As Aris approached the orcs, sweat slicked his back and soaked into his tattered vest. His mind raged like a storm. What could they possibly want from someone like Rill? The question looped endlessly, shadowed by a darker fear. Then his eyes widened. Rill's sister. Yes. It has to be about her.
He forced his gaze upward, meeting their cold stares as he and the middle-aged man came to a halt two meters beside the chief. The chief glanced at Aris with flat indifference.
The orcs were every bit as gigantic as he had expected—towering at least two and a half meters, perhaps nearer to three. Their bodies were packed with dense, corded muscle the color of weathered bronze. An indomitable pressure radiated from every inch of them, raising the hairs on his arms.
They wore almost nothing: only rough, dark-brown hides wrapped around their waists, leaving the rest of their massive, battle-scarred physiques exposed. Every knot of muscle, every pale line of scar tissue, seemed to scream a single truth, these were battle-hardened killers.
His eyes dropped submissively to their waists. Hanging from thick leather belts were their weapons—crude, heavy bludgeons the villagers called "sticks," each a solid tree limb thicker than his torso, caked with layers of dried, blackened blood.
Aris dragged his gaze higher, inch by inch, until he met their faces. The moment he did, survival instinct detonated inside him, screaming for him to run. But his knees locked rigid. He swallowed hard, choking down the panic that threatened to shred what little composure he had left. The more mediocre I appear, the less the danger. Hopefully.
Their brow ridges cast deep shadows over their eyes, reducing their stares to cold, estimating slits. Their gazes crawled over him as though measuring how much meat clung to his bones. He trembled at the sight, but it was their tusks that truly froze him—two thick pillars of yellowed ivory curving upward from their lower jaws, stained and worn, one chipped from years of tearing flesh.
Their stench of rotting flesh and old blood, so thick it clawed down his throat hit him nex. He felt as though he had stepped into the heart of a slaughterhouse. Every instinct screamed at him to run. The village gate was only meters away, yet it might as well have been on the other side of the world.
His knees trembled with the urge to buckle, to drop and bare his throat in total submission. Why? Why am I feeling this much dread? The answer surfaced quickly. This body. This body has been terrified of them since childhood. He clenched his jaw until it ached, forcing the fear down with sheer will.
Compared to the soul-anniliating pressure of the Providence Dragon, this—though enough to paralyze the body—was not something he couldn't overcome.
With a careful bow, he lowered his gaze, letting their towering frames swallow him in shadow. When he finally forced his eyes upward, he met the nearest orc's stare. Those eyes appraised him the way a wolf measures a lamb, calculating exactly how much tender meat clung to fragile ribs. There was no recognition in them. No acknowledgment of a young man, a villager, or even a sentient being.
Only hunger.
Suddenly, a hand struck him in the back. Aris jerked, then realized it was the chief. He immediately wrenched his gaze to the ground, heart clawing against his ribs. The chief stepped aside, putting distance between them, a silent message: I won't save you from your next disrespect. Aris understood, but felt no gratitude toward his enemy. And anyway, he was still very much in danger.
A voice rumbled from above.
"Grath ul'kar ven."
The words ground against each other, harsh and cruel. Orcish. Aris, still bowed, flicked a frantic glance at the middle-aged man beside him. He too was bowing, but his face warred with itself, as though weighing a life-changing decision. Aris shifted his gaze to the chief from the corner of his eye.
To his shock, the chief answered without hesitation, slipping into the same guttural cadence with disturbing fluency.
Aris narrowed his eyes, tracking every movement of the chief's lips in his peripheral vision. This was a golden opportunity to test the biochip's data collection capabilities. He didn't need to understand the Orcish words yet, only their structure would suffice for the nascent plans forming in his mind.
Prime, he called silently. Isolate phonetic structures. Track repetition patterns. Index as New Language Set and create a dedicated folder.
At the same time, he discreetly triggered the scan. The field reached the chief and the middle-aged man easily but fell short of the orcs. Even that was fine, he feared these two might possess some supernatural ability to detect it. Then again, part of him doubted it. Strong as they were, they seemed like low-level orcs, dispatched to this village for some reason he still couldn't pin down. A reason that gnawed at him.
Before him, the panel flickered to life.
