"Uncle Alyon, Uncle Alyon!"
The little girl, whose crimson hair flowed past her shoulders down to the middle of her back, was shouting loud enough to drown out the noise her bright red shoes made against the stone floor. Her apple cheeks, accompanying her bewildered gaze, bounced up and down every time she turned her head.
"I'm right here, beautiful!"
The hulking orc, who managed to completely fill the black leather chair hiding blue electrical sparks within, spread his massive legs wide and in one swift motion caught the girl running toward him, perching her like a bird on his shoulders broad enough to seat two people comfortably.
"They say Bookworm is your son, is it true?"
Asking her question with a smile that gathered the freckles sprinkled across her snow-white skin to a single point, the little girl was also tugging at Alyon's ears.
"Of course he is my son. Now why are you so surprised?"
Tugging the fluttering skirts of her white dress adorned with ribbons the color of her shoes, the little girl squinted as if trying to see a step ahead in the foggy weather and shouted.
"But he is both very smart and very handsome. How can you be his father?"
A sigh and a slight blush on her cheeks accompanied the end of her words. Even though her tightly wrapped hands and feet restricted her movements, the tiny girl's body was fidgeting.
"Mora, how many more times do I have to tell you to mind your manners when speaking to your elders?"
When the woman, who looked like the twenty-years-older version of the tiny girl hiding behind the chair after jumping off Alyon's shoulder, entered the room shaking her index finger, a burst of laughter rose from the chair opposite the hulking orc.
"Why are you getting mad at little Mora, Lareina? What harm could there be in her voicing something that is on everyone's mind?"
Sitting cross-legged, Nafız wore a black battle armor that left her shoulders bare, and because her finely braided hair was gathered right at the top, it looked as if thousands of whips were dancing on her shoulders.
"Am I lying, mother?"
Emboldened by Nafız's backing, the little girl gave signals that her character, if not her appearance, would resemble her aunt's.
"Ah, my heart! My heart aches, I think my heart is broken. I'm dying, ah!"
Displaying the worst acting history has ever seen, Alyon collapsed first onto his knees and then onto his massive torso; when his head hit the ground, a crack stretching for meters formed on the snow-white marble.
"Uncle Alyon, don't die! Please, Uncle Alyon!"
The little girl was the only one panicking inside the Royal Hall, which had been renovated after the last war. She climbed onto the motionless Alyon on the ground, crying and begging him not to die.
"Talk about a bull in a china shop! There go my beautiful marbles!"
Nafız's concern was entirely different. She was lamenting the destruction her friend created with his abnormally large and hard head, but the orc chief, opening his eyes, seemed not to hear her.
"Ah, this voice! Is it little Mora? Just as I was about to die, she brought me back to life with her beautiful voice."
Due to the genetic structure of orcs and their childhoods passing in the blink of an eye, Orc Chief Alyon had been deprived of the love of a grandchild, but thanks to little Mora, he was tasting this pleasure. No matter what the girl, the child of the Lareina-Jashua couple, did, he couldn't get mad at her; he spoiled her endlessly with a face he had never shown anyone before.
"Mora, you are upsetting your mother!"
The imposing man following her steps from a few meters behind, his cape billowing, battered the walls of the room with his deep voice. His blood-red eyes were on the girl waiting by the head of the prone orc, and the moment little Mora saw him, she had to wipe the mischievous smile off her face.
"I'm sorry, father!"
Dragging her feet to her mother's side, the girl grabbed Lareina's purple skirt with her tiny hands; even though her father was right in front of her, she couldn't lift her head to look at him.
"Jashua, aren't you being a bit harsh on little Mora?"
Alyon, thinking the little girl had fallen into this situation partly because of him, wanted to intervene, but he received a response he never expected.
"I am not going to learn how to discipline my own child from anyone, especially not from you!"
The lace-trimmed covers of the long table made of beech wood, where they had eaten together just a few days ago, suddenly flew into the air. The plates, candles, and decorative vases on it were on the ground, but unlike them, Alyon was now locked in a stare-down with Jashua.
"Look at you! The smell of the piss you wet yourself with in Gulag's cave hasn't even washed off you yet, and you're talking shit to me?"
Whatever fell to the ground was shattered into dust at that moment; the lineage power overflowing from Alyon's body attacked as if to swallow Jashua, but the young man had an answer to this.
"Those days are left in the past, just like many of your failures. You don't have the boy in Gulag's cave before you, but Count Jashua of the Hell Realm!"
The dark black energy dissipated when it came within two steps of the young man. No matter how hard it tried, after this distance, they scattered like grains of sand unable to stand against the wind.
"Enough!"
Both sides were tense, but clearly, someone in the same room was far angrier about this than anyone else. When Nafız let out her piercing shriek, the marble floor she had mourned cracking vanished in a second, and the residual energy entered through the young man's feet, sending his blood-red hair flying into the air.
"Master!"
Jashua could only utter a single word before wiping the blood leaking from the corner of his mouth.
"It seems our stay here as guests has come to an end. Everyone get ready, we set out on a campaign at dawn!"
Sweeping past Jashua, who had dropped to one knee, Nafız made a mind-shattering sound with every step. Though the young man turned around to stop her, he was hindered by a delicate hand landing on his shoulder; Lareina knew there was no turning back from this departure.
Alyon didn't linger any longer either; he cast a glance at little Mora, who was holding tightly to her mother's fringes, and perhaps sending her the last smile he would ever gift her, he went after his friend.
The two orcs, passing through the massive garden where the traces of the great war from five years ago had been meticulously erased, didn't utter a single word when they entered the tower where they had been staying during this time.
"Nafız, wait for me!"
"Get your ass in gear! I informed the others, we're gathering tonight!"
She vanished before her words were finished. Alyon, climbing the stairs huffing and puffing, could only stare after her. His steps slowed, and after a while, he sat down right where he was; he just stayed there, not moving a single muscle for minutes, for hours, until the voice he heard at noon reached his ears.
"Alyon, we are waiting for you!"
He was heavy and exhausted, like a boulder that had sat in the same spot for thousands of years finally moving. Taking deep breaths, he climbed the steps and reached the hall on the top floor of the tower that used to belong to the Holy Blood Sect.
"When the lion grows old, he becomes the punchline for the jackals, doesn't he?"
How could Nafız not know the reason for her comrade's condition? Alyon didn't answer; he sat in the first chair on the right of Nafız, who was sitting at the head of the table.
"You couldn't comprehend even a single one of the dungeons over the Hell Realm. Unlike you, the bastard comprehended all four of them at once and took the legacy of the Holy Blood Sect's Founding Sheikh. What else did you expect to happen?"
No sound; even though Nafız, whose two questions were left hanging in the air, harassed him with her piercing gaze, not a single sound came from Alyon.
"So be it! An orc belongs in a battle, you'll come to your senses once you take your weapon in hand!"
Nafız, making an appearance inside her battle armor that trapped the light of hundreds of candles, paused her words, looked at the faces of the other guests at the table one by one, and finally dropped the bombshell.
"Tomorrow, we set out on a campaign to the lands belonging to the Mercenaries!"