His jaw tightened and his fist clenched at his side as he stared toward the heart of the village—the chief's courtyard. Two days. That was his window: the chief wouldn't dare kill him while the orcs' ultimatum still hung over their heads. It was a narrow margin, but if he played his cards right, it might be the only safety he had.
He took a steadying breath and strode back toward the house. Inside, he sat on one of the empty beds and waited as the hours bled away, refining his plans. If my luck holds, and if my wild guess proves true, I might be able to do much more than survive. His gaze settled on the closed window. I might even be able to inflict real damage on these so-called masters.
He continued to churn through plans, discarding them as quickly as they formed. When the moon finally hung high, a chime resonated in his mind as the three hours had passed; the task was complete. Without hesitation, he stepped outside and looked at the panel hovering before his chest.
[Optimization complete. Orcish fluency: 10%.]
"Ten percent fluency from a twenty-one percent dataset?" he murmured, a trace of awe cutting through the tension in his nerves. "Not bad. I wish I had more data, but this will have to do. No use chasing what I don't have."
He turned his focus inward, testing his vocal cords. A sharp itch flared in his throat, followed by a series of jarring, guttural vibrations. For a moment, the sensation felt alien, as if his human anatomy were physically rejecting the harsh phonetics of another species. Yet, as the biochip had indicated, the optimized Orcish was less a matter of talent and more a matter of mechanics.
Within minutes of strained practice, the lag between his thoughts and his tongue began to narrow. Still, he was far from satisfied. He continued to pace before the door, his guttural voice the only sound in the night. He feared no eavesdroppers—perhaps being seen would have even worked to his advantage—but the neighbors were deep in sleep.
Half an hour later, satisfied with his progress, he slipped into the night and moved through the rows of sleeping houses until he reached the heavy wooden gates of the chief's courtyard.
He drew a sharp breath, then shattered the silence with a piercing scream.
"Chief! Come out! The mighty Vorlag has visited my dreams! Come forth and receive his command!"
The world stirred. Shutters creaked open, and lanterns flickered to life, casting wary, shifting shadows against the dark. Within minutes, the gate groaned, swinging open with violent force.
The chief stormed out, flanked by his two sons. Their torches painted their faces in harsh orange and black, turning their expressions into masks of barely contained fury. All three sets of eyes locked onto Aris.
"You?" The chief's surprise curdled swiftly into suspicion.
"It is I," Aris declared, spreading his arms wide as if inviting judgment. "The one who has seen the beyond. The one who has witnessed the majesty and the terrible might of Vorlag."
At the name, the chief and his sons, along with the unseen onlookers, traced sacred hand signs in the air, their movements stiff and automatic, born of generations of ingrained habit.
"What do you want at this hour?" The chief stalked forward, his features half-devoured by the moon's pale light, until he loomed mere paces away. "And why do you howl like a madman in the dead of night?"
Aris didn't flinch. He waited, jaw tight, until the chief stepped fully into the biochip's optimal range. A data-overlay flickered across his vision, stripping away the shadows to reveal the micro-expressions beneath
[Target: Chief]
[Emotion Analysis: Anger 78% | Suspicion 80% | Irritation 70%]
Shit. The numbers are too high. Aris's gaze flicked to the chief's right hand, balled into a fist, trembling with the urge to strike. He couldn't wait for the blow to land. He swallowed the dryness in his throat and forced the words out.
"Ura'lio pimo, tersa."
The chief froze as if struck by lightning, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. Even without the biochip's analysis, Aris could see the old man's composure disintegrate, shock rippling through his frame like a seismic wave.
Behind him, the two sons stood paralyzed, their faces pale masks of disbelief at the guttural sounds still vibrating in the air. From the surrounding windows, the village stirred; some were frozen in absolute silence, while others, unfamiliar with the tongue, let out confused murmurs that bled into the night.
"There is someone else..." one of the sons whispered, his voice trembling. "Someone else who knows the tongue of the masters besides Father?"
