Uh, guys? We still have a problem, right? Like, a really big, bothersome problem? I hate to rain on the party, but we’d better get to talking about that, yeah?
“Right, that’s enough,” I said. “So now that we have this alliance in place, we need to solve the largest problem facing us right now—the question of food supply. We have 150,000 surviving orcs here, and we need to keep them from starving to death. I’d like some ideas, please?”
The orcs had less than two weeks’ worth of provisions on them, overall. Now that the unique skill Ravenous was no longer doing its thing on them, they’d be well and truly dead once these supplies were exhausted. We had no time to raise crops for them, and we’d exhaust the river of fish if we tried going that route.
It was a real thorny issue. The lizardmen had enough supplies for ten thousand people to live off for half a year. Even if they cleared all their storehouses right this instant, it still wouldn’t keep the orcs going for more than a couple weeks. That meant our maximum time limit was just about a month.
So now what…?
Everyone in the tent turned their minds to the issue. Nobody seemed to be acting like it wasn’t their problem, which gladdened me a bit. Maybe this alliance would work out after all.
Then Treyni stepped up, smiling. “So the issue is a lack of food supply?” she asked. “In that case, I think I might be able to help. The treants that I help protect have agreed to join this alliance, and I think they might come in handy sooner than I thought.”
So they were interested, then? Well, great. And if they were that enthusiastic about handling the food issue, let them, I’d say. Not like we had any other great ideas.
With all our most pressing issues covered, we ended the conference.
And that was the day my name was first written down in the annals of history.
✦ ✦ ✦
The day our great alliance was formed was one which, I suppose, no monster would ever be able to forget. It was, after all, the day I decided that each and every one needed a name.
✦ ✦ ✦
Which, yes, I said I would, and I was super-cool about it.
But why were they counting on me to come up with all those names…? I mean, yeesh, a hundred-fifty thousand orcs alone. Insane. It took me three days to come up with five hundred goblin names, guys! I couldn’t imagine how long it’d take to handle this job.
I gave serious thought to simply up and running away this time, but I still had all those orcish crimes to gobble up for them.
Orcs were D-ranked monsters by nature, but they were more like C-plus while the orc lord was still influencing them. So basically, this was just a matter of me taking in the magicules lost to the air after Geld’s defeat and breathing them back into each one. That way, I could “name” them all without exhausting myself in the process.
The problem I had, though, was what the names should be. Simply going down the alphabet wouldn’t save me this time. Maybe I could divide them by race or start giving out last names or something, but managing all that would be even more of a hassle.
In the end, the solution I came up with was as simple as it was beautiful. The perfect series, one that I could extend for as long as necessary, all the way to infinity.
That’s right: Numbers. It was a little like assigning an ID number back in my home world, but damn, did it make things easier for me.
So I had all the orcs in the marsh stand in neat lines before me. I was worried they might resent being given such unfashionable names without any right to say no, but the magic they had lost could directly lead to their deaths. They might decide to take matters into their own hands if it came to that, and then the village raids would begin.
The cause of this confusion was the orcs’ numbers. There were too many, in other words, and naming them would help with that, too. Evolving into a higher-level monster would do a lot to lower their reproductive rate, something I saw for myself with the hobgobs.
Now was no time for me to moan about my responsibilities. As Benimaru said, they always had the right not to be named if they didn’t want to. I spread the word, since it’d certainly save me some time, but not a single one took me up on the offer. So much for that.
And so the ordeal began. I decided to start by assigning a basic sort of “tribal” name to each one. I devised ten of these: Mountain, Valley, Hill, Cavern, Ocean, River, Lake, Forest, Grassland, and Desert. If you were part of the Mountain tribe, your name would be along the lines of “Mountain-1M” if male, “Mountain-1F” if female, and we’d just go from there.
What about the generations to come, then? Like I gave a crap. The first son born among the Mountain tribe could be “Mountain-1-1M” for all I cared. Simple. Though maybe it’d be nice to offer enough leeway for middle names and real word–based titles. I had a feeling things might fall apart a bit if two orcs from different tribes had a kid, too. But, hell, let them worry about that. I didn’t care.
And so I consumed some magic lost from each orc and used it to name each one in succession. They were already lined up by tribe, males and females separated, so things actually went pretty quickly. It still took time, but I no longer had to think up fancy names, so at least it was efficient. Wherever each orc was among the lines they formed, those were their names. It didn’t matter to me how each orc related to the next. If they didn’t mind, I sure didn’t.
So we breezed along; I gave the names and one member from each tribe wrote them all down in a ledger, just in case anyone forgot their own. That turned out not to be a problem in the least—it was that special for them all to finally be granted a name of their own. Having part of someone’s soul infusing the name you’re given must make a lot of difference.
The naming process continued anon. Once I got in the swing of things, it took maybe five seconds per orc, although I still lost time here and there. It was going to take a grand total of ten days and ten nights to wrap it all up. I had the Sage to thank for letting me pull that feat off, but I had a feeling that I’d never want to look at a number again for a good while to come.