“Guh! s’e dis ‘ere?”

Stomping over the snow to a scene of slaughter, a rather gnarly looking green Orc waved his hands at the scene in front of him.

Speaking loudly so the Boyz behind him could hear, he said angrily…

“Nowz, I’fa can understan if dem herd’boyz need sum nosh, we’z all gotta eat, aint we?”

Getting a round of agreement from the group of Boyz who was following him, the gnarly green Orc bent over and after breaking an arm of a slain Orc, started chewing.

“Bu’ dey leav’n grub right ere’!”

Saying this short sentence, the Orc cannibal swallowed his mouthful of day-old meat, then with a huff walked to the slightly smelly corpse of a Gor.

After a couple good tugs, he ripped off the Gors arm at its shoulder, and lifting it up to his nose he sniffed and growled in anger.

“Guh! A’noder foul one! Worse den da last one!”

Though he said this, he still took a bite out of the arm, apparently not minding the fur, but as soon as he chewed some, he spat out the furry meat wad and threw the rest down.

“Gah! Id’s c’aint e’vin stomach dis gob! Dem gits iz leaven dem ere’ to duff us, thinkin’ dat we’ze noffen but squigs!”

“We’ze aint no squigs!” shouted one of the gnarly green orcs followers, to which he bellowed in reply: “Dats’ right! We aint no squids an I ‘ad enoff now’z!”

“Whatcha want tae do then?” asked another, particularly lanky and gray orc.

Turning to the questioner, who slunk back slightly, the gnarly green orc stomped a few times until he found the words to answer.

“We’ze going straight to da new Boss! An iffen he aint get us sum proper herd’boy nosh, d’en I’za gonna go and krump a couplo eads’ anywayz!”

When the gnarly green Orc said this, the group that followed him lifted the choppas off their hips and waving them in the air started whooping “Mash! Mash! Mash!” to show their agreement.

Thinking he liked the sound of that chant, the gnarly green orc decided to call himself [Mash] from then on.

***************************************************************

While all of this was going on, Peter was far away.

Feeling like an idiot because he hadn’t considered that the Beastmen would start spoiling inside his [Inventory], he nevertheless stuck to the plan, and over the last 5 weeks had been dropping off more and more rotten Beastmen corpses at the scenes where he ambushed small groups of Greenskin.

Little did he know that what had been a dumb oversight on his part, was to the Orcs a tantamount ‘declaration’ that the Beastmen thought they weren’t even worth rotten corpses.

For that brutish species which could delight themselves fighting over sticks, stones, and petty insults for centuries at a time, only to ‘suddenly’ band together and launch a ‘Waaagh’ against faraway lands, the rotten corpses of the Beastmen were seen as a terrible insult.

Humans could truly not see into the mind of the Greenskin.

What Peter could tell though, was that the Orcs and Goblins had been getting more and more restless, and as a result, he had only been back to the main camp twice.

By now Father Anderson and the others had arrived at the camp, and bringing along a dozen Knights and Sword Sisters, the training of Captains and Lieutenants was going on in full swing.

And thinking to leave nothing to chance, Peter had even redeemed [Levi Ackerman].

He chose the man over Edward Kenway, because he knew that Kenway’s strengths were on the sea, and Peter thought that Levi – who was a Peak Human in his own right – would be an enormous help battling against man eating monsters.

That, it turned out, had been a mistake.

Having known the general story of [Attack on Titan], even though Peter was not a ‘fan’ of the work, he still knew generally who Levi was.

Acclaimed as ‘Humanities Strongest Soldier’, the man’s skills were unquestionable.

Unfortunately, due to a life of absolute horror and misery, Levi had apparently not ‘chosen’ to come to this new world and suffered from severe PTSD.

This was when Peter learned that unlike the [Mount and Blade] System, the [Fate Casino] had no ethics or scruples.

Levi’s mind had been tilted to be respectful to Peter himself, but Levi still was still ‘himself’, and after finally being given a chance to rest in death, was sucked into another dreadful abyss.

In no way eager to rush into another battle against the enemies of mankind, or to do anything else, Peter had eventually just barely succeeded in convincing the former titan hunter to instruct the Knights in the new, unified, Calvary structure put forth by Professor Helsing.

Knights who had done battle against trolls, orcs, goblins, wolves, and other beasts didn’t need training in skill at arms, what they did need was knowledge on how to handle groups of 40 headstrong men, how to communicate with the rest of the army, and most importantly how to explain to other former Knights that they were being wrapped up into a professional Calvary corps.

For this, Levi was capable, though he only took to the task somewhat halfheartedly...

With those thoughts in the back of his mind, Peter hefted a stag over his shoulders and started to head back to his small camp where Sif was waiting.

Of course, throughout the 5 weeks in the wilderness, he had her with him.

They hadn’t developed any physical relationship, but Peter was eager to learn all that the Sarl women could teach him about the Norscan mountains.

The sheer range of creatures the inhabited these northern mountains was astonishing.

If [Troll Country] had the highest population of monsters and beasts in the Old World, then it was precisely because so many fled from [Norsca].

In Sif’s own words, the further north you went the more likely you were to experience the ‘touch of the gods’, and while Peter was appalled by the idea, and told her without reservation that those were demons, it illustrated the point that on the northern side of the Norsca peninsula, reality itself was weaker.

As for his own claim that those so-called gods were demons, the petite women didn’t protest but instead wanted to know more about Peter’s religion.

Needless to say, for a God that Peter claimed to have created the universe, mankind, and everything else, but did not usually offer blessings or miracles and instead worked through his believers acts, Sif was unimpressed and just assumed an indulging attitude.

