Chapter 36

We weren’t able to check the gnome out right away, till the hellish skirmishing stopped and we were able to verify there were no more orcs around us. Unexpectedly the veteran scarred orc was the leader. And with him fleeing, the others had broken courage.

Where did they all go? It seemed too good to be true?

But it would only be a matter of time until they came back, I think.

Even then we needed a moment to catch our breath. We had no idea how long it would take before the next orc wave would be coming forth against us too and had to see if there were some signs that would tell us that.

It seemed too good to be true.

Why would the orcs suddenly pull back when they still had a lot of people around us at the bottom of the hill still? We had killed a few of them but what we had just finished off was just one block of their units put together and I was sure they were gathering others still.

Why hadn’t they sent the others in yet?

Also we had to keep back students from thinking the gnome was with the orcs, which he obviously wasn’t. But they were still afraid of him and terrified at everything in general, still being in frenzy mode. Because of the great fear that had come upon them they were easily riled up at things that weren’t actually dangerous to them and couldn’t recognize friend from foe. It wasn’t actually a berserker mode however, but just mob mentality of acting on fear, not knowing what to do and no proper leadership structure. And that fear meant that some of them looked like they might attack him except the gnome seemed incredibly perceptive to the point of his glare frightening them off.

This particular old gnome also had a really wiry build, even if he was small. It was the lean build of someone who worked constantly and survived without a bit of fat on him…except for a pudgy little round stomach but thin ribs and waist. I could feel he was stronger than his smaller stature let on. Plus, his intimidation level was really great after all. It was almost like he seemed to be able to understand us…

“Hurry and check the wounded, try to stop any bleeding you can. Get ready we don’t know when the next wave will hit us,” one of Akimoto’s aides said hurriedly, while distributing orders and organization among the ragged survivors. It was the girl with the light brown hair.

Tch.

Stupid, I thought.

They wait till now to get people organized and use their leadership skills? It’s already too late.

I could see why Akimoto liked the aide girl; she was also pretty and had silky hair that just seemed to flow down. She worked tirelessly trying to encourage others to hang in there. She also seemed wasted on him.

She was trying to give hope, but I could see the look on her face was that she was discouraged herself.

Momentarily I stopped over to check on Rina and Asakura. Both of them were crying quietly, because of how many dead people there were around us, including the orcs. They were also sensitive in nature and fairly innocent so this was a big blow to them.

It turns out that Akira had been slashed across the abdomen on his right side and it was bleeding terribly but because he had so much muscle mass everywhere it seemed like it wasn’t very grave. It had occurred where his shirt was now too small and where his skin and stomach muscles were exposed. Though not too deep, it did look like it needed immediate attention. The wound looked like it was about a couple centimeters deep and about a foot across. Some of the blood had caked and dried under it, even draining down on his pant leg below.

“I wasn’t able to keep all of them from sneaking up on him,” Yuriko said apologetically and depressed.

She turned to him, “I’m sorry.”

“Ah, it’s cool babe. We lived, so it’s nothing’,” he replied.

I stopped and carefully pulled him by a boulder for cover and then standing near him I cast a heal on his wound, under cover of some boulders. I put all my concentration and power into the mental visuals that helped me before to amplify the strength of the cast. While using Yuriko and his big body to mask most of the effect. It was stretching it but I believed I could handle just this one heal for now. I’d have to save my strength though after this.

The glow thankfully wasn’t noticed by others this time. It lingered for a few seconds as I gently pushed it into the deeper parts of the wound. I actually didn’t try to rush it but pushed it in careful gentle small bits while the energy sort of shaved off. I had to try to aim the heal at the deeper parts of the terrible wound that looked like they had the best chance for causing infection and that went further below the fractured skin.

Slowly parts of the jagged wound closed up, but this wound just was too big to be closed up on my heals that were still low powered, and I was too new at this. So instead of being completely healed, it still looked like a fresh wound, but just not bleeding anymore and like it was a half a centimeter deep instead of a full two centimeters.

