Chapter 4

3 THE FORTIFIED CITY OF KRASSEL Krassel, the Fortified City. It had served as the front line of the war against the orcs for centuries. The majority of the structures were built of stone, and there were blacksmith’s forges everywhere belching out smoke. There were still a lot of rough-looking soldiers to be seen milling about town among the merchants and the regular townsfolk, but not as many as there had been during wartime. The town sat on top of a small hill and was surrounded by thick, double-rampart walls. In between these walls sat multiple cannons and trebuchets for self-defense, and there were watchtowers in strategic places around the town from which you could get a good view of the entire forest, the prior dominion of the orcs. It really was a fortress. The orcs and humans had clashed over this fortress many times during the war. Over a period of several thousand years, the orcs repeatedly seized the fortress, only to have it wrested from their grasp by the humans. The humans had defended the fortress tirelessly. If it fell to the orcs, so too would the entirety of human land. The men would all be killed, the women taken to become broodmares. The humans understood this ever-present threat well. Even with the war over, they never lost their sense of wariness when it came to dealings with the orcs. In fact, the war had taught them many things. They had learned that the orcs weren’t single-minded beasts driven only by sexual desire. And they had learned that orcs attacked other races because they needed them to breed. They had their own set of rules, their own unique sense of pride. Once the humans realized this and began actually engaging in dialogue with the orcs, they found that negotiation was indeed possible. With that knowledge, the humans were able to succeed at making peace with the orcs. After developing a sense of respect for the pride of the orcs, the human female warriors, who possessed a strength even the orcs had to appreciate, were able to negotiate with them. Thus, the orcs realized that women of other races could be strong fighters, worthy of respect, and this led to them agreeing to the peace treaty clause which stated that orcs would no longer “engage in nonconsensual coitus with members of different races.” However, seeing that compliance with such a rule would lead only to the eradication of the entire orc race, the humans gathered together criminal women from all across the land and packed them off to the country of the orcs on voluntary service. Thus, the humans swiftly removed the last obstacle the orcs had to accepting peace. As a result, relations were at this point comparatively friendly between the two races. In fact, they had even begun to set up a fledgling trade route between themselves. However, many humans still held firm to the belief that orcs were wild beasts without any capacity for reason. Every race has its fair share of idiots, you see. Contextually, however, the war had only ended a few years prior. Many still held personal grudges against the orcs. And there were also bands of rogue orcs who had abandoned their nation, infiltrated the land of the humans, and routinely attacked them on their home soil. So you see, perhaps the humans had a good reason to always be on their guard. “I never expected it would take us that long to get into the town.” “You didn’t? Aren’t all human towns like that?” Around three hours had passed since Bash had arrived at Krassel. Of those three hours, one had been spent arguing with the gatekeeper. The man had reacted with immediate fear and pointed his spearhead at Bash, all because he happened to be an orc. Zell had quickly zoomed between them, swiftly explaining that Bash was simply a traveler passing through and that he wasn’t one of the dangerous rogue orcs. Without Zell, Bash would probably never have been granted access into town. The gatekeeper wasn’t an easy man to convince, though, and he seemed determined that no orc would be permitted through the gates on his watch. But eventually, he had no choice but to relent and let them in. Travelers tended to be welcomed into human towns as a general rule, and there was nothing set in stone to say that orcs were to be denied entry. “Lots of women about.” “Yeah, ’cause it’s a human town.” Bash peered out of the inn’s window at the passersby outside, marveling at the sheer number of eligible females. Even during war, the only time he’d seen this many women was when he’d been teamed up with the succubus army. Although referring to female succubi as women probably wasn’t the best choice of words… Incidentally, the women on the street who caught sight of Bash ogling them from the window all immediately stiffened and quickened their gaits, hurrying past the window as fast as they could. “With this many women around, I’ll have my pick of the lot.” “Whoa, not so fast! There, take a look at that human. Left hand, ring finger.” Bash narrowed his eyes, focusing on the woman’s hand as instructed. There was something sparkling there. “Hmm? The woman is wearing a ring.” “That’s a sign she’s already married. Humans generally tend to pair up, one man and one woman. So don’t go setting your sights on anyone with a ring, got it?” “But most of the women here appear to be wearing rings.” “That’s ’cause humans think marriage is like some rite of passage to being a proper adult. They all think that, men and women both. Once you get past a certain age, they’re all married, more or less.” Unlike the orcs, it seemed all human men