily beaten.”
“Yes, that’s right. Humans aren’t defeated so easily. Your army of five hundred thousand never even managed to breach their walls and crumbled, while your horde of one hundred and fifty thousand monsters became one with the frozen earth here.”
“…Who are you?”
“I am the messenger of the god you follow.”
“What?”
At those words, Batukan’s eyes grew fierce.
He could tolerate the mention of his race’s shortcomings.
After all, it was the truth.
And he could even endure the fact that this being had come to their temple.
However, he could not tolerate any words that insulted their god inside this temple.
“Your god no longer interferes in this world. That’s why I, the messenger, have been sent.”
“Utter nonsense!”
“Do you still think so after seeing this?”
At that moment, Shane revealed the divinity he had received.
The blue light that emanated from it was enough to leave Batukan in shock.
“H-How do you…?”
Wasn’t that light the so familiar light that their god, the mountain king, emitted when he gave an oracle?
Not only that, it was the same light Batukan, as the temple guardian, had always seen when the totems their race crafted for worship were infused with divinity.
The power of a ruler.
The godly presence he thought he’d never see again now stood before Batukan once more.
“…Can you tell me how you came to possess that?”
“I faced the Mountain King. We made a bet, and I won. The Mountain King can no longer interfere in this world and has fallen into a deep slumber.”
“…Is that so…”
Batukan tightly closed his eyes.
The messenger of the god.
Those words couldn’t be lies.
“What do you seek?”
“I am not an omnipotent being like a god. However, I can be an equal.”
“An equal…?”
“I will give you the power to reclaim your homeland, Urbulak. In return, you must cooperate with me. Raise your sword against those who abandoned you to the gods and made you forsake your faith.”
“You’re not someone from Nameless…”
Batukan closed his eyes in thought, then opened them to stare at Shane again.
“For the sake of my people, what must I do?”
“Go and spread the word. The messenger of the god who once led your people has returned.”
“…I will do so.”
Everything that followed happened swiftly.
The slave orcs, including the orcs guarding the base, were furious at the miserable defeat of their race that Shane had reported.
Even the slave orcs had believed their situation was merely a sacrifice for the future of their race.
They had no choice but to accept it, so they endured at the very bottom.
But they had lost.
The great chieftain died before he could even be held accountable for his sins, and Elder Shaman Kargato who had been his lackey was now on his way here. He cared only for his own survival.
Most of the orcs believed this had happened because their god had become disappointed in them.
And leading the orcs in this belief was none other than Batukan, who was once highly regarded as the guardian of the temple.
“Temple Guardian! Are you involving this stranger with unknown origins in the affairs of our race?”
“The life spared by the great chieftain’s mercy, you’re about to cut it short!”
Naturally, the orcs left to watch over the slaves and dissenters immediately grabbed their weapons and threatened them.
“How noisy for worms who don’t even know what path their race is heading toward.”
The orcs grew agitated at Shane’s words.
“How dare you!”
“Die!”
It didn’t matter how this outsider knew the orc tongue.
They couldn’t allow someone trying to incite rebellion to be left unchecked, so they charged at Shane with their weapons.
However, Shane’s shadow suddenly stretched out, and the dark spirit appeared to block their attacks.
“Human!”
“No, something else!”
Though it looked like a child, it wore pitch-black armor that covered its entire body, and in its hands were huge fangs, formed from Shane’s origin, that parried the orcs’ blows.
The spirit wanted nothing more than to tear apart the limbs of those who dared raise their weapons against its master, but it held back.
This too was Shane’s command.
“Orcs, the five hundred thousand-strong army built on your sacrifices has vanished without even setting foot on your homeland. The humans’ walls still stand firm, and beyond them, they march toward this very place. Chieftain Pagabutan failed to atone for the lives of those five hundred thousand kin with his death, and Elder Shaman Kargato is still clinging to life and has survived in disgrace. Now, the time has come for you to choose. What will you do?”
Shane looked at the slave orcs, and a spark of determination began to fill their eyes.
“Is it true that our Great Chieftain was defeated by the humans?”
When a one-armed orc asked that, Shane took out a totem from his clothes.
“That’s….”
“The symbol of the Great Chieftain!”
“He really was defeated!”
Despair washed over the faces of the orcs who had stood by the Great Chieftain’s side.
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