I did learn that even just one heal would stop the bleeding, provided there was no additional agitation even though it wouldn’t heal most wounds completely. Bleeding to death was a big concern for most types of wounds, so even though that didn’t sound like a big gain it actually was. It didn’t seal the wound with a scab though, to my disappointment. I could also see the makings of the beginning of a puss crystallization and the beginning of scab work to start to form.

I frowned.

I wanted more than this. It still looked really bad. “Sorry, this is all I can manage for now. If I had more strength I’d try again,” I said.

“It’s cool. Even this much doesn’t feel as bad as before,” Akira nodded. But he grimaced after I touched it again.

Dang it.

I’m still so weak, I thought to myself.

Inwardly I was tormented however. I still was hoping I could get some of my strength back to try to risk a heal on the tennis champions arm or on the kid with the crushed and mangled arm. But I needed to sit still for awhile.

Both of them would probably die of infection or disease if I didn’t manage to have a full day of rest to help them. But even after the battle we’d still have to move and find food.

How were we supposed to manage this?

Like now I doubted I could fight any longer. I was feeling pretty light headed. It was similar to like how you feel after running five miles non-stop plus the buildup of the battle fatigue on top of it.

We’d finished just in time; I could see Akimoto walking over towards us. Akira and Yuriko looked like they wanted to say more but had seen the line of my sight. They knew to stay quiet in front of him.

“Why did the orcs stop so suddenly?” Akimoto asked me, referring to the orcs. He let his aides do most the work. Everyone seemed to wonder why the orcs were also staring up at us from really far away. It’s very clear they weren’t scared.

“We’ll have to figure that out. The veteran scarred orc technically should have been able to continue without his guards based on his skill level. So it’s fishy,” I responded.

The rangers and the two aides were roaming around trying to help too and not just tell others what to do it seemed. They moved through the ranks quickly but we couldn’t help everyone. There were a few people with mortal wounds, and some that we had no way of treating, because of lack of bandages and medical supplies.

They were however, able to salvage a lot of orcish weapons from dead orcs and distribute them around the group. Now everyone had at least one weapon and quite a few had two. They were also able to make sure everyone had at least a spear or a hand axe. Now they were trying to arrange so that people could also have what looked like some kind of flint glass long knives or some kind of fist stabbing tool. A few lucky people were able to have javelins, but I noticed the rangers liked to keep those and salvaged arrows for themselves.

Did that mean they were making bows?

I hadn’t seen any bows on the rangers yet, but the orcs had them. The problem was when you killed a bow user orc, their weapons weren’t built very sturdy and so far they weren’t able to get any.

It’s possible they believed since orcs could manage making bows that they could somehow pull it off too later on.

At length, it finally became time to talk to the gnome.

The enraged gnome finally popped full out of the hole, showing an oddly contorted body. His skinny little arms looked a bit too long, in his three feet tall body with a full faced beard that stretched his entire height to the ground. Only a small hole for mouth peeped through the middle of the top of the iron gray beard, with his other mining clothes matching the color of his brown hat while he was dressed in some kind of woven cloth overalls. Remarkably they didn’t look too much different than overalls from Earth that a farmer or rancher might use.

I noticed on his back he had a pretty big pick axe of some kind of metal. It was the first time I’d seen metal weapons that weren’t looted or stolen. Plus it was rare to see anything made of some weird black looking metal so far in this world. This didn’t quite look like traditional iron or steel but I wasn’t sure what kind of metal it was.

Did gnomes have metals and metal processing techniques that humans didn’t know how to make yet? This was a really curious opportunity it seemed. It was also the first time I’d seen something non-human that wasn’t trying to kill us, so it was hard for me to not stare at the fellow; though others were clearly doing so.

The others seemed to be lightly whispering about what they should do with the gnome. They hadn’t decided yet if he was friend or foe. But the gnome seemed to be intently staring at us with fires in his eyes.

“Hey you can understand us?” Sensei asked in shock suddenly. Asakura turned me leaning close, “Shun there’s something funny about this guy.” She couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

We suddenly jumped when we heard a clear and intelligent voice talk back to us.

