Chapter 25 Part B

“Ah, I didn’t know you could do that. Isn’t that cheating?” the girl’s voice said pouting again. “I didn’t know you could strip their weapons in the dimensional pocket here. Orcs aren’t very smart anyway though. But at least you’ve kept me entertained,” she said tiredly and I picked up a yawn. Sure enough I could still feel the orc’s sword on my belt. It wasn’t dissolving like the dead orc.

“Who are you?” I called out, keeping my grip steady on my weapon. I wanted to try a peaceful negotiation, but someone who made orcs chase you forced you to be alert.

No answer to my question, but the voice did respond about ten seconds later.

“Maybe that one was too small. You outsmarted that one but he was just a lowly runt sized grunt. That was the first orc I found in the boss orc’s memories you know? It was the friend he killed to have his first real meal as a warrior as a young ling. The orcs raise their babies to kill each other to enter manhood when they don’t have enough food too. But they aren’t as interesting as other creatures so I probably can’t tell you much more than that. If you don’t kill, then you don’t climb ranks in their society. Bet you didn’t know that huh? Should I send something bigger this time?” she said with a bit too much excitement.

I swore in frustration and then ran to the stairs.

Just as I’d gotten to the top part of the stairs sure enough she’d summoned another orc. But this orc wasn’t like the others. He was a good foot taller, looked meaner and with bigger teeth and muscles. As soon as he saw me then he screamed some battle cry and charged at me with his full strength. I discovered he was running faster somehow too, and with more zealousness.

I didn’t like this. He looked more dangerous. The other little one didn’t look half this scary!

He hit the stairs fast enough, and I was saved by the fact that the stairs forced him to not run up them as he was going after me. I could then use the top part of the balcony’s edge for more footing and swing at him. The incline also helped to slow down his mass and inertia because his feet were so big. With the narrowness of the stairs he was slowed down considerably with his swinging too, and forced to fight clumsier.

“************* *** ******” the orc spoke something this time and I nearly froze.

If only I could understand what he said.

?

But he’d clearly said something and even gestured to me in a friendly like manner. It looked like he was trying to shake my hand. This surprised me too. I’d thought the orcs were all dumb animals, but he’d tried to establish contact.

I was about to lower my guard thinking he was trying to parley with me when he suddenly swung out with a big club that smashed into the balcony rail, sending splinters of wood everywhere. I barely got out of the way in time. I dodged again, and again, realizing it was a mistake to try to talk to him. Furthermore, some of the wood splinters had stung me in the cheek, and my skin felt numb but at least wasn’t bleeding very much.

The unknown girl’s voice was now laughing at me for awhile, until I then swing the steel axe with all my strength and it broke through the orc’s club and clipped part of his arm. Unfortunately it wasn’t a grave enough wound to limit the use of his arm, but it did scare him.

He said something else in that strange language and then tried to trick me, then tried to fake going to run left but went right. I almost fell for it but jumped back at the last second as he tried to grapple me for my weapon. He then swung out and tried to kick me so I dodged it and kicked him instead in the other knee, where his balance was currently resting on. He recovered and picked himself up quicker than I liked.

With renewed vigor, he was coming at me again as I looked for another defensible position. But I had to be careful because he was stronger and taller than I was, and as a result I wasn’t able to put much force into the next hit after that. Plus he was built really solid. I had to prioritize not being dog piled or having my weapon stolen from me.

That surprised me. If I’m in a demon box pocket dimension, then who had summoned the orcs? If their bodies had dissolved then they were some kind of pocket summon or an illusion right? So how did this one have intelligence? It clearly had enough intelligence to covet my weapon and try to trick me in order to go after it.

“Oh? Wow, you are doing so well! I’m pleased!” the girl’s voice said again.

“You made them smarter this time didn’t you?” I called back angrily.

The voice didn’t answer back. But I think I heard a really quiet, “fu, fu, fu.”

The orc tried to fake me out again with which direction he’d attack from, and a few more after that. But I saw it in time and this time swung the axe low under his arms that tried to grab it in mid-swing. When I parried my axe, being heavy metal against his primitive metal, also helped me to counter his heavier weight and inertia; partly because he could see his weapon had the potential to break against mine. My axe’s blade bit into his knee cap making a sickening crunch and exposing the flesh underneath while showering the floor with black and green gooey blood that sprayed outwards away from us and that stank. He then fell on his back, and I was able to follow up with another hit from him being not ready to defend himself.