The other son could only stare, his jaw hanging slack.
It was the chief, however, whose world was truly fracturing. He watched the absolute authority he and his forefathers had cemented through secret knowledge—and the sacrifice of their entire lineage—crumble in real time. He stumbled back, the urge to silence the boy replaced by a cold, soul-deep terror.
Do they want to replace us? His mind raced. Is it because of his sister? Did I do something wrong? Does he have the sacred worm inside him? But that's impossible... and if it is true, how did they do it so quickly?
"How?" The chief forced his voice into a rasping calm. "How are you doing that? And... what does it feel like inside you?"
Inside? Aris's eyes narrowed at the strange questions. He stepped forward, closing the distance until the chief was once again locked within the biochip's scan range.
The panel flickered against the moonlit dirt and the chief's emotional readout was a chaotic storm. Shock and surprise spiked violently. His previous anger receded, overtaken by suspicion.
Then a new reading surged to the top of the panel, and Aris's pulse skipped in genuine confusion.
[Target: Chief — Emotional Analysis]
[Primary State: Pity 88%]
Pity? The notion was jarring. He doubted the chief was feeling anything for him. Why would this old man pity him for speaking Orcish?
Aris buried his curiosity beneath a mask of reverence and dipped into a shallow, practiced bow. When he spoke, his voice shifted into the humble cadence of a village youth, yet it remained strangely, unsettlingly eloquent.
"Oh, Esteemed Chief, what I have witnessed in the silence of the night is far more harrowing than a few stray words of the Master's tongue."
In the shadows of doorways and the cracks of mud walls, villagers leaned in, their eyes glittering with a mixture of skepticism and morbid fascination. Aris let a heavy silence stretch between them before continuing.
"The mighty Vorlag appeared to me in a vision. He has unsealed my mortal lips, granting me the divine gift to speak the language of his children. But the connection is fragile." He paused, his gaze dropping as if burdened by the weight of a heavenly command. "He has ordered me to seek the blood of his kin, so that I might anchor his voice to this world and speak his will with clarity."
He let the blasphemous request hang in the air, cold and sharp.
"I seek the blood of his children—Chief."
A ripple of hushed murmurs broke through the gathered crowd like wind through dry grass. The villagers could not verify a miracle of tongues, so they turned as one toward the chief, waiting for him to denounce the boy as a madman, or a corpse.
Aris ignored the peripheral noise. His focus was locked on a single, flickering data point. The chief's face wasn't twisting in rage. It was mourning a loss.
My gamble paid off. A cold satisfaction settled in Aris's gut. He indeed does have orc blood in his possession. With that confirmation, he discarded his contingency plans. Escaping, feigning madness, playing the Orcish diplomat, all were redundant now that he held the key.
The chief's jaw tightened, a sharp twitch barely caught by Aris. He hesitated, then turned toward his house, his movements suddenly heavy. His two sons immediately stepped into his path, their faces etched with deep worry.
"Father, you can't give it to him," the eldest whispered, his voice barely audible even to Aris's keen ears. "What about you? What about 'that'?"
"The full moon is nearly here," the younger brother urged, casting a venomous look toward Aris. "What of the sacred Test? And how do we know his words are true? Can he truly speak the tongue, or is this just some gimmick?"
"Do not worry," the chief said, his voice hollow. Though he spoke with weary authority, an undercurrent of resentment, and the terror of waning power, vibrated beneath his words. "I know what I am doing. I will give him half. I only hope what remains is enough to keep the worm quiet." He touched his chest, where a faint bump beneath his skin was.
Then, he glanced back at Aris, his eyes haunted by a history the boy couldn't yet fathom, a history he was far too callous to warn him about.
Then turned to his sons. "And do you think I would entertain this brat for a second if his words were mere fluke? You know the truth of the Masters' language better than any villager. Do not be fools."
Without another word, the chief opened the gate and vanished into the darkness of the courtyard. His sons remained like twin sentinels at the entry, glaring at Aris with a hatred that promised a violent end.
