Chapter 3

2 THE FAIRY Bash made his way through the forest. The thick trees tapered to sharp points high above, forming a dense canopy overhead. There were no real paths, only animal trails to be found here and there. If a human were to attempt to cross these woods, they would be torn to ribbons, lacking the tough skin of an orc. Due to many years on the battlefield, orcs possessed a high level of perception and a finely honed sense of direction. Bash was headed east to the neighboring country of humans. The humans were in possession of a larger tract of land than any other race. Not only were they on the winning side as a member of the Alliance of Four, they also won more battles than any other race. Most of the land the orcs had lost had been taken over by the humans. The orcs didn’t bear a grudge against the humans for this, of course. The winner takes the spoils. That was simply a fact of war. So why was Bash heading to the land of the humans? Well, the answer is exceedingly simple. “If you’re going to breed, it’s got to be a human.” That was one of the sayings the orcs had. Humans were highly fertile, easy to impregnate, and sturdy, despite the size difference with orcs. And they were also pretty easy on the eyes. For orcs, humans were the obvious top choice for breeding. Bash believed so, too. Ah, I haven’t been here in years… As Bash forced his way through the thick undergrowth, he let his thoughts wander back to the past. Only three years ago, this forest had been the site of a pitched battle. It was gone now, but this was where the last stronghold of the orc battalion had been located. The human army’s frontline fighters came to force the orcs to capitulate by mounting a massive, head-on attack. While this was going on, Bash had been hard at work running around the forest, crushing as many human fighters as he could find in an attempt to protect the stronghold. Thanks to Bash’s efforts, they were able to hold out until the end of the war, never giving over the stronghold to the human invaders. But after the war, the humans seized the stronghold anyway and had it torn down. In that fight alone, Bash had crushed a large number of human warriors, his final tally numbering in the hundreds. Many of them were female warriors. If only he’d taken one of them after, he could have rid himself of his virginity just in time. But if he had, they might have lost the stronghold. Then again, it was destroyed following their surrender anyway, so what did it even matter in the end? How ironic it all was. But if that had happened, then Bash may never have won his title of Hero… “Hmm?” As Bash was ruminating over what he could have done differently, he realized he could smell blood on the breeze, coming from far off. An injured animal, perhaps? Or perhaps rival wolf packs fighting a turf war among themselves? “I’d better check it out.” So Bash muttered to himself without hesitation, setting off at a brisk run. It wasn’t mere curiosity that spurred him forward. It was the prospect of finding food. Hunting down an animal was usually tricky, but if it was already wounded, then it would be losing strength fast, and the fact that it was bleeding meant tracking it by scent would be easy. Wild animals tend to lash out violently when injured, but with Bash’s thick hide, no animal fang or claw would do much damage. During the war, Bash had often captured animals injured from fighting. “…” Bash galloped through the forest with the speed and destructive force of a hurricane. Orcs were known for being lumbering and sluggish, but that wasn’t true for Bash. Bash was fleet-footed, known as one of the fastest of the orcs. And with his tough hide, no overgrown bush nor scraping tree branch could injure him. He was able to propel his wrought-iron body through the hurdle-strewn forest without ever needing to slow down for even a second. With unbelievable speed, Bash flew toward his destination. When Bash arrived on the scene, the fight was at its climax. A horse-drawn carriage with a busted axle was lying on its side just off the narrow path—which was more of a dirt track, really—formed by the wheels of carts passing through. Foodstuffs and other sundry goods were strewn everywhere, and the corpse of a horse could be seen sprawled on the ground. Two humans were on their feet, both armed with swords, facing off against the enemy. They were surrounded by bugbears, bearlike beasts that walked on their hind legs. There were six of them. Bash’s eyes narrowed as he quickly took stock of the scene. Group of bugbears attacked some human merchants, looks like. It wasn’t such an unusual sight. Since the war