“Of course I can understand you! Gnomes trade with lots of people here. As a gnome elder I have access to the language enchantment,” he said. “Although, the way you guys talk isn’t like anyone else here that I’ve ran into for a long, long time. You are a bit ignorant it seems and don’t look like you fit here. Plus your clothes are all weird and you don’t look Egyptian, which is why I haven’t killed any of you yet. But you do look somewhat similar to the Yayoi to the north.”

“So they are to the north. Finally we have an idea where that might be,” I confirmed nodding.

“What to do. What to do with you…” the gnome muttered under his breath while he paced acting like everything was up to him.

“Shun, do you think he can help us in some way?” Asakura whispered to me.

I nodded secretively.

“It would be really awesome for some kind of shelter,” she added.

If you want to meet them then take a continuous direction North, North-West to be exact if you want to find their first settlement,” the gnome said. He nodded in answer to me, but then frowned as he was studying us. Wow he was sharp.

“No way!” Rina said, also being shocked.

“Sweet! We can find a city now!” someone said.

Suddenly things were looking up for a change.

“But it sounds like they are primitive in this era. No electricity or running water,” a girl sighed.

“But a city would have a wall and food,” I reminded them.

“Ah that’s probably true,” some of them acknowledged back. Right now a wall sounded better than a million dollars to quite a few of them.

“Now whoever did that to my roof is going to pay. Cough it up; I want to know who did it. Now!” the gnome finally shouted, slapping his knobby jointed fist into the palm of his hand. He kept looking at us expectantly, like one of us would confess.

“It was the orcs. They attacked us,” The gangster girl said with puppy dog eyes. So she could mimic innocence too? She managed to trick him for awhile, but I wonder if it would last.

Since she was the culprit was it the right thing to do to tell the gnome? Or should I blame it on the orcs too? This was kind of a white lie in a way. I suppose you could blame the orcs but...

It’s also true that she did help us stop the scarred orc from rampaging against us. That was I suppose worth something in her favor.

“Well that one that fell down the hole isn’t still alive is he?” I asked, worrying about it coming back.

“No, turns out orcs are allergic to sharp objects,” his eyes seemed to twinkle.

Right...his pick axe has fresh orc blood on it.

“Ah, gotcha,” Asakura chuckled.

Akimoto was approaching and his gaze on the gnome didn’t look good. This was also one of our only chances to make a good impression on another group of people here. I couldn’t let it go to waste.

I was worried what Akimoto might do also, so I intervened, “we want to open up some kind of trade talks with you,” I said before anyone could do anything rash. I feared Akimoto would use him for some kind of spin move to gather more king support at the expense of the gnome’s life, but I also thought the gnome might be more amenable to an opportunity for money or trade rather than pleading for charity.

“Huh? That’s not your call,” Akimoto said giving me another bad look. His looking at me that way, made me feel I’d made the correct decision.

“Too late,” Akira stood in front of Akimoto after coming to back me up; also he was towering over him and daring him to cause trouble.

“I’ll think about it. Depends on the offer,” the gnome said, his eyes narrowing with distrust, particularly at Akimoto. Turns out he wasn’t a fool, and he could pick up on aggression. He’s looking like he might use that pick on Akimoto right now, actually.

That was bad…

“You better do something about those orcs first. You brought them here after all. I’m not very happy about you bringing orcs into my yard,” Gnome folded his arms across his chest.

Right after that two more gnomes in similar cloth hats and also really small and not as old looking had their heads pop up out of the hole, since it was large enough for them both to each be at an opposite sides of each other and still peek out. They were looking at us like we were a bunch of zoo animals it seemed.

His yard? Then this hill is his…

Oh wow.

Could it be…?

“Hey Da, are you alright? Don’t trust the humans eh?” one of them said reminding him, in a funny accent and slightly higher pitched voice. His voice was touched with concern for the older and braver gnome. The other one with him remained silent, warning that they’d be overheard. The second one continued to scowl at us quietly.