were free to take a wife. This generally accepted human social construct struck Bash as deeply odd. Eventually, though, he realized that if the number of human men and the number of human women were about equal, then it made sense for their society to allow such things. And if human women were so keen to marry, that could only work in Bash’s favor. “So what I’m saying is that you should specifically seek out women without rings on.” “The human woman I tried to talk to on the way here… I don’t believe she was wearing any rings.” “Ah…” Yes, on the way to the inn, Bash had plucked up his courage and decided to try to talk to a woman on the street. Her response was to flee screaming. In fact, Bash hadn’t even gotten a word out. All it took was a single look to send her running. “It looks like there’s still a strong sense of prejudice against orcs.” “I see…” “They think all orcs are out to attack them indiscriminately, bash in the men’s heads, and drag the women off kicking and screaming to be impregnated.” “Well, they’re not wrong. During the war, that’s what all orcs did.” Even though the current Orc King had outlawed such practices. Rogue orcs aside, no orc would ever attack indiscriminately in peacetime. Decent orcs had all pledged fealty to the Orc King and were all proud, noble warriors. But Bash knew that not every human held such prejudiced views about orcs. A group of soldiers had come running in response to the woman’s screams. They didn’t seem to be particularly biased against orcs, and after Bash had explained the situation, they actually became quite friendly. “If you’re a traveler, you’ll need a place to stay,” one had said, and they’d even given Bash a recommendation for a good inn. The lodgings were comfortable indeed, and Bash felt grateful to the friendly soldiers for the tip. “All humans have that image of the wartime orc fresh in their minds. It’s only been a few years, after all. Naturally, they’re still wary of orcs. I wouldn’t have expected them to just run away, though.” “Wary…yes… Actually, before I met you, I tried speaking to those two women in the forest. They ran away from me, too.” “Interesting. Out of curiosity, what did you say to them?” “I asked if they’d like to have my babies.” “Yikes!” yelped Zell, smacking their forehead with the palm of their tiny hand. “You can’t just say something like that!” “I can’t?” “Listen to me. Humans consider giving birth to be a very intense, almost spiritual thing! It’s a super-serious ceremonial event!” “Goodness…” The words ceremonial event made Bash think of the yearly orc ritual of praying to the god of war. Once a year, the grand ceremony would be held to determine the fortunes of the following year’s battle. It was a very, very important ceremony for the orcs. No orc would ever make light of the yearly ritual. “And usually, humans only marry and mate with a partner they’ve fallen in love with. Human women don’t go around having babies with men they’ve only just met.” “Th-they don’t…?” Talk about culture shock. It was no wonder, then, that human females seemed to abhor the prospect of mating with orcs. It wasn’t just because orcs were the enemy. It was because, along with defiling their bodies, orcs would be defiling their deeply-held belief system, too. “So in summation! If you want to make a human woman your bride, first you’ll need to make her fall head over heels in love with you!” Zell wasn’t completely correct there. Of course, not every human marriage was a result of true love. But as far as Zell knew, that’s all there was to it. “Hmm… But I don’t know how to make a human female fall in love with me.” Orcs had no concept of love or romance. They saw females as creatures to be overpowered and subjugated. Now that was outlawed, and Bash instead somehow needed to make one “fall in love” with him. He hadn’t the first clue how to go about doing that. “Just leave it to me! You may be surprised, but I’m actually a font of knowledge when it comes to all things human!” Zell thumped a tiny fist against their chest as they spoke. The fairies had specialized in covert messaging and secret intelligence during the war, and they really did possess a good deal of knowledge about different races. And not just about humans, either, but also about the elves and beastkin, in particular. That said, the extent of their knowledge concerned things like battle tactics, specific behavioral traits, combat methodology, the characteristics of their tracks and droppings, how to identify them in low visibility, and other aspects relating to war. As for the reproductive habits of these races, the fairies picked up a few things from naughty magazines they found discarded along the road or the bawdy banter they overheard in taverns. “Thank you. I’m lucky I ran into a fairy of your caliber, and so early in my journey, too. So then, in basic terms, what do I need to do?” “Well, let’s see…” Grinning confidently, Zell hopped up onto the table. Then the fairy raised one tiny finger in the air, preparing to start the lesson. “First of all, human women like being clean! If you’re dirty or stinky, you won’t get anywhere!” Rule Number One: Keep a Clean Body. “So I should bathe before I go out hunting for women, then.” “After bathing, you could also put on some of that stuff you splash on before going into battle with the beastkin!” “But that…won’t that just stink even worse?” “Don’t talk gibberish! That stuff smells exquisite!” Bash looked down at his bulky body, gnawing on his lip. During the war, the orcs had