77

As expected, walking with thirty-eight women slowed us down more than anticipated.

Or rather, my own sense of time had become completely distorted.

It was good that I had grown accustomed to my enhanced physical abilities, but I ended up making this mistake because I still retained human instincts in strange ways.

(Ah, can’t they move a little faster…?)

The group’s progress was slow as they moved while keeping watch on their surroundings, and no matter how much I told them, “I’ll take care of the perimeter surveillance,” they would not stop.

Thanks to that, we were barely making any progress, and the schedule had gone off the rails completely.

It wasn’t so much that they didn’t trust me; rather, they seemed driven by fear, leaving me with no way to do anything about it.

Thinking that I should distract them somehow, I decided to ask a few questions, and it turned out all of them were regular soldiers.

Their military branch was the musket corps.

I wondered, “If they had guns, why on earth did they end up as prisoners of some Orcs?” but they carried muskets, not rifles.

On top of that, they had been ambushed and hit on the flank; when the front line collapsed, those who failed to retreat in time were captured en masse and dragged to that fortress.

Apparently, nearly three hundred were captured in total, but with men turned into food and women made into playthings, only this many survived, enduring the humiliation of being sent to the rear and used as toys until I came along.

As for that “game” they mentioned, it seemed to follow the rule: “Win and you’re freed; lose and you become food.” But knowing Orcs, it went without saying what they would do before eating their victims.

Moreover, the ones eaten weren’t even the losers themselves but two women who happened to be in the hall, showing that Orcs had no shred of decency as living beings.

When I kept listening, many of them began to quietly weep, so I decided not to ask more about it, but I still had to hear information about the battlefield.

“From what we know, the Orc army numbers over ten thousand.”

As expected, it seemed that Orcs from across the former Fullretos Empire territory had gathered.

In that case, the upper limit of their numbers would depend on how much of the former empire’s farmland they were exploiting.

If they increased too much and had food shortages, they could have simply expanded their power northward.

Yet the fact that they took a southern route meant—clearly, humans were their target.

(This whole “Orc Kingdom” thing might not just be a joke anymore.)

If an army of Orcs that viewed humans solely as food or sex tools flooded into a city, the outcome was obvious.

I could say the option of quietly dealing with things from the shadows had now been crushed.

‘Still, openly allying with humans isn’t ideal either,’ I pondered.

I might have to revise my plans and settings a bit.

Currently, my cover story was: “The number of Orcs has grown too much, so I decided to thin them out. Give me detailed intel, and I’ll cull them to an appropriate level.”

If anyone questioned my reasoning, my excuse would be: “They’re gluttons; the more of them there are, the less food there is for me.”

I had thought that by rampaging in their rear lines, the human side would naturally push their frontlines forward, avoiding such a situation.

But from what I was hearing, the war situation was worse than expected.

The frontier villages had already been swallowed up. At one point, a city nearly fell; they barely managed to hold it with reinforcements and defended it successfully, but when they tried to go on the offensive afterward, they fell right into the Orcs’ trap, causing the front to collapse.

The representative woman told me with visible anger that she herself had been captured at that time, and that even while the armies kept pushing and pulling, quite a number of people were being abducted.

(Orcs using tactics… Could some new kind of variant have been born?)

Like Goblins, Orcs had command units, but it was hard to believe they could bring about results like this.

Still, it seemed the Furon side was aware of this too; at first, they had suspected sabotage by some other country, which delayed their response, and because of that, all contact with the northern frontier villages was lost—a blunder they bitterly regretted, clenching their fists.

(Well, how I move will depend on their response too…)

I would need to carefully review my plan and, depending on the situation, even consider lending a hand.

If possible, I wanted the countries carrying imperial blood to prosper.

Though I had become a monster, it might be a nation where the descendants of my family still lived.

A little favoritism should be acceptable.

Anyway, time passed as we kept walking.

As time passed, the sun set, and hunger set in.

Although I brought out water from the fortress, there was nothing edible except meat, and given the possibility it was human flesh, I couldn’t bring it along.

So, I dashed off to secure some game.

Some of them expressed disapproval about me, their escort, leaving, but after I explained there were no Orcs nearby and that I would rush back at the first loud shout, and with the representative woman’s order, they reluctantly backed down.