ended, the world had been at peace, sure, but that didn’t affect wild beasts or their natural inclination to hunt humans. Once you left the safety of the towns, you were at the mercies of nature, where survival was a matter of brute strength. “…!” “GRAWR!” As Bash emerged from cover with a rustling of leaves, the bugbears all swiveled their heads in his direction. Then, while three of them kept their eyes trained on the humans, the remaining three rounded on Bash, fur standing on end, growling ferociously. Bash never hesitated. Instead, he simply narrowed his eyes at the bugbears. The next moment, he let out a fearsome roar of his own. “GRAAAAGH!!!” It was a war cry. The same war cry unleashed by all orcs to mark the commencement of battle. The roar was so loud, it actually shook the trees as it reverberated around the forest. Groups of birds took off from their tree perches in alarm, and the bugbears visibly shivered, furry hides twitching. “Grawr…” A simple roar from Bash was all it took to make them understand the obvious—there was no way they could win a fight against the orc standing in front of them. Losing their will to fight, the bugbears visibly shrank, tails curling around their furry behinds as they turned and fled into the safety of the deep forest. A wild beast can always sense when his enemy is stronger than him. “Now, then…” After making sure the bugbears were a safe distance away and not likely to return, Bash turned to the humans left standing next to their ruined carriage. Whoa… The humans looked back at him, pale-faced and trembling, clutching their swords. These were female humans. They both looked to be a little past the age of thirty. Pale, but with healthy, rather appealing bodies. Bash had heard it was best to choose a woman in her late teens when taking one to wife. Any younger, and she wouldn’t be ready for bearing children. Any older, and the number of babes she could birth would be limited. But a human in her thirties would do. As long as she could produce offspring, that was all that mattered. And they’re both beauties! To be frank, neither was what your average orc would consider beautiful, based on conventional orc aesthetic standards. But Bash had hardly ever seen any women. To be more precise, he’d actually seen plenty of women, but never from this close up, and he’d never had the opportunity to actually take a good, appraising look at one before. His first glimpse of human women in the flesh. To Bash, they were dripping with sex appeal to the point where he was afraid he was about to start drooling. His very first bridal candidates. After gazing at the women for a few seconds, Bash made up his mind and cleared his throat to speak. “Ahem. Ladies…would you like to have my babies?” It was a standard orc proposal. “Aaaagh!” “It’s going to attack us and…mate with us!” It all happened so fast. Bash couldn’t believe how swift the two were. Why, hadn’t they been trembling in shock mere seconds before? Still clutching their swords, the two women turned tail and fled, leaving everything else they owned lying strewn on the ground. Unable to bring himself to pursue them, Bash simply stood there, one hand stretched out in front of him, fingers slowly closing in defeat. He cut a forlorn figure. “…But why?” Why did they turn him down? Why did they turn and flee? He couldn’t understand it. After he’d rescued them and all… “This doesn’t make any sense…” Of course, Bash knew that finding a bride wouldn’t be so straightforward. There was never any guarantee he’d be able to actually find a bride. Reminding himself of the facts, Bash turned sadly to depart. He was headed once more to his initial destination, the country of the humans. “Hmm?” Just then, Bash’s keen ears picked up on a strange sound. It was a dull knocking sound. Thump, thump. Bash cupped his hand around his ear, straining to locate the source of the noise. The ability to zero in on the subtler sounds…that was a valuable skill to have on the battlefield. On the night of a new moon, all you had to rely on was your ears and your nose to identify the beastkin unit sneaking up on you with near-silent footsteps. “…In there?” The noise was coming from within the carriage. The carriage that was lying on its side with a broken wheel. Bash approached, following the sound, and began to rummage inside. “…” There was nothing much in there. Just some dried foodstuffs, which the human women must have been sustaining themselves on. And some random tools and household items and things. No weapons. They could have at least left me a slave for my troubles… Bash couldn’t help thinking that. “Hmm?” His keen ears