[Task Initiated: Orcish Language Pattern — Recording...]
[Phonetic Isolation in Progress...]
The chief's phrases gave him a baseline, but without the orcs' half of the exchange, his linguistic map remained a puzzle missing most of its pieces.
Do I have to get closer? His eyes flicked fearfully toward the massive, blood-crusted clubs hanging at their sides. One lazy swing and he would cease to exist.
He took a slow, shaky breath, forcing his heart to steady. No. If they wanted me dead, I'd already be a smear on the ground. Or food in their mouths. For now, his usefulness, which he calculated at above seventy percent, was the only thing keeping him alive.
Still, terror clawed at his chest as he tested the limits of his courage. Using the balls of his bare feet, he edged a fraction closer to the towering orcs. The slaughterhouse stench thickened, suffocating. Cold sweat traced icy trails down his spine. Every instinct shrieked at him to stop, to shrink back into safe, meaningless insignificance.
Rushing to death like a moth to flame is the act of a fool, he reminded himself, hands clenched tight. But hiding in ignorance is its own kind of death. Without risk, no future can exist.
He took the step anyway.'The two orcs instantly fell silent, their heads turning in eerie unison toward the small human who had dared drift closer. Most humans cowered at the mere sight of them. Most bolted. But this one had stepped toward them. Fortunately, they were not threatened and this puny human was little more than an insect that had wandered too close, easily crushed with a casual swing of their clubs.
Still, the strange behavior earned their full attention. They glanced back at the chief, whose face had twisted into a volatile mix of confusion and growing suspicion.
Aris didn't notice. His eyes were unfocused, staring into nothing. The gamble had paid off—the biochip's panel snapped into view before his shocked eyes.
[Name: Unknown | Strength: 5.3 | Agility: 3.0 | Vitality: 4.0]
[Name: Unknown | Strength: 5.2 | Agility: 3.1 | Vitality: 4.1]
The numbers seared into his mind. Strength: 5.3. The chief, the strongest man in the village, had measured only 3.1.
Aris drew a deep, trembling breath. The rage he'd felt toward the villagers' cowardice now seemed childish, pathetic even. How could humans who rarely broke 2.0 ever dream of defying creatures nearly three times stronger than their strongest warrior? The sickening realization settled over him like ice water. These two are likely just foot soldiers. The lowest rung on a far more terrifying ladder.
Their eyes caught every micro-tremor in his jaw, every whiff of fear. They had seen this exact performance a thousand times before. To them, his dread was nothing more than cheap entertainment. Aris forced himself into a deeper, more subservient bow, using the motion to hide his face. Retreating now would scream guilt and only increase their interest.
He stayed low, letting the biochip greedily absorb the guttural friction of the Orcish tongue. Behind him, the middle-aged man radiated a smug silence, his fear of the brat attracting attention and ruining his plans slowly subsiding.
Finally, the chief's rumbling speech ended. He turned, his face indifferent as cold stone.
"Young man," he said.
Aris straightened slowly, his expression a carefully constructed blank slate, not that he could manage much else.
"Your sister has escaped."
The words struck him like a stone dropped into a deep well. For a single, reckless heartbeat, wild hope flared in his chest. His body wanted to believe she was safe, but he crushed the sentiment instantly.
What kind of useless orcs can't even guard one little girl? he seethed inwardly. Now I'm tangled in even deeper trouble.
He slipped seamlessly back into the role of the terrified, pious villager.
"Escaped?" His voice cracked, laced with raw adrenaline he couldn't fully suppress. "How could she? Does she have a death wish? How dare she dishonor the sacred tradition!"
He let his tone spiral toward hysteria. "What if Valrog grows angry with us all? We're doomed!"
The chief narrowed his eyes, studying Aris's outburst. They've truly broken him. Genuine or not, a broken tool was still useful, so long as it didn't shatter completely.
Still, he made a mental note. I need to rein those brutes in. They either beat men into submission... or into corpses. I can't afford lunatics like this walking among my people.
Aris felt the mistake the instant the words left his mouth. Too much. The performance had tipped into melodrama. He let his shoulders slump immediately, collapsing his posture into the crumpled, hollow shape of a beaten dog.
Sensing opportunity, the middle-aged man stepped forward and struck Aris hard across the back of the head.