faced off against several different races. The beastkin were particularly keen-nosed. The beastkin could sniff out the distinctive odor of an orc from miles away and often were able to launch successful surprise attacks using only smell to guide them. To circumvent this, the orcs began bathing before battle with the beastkin in order to suppress their natural scent and would even splash on cologne afterward to further fool their adversaries. The cologne smelled just like natural grasses and flowers and was sure to confuse the nose of even the sharpest beastkin. The cologne was actually a fairy-made product, currently a popular export to the human and elf regions. “Look, I’ll lend you some of mine!” “All right.” Rule Number Two: Always Smell Good. The sweet cologne’s scent was very unpopular among orcs. Many opted out of the practice of applying the cologne before engaging in battle with the beastkin. All of them had died. Bash was not among their number. No, Bash was one of the few who actually returned home from the beastkin battles. But he never forgot the terror of a midnight attack from the beastkin. It was so bad that the orcs could barely sleep at night. Applying the cologne was the only thing that allowed them to sleep without fear. As long as the cologne remained potent, there was no need to worry that a beastkin scouting party would sniff them out and launch an attack. “All right, let’s get you bathed! I’ll scrub your back!” Zell sprang off the table, did a loop in midair, and then zipped over to the door, knocking on it with a tiny fist. “Innkeeper! Innkeeper! The boss wishes to bathe! We need a bucket of water in here, pronto!” There was a pause of several moments after Zell’s shout, and then the door finally opened. The innkeeper poked his head through the gap, looking suspicious. “The orc wants to bathe?” “What, you got a problem with that? Is an orc not allowed to bathe?! You humans are always looking down on orcs for being stinky and dirty, but a decent orc like the boss is perfectly capable of bathing when he comes to a human town, so as not to offend your delicate noses!” “All right, all right, don’t get upset. I’ll fetch your bucket of water. That’ll be one copper coin, please.” “Certainly.” Despite his look of disbelief, the innkeeper accepted the copper coin and immediately disappeared to fetch a bucket of water. “All right then, until the water gets here, let’s continue the lesson!” “Yes, if you wouldn’t mind.” After that, Bash carefully washed himself with water while listening intently to Zell’s specialized fairy advice on “how to be popular with human women.” “So anyway, if you make sure to follow those rules, you should be able to charm at least one woman.” “Keep clean, smell good, act dignified, speak wisely…” After bathing, Bash went over Zell’s rules one by one, counting on his meaty fingers. Bash was always keen to oblige. He’d once even run to help when a call for backup came in on the battlefield, even though he hadn’t slept in three days and three nights. So he listened attentively to Zell’s lesson, drinking in the information without any sense of doubt. Even though, as fairies went, Zell was a bit of an oddball. “…” All of a sudden, Bash froze. His sharp ears had picked up on a sudden clamor. As he listened closely, he realized the noise was all around them, encircling the room they were in. “Oh, crumbs… Look, there’s no need to freeze up. Okay, I’ll go over the basics again. Now listen here, a human woman is— Whoa!!!” Zell did a double take as Bash swiftly unsheathed the sword from its holder on his back. “Wh-what are you doing?! Are we under attack?!” Despite his shock, Zell reacted quickly, whipping out a magic staff the exact length and size of a toothpick. But then Zell heard it, too. The sound of clinking metal on metal, all around them. They were completely surrounded. How could they not have noticed such an ambush? “Silencing magic…” Bash recalled the human trick of using magic to conceal their approach and readied his sword. Silencing magic, as the name suggested, was magic that muffled sound. However, it was only effective on a fixed area. This meant that once the enemy was close enough, their presence would become suddenly audible. It was one of the forms of magic the full-body-armor-clad humans used most often. If Bash and Zell could hear them now, then that must have meant the humans had either accidentally gotten too close, or they had already successfully surrounded them and were ready to launch an attack… Judging by the sophistication of the ambush, it appeared to be the latter. “From the sound, I can guess their number. It must be that group I encountered by the carriage.” “You mean we were followed?” “I didn’t sense anyone following us. But these are humans we’re talking about. It’s very possible.” Bash wasn’t some senile, doddery old orc. He’d have had to be to miss a group of humans in heavy armor tailing him in the forest. No, Bash would never make such a mistake. His senses could always pick up on the presence of the enemy, be they human, elf, or beast. But humans were very skilled at gathering information on an enemy’s location from the slightest of clues. It was possible Bash had inadvertently left behind some sort of barely perceptible trail that the humans had been able to follow. “Boss, what’s the plan? To kill ’em all, it would be best to start attacking them from the window, then waylay the rest when they come around to break down the door. To break through them and escape, it would