Both of them look pretty similar to this first gnome elder actually.

“Stay down son, you know the humans practice slavery,” the first elder gnome said, not taking his eyes off us. Despite being old I also noticed how heavily muscled his forearms were, and how wiry he looked in build. “Now what do we do about those orcs? How many are there?” He asked.

“Good question, let’s check it out,” Akimoto gestured for us to go back to the front line. As we walked over there, most everyone seemed to follow and somehow the gnome was watching me and staying really close to my side. The other two gnomes stayed in the hole however.

It was then that the orc ram battle horns suddenly sounded again echoing across the valley.

The orcs had pulled back a bit away from the hill, but still had orc sappers trying to dig up tunnels around the place where we were at the base of the hill below us. I wasn’t sure what the signal meant this time.

“Orc filth! Desecrating our clan’s lands!” the gnome huffed with his cheeks puffing in anger. He shook his fist at them as we were all looking down the hill from the defense line now.

“They won’t find the entrance to your den will they?” I asked aloud. I would feel bad if the gnomes were hurt because of us after all, even though they seemed like somewhat strange little men.

The little gnome shook his fist with rage. “Oh they better not or we’ll give them what for! Orcs are tough fighters in the open, but in tunnels gnomes can take them for sure!”

“But what are they doing?” Akimoto pointed to the orcs in the distance. “Why would they suddenly sound a retreat horn? Isn’t a bit premature when they still have a lot of other fighters hanging back?” he asked me pointedly.

“What do you think Sensei?” I asked.

Asakura and Rina were both close by me. “I don’t like it; I’m not sure what they want yet. But it can’t be good for us in the long run. They are going for their own victory. Their actions must be based on somehow achieving that in the end. If we remember what they want for their goal then we can figure out possibilities,” she said.

We could see there were still quite a few orc scouts and the diggers and sappers around the land between us and the main force which was back about five hundred yards.

“Should we take out the scouts and diggers?” Akira asked me.

“We better figure out what’s going on first,” I responded.

“Ah, that’s right! If they were really in full retreat they would have pulled back their sappers too right?” Asakura said, noting an obvious fact.

“Ah that’s true,” I confirmed.

We didn’t have to wait too long before suddenly an orc in a headdress of some kind with lots of black feathers and his face painted in black war paint started to approach us by walking from the main orc camp below. With him were three big orc guards to keep him alive, while the main orc that appeared to be a chieftain of some kind was calling out to us in some kind of orc tongue. They seemed to both not only follow him, but respect and fear him to my astonishment.

They stopped at the halfway point between our camp and their own, but far away enough that they weren’t near the orc sappers; nor were they within range of our ability to shoot them. They even sent two sappers who were too close to them to a different spot after what looked like some kind of threats. Now they were standing there waiting for someone to go out to talk to them. Then they shouted something up at us which none of us could understand.

“What do they want? Do you understand them?” I asked the gnome.

He nodded, “It appears that they want to do some kind of parley with you. I can come along as an interpreter of course for a fee. But the condition is that you open some kind of trade talk with us as agreed. Plus, we want this battle concluded as swiftly as possible so the orcs get off our front porch,” he said looking at me fiercely.

“So how do they usually work for parleys? Particularly with orcs, any tips would be awesome,” I asked.

The gnome chuckled, “it’s rare for them to do this. Orcs rarely parley, even when it seems like a good idea so there must be a scheme at work somehow. They must really want something or they wouldn’t try it. Regardless of what you decide, I’d advice caution and that they will surely try to trick you or betray you somehow.”

“I think it’s strange that something like orcs might parley too. They haven’t shown themselves to be very civilized, so why would they?” Akira said darkly, rubbing his goatee beard. Yuriko was hugging him from behind; it was her version of security.

Is it just me or was Akira’s goatee beard slightly longer than yesterday?

“Well how are we going to decide who goes out to meet them and discuss options?” Sensei asked.