"How dare you raise your voice before the Esteemed Ones!" he hissed, his eyes darting greedily between Aris, the chief, and the orcs. He puffed out his chest, swollen with a delusional sense of the power he might gain if he played his cards right. Then, in a fatal mistake, he met the orcs' gaze directly—a challenge they did not tolerate for even a second.
He turned toward the chief, mouth already opening with some servile remark. The orc to the right moved. A large, slab-like hand shot forward and clamped around the man's entire skull with horrifying ease. The hopeful smile vanished from his face.
Then the screaming began. The orc lifted him off the ground as casually as a man lifting a water bucket. His legs kicked wildly in the air like a dying insect's spasm. His fingers clawed desperately at the orc's wrist, thicker than his own forearms, but the hand didn't budge.
Aris glanced at the chief. The old man watched the execution with calm, detached interest, but the biochip, already monitoring his expression, flagged a flicker of emotion among the many that made Aris's curiosity spike.
[Emotional Analysis: Disappointment.]
Not fear, nor pity, just mild irritation at the loss of a marginally useful pawn. The chief noticed Aris staring and turned to him. "The third one. They never learn, do they?" The warning in his tone was unmistakable. Before Aris could respond, a wet, sickening crack split the air, followed by a heavy thud.
The middle-aged man lay sprawled on his stomach, his body perfectly still. His head had been twisted completely around, facing upward, dead eyes fixed on the sky in a final, grotesque mask of fright.
"Forgive me, Chief. Forgive me, Esteemed Ones," Aris said at once, his voice pitched with fright. "Tell me... tell me what is required of me. I will do it—even if it costs a hand or a leg."
Not that I have any choice.
He lifted his gaze just far enough to stare at the clubs hanging from the orcs' belts, clinging desperately to his mask of terror. "Do you want me to find her? She's my sister... she might listen to me. I can bring her back."
The chief studied him in the heavy silence, searching for any flicker of the old defiance. He couldn't afford another mishap in the sacrifice. Finding none, he turned and rumbled to the orcs in their guttural tongue.
The biochip silently captured every harsh syllable. A short exchange passed between them. Then the chief faced Aris again.
"Two days."
"Two days?" Aris echoed, letting genuine shock bleed into his feigned surprise.
"They have given you that long to bring her back." The chief's voice sharpened to a blade. "Fail... and you already know what follows." He didn't need to gesture toward the corpse. Its twisted neck spoke clearly enough.
"I understand, Chief," Aris said, sinking into a final, deep bow. He stepped back, trying to vanish behind the chief, afraid the violent orcs might change their minds.
The conversation resumed. Moments later, one of the orcs moved. It reached down and seized the middle-aged man's ankle. The body rose like a rag doll, head lolling, eyes still wide in frozen shock. A thin smear of blood trailed from the mouth across the dirt as the orc slung the corpse over its massive shoulder like fresh meat.
Aris's stomach clenched. He felt the urge to gag. They weren't going to leave it. The image of a fellow human—breathing, scheming, alive beside him only seconds ago—now destined to be eaten filled him with bleak horror for the future. And still the chief seemed unbothered.
Cold and ruthless, Aris could understand. But this? Seeing a man carried off as meat should have provoked something. Yet the old man stood there as though he belonged to another species entirely.
The two orcs turned and departed, their heavy footsteps echoing until they reached the forest's edge and vanished into the trees. The dead man's limp arms swayed against the orc's back with each step, then disappeared into the treeline.
The moment their suffocating presence lifted, Aris's mind snapped into focus. He opened the biochip's interface.
[Language Database: Orcish | Current Analysis: 21% Complete]
Twenty-one percent in mere minutes. Impressive—but still far too low for nuance or real understanding. Not unless I optimize it. His thoughts turned to the girl. Two days. If she's smart, she's already miles from this hellhole. In that case, I can plan my own escape alone. But if she's frightened and hiding nearby... that might work too.
A cold, calculating light kindled in his eyes as he fell in behind the chief and trailed him back toward the village. Maybe I'm not as doomed as I feared. Or maybe she just bought me forty-eight hours to find a solution. But he killed the thought before it could take root. A solution that could bridge the gap between species didn't exist in this village. And two days were far too short.