be best to go out through one of the doors that’s least heavily guarded. From the sound of their footsteps, they’re not on high alert, and it doesn’t seem like they’re expecting us to attack them from in here. Still, we can handle about this many enemies without even breaking a sweat, I’d wager.” Zell sounded completely calm and unruffled. The fairy may have looked young and cute, but make no mistake, Zell was a battle-hardened veteran of war. Pinpointing an enemy’s location in a second and determining the most likely direction of an attack—Zell specialized in both. Bash and Zell had long worked as a team. During the war, the two of them had broken free of ambushes like this on too many occasions to count. It would take an attack one hundred times more cunning than this to kill Bash. Yes, this would be a piece of cake. But even so, Bash shook his head. “No, we mustn’t let this come to blows. We have to settle things with diplomacy.” And then Bash took his hand off his greatsword. Bash didn’t know why they’d been surrounded, but he did know that he had done nothing improper. “Um, I don’t think that will help. They’ll just pin the blame on us for whatever they’re upset about and run us out of town.” “Perhaps. But if they’ve tracked me this far, that means they already know I was at the scene of the carriage ambush. Running away won’t change that.” As Bash and Zell were still mid-conversation, the door was suddenly kicked in with an explosive crashing sound. “Hold it right there, orc!” Three people leaped into the room. Two of them were foot soldiers dressed in basic armor, but the third was a knight, wearing a helmet with a horsehair plume on top. From Bash’s many years of battle experience, he instantly recognized the plume helmet as the raiment of a knight. He also knew that a human knight was the equivalent of an orc war chief. In other words, the knight was the leader of this detachment. “I’m not going anywhere! What do you want with me, human?” “Hmph!” The knight took several steps into the room and then tugged off his helmet. A shining golden ponytail whipped free of the helmet. She was, in actuality, a beautiful woman and not a man at all. I thought that was a high-pitched voice I heard. So it was a woman after all… Ah, but not just any woman… As Bash looked upon her face, something inside his chest seemed to swell. A sensation of exquisitely sharp sweetness seemed to flood his entire being, like biting into a ripe fig bursting with juice. She’s incredible… Dignified brows, a strong-willed mouth, almond-shaped, slightly cruel eyes, translucent, pale skin… It was hard to make out due to the armor she was wearing, but Bash could tell from the way she carried herself that she had a sturdy, well-muscled body, with broad hips. This woman was a cut above the ones he’d seen in the forest and the one he’d tried to speak to in town. No, several grades above. The possibility that he and this beautiful woman might get naked and have intercourse together sent an electric shock straight to Bash’s brain. All of the blood in his body seemed to rush straight to his crotch. Luckily, however, his sturdy leather undershorts managed to conceal his excitement. The woman narrowed her eyes at Bash and began snapping at him in a loud voice. Had she noticed his reaction? Perhaps. “We got a report that an orc attacked a carriage on the road. That was your doing, wasn’t it?!” “See? What’d I tell ya?” whispered Zell, but Bash paid no heed. He was suddenly desperate to get this lovely knight to like him. She was the finest human woman specimen Bash had ever seen. If a group of orcs was to get together as buddies and discuss their ideal wife candidate, a beauty like this knight would be in the running for sure. A virgin like Bash couldn’t help being instantly entranced. His thoughts had already leaped directly to marriage. He’d want at least three children from her, if not more. Indeed, elf lore says that when an orc mates with and impregnates a human, sometimes a non-orc is born. Bash wouldn’t mind if one of his offspring was a human. All he asked was that they were all boys, please. He would name the first son Ash, as a tribute to himself. He would teach him all about fighting and hunting… “Are you some kind of idiot?! Answer me already!” Bash’s fantasy was suddenly shattered by the sound of the lady knight’s harsh voice. Forced to confront reality, Bash thought hard about what he should do next. Firstly, he already knew that asking her to be his bride right off the bat wouldn’t work. She would only turn him down. Zell’s lesson from before had taught him that. So what to do, then? Ah yes. In a situation like this, it would be prudent to examine the lady’s left hand. If she wore a ring, then that would signify she was already married and could not be his. “…” The lady knight’s left hand was covered by a gauntlet, and so he could not tell if she was wearing a ring on her finger or not. “…Hmm.” Bash was stumped. The first lesson he’d committed to memory did not seem to be serving him well. But he was a noble Hero with years of battle experience. An enemy that he could not fell with a single stroke of the sword—he had encountered more of those than there were stars in the sky. Indeed, he had once spent countless hours in combat with a beastkin behemoth. They had fought from sunup to sundown. Sometimes, you needed to thoroughly take stock of an enemy’s power, drawing the battle out to last many hours. “Answer me, damn you! I refuse to let an orc waste my precious time!”