“Don’t send any women! That’s the first rule when dealing with orcs,” the gnome hurriedly said in alarm.

“I’ll go with Akira and Akimoto. Gnome-san you have seniority with your wisdom and having seen more of this world than us. Can you come with us too as the interpreter and advise us? As for your fee I’ll take care of that too,” I stated.

“Well if you put it like that sure.” He was flattered that we recognized his vast experience and leadership it seems.

“I don’t like it. I’m supposed to be in charge,” Akimoto argued, but we ignored him. He even tried to push his way in front of us but everyone side stepped him again right after that.

The four of us carefully went down there, with Akira glaring at any orc sappers that even blinked in our direction. Akimoto seemed to be studying the gnome intently as we walked down to meet the orc negotiator.

Shortly after we arrived in the neutral territory slightly below the hill, we ended up standing about fifteen paces away from the orc chief guy. Or was it a shaman I wondered. Now that I was up close I could see a few more details on him that I didn’t catch before. He had all kinds of vulgar looking tattoos all over his arms and body, even beyond what a normal orc might have; its proof of a culture of violence and death. Every square inch of his body was covered in them, in fact. He also had what looked like a chest plate on made from bones that were sewn together with leather and dried tendons. His guards had strange covered up bundles on their backs that were bulky and almost as large as the orcs themselves.

But before we began it seemed the gnome had to translate the stated positions, and titles of each party. I hadn’t known this was protocol for introductions, but the orc shaman was a proud general after all. He briefly described the many victories the orc shaman had achieved as part of interpreting the introduction, which took nearly a minute.

Hm, actually I’d heard some old clan and hunter gatherer cultures in Earth sometimes opened up by stating credibility by war victories as ‘letters of introduction’ and references.

We were quite surprised also for other reasons.

Even a lowly orc can have a line of victories that long?! That made us edgy. If this guy had won a lot of fights, we also weren’t sure how many of those were against humans or his own kind, or others. I hadn’t also realized that fantasy monsters might have their own history…

Eventually the introductions concluded, and the gnome kept nodding as he followed. Then the gnome turned to me, “the great orc shaman and Chief of this land Goder greets you and forgives your trespass into their lands. He is prepared to make a peace agreement with your kind. If you agree to be his followers and turn over the women he will even share the women and their breeding rights with the humans. Ugh…disgusting…” the gnome shook his head as he paused for a breath of fresh air; just hearing it described this way made one feel dirty.

After a minute of the orcs talking in their unknown language the gnome added, “So he has two offers for you. One is temporary for both, whether or not we decide to fight to the death or not, and the other one long term, referring to sharing the women with the orcs. In addition to wanting all of the women to breed with the orcs, all of them with no exception; he also wants all the males to be in their army to serve with full honors and membership rights, particularly those blessed by the Gods.”

“What does he mean blessed by the Gods?” Akira asked.

“The fudge?! He means for us to be in the orc army?!” Akimoto couldn’t help but exclaim his surprise.

“Think that means people with the special jobs and magic like us rangers,” I suggested.

Gnome then confirmed it.

“Apparently his spies heard that the ones you call the Yayoi and the Egyptians were doing some recruitment. He doesn’t want to be left out of it since he thinks he’s a bigger chief than they are,” the gnome explained.

Ah, that’s how he got such corny ideas. Although he probably didn’t need any help on the part about taking the women.

It was logical to think that way but I was hoping Gnome might tell us more. Did that mean those from other worlds had some kind of status with certain people? If it did then that might give us an advantage starting in those people’s lands instead of lands that practiced slavery.

Gnome confirmed it again right after that also, but we didn’t get a chance to ask about that now, since this was some serious shizzle that we were involved in. He also told us to be really careful about being polite enough to not seem like we’d reject the offer right away but not so happy or stupid that we would look like we could easily be pushed over.

