Chapter 4: Conflict 1
Torug's POV
As I approached the settlement or what was left of it, I noticed most of the orcs were still completely disoriented from the meteor shower. The main cave was partially destroyed, and the surrounding earth had been scorched pitch-black.
'A meteor shower should have been a spell from a High-Order mage', I thought, my steps never slowing down as I analyzed the carnage. 'So how come that mage didn't just attack us directly?'
I paused, looking at a smoking crater. 'Wait, this level of destruction doesn't actually match the description in the book. Unless... it was a spell scroll created by a high-order mage but fueled by the mana of these low-order casters. Lucky me. Right, those powerhouse characters aren't moved so easily.'
"AAaaargh... those Huumans dare!"
A violent roar suddenly disrupted the silence of the ruins.
'Right, there's still this guy'. I turned toward the sound and immediately spotted Olog. He was a somewhat chubby orc with thick arms and a ridiculously long braided beard. The exact same guy who used my body as a punching bag right when I first woke up here.
'Honestly, I'm feeling a little resentful', I thought, a cold edge creeping into my mind. 'Maybe I should just kill him right now and gain some vengeance for the dead guy whose body I stole.'
"We must kill... grreuk... the Huumans now!!" Olog roared, blood dripping down his face as he pulled the other dazed orcs to their feet.
Seeing this, I had to suppress a dark urge to laugh. The fool was still staggering on his feet, yet he was trying to intimidate the others into blindly doing what he wanted.
"AAARGH!!" Olog yelled again, shaking his head furiously and smacking his own skull to force himself awake.
I turned my gaze away from him to evaluate the condition of the others. There were only about a dozen orcs left standing. And this idiot wanted to go march on a fortified human city? I doubted this fool would even make it past the regular human adventurers who hang out outside the city walls.
Soon, an elderly-looking green orc with a thick grey beard approached Olog warily. "We too few... we must move fi..."
BAM!
Olog cut him off ruthlessly, smacking the old orc heavily across the face. Luckily, orcs have incredibly sturdy bodies, but the display made me narrow my eyes.
'An intelligent orc among the base orcs? He has the structural making of a shaman, then.'
"WE KILL... OLOG IS NO COWARD!!" Olog roared once again, fiercely restating his stance.
'Guess I'll just kill him and migrate, I decided, weighing my options. I wonder how far the journey to Degr would be.' The Degr Heraldic Kingdom was a nation further away, built entirely by orcs.
As I mused over my future plans, Olog shoved the elderly orc once more, obviously trying to make a public example out of him to cement his authority.
"Yep, I'm definitely killing him," I muttered under my breath, focusing my gaze to check his status interface.
Name: Olog (Chieftain)
Race: Lesser Orc
Level: 13 (Order of the First Circle)
Power Rating: 2386
'Interesting. By order of racial evolution, I actually hold the structural advantage here. My Intimidation passive will kick in automatically. I suppressed a dark laugh. In a much bigger horde, with a Great Orc acting as chief, a lesser orc like him would be a basic guard at best.'
With that final thought solidifying my resolve, I tightened my grip on my new axe and stepped out into the clearing.
_________
Unknown POV
"WE KILL... OLOG IS NO COWARD!!" Chieftain barked. His voice was loud, but his legs were shaking like a newborn kodo.
None of the males moved. They were broken, fear-scented, and stupid from the human fire-sky spell. Chieftain raised a heavy hand to strike the grey-beard again. He wanted blood to show he was still strong.
Then, the dirt crunched.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Someone stepped into the open. My jaw tightened. Chieftain's rage would be terrible for whoever was stupid enough to stand in his path. I turned my head to look, and my chest locked up.
Brother?
My blood hummed, recognizing the kin-bond, but my eyes refused to believe it. It was Torug, but he was... strange. He was massive. His hide was darker, thicker, packed with heavy meat that didn't belong to the weaker male Olog had beaten into the dirt earlier.
Thud!!
Thud!!
Thud!!
"OLOG!!" Brother bellowed, his voice rolling through the valley like thunder.
He smoothly swung a massive, pitch-black battle axe down from his shoulders, pointing the wicked blade straight at the Chieftain's throat. His beard, now braided tightly into three fierce knots, whipped through the smoke. His eyes were no longer dull—they burned with a terrifying, blood-red light that made my own instinct tell me to drop my club.
Torug had become a monster and he wanted the Chieftain's throat.