Aris didn't waver. He met their murderous gazes with a mask of serene, feigned holiness like an untouchable prophetwaiting for his due.
The chief returned moments later, his gait stiff, clutching a segment of bamboo sealed at both ends with blackened wax. He stopped before Aris, his gaze a turbulent sea of doubt.
Through the biochip, Aris tracked the shifting tides of the man's micro-expressions: fear, suspicion, and that persistent, jarring spike of pity. The readings made the chief feel less like a villain and more like a victim of a secret Aris could not yet fathom. But there was no time for empathy. Even if there had been, Aris wouldn't have wasted it on this old man.
The chief pressed the container into his palm. The moment Aris's fingers closed around the wood, a strange, unnatural heat radiated into his skin, as if the liquid inside had been drawn, just seconds ago, from a living, feverish body.
"The blood is within," the chief said, his voice dropping to a threatening tone. "Remember, boy. You have two days."
"Two days," Aris echoed, the guttural Orcish syllables vibrating deep in his throat. He pivoted back to the village tongue, his voice rising with a false reverence that carried to the furthest reaches of the eavesdroppers. "The mighty Vorlag is my shield and my shadow! He shall guide my steps to the disobedient child and bring her back to the altar to commence the sacred duty!"
He turned to leave, then paused as if struck by a sudden, divine afterthought. He raised the bamboo container toward the pale moon like a holy relic.
"Praise the mighty Vorlag!"
Like puppets answering the jerk of a wire, Aris saw every villager within earshot performing the sacred signs. It was a terrifying display of ingrained muscle memory, their bodies bowing to the name before their minds could even register the command.
The villagers watched in stunned silence as he turned to leave. But Aris, standing at the junction, wasn't finished. His gaze cut through the darkness and locked onto a familiar face, half-submerged in the gloom of a nearby eave. It was one of the men who had helped beat Rill to death.
Aris changed direction, his footsteps heavy and deliberate. The man flinched, his posture collapsing into something frantic and shrunken as the "Prophet" drew near. He tried to tear his gaze away, but his eyes kept snapping back, snagged by a hook of primal dread.
"Do not tremble, brother," Aris said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "The mighty Vorlag is as merciful to the faithful as he is terrible to his enemies. He has ordained that I walk the path of forgiveness. And so... I forgive you."
He let the silence stretch, watching the man's Adam's apple bob in a frantic, dry swallow. Faith, huh? Aris thought, tracking the man's spiking heart rate. A powerful leash indeed.
"But the cause requires a tithe," he added, his gaze drifting pointedly to the man's darkened doorway. "You must contribute to the Lord's work."
The man's shoulders slumped, the last of his resistance draining away in a single, defeated exhale. "Please," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Name it."
"Cooked chicken. Rice. Fruit." Aris rattled off the list, and as the words left his lips, his own stomach cramped with hunger. He remembered the plump chickens this man owned, and the mere thought brought a smile to his face—one that struck the man as distinctly threatening.
Moments later, Aris retreated toward his house, trays of steaming food piled in his arms, the bamboo cylinder of orc blood dangling from his waist like a holy relic. The villagers watched until the night swallowed him whole.
But the chief and his sons stood at the gate long after he had vanished. One by one, the lanterns in the village winked out, yet the three remained.
"Father, what is our next move?" the eldest son whispered. "Do the Masters intend to breed a rival for our bloodline? Are we being replaced?"
The chief stroked his beard, his eyes lost in the deep, shifting shadows of the courtyard. "A sound question," he replied, his voice heavy with contemplation. "I will travel to the Masters' settlement tomorrow. I must understand the source of this 'vision.' If his words hold even a grain of truth... we are indeed powerless."
He paused, his gaze hardening against the sky. "But if he is a liar... then he has committed a blasphemy."
The two sons exchanged a sharp, knowing look and nodded in unison, each silently hoping for the latter.
"Understood, Father."
With that, the heavy wooden gates groaned shut, leaving the village in a stifling, expectant silence.