picked up on the dull knocking sound again. He must have missed something. He began pawing through the wreckage, casting aside things from the mound of random items. After heaving aside some larger pieces of broken furniture, he realized he could see a faint glow shining from a gap in the debris. Bash was familiar with the look of that glow. Sighing a little, he plunged his hand into the gap. When he withdrew his hand, he had a glass bottle clutched in his meaty fist. The sturdy metal bottle cap had a piece of paper bearing a magic circle firmly attached to it. The creature inside was about twelve inches tall and bathed in a brilliant glow. Two tiny wings fluttered on its back. It was a fairy. “You…” The fairy looked up at Bash’s face with surprise, its little mouth opening and closing helplessly. It looked like the magic circle paper charm was preventing it from escaping and also from speaking. Bash peeled off the charm from the bottle cap. The next moment, the cap popped off and went sailing into the undergrowth. A second later, the fairy came zooming out of the bottle at tremendous speed, flew in a circle around Bash several times, and then attached itself firmly to his face. “Boss! Long time no see!” Bash reached up and took hold of the fairy between his thumb and forefinger. It was rubbing and nuzzling itself against Bash’s face. Carefully, he pried it off him and held it at arm’s length. Despite the fact that Bash had it firmly caught between his fingers, the fairy didn’t seem to mind at all and instead threw its arms open wide, straining toward Bash and clearly intending to give him a hug. “Oh, Boss! You’ve saved me! I was starting to think I’d be stuck in that nasty old bottle forever! Oh, even worse! If you hadn’t found me, I’d have starved to death trapped under that pile of junk! But you always come through for me, don’t you?! …Hmm? Boss? What’s wrong? That look on your face…don’t tell me you’ve forgotten all about me?!” “How could I ever forget?” Bash knew this fairy. The fairy’s name was Zell. Their true name was too long to remember, so this shortened moniker sufficed. During the war, the fairies and the orcs had been battle buddies. The fairy race is gifted with the ability to fly at incredibly fast speeds and heal wounds with the dust that fell from their bodies. But they are small in stature, and their attack power is limited to the use of wind magic only, which means they aren’t really a race built for combat. So during the war, the fairies cooperated with the orcs, serving as messengers, lookouts, scouts, spies, and healers. Zell was one of the messenger fairies dispatched to the country of orcs and had often relayed messages, orders, and battle status updates to Bash. Incidentally, the fairies’ choice to join the demon-led Coalition of Seven Races during the war was sparked by the oppression they had suffered at the hands of the humans. The humans prized fairies as curious little pets and also for their healing properties, and so they traded them for high prices. At the end of the war, the fairies also signed a peace treaty with the humans. However, many humans still saw fit to capture fairies and keep them as pets for the rest of their lives. Even with the war over, the fairies were still being oppressed, perhaps even more than ever before. “By the way, Boss, how did you know I’d been captured?” “I didn’t. It was a coincidence.” “A coincidence?!” Bash let go of Zell, who zoomed out of the horse carriage and flitted curiously about the scene. Faster to take a look than wait for an explanation. That was the way of a battle scout, perhaps. After making sure the horse was truly dead, Zell zoomed back to Bash and began fretfully tugging on his ear. “Hey, hey, hey! Boss! This is bad! You can’t attack a human horse-drawn carriage! It’s against peace treaty rules! Against! The! Rules!” “It wasn’t me who attacked it. It was swarmed by a group of bugbears.” “No one’s going to believe that, you daft orc! A carriage wrecked, an orc lurking nearby…even the dumbest human’s bound to put two and two together and say, Hey, that orc attacked that carriage! Now hurry up; we need to get away from here at once! If anyone else happens upon this scene, we’ll find ourselves surrounded by the army and chained up before you can say fairy!” The army? Bring it on. …Is what Bash would have liked to say, but he was on a mission to find a bride in the country of the humans, so that probably wasn’t the best idea. “See?! See what I mean?!” They both heard the sound at the same time. The clinking and clanking of metal. Bash knew that sound well from the war. It was the sound of