Anyway, there was a little too much of it, even if it was made into dried meat, so apparently, most of it would be sold in markets after being processed. I’d leave all of that to her.
“This is the deepest part, isn’t it?”
I kicked open the door and went in.
The orc near the entrance got up, surprised, but I just stabbed him through the head with a sword I created before moving on, stabbing through the different-colored orc that was panicking and trying to run away further in.
The only ones that dropped orc meat were regular orcs. So that meant I didn’t have to care about the different-colored one, the orc lord. Countless swords stabbed through him, and he died without even being able to scream.
“So, that’s all of them, right?”
“Most likely.”
After hearing Dina’s reply, I breathed a small sigh of relief. That meant the job was finished......
I killed quite a lot, but as always, I’m not bothered at all. It’s as if this is just an extension of my daily life; that’s how calm I am. Even if I manage to go back—if I can go back, that is—I don’t know how I’ll be if I stay like this. Not thinking anything of killing, that’s way too scary a thing in modern Japan.
“Uhhh, the girls who were taken...... Oh, there they are.” Dina looked around and found a cage.
No, is that really a cage?
It was true that they were in something made so they couldn’t run away. That was for certain. But there was furniture, they were properly wearing clothes, and there were even gems and flowers and stuff in the cage.
The women were all sleeping with faces clinched tight in fear, but at the very least, it didn’t seem like anything had happened to them yet. Actually, it looked like they were being properly cared for.
And that was to be expected. In truth, orcs weren’t violent towards women (and only women); they were a very kind creature in that respect.
People thought that as soon as they kidnapped a woman off the streets, they’d immediately do them, but it was actually different in this world. Orcs would kidnap women. That much was certain and for a very compelling reason—to reproduce. Somehow, they always made males, no matter what they did. It was a sad flaw of their genes, so they had no other recourse but to mate with women of other races.
And for that, they only went for human women. Since, out of all the races of humanity, human women were the only ones they could mate with.
Elves? Orcs wouldn’t even give them the time of day. And?
But it didn’t just end with orcs taking women and mating. They were, at their roots, barbaric beings that only knew violence since birth, so they couldn’t even raise children properly. That was why they needed the women they took to raise their children properly, and if they forcefully raped or even displeased the women, of course they wouldn’t bother with raising children.
For orcs, that was a huge problem.
That was why they always tried to make sure women were happy, no matter what. The women lived better than they did themselves; they were given a lot of food, and they even got offered a veritable mountain of gems and flowers and the like. It’s a lot of work, trying to keep women happy.
On top of that, they wouldn’t even touch the women if they didn’t have consent, and they’d stake their lives on protecting them, too. Their motives were impure, but the pigs here were relatively gentlemanly.
Still, to the people who were taken, that didn’t matter one bit. Even if those pig-faces treated them well, all they’d do was live in fear.
It’s sad, but in the end, they just weren’t compatible with humans.
“Okay, the women are fine. Let us go back to the village.”
“I can erase their memories, too. Should I do that?”
“Is that necessary?”
“I do feel that it’s better for them not to remember getting kidnapped by pigs.”
“Hm. How far can you go with it?”
“If I feel like it, I can implant them with fake memories and personalities.”
“......You just casually said something really scary there. Well, there’s no reason to go that far. It doesn’t seem like anything was done to them, either.”
For now, it should be fine to leave the women as they were. It was most likely a scary experience for them, but in the end, they were fine. Still, I checked that nothing was done to them, just in case.
Of course, I left that checking completely up to Dina.
I won’t do anything. Right now, I’m certainly a woman, but spiritually, I’m a man, so to put it bluntly, I have no immunity to this stuff. Actually, ever since I became a woman, I stopped being interested in that kind of stuff. Even if I look at a woman, I don’t get those kinds of feelings, and as a former man, I feel that that’s kind of sad.
......Even I’m a healthy enough man to have some porn stashed away behind a drawer.
“Okay, I understand. Please wait a little.”
“All right. Make it as fast as possible.”
I left checking the women to Dina, while I started to explore the room. There should be some scant fortune or food to be had, which the orcs stole from the village. I should find as much as I can and return it to the village.
Well, I do feel kind of sorry for the orcs, but I really shouldn’t let this one go. I mean, robbery is robbery. I do feel sorry for them, but that doesn’t excuse anything.
After leaving the orc nest and making sure Dina and all the others were out as well, I unleashed one of my Alchemist skills at the nest itself. The cave was blameless in all this, but leaving it alone wasn’t a good idea. Other orcs might come, lured by the smell of orcs here, and if that happened, the first thing they’d do is go after the village again.
So that that didn’t happen, I had to destroy the cave as cleanly as possible.
“Create: Hrungnir’s Right Arm,” I declared, and at the same time, a huge arm of rock manifested above the cave.
In size, it was a huge right arm that looked to be larger than 50m in length. Among all the Alchemist’s attack skills, this one was the most reliable in terms of physical attack power and range.
It mercilessly struck at the orcs’ nest and crushed it flat. It made a huge boom and shook the earth, and even just the aftershocks of the action caused winds to blow.
Even if there were orcs that managed to escape my notice and hide, they should be dead now.
“Nice work, Miss Lufas. All the girls that were being held in the orc nest are safe.”
“Yes, good job.”
Dina, who returned via teleportation magic, stood behind me as I thanked her for her work.
No, really, I can’t be thankful enough for her.
I left all the work of dealing with the orcs, preserving their meat, selling them, and even checking up on the women to her. Even though it was a game and there was nothing to be done about it, I wondered just how the “Lufas” before I became her managed to treat Dina as background.
She’s so capable it’s actually surprising.
“Ahh, right. I tried grilling one of these; would you like to try it? You’ve moved around a lot, so I think you might be hungry.”
“That is......”