He screamed like he was rabid dog mad when he got hit too, just like the other one. Unfortunately once you get hit with something heavy and sharp or blunt you aren’t really going to be fighting much longer after that in reality. It’s too hard to keep your concentration after all. Pain is incapacitating after all.

So I finished him off too, after mauling his arms and then robbing him. I ended up cutting his belt off, which gave me a small sack of money. Strangely enough when I looked at it his coins while he was bleeding to death and suffering a lot, I could see the orc money wasn’t pillaged human money. It had tusked orc king faces on it. There weren’t very many coins, but there were a few still, and some is better than none.

So I slipped it all in my pockets.

That was the weirdest thing I’d ever heard of. I’d expected it would be some kind of human money that had been stolen. But why would the orcs have their own money? I hadn’t expected that they would be that clever. So if they found human money were they melting it down and putting their own symbols and faces on it? What a weird concept, or a lot of hate for humans.

“What the hell?” I said aloud.

Then I finished off the orc while trying to study my surroundings more. After all, having them scream like that non-stop is terrible for your ears. I was getting tired of it. So noisy…

“Well I didn’t expect you would beat that one. You look kind of weak. I doubt you can handle two of them…so sorry for the inconvenience coming up!” the voice said in a sing-songy lilt.

“#$@!”

Two more orcs just like the previous one spawned in the middle of the courtyard.

It was interesting to observe them. They didn’t act like orcs in a game. They actually stopped, then saw me, and pointed at me to alert each other while shouting commands to each other. In a game they would just run at you with no facial expressions and no other unnecessary movements in their limbs, which these did do, often with blocky movements. That was very weird too. It was surreal even. As they ran at me I went for the stairs again, but the orcs hesitated.

They also didn’t rush at me blindly. How was that possible?! It seemed they’d figured out it was a trap.

One of them noticed the stairs were dangerous, and if I’m not mistaken he was telling the other why I’d gone to the stairs, and that it was a trap. I could see him pointing too, and he had a smug look on his face.

They both stopped and then began pointing at me and laughing at me, not wanting to go into my crowd control area of influence. They didn’t approach but stayed down there. The way they talked was strange too, not only was it a different language, but the way the orcs spoke it was like their lower jaw was kind of heavy somehow and they’d kind of …stick out their lower jaw a lot in the strange words they used.

Dang. I can’t cut them off from each other?

Were these two even smarter than the other two then?

Because they were laughing and taunting me I picked up a few rocks from the ground and then chucked them at them. While doing so they tried to bait me to come at them instead. I missed the first few times, but then hit one of them in the face pretty hard, which made him scream at me some more. The damage was very small, but I’m sure getting hit in the face and nose feels pretty bad. I could see the blood run hot in his face under the skin as he got mad.

That finally made him charge at the stairs where I was standing.

It worked.

I’d tricked them again. Because they were both smarter, the one who hadn’t gotten hit by rocks didn’t charge the stairs with his friend. He probably was screaming at him to come back and that it was a trap but I wasn’t certain. At least that’s what I’d have said in his place. So even being smart can work against you if it gets to your fear I realized.

I parried two hits then swung the axe hard again using it to smash his club into kindling. Unlike before I’d only waited for two hits because I knew if I hesitated too long or waited, then the other orc would gang up on me, thinking I was scared or that the other orc was doing well.

The second orc was running up the other side’s staircase when I smashed the axe head into the first orc’s arm crippling it. He fell to the earth screaming and wailing in their ugly language. Then he started to look desperate and beckoned for his friend to come save him. But I wasn’t able to finish the first orc off before the second orc attacked.

This time his higher intelligence worked against me because the orcs were real; or at least they thought they were real. The second orc was now trying to save the first orc’s life. This seemed bizarre because I knew I was in another world, but the orcs were clearly brought here by magic. I hadn’t expected orcs to try to save each other either, because they are orcs and evil creatures of darkness aren’t they? Did they do that because they really cared or because it was easier to murder and pillage with more of you to share the work?