human warriors moving in battle formation, their armor clinking as they went. Bash quickly leaped into the bushes for cover. A warrior of Bash’s caliber could take down a band of enemy soldiers in a fair fight without even breaking a sweat. But barging into a battle without knowing who the enemy was could never be considered a wise move. Bash’s objective was simple: to find a human wife. Yes, he would find a nice virgin, cast aside his virginity with her, and then practice, practice, practice until he had completely mastered all the techniques of the mating act. Then he would return to the land of the orcs, triumphant. This was the victory Bash desired. Fighting a bunch of human soldiers wouldn’t get him any closer to achieving that goal. Even a child could tell you that. So Bash hid behind cover and silently observed the scene. Sometimes, a warrior needed to hold firm and secure a good position from which to assess the battlefield. No orc ever rushed blindly into battle. And Bash was no ordinary orc. He was an Orc Hero, a man of shrewd judgement. “Not here… But an orc… Yes, I’m sure…” “…And find it! If it attacks… Yes, yes, go ahead and kill!” Bash could only catch fragments of the conversation, but the humans seemed awfully worked up over something. Clearly, they had come to the conclusion that the scene was the aftermath of an orc attack, and they were very angry about it. Interestingly, the human male who was seemingly in charge appeared to still be quite young and had a high voice. Young army commanders tend to be reckless. Bash knew this from personal experience. If these humans already believed an orc to be responsible for the carriage ambush, then they would attack Bash on sight without even thinking to ask questions first. “Boss, what are you gonna do? Beat ’em to a pulp?” If it came to a fight, Bash could crush these human men easily. But Bash was an Orc Hero. If he killed these humans, it would cause problems for sure. The backlash might even reach orc territory. Setting out on this trip had caused a lot of embarrassment for Bash. To cause problems for his people on top of that… “No, I’ll just move on.” “Sure thing, Boss.” Zell nodded in agreement, and the two of them sneaked away from the scene as swiftly as possible. “So how did you end up captured?” After walking away from the scene of the carriage wreck for about ten minutes, Bash turned to Zell inquisitively. Bash had thought that Zell returned to the land of the fairies after the war. The fairies were preyed upon by the humans, but the land of the fairies was surrounded by towering cliffs. The humans couldn’t get near. Even if, by some method, they had managed to enter fairy country, it still didn’t make sense that Zell had been captured by a mere human. Zell was one of the fastest fairies alive. “Well, about that…fairy country’s pretty boring, you know. I may be small, but I have the heart of an adventurer and the wanderlust of an explorer! So I’m out here on a search for things no one has seen before…” “All right, all right. I think I can guess the rest.” “Ah, Boss, your powers of deduction are as impressive as ever!” Presumably, Zell had gotten bored and left fairy country of their own accord. Then, while flitting around in a flower bed or something frivolous like that, they were waylaid by a human and forced to huff some potent sleeping drug, or otherwise put to sleep by magic. Then into the bottle Zell went. Fairies were such ephemeral creatures. Simpleminded humans only ever really managed to get their hands on them through sheer dumb luck. “Ah, but you know, running into you like this, Boss…what a lucky fairy I am!” Zell was zooming in excited circles around Bash’s head, gushing. Fairies were capricious, excitable, and mischievous creatures. The more excited they became, the more frenetic their movements. “Incidentally, Boss, what are you doing out here in the forest? I heard they’re calling you Hero now back in orc country. Oh, by the way, congrats on the Hero title! An Orc Hero; that’s second rung on the ladder from the Orc Elder himself, right? I totally thought you’d be living it up, basking in the admiration of all orckind and having yourself a sweet retirement!” “…” “Oh yikes, some jealous orc framed you for something, didn’t they? Oh, I know! They framed you in a murder plot to kill the elder! Then all the other orcs had no choice but to cast you out of the village! How tragic! If you’re out for revenge, I’ll help you! My blade already longs to slit all their throats!” “Orcs don’t get jealous. And the elder is alive and well.” It was true. No orc was ever jealous of one they called Hero. An