This attitude wasn’t lost on Peter, but in addition to needing the women’s help, he actually hoped to convert her – and was using her as a sort of test on how to treat the Norscans in the future.

After all, while he could be called a hard-liner… he wasn’t an outright fanatic like Father Anderson, who would possibly try and purify Sif’s thoughts via her being tied to a pole and lit on fire.

Finally reaching the small camp, Peter hung the stag up and started preparing it.

Looking over at Sif who was bundled up, doing her best to stay warm in the bitter cold, he thought about their last talk.

“God is not worshiped because he gives blessings or performs miracles, he’s worshiped because he has given us the free will to do that for our own selves. God could have made us perfect in every way, but then we wouldn't have been made free.”

The crux of Peters argument was to just look at the results.

Were the Norscans Tribes better or worse off for believing in their gods?

For Peter who had seen the ritual sacrifices at Mazen, the answer was obvious. In his own mind, the only people who could not see the inhumanity of paganism were either blind or dumb.

Naturally, despite being an imperfect one, Peter was still a firm believer and couldn’t help but to dig in more and more against Sif’s claims that the Norscan gods’ gave them strength, and it was that very strength that allowed them to survive.

“You’re really confused if you think that false power granted by some demon who claims to be a god is true strength, in the future, you will see exactly what true strength is…” saying that he ended the conversation there.

That had been 2 days before, and they hadn’t spoken to one another since.

When the stag was cleaned, Peter didn’t wait, and immediately began preparations to start roasting it. He wouldn’t like it as much as boar, but the meat would hit the spot during this cold patch.

While he roasted the deer, Sif was preparing a simple pot of onion soup, and once everything was done, they sat down somewhat close to each other.

Not looking at her, he spoke lowly: “Eat your fill, tomorrow we’ll start going around and see if we can’t cause any more scenes.”

To this, she nodded.

***************************************************************

“Look at it, Boss!”

Standing slightly taller than before, Mash held up the rotten leg of a Gor, showing it off with disdain.

“Now’z how’z we’ze gonna be expected ta put up wit it? We came ere’ after da old Boss was killed by dat Bad Ooman, but we’ze aint no squigs!”

When he said this, the few Orcs behind him shouted in agreement.

And their shouts would have continued, if the ‘Boss’ didn’t turn around and plop down his giant stone maul.

Silencing them with the loud ‘bang’ the tall Troll looked down at the gnarly orc and said in an almost aged voice: “Hand me the limb.”

Reaching out his huge, clawed, 4-fingered hand, the ‘Boss’ only slightly snatched away the rotten Gor’s leg, and giving it a smell, he winced and threw it aside.

“So, there’s a Warherd in the area?” asked the Boss, eying Mash curiously.

Looking dumbly for a second, [Mash] just shrugged and said: “We aint seen no livin beastie-boyz, dey’z attack da Gobs abunch an left dey stinkin’ corpses for us ta find.”

Mulling this over, the huge creature in front of Mash considered what he had heard and questioned the orc some more.

But after a while, the Boss just internally sighed, thinking to himself: ‘Like I thought, Orcs are just too simple for reliable information.’

Even still, no matter how strange the orcs ‘report’ was, being the King of this area, he would not allow such an incursion.

It had been a mere 10 years since the last time his territory was invaded, back then it was the remnants of the [Chaos Lord] Telldros, and he, being too weak and too late to react, had to resort to trickery and redirection.

With intelligence that very few monsters in this world possessed, the ‘Boss’ knew he made the right call, but his nature was such that he didn’t like it.

It was due to that incident that now, despite being the most intelligent of his species, and for that matter being more intelligent than 99% of all Greenskin kinds, he didn’t reason too much.

After all, hadn’t he brought the Orcs into his territory just for this purpose?

Sure, they were a scattered and tattered army after being smashed by Human and Dwarf forces, but he knew it wouldn’t be long until there were more.

After all, there were always ‘more’ when it came to Orcs.

Especially when they were given the right reason for there to be more.

Looking down at Mash, the Boss suddenly had an idea, a rather cunning plan.

With his intelligence, his Trolls, and the Orcs numbers, couldn’t he sooner bring upon the [Age of Beasts]?

What were Beastmen, those foul creatures, other than men in disguise?

*PTU!* he spit off to the side and that spit started riling up the Orcs.

“Gather the Wolf Riders and find the Warherd!”

Then hefting his giant stone maul over his shoulders, he looked down on Mash and roared: “It’s time for a proper scrap! Gather the Boyz, all the Boyz! And tell’em, Tell them that War Boss [Throgg] won’t let you be squigs… you aren’t squigs!”

“We’z aint na bloody squigs!!” shouted Mash and the others in agreement, but Throgg didn’t react to being cut off, he was too busy riling the Orcs up.

And there was 1 thing, above all things, that could rile Orcs up.

It was ignited when he called out: “WAAAGH!”

The Orcs didn’t hesitate a breath, and in the [Lair of the Troll King], a shout of dozens of Orcs could be heard for miles away…

“”WAAAAAAAAAGGHH!!!”

***************************************************************

Two days later, while Peter and Sif were looking for a group of stray Greenskins, they saw the darnedest thing.

There in an open spot of land, covered by a foot of ice and snow, not 50 feet away from them, 6 Orcs suddenly burst from the ground.

Steaming hot and naked, after Peter soon finished them off, he went over to the hole and saw greenish brown mushrooms sprouting everywhere.

‘Were the Orcs eating this?’ thought he, but Sif interrupted him when she said: “My Jarl, I think our labor here is fulfilled.”