___________
Torug's POV
Olog slowly turned toward me, his face twisted in obvious fury. But the moment his eyes landed on my new frame, he stiffened for a fraction of a second. I could feel my passive aura working; an unknown, heavy pressure suddenly slammed into the lesser orc who had been shouting so proudly just a moment ago.
He cautiously sized me up, his eyes darting across my increased height and the wicked axe in my hand, before his face split into a cruel grin. "Who... Torug?... Hahahaha!"
"Hahahaha!" Olog laughed loudly, a wave of visible relief washing over him. He shook his head, sizing me up one last time while his primitive brain probably came to a swift conclusion: 'Nothing changes. I beat him before, I can beat him again.'
"This time I kill you!! Hmph!"
That was all the warning he gave. With a guttural snort, he scooped up his heavy iron-spiked club and instantly triggered the
I had been tracing his micro-movements from the absolute beginning. The moment his feet left the ground, I willed the system to respond. I triggered my own
BOOM!!
The violent clash of raw, monstrous muscle produced a deafening, bone-shattering sound as our shoulders collided head-on. A miniature shockwave rippled through the dirt. Due to the racial suppression, Olog's power rating had visibly plummeted by at least 20% the moment he entered my space.
The structural superiority of my evolution path worked flawlessly. Olog was violently shoved back a full step by the impact.
Capitalizing on his broken balance, I drove the heavy iron handle of my battle axe forward, smashing it into his chest and knocking the chubby orc back several more paces.
'My tactical deductions were entirely right,' I thought, a surge of adrenaline flooding my veins. With his attributes suppressed and my human martial arts brought into play, dealing with this brute is almost child's play.
I focused the explosive energy of my first circle stats entirely into my thighs and calves, driving a brutal, straight kick directly into Olog's exposed chest. The heavy impact launched his bulk backward, a painful grunt tearing from his lungs as he hit the dirt.
'Meanwhile, these system skills are activated purely by thought... hmm, how incredibly convenient.'
A dark, vicious smile spread across my tusks. I stepped forward, closing the distance to the fallen chieftain. Olog, panicked and desperate, swung his club in a wide, sweeping arc from the ground, rolling away disgracefully through the mud to create distance between us.
Because of his massive, protruding belly, he visibly struggled to get his feet back under him. Recognizing the opening, I gripped the rough handle of my pitch-black axe with both hands and hurled it forward with all my might, surging forward into a full sprint right behind it.
Voom!
Puchi!
The eerie blade sliced through the air and bit deep into Olog's shoulder flesh.
BAM!
BAM!
BAM!!
I closed the distance in a heartbeat, unleashing a rapid, devastating combination of street-fighter punches straight to his jaw, ending the assault with a brutal, lifting uppercut. I reached out, violently ripping the black axe out of his shoulder, causing a fresh torrent of dark blood to spray across the dirt.
Dazed, disoriented, and in total shock, Olog instinctively dropped his spiked club, reaching up with both hands to desperately block the gaping wound on his shoulder. I didn't give him a single second to breathe. I brought the axe down in a hard, merciless arc, completely severing his left arm at the elbow.
"AAAAARGH!!!"
"Olog submits!!! Olog submits!!!" Olog screamed at the top of his lungs, his eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror as he stared at his own severed arm twitching in the mud.
'The axe throw could only penetrate his thick hide, but it wasn't heavy enough to shatter his bones directly,' I analyzed coldly, watching the former chieftain writhe and wail on the ground. 'But it was more than enough to distract him for the finishing blow.'
Looking at the blood-soaked scene, a sudden, violent memory flashed through my mind—a bloody turf war back during my gang days on Earth, standing over a rival enforcer in a dark alley.
'I guess I'm right back to this bloody, violent lifestyle', I thought, my face remaining perfectly straight as I forced my breathing to normalize.
But I had made a rookie mistake. Olog noticed my momentary distraction. With a sudden burst of desperate, dying strength, his remaining hand snatched up a discarded human sword from the mud, driving the steel blade upward in a vicious attempt to impale my throat.
Seeing the cold steel rushing toward my neck, my reflexes froze for a catastrophic split second—
SLASH!
The sharp, wet sound of cutting flesh echoed through the clearing.
But the expected agony never came. Standing directly in front of me, his back absorbing the full force of the blade, was Urim, the very same orc who had broken the knight's encirclement to save me earlier.