He continued, “The other offer, Chief Goder also offers to trade prisoners of war. They have captured over a dozen humans that they are willing to trade for human females with breeding capabilities. But he insists that those females offered in trade not be too old and still able to carry children, although really young females are also OK if they can be grown into quality breeders of good condition, since they would have less chance of carrying disease. He also doesn’t want females suffering from mind death from too much breeding be included, since they are too weak to live much longer. Being a shaman of the orc God, Murder Hand he says he knows and can tell if we try to trick him with barren or sickly females.”

“Eh? That’s disgusting,” Akira said, before I could respond; after all I was too shocked to say anything right away. I would have to keep an eye on him. Akira looked like he might lose his cool at any time. Even though I didn’t want to listen to this negotiation, but it was keeping the orcs off us for a period of time to rest.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” I said.

“That can’t be right, they must have several dozen females already just from the attack on the school,” Akimoto suggested.

I agreed with him there, but we kept our peace.

“I assure you. I’m translating it almost word for word,” the gnome elder said with a disgusted look on his face.

“But will he give us a fair exchange rate?” I asked skeptically to Gnome.

Gnome shrugged, “what orcs think is fair, others would always consider extreme. But in the end it’s if he intends to honor such an agreement that counts. But does he intend to honor it until he gets bored or for longer than the time he can try to find a loophole is something else entirely.” In the end his answer didn’t tell us much.

“What’s his rate of exchange? How many prisoners of war is he offering per breeding female offered?” Akimoto was tugging on his chin.

I looked at Akimoto like he was insane. Surely he wasn’t tempted into such a deal was he? I’d have to keep an eye on him. I suspected Akira was also wondering the same thing the way he looked at him.

“The great orc shaman Chief Goder says his offer is more generous than any other orc generals to date and that he understands that humans want to survive too. Previous to his reign only three human slaves were offered in exchange for breeding females but he has decided to be sympathetic to the humans. For only one human breed able female he offers four male prisoners of war each that have fighting potential, and can do such a trade four times with us each for a total of fifteen warriors total. Though he doesn’t wish to be dishonest and says that he discloses that at least two of the human male prisoners were accidentally castrated and had their tongues clipped before he could intervene; which he apologizes for. He stopped his warriors from gouging out any eyes however, and hopes this is also a sign of good faith. Plus, he has punished the officers involved severely to make good faith with us and further evidence. All the prisoners were branded so that we can be assured of his quality check in his product name, which is known throughout the land as an honorable trader that keeps his word and agreements.”

“That’s a terrible deal,” I said.

“It sounds like they were tortured, badly. Wonder what their version of branding means,” Akira mused.

“I’m sure we’re better off not knowing,” I replied.

“But it’s four to one! That’s a lot of extra soldiers! With that we can have four times as many people fighting and protecting us,” Akimoto protested.

“I don’t even understand why we’re listening to this,” I said.

“Yeah and you only have to give up our women. People we know and grew up with, sisters, good friends, homework buddies, and girlfriends,” Akira said trying to talk sense into him.

“You don’t have sisters do you?” I asked him bluntly.

He didn’t respond, but shut his mouth. He kept glaring at me however.

“What are we going to do Shun? This is crazy,” Akira said trying to keep his voice down. “These are girls from our hometown! We can’t give them away! Plus each one will breed many times over other orcs that will continue murdering and pillaging in an endless cycle.”

Actually he had a point there…

Then suddenly the orc chief started talking again, and after a few seconds the gnome tugged on my sleeve to explain, “Goder says he feels for your sorrow of having been pulled to this world against your will. He also talked to the chief of your tribe called Yuta before and so he knows this already. As a gesture of good faith he has upped the deal to five prisoners of war for every human breed-able female.”

This orc chief knows too much. Who the hell told him that?!

“He talked to Yuta?” Akira looked me in the eyes. “I have a bad feeling…” he muttered.

“We should ask what his deal with Yuta was,” Akimoto interjected stubbornly.

“I advise against it,” Gnome said quickly. “Right now he is partly afraid to attack without his full army here because he believes all the humans here are on one side and working together showing full unity. If he sees you are divided and don’t know each others dealings he will surely think he has a good chance of rushing an attack early because of such disunity.”