In just about fifteen minutes, I caught two boars and returned, only to find everyone crawling on the ground, hiding themselves.

They weren’t as good as Orcs, but I had a decent amount of experience with smell detection as well.

After quickly locating them all, I butchered the boars and moved to an open area.

Detaching the iron plate from my backpack, I began cutting and preparing the meat to grill, when they stopped me.

“Smoke will rise! What are you thinking!?”

I continued cooking and replied with, “So what?”

Their fussing was so over the top that I held up a written note: “Even if 100 or 200 Orcs come, I can just drive them off, right?” and focused on getting the meat grilled just right.

By now, grilling meat had become a refined craft.

Even so, the women were panicking over the rising smoke, so I scribbled another line.

“You see, when they have unnecessary intelligence, if you kill a certain number of them quickly, the rest will flee in fear of dying. Even if thousands come, if I charge in and go berserk, they’ll scatter in terror.”

The representative woman glared at me bitterly as she read my memo.

“Don’t you understand that these Orcs aren’t normal!?”

To which my reply was:

“Don’t measure me with human standards.”

If they were trained like a military, then what would come here would be scouts.

There was no way they’d swarm over here in droves, nor would they abandon the front line to send thousands of troops.

By my estimation, a hundred at most would show up.

And if it was just that many, I could wipe them out instantly if I went all out.

While my goal was to protect them, killing all Orcs before I even had to defend them was child’s play.

I tried to convey that again, but the representative still seemed unconvinced, and the other women trembled with fear.

(You’re soldiers, aren’t you? Pull yourselves together.)

Maybe as a man I couldn’t understand the trauma these women had suffered, but I wanted them to give their all to survive.

In the end, no one said a word about me sprinkling salt and pepper on the meat and grilling it on the iron plate, and the smoke issue was settled with the representative’s comment, “It’s already dark, so it should be fine.”

Though I wasn’t fully convinced, I reminded myself that I looked like a monster and thought, ‘At least they quieted down, so that’s good enough.’

There was no further mention of it during cleanup either, and feeling a little downhearted, I scrubbed the iron plate with a brush.

If anything, I felt accusing gazes saying, “Don’t waste precious water on that,” which made the atmosphere awkward.

Then we resumed our march, slowly walking through the forest in darkness for about two more hours before calling it a day.

Sleeping there was fine, but without a light source, everything was clumsy and disorganized.

They couldn’t even secure sleeping spots properly; I had to lend my night vision to get things barely sorted.

‘Are these people really soldiers?’ I thought, only to learn that except for the representative, some were recruits or hadn’t even completed training.

“You probably wouldn’t understand, but a lot of these kids were urgently drafted before they could finish combat training. So their mindset as soldiers is still incomplete. Maybe if you look at them strictly as fighters, they’re unqualified, but even kids like these have to go to the battlefield now.”

Apparently, the anti-Orc front was in a worse state than I had imagined, and the representative explained it apologetically, perhaps sensing my sigh.

Though her tone had a few thorns, there was no doubt she grieved over the current situation.

They said they would take turns keeping watch, but given their abilities and the circumstances, there was no way I could trust that; even when I gestured, “I’ll do it, you all sleep,” they wouldn’t agree.

In this pitch-black forest, it was questionable how effective watch duty by soldiers-in-training could be, but perhaps what they needed was simply the reassurance that “someone is watching.”

I let out a deep sigh as I watched half of them unable to sleep and the other half taking turns standing meaningless guard.

It looked like it was going to be a long night.

By the way, the reason I didn’t get aroused by their completely naked bodies was that my standards had gotten too high.

I already had a “model sister,” so I had always been strict when it came to judging women’s looks and figures.

On top of that, after spending days admiring the flawless naked body of that Dame Oppai woman, and seeing No. 6’s divine figure so many times that only “beautiful” could describe it, my eyes had become spoiled.

That’s why I behaved like a perfect gentleman toward them, but still, I did start craving some skin exposure.

If I managed to deliver them safely, I’d like to request some kind of “service,” though I kept watch, hoping a good idea would come to me.