That, at long last, stirred the orc lord to action. Did he want to help Gelmud? Well, all right. He was free to do whatever. I promised Treyni that I’d take him out anyway. It looked, externally speaking, that he was little more than Gelmud’s puppet, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t like picking off the guy behind the scenes was gonna neatly end all of this.
I had no reason to hate this orc. But that didn’t mean I could let him live.
Watching him as he closed the distance between us, I gauged the situation. None of this felt threatening in the least. I couldn’t estimate his magic stores since I hadn’t made physical contact with him yet, but I figured it wouldn’t be too far from Benimaru’s. And that was still around half of Ifrit’s. If I gave this a serious effort, it shouldn’t be too tricky. My main concern was what would happen once all these orcish soldiers were leaderless.
“Well, it’s about time you stood up, you good-for-nothing idiot. Ha-ha-ha! I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re about to get a taste of real strength! Get him, Geld! Show him what it means to defy me and—”
With a wet, squishy-sounding thud, Gelmud’s order was cut off mid-sentence. His head rolled along the saturated ground a few feet. The orc lord had done a marvelous, if somewhat forceful, job of chopping it right off his shoulders.
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Crunch, splish, splorch.
✦ ✦ ✦
Ugh, gross… He’s eating the dude.
The orc lord, upon walking up to Gelmud, had not hesitated a moment in using his meat cleaver–like weapon to decapitate the man. Once that was done, he started to slash away, carving the body into small, bite-size pieces that he immediately hurled into his mouth. It was a low-born, pathetic, and all-too-suitable ending for Gelmud.
So this pig-guy wanted him dead, too, huh? Or was this his orcish instincts at work? Either way, it wasn’t exactly great news for me. The dull, yellow eyes now had the glint of youth and intelligence to them. He had regained his sentience, something he had once lost to the power he gained from all the different races he had tasted. I wasn’t anticipating this… Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.
The resulting aura was like nothing I had experienced so far today.
✦ ✦ ✦
Confirmed. The orc lord’s magical energy has expanded in quantity. He has begun the evolution process to a demon lord seed… Evolution complete. The individual Geld has completed the evolution to an Orc Disaster.
✦ ✦ ✦
Ooooh… That was the World Language talking, wasn’t it? Neat.
Wait. Stay focused, man. He’s really done it now. There I was, figuring I could whip him anytime I wanted, and now look. Cut me a break, man.
This was completely my fault. I knew I shouldn’t have gotten so cocky. Gelmud was so much weaker than I anticipated, and I figured killing the main guy behind all this would wrap everything up, neat and clean. Boy, was I wrong. Too bad I didn’t kill him when I had the chance.
Okay, new rule from now on. When you can kill a guy, just do it. I’d have to keep that in mind. No point making mistakes if you never learned anything from them, after all.
But getting back to the point. What should I do with this guy? I couldn’t stew in my own juices forever. He’s gonna have to be taken down, one way or the other.
✦ ✦ ✦
Things were now moving along by themselves, regardless of what I thought. Reality wasn’t willing to wait for me.
“Graaarrrgh!! I am an Orc Disaster, the devourer of all! My name is Geld— Geld, the demon lord!!”
To Geld, I suppose, he was just bringing to fruition what Gelmud wanted for him this whole time. Gelmud wanted him to become a demon lord, and he simply selected the quickest way to evolve into one. Just as Gelmud wanted. No servant could have been more loyal to his master, and I sadly didn’t notice that in time. All I could do there was groan out “What a monster…”
His eyes were now youthful, full of sparkling energy and intelligence. His mere presence was intense, severe, on a scale like nothing Gelmud had ever achieved.
This was a demon lord. A monster whose magic energy had multiplied into something almost overwhelming. He certainly deserved the title. The World Language suggested this was a demon lord seed, too—the real evolution had yet to happen, maybe?
I better kill him right now, I realized, or else he really would become a disaster for the world.
✦ ✦ ✦