“So the option is basically to die quick or slow,” Akimoto scowled. He kicked a rock.

“Ah, that’s true,” Akira agreed with Gnome, but ignored Akimoto.

“That can’t be good,” I agreed.

“I still would almost give my left…err still want to know what kind of secret deal they made,” Akira whispered.

“For now we buy time, remember. Don’t get too greedy. We can try to piece together what this other fellow did afterwards from any clues that surface,” Gnome warned, and acting like we were just shooting the breeze.

Wow Gnome was turning out to be a pretty good investment, I thought.

The orcs also then tossed us the head of the orc that had been punished for torturing humans without the leader’s permission at the same time. Its face was frozen in death with a pathetic look on his face, not only that it appeared that either he was uglier than normal or had some kind of birth defects. It also seemed the orcs were pretty hungry because his ears were bitten off savagely. Or maybe biting off ears was some form of punishment.

But was this really the guilty one or just a convenient grunt’s head, I wondered.

Author note; *No relation whatever with a certain boxer’s fighting style*

“It’s odd that he wasn’t executed for torturing humans in general, but just for doing it against the leader’s trading scheme,” Akira said snorting.

“How do we know he is telling the truth? Also how long is the trade good for and how long do they plan to have this cease fire last?” I asked.

“Yeah that’s a good thing to ask,” Akimoto looked excited somehow.

“We’re not deciding right now are we?” Akira suddenly seemed alarmed.

I was relieved when Gnome said, “most likely he will give us a few hours to consider the offer after we go back to our own side.”

“We should get all the details first before we make a decision,” I said.

The gnome spoke to the orc in charge, who was watching us intently. After going back and forth a bit the gnome turned to me, “I have confirmed with him that he says he will give us till morning to decide, but to not wait too long. He gives us his word as a chief that he will not attack until morning as per the parley agreement. The parley signal can be used to tell them we want to talk at that time after we talk it over with our people. He also urges us to not wait till morning since the other chiefs are more impatient than he. But he feels that making a deal with humans could be profitable still.”

“Great, so we have till morning to make a deal with the devil?” Akira looked pretty unhappy.

“Is it just me or do those orcs look a bit too smug?” I said.

“Hmm could be. That’s a pretty good sign they think they have one over on you somehow. Don’t trust a thing they say,” Gnome agreed.

“I don’t know. I don’t like this but…five solders each for only giving up one female. That’s a lot of extra protection and extra soldiers we could have,” Akimoto wondered, scratching his head. He seemed to be thinking about it too greedily. I was worried what he might do because of it.

“Why don’t we just kill them all? I doubt they’ll keep the deal anyway,” Akira said. He flexed his muscles. Now that he had a bad ass mode he didn’t think too much of killing a few hordes of orcs. But he seemed to forget that other people didn’t have a bad ass mode like he did.

I was tempted to do this type of thinking too, but somehow the orc shaman seemed way too smart to not expect such a maneuver. Also, I doubted all the orcs would be easy to kill, like the scarred fellow we’d faced.

But it seems the stressful negotiation was already concluding and the orcs were going back to their own camp. They were also very guarded retreating as if they expected us to watch for an opening for surprise attacks;

Akira was obviously disappointed.

Then suddenly I felt the crow on my shoulder. It turns out that the crow summoner had been listening to most of the conversation. He waited for the orcs to withdraw and then began to speak. “Errp*. Also they have a whole enemy unit of another hundred soldiers coming up from behind the hill to cut off our escape and surround us. That group will be here within an hour and is probably one of the reasons they are buying time, errp*.”

We stared in shock. Then he gave us more bad news, “errp* even now while we’re talking they are still building up more organized units to send against us errp*. They surely have a few ogres here and will be using the whole night to pull every available soldier from as far as they can reach. So by morning this spot will be a deadly place to be in.”

“Ah, those freaking bastards!” Akira exclaimed.

“Told you they were sneaky and not to be trusted,” the gnome elder snorted.

“They nearly had us then,” I also responded.