So for whoever had pulled them here to make them smarter…it said something about how dangerous that person was. I’d have to be careful with whoever it was. It seemed like she’d manipulated them somehow.

I dodged the orc who was swinging fast and desperate. In fact, he was trying to rush so fast that I ended up running away down the balcony area overlooking the training hall. When I got to the bottom of the other stairs, instead of swinging at him directly I switched things up to confuse him. So I ended up throwing a wooden stool at him, in order to throw him off balance while on the stairs. He still didn’t lose his balance on the stairs, which showed me he had some better movement balance too. The orc would have surely tripped over himself.

He swung at it, smashing it into bits with what was left of his club. Then I realized it wasn’t just their intelligence or cunning that was better. Their whole capacity or traits were all higher. His strength shouldn’t have smashed the stool so easily in one hit.

I threw another rock and he swung at it, smacking it away too. So I tried it again, but this time to tire him out making him use up his energy. Sure enough, his dexterity was also higher. He batted it away like he was playing baseball. It was easier of course for me to throw rocks at him than it was for him to be swinging away with the club. But it wasn’t foreseeable that he would successfully bat away every rock that I threw at him.

Then I ran across the open floor, while his friend was crawling away from us trying to get away and brought the axe straight down the middle of his exposed spine. I wondered if it would have mattered though, since he was already wounded to the point of never fighting again.

Both orcs screamed terribly in fury and pain. The one screamed because he was now dying and suffering and the other was doing so because his brother was now going to be a casualty within another minute of bleeding and suffering.

He was really inflamed with rage then so I had to be careful. This wasn’t what I’d expected at all. He hounded me with more vengeance than I thought possible as I tried to again go up the stairs and cross over the balcony again. But he was way too mad this time to let me go and stayed with me.

I started to grow tired even while moving, with him on my heels trying to close the distance between us. Around and around I circled again trying to find an opening. This guy was tough and making me sweat it out and have to really work hard. After another minute he nearly caught me so after I came down almost to the stairs again, I instead did what he least expected.

I rolled backwards under his legs using my axe’s blade to punch him in the balls with the sharp edge by pushing up while I rolled under. That sent him spinning into the ground.

If possible he was screaming louder than the other orcs ever could. Did raising someone’s stats or higher potential make them more self aware and more sensitive to pain I wondered? If you had more intelligence were you really more aware? So being more aware could work against you if you were desperate and thinking about your fear it seemed.

A war cry skill?

I wonder if it makes him stronger...

He was momentarily stunned, so with another follow up hit I was able to maim his arms, then stole the club and added it and the other weapon to my item box. Then I finished him off.

But I had to stop to catch my breath after that. I wiped the sweat off my forehead.

“Ah, I see you have the boss orc’s demon box. Good, I was hoping to confirm that part. Well you hiding it and not using it in front of me wouldn’t have helped anything. I still would’ve known you had it and where to look since I’d seen the orc boss use it before. He wasn’t very careful after all and pretty full of himself. He could never beat me by the way,” the girl said with a bored tone of voice.

“You know, it gets dull watching you fight orcs after awhile, so I’m going to have to end this sooner than expected. You have my condolences, this is the end for you” the voice said. “You did surprise me a couple of times with some neat tricks, but you are humans after all. And humans are the weakest of all the intelligent creatures in this world. Even with magic this world is physics based after all…and you can’t fight physics even if you have a steel axe and get really clever moves.”

“Eh? You know what physics is and means?” I wondered carefully. How was that possible?

“Tch. Silly human, of course I do. Did you think that just because you are human that other creatures can’t know about math, physics, physiology and anatomy and other things related to science and arts? Humans have taken and destroyed much of that, trying to prove first right to rule,” she sounded annoyed.

I had a bad feeling suddenly when something much bigger and way more sinister appeared in the middle of the training room floor. Plus she knew about a lot of stuff, that I hadn’t expected.

Damn that thing was big…and what the frick was it?!

And what did she mean by humans being the weakest of all? Somehow that sounds really bad.

“Just so you know, this isn’t personal,” she said.

“But you sounded personal before,” I protested.

“Oh I did? Well I was trying to make you feel better. Pity for your end and all that. Actually it’s very personal.”