orc by that title had already proven himself as indisputably great by the criteria decided upon by all orcs. How could they be jealous of one they had unanimously decided to respect? Although there was always the odd exception. The possibility of a random flare of jealousy mixed in among the envy. “So then, what are you doing out here?” Bash pressed his thick lips together tightly. He could never tell that he was on a journey to lose his virginity. Zell may have been an old battle buddy, but there were limits to what Bash was willing to share, even with close friends. “Well, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to! But you know, I owe you my life. You’ve saved me tons of times on the battlefield, even before just now. Don’t you remember? When we first met? I’d been caught by a human warrior. ‘Fairies don’t need arms and legs! All we need’s the fairy dust it drops!’ I thought for sure I was a goner. Then you appeared in a blaze of glory. ‘You won’t need arms or legs in hell, either.’ That’s what you said! Then you actually chopped off all the human’s limbs, whack, whack, whack! Oh boy, that was quite a sight to see! I fell in love right on the spot! I decided that day that I’d follow you anywhere, Boss! So anyway, our background being what it is and all, I’m here to offer you my services! You’re a blockheaded orc, so maybe you don’t understand the delicate sensibilities of a brave fairy such as myself.” Zell struck a confident pose, floating in the air in front of Bash’s nose. He waved the fairy away, thinking hard to himself. Being honest, he realized he didn’t have much knowledge of other races aside from orcs. In fact, his knowledge only extended to which races were good for breeding with and which ones weren’t. In contrast, Zell had spent the war as a messenger and spy and knew all about the lifestyles of various races. On top of that, Zell was skilled at gathering intel. Considering the path that lay before him, having someone like Zell along would be a definite asset. “…I’m looking for a wife.” “A…wife?” Zell stopped zooming around in circles and came to a full stop. Then they floated there, deep in thought, staring intensely at Bash’s face. Bash looked away quickly, fearing his secret chastity was about to be sniffed out. After a long pause, Zell finally became animated again, clapping their tiny hands loudly. “A wife’s a big deal for an orc, ain’t it? Of course, an orc of your renown should have a bride. But you ain’t gonna find a suitable bride in orc country, things being what they are. So you’ve set out on a journey to find a bride, right, Boss?” “Well…something like that.” Zell’s conjecture was much the same as the Orc King’s had been. Anyone who knew who Bash was would reach the same conclusion, probably. And Zell was known as All-Seeing Zell for their powers of perception. It was a nickname they’d given themself, mind you. “I see, I see… A bride for the boss, eh…? If I weren’t a fairy, I’d be volunteering for the role myself…” Fairies have tiny little bodies. Clearly, they are wholly unsuited to breeding with other races. What’s more, the genders of fairies could not be neatly separated into male and female categories. That’s what made them the perfect partners for the orcs in battle. Simply put, a fairy would never do for a bride. “All righty, then!” After thinking it over for a few moments, Zell suddenly struck their chest. “I’ve got it! If that’s the situation, then leave it to me! At times like this, there probably ain’t too many ladies out there who’d like to become the bride of an orc. That might be an issue. But a fine fellow like you, Boss, I bet you can get your pick out of ten…maybe even twenty willing candidates! After all, you’re such a catch, even I’d love to be wifed up by you!” Bash knew well how competent Zell was from the war. Many times, Zell had infiltrated the enemy camp and brought back vital information. In fact, Zell’s info-gathering skills were second to none among the fairy race. However, Bash also knew that Zell had been captured by the enemy and almost killed many times, too… But now the war was over. There would be no real danger involved in simply searching for a wife. What harm could come from relying on Zell’s help? “If it means that much to you, then you can come along.” “Whoo-hoo! Okay then, let’s hit up the town! You won’t find any beauties lurking about in the deep forest, you know! Watch out, ladies, here comes Bash!” And so Bash had teamed up once again with his old war buddy, Zell. An orc and a fairy working together once more. At a brisk pace, the two of them set off together to the country of the humans.