Chương 13: Boar invasion

The Horn Boar invasion had left nearly half the settlement devastated. Every trap Karath and the children had built throughout the village had either been triggered or destroyed, and several of the earthen houses they had constructed with blood and sweat during autumn had been smashed apart. The orcs were far more delighted about acquiring a supply of food, namely roasted boar, than they were saddened by the loss of their homes.

Earthen houses required a large amount of labor, but they were not particularly difficult to build. In only a few days, the tribespeople successfully reconstructed every damaged house. There was a minor inconvenience during the repairs, as the orcs whose houses had collapsed needed to stay with other families for several days. Perhaps because the Bloodclaw Tribe was both a communal and clan-based society, no one objected to allowing the orcs next door to sleep inside their homes.

The children were the ones who enjoyed the arrangement most. They could talk and play with their friends not only from morning until evening, but even after going to bed. What greater pleasure could a child possibly desire? Naturally, the children continued making noise late into the night and received several painful lessons from the furious adults. Even that failed to correct some of the more troublesome children. A few of them began wondering how they might destroy another earthen house.

They had arrived at the insane conclusion that if a house collapsed, they would be allowed to sleep with their friends next door. Naturally, they were caught by the adult women while attempting to put that idea into practice and were beaten into the ground. While those minor incidents unfolded, winter rapidly passed over the Bloodclaw settlement. The bitter winds that had seemed to claw at exposed skin gradually weakened, and the beautiful white garbage that had covered the ground began to melt.

The weather remained cold, but every orc in the tribe could feel that spring had arrived.

"Kweeeeeengh!" Perhaps it was announcing the end of winter. Hearing the morning cry of a monster again after so long felt strangely familiar. The snow had only just begun to melt, however, and winter had not completely withdrawn. The air outside was still cold. Karath wanted nothing more than to rub himself against the ondol floor and enjoy the warmth remaining beneath it.

"Karaaath! Come plaaaay!" As usual, the children arrived outside his house early in the morning and mercilessly destroyed that desire.

"Haa..." Karath sighed inwardly and prepared to go outside. Preparing consisted of little more than rising from where he had been lying.

"Karath, you know the Prophecy Festival is approaching, do you not? Be careful while you play." Delina watched him with concern as he headed for the door. It was an unusual attitude for a mother who normally encouraged him to fight hard so that he could become a strong and courageous adult. Karath was about to turn nine. After living in this world for nearly nine years, he could more or less understand the reason for her behavior.

A festival would soon be held for the children reaching nine that year, including Karath. Strictly speaking, it was a day for divining the village's coming fortune and misfortune. Regardless, the adults did not look kindly upon any child who suffered an injury immediately before the day when the future would be foretold. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Expressed in Korean terms, they would consider such a child cursed with lifelong bad luck.

The members of a tribe who lived communally would naturally feel uncomfortable sharing their lives with someone believed to carry terrible fortune. Even in an orc settlement guided by the belief that children grew through fighting, everyone was expected to avoid injuries during this particular period.

"Karaaath!" Those were merely the wishes of the adults. The children who had spent their youth brawling and participating in Karath's survival games cared little about such things.

"Yes! Karath will be careful!" Karath had once been an engineering student who lived a life perfectly suited to a file titled Why Men Die Earlier. gif. He was not the sort of person who would become cautious merely because of superstition. The children gathered outside his home watched him with bright, eager eyes. They ranged from eight and nine-year-olds around Karath's age to fourteen-year-old boys approaching their coming-of-age ceremonies.

Apart from the youngest children who still required the care of adult women, nearly every child in the settlement had gathered. They were all excited to enjoy another game, or rather another training exercise, chosen by Karath. Throughout the winter, he had introduced the children to countless forms of training. After hide-and-seek came tag, cops and robbers, which they called hunters and prey, and several other games. Freeze tag would also have been entertaining.

Unfortunately, it was the one game Karath could never introduce to the tribe. Freeze tag was fundamentally similar to ordinary tag. After choosing the seeker, every other player ran desperately to avoid being caught. The difference was that being caught immediately ended a player's participation in ordinary tag. In freeze tag, a player could survive by shouting, "Freeze!" Anyone who shouted it was forbidden from moving. Another player could touch the frozen person and shout, "Thaw!"

allowing that player to move again. The seeker won by freezing everyone or catching them before they could shout. Since the other players could repeatedly free one another, the seeker suffered an overwhelming disadvantage. The true pleasure of the game therefore came from betrayal. A player could shout "Thaw!" directly in front of the seeker, freeing a friend only to offer that same friend as fresh prey.

Introducing a game in which betrayal was considered virtuous to a tribe whose members took pride in being descendants of warriors would be madness. Every orc in the settlement would undoubtedly beat Karath together.

"Yes! Karath is not the seeker!"

"Run! Hurry!" While Karath considered such matters, the children divided into groups by age and began their games. Until the day of the Prophecy Festival arrived, Karath spent each day enjoying violent games with the adorable young orcs. Approximately fifteen days later, Karath passed his birthday and became nine years old. The Prophecy Festival that had been discussed for the past two weeks had finally arrived.

Since this was not the Harvest Festival, the hunters did not depart in the morning while performing the Morning of Battle. Everyone merely began moving busily from early morning to prepare for the celebration. By the afternoon, the preparations were complete, and a small altar had been constructed in the center of the settlement. Its appearance differed from the altar used during the Harvest Festival. During the autumn ceremony, offerings had been presented while Garlik prayed for the tribe.

This ceremony was intended to divine fortune, misfortune, and the future. Instead of lighting a fire, the orcs placed several unidentified objects used for divination across the altar.

"Hueoooooh... hueoooooh..." The atmosphere still resembled a shamanic ritual. Accompanied by the strange music of the orc tradition, Aunt Garlik waved a wooden rod while continuing an incomprehensible hum. When the humming reached its climax, the same translucent white haze Karath had seen before emerged from the older woman's mouth. Karath looked around in confusion. No one else appeared concerned by the sight. Perhaps it was a normal part of the ritual.

Alternatively, perhaps Karath was the only one capable of seeing it. While he considered those possibilities, Garlik selected an appetizing fruit from among the objects on the altar.

"Oooooh!"

"This year will be favorable." The fruit represented good fortune among the objects used for divination. It did not represent the greatest possible fortune, but the result was still far from bad.

"Haa..." After divining the village's fortune for the coming year, Garlik sighed with exhaustion. She appeared to have aged several years during the ritual. Following a brief period of rest, it was time to foretell the futures of the children who had survived nine winters. Delina's hand tightened around Karath's shoulder. She was clearly nervous about the prophecy he would soon receive.

"Keh heh heh. You will become an excellent warrior of the Bloodclaw Tribe." Garlik continued announcing prophecies. Including Karath, seven children were turning nine that year. Four had already received their prophecies, but every result had been more or less the same. Excluding his infancy, Karath had witnessed this ceremony for approximately six years. The prophecies were always remarkably similar. He therefore focused less on their contents and more on Garlik herself.

The pale haze that appeared during the Harvest Festival and while she divined the village's fortune was no longer visible.

"Next." While Karath considered that difference, his turn arrived. As she had done with every other child, Garlik placed her right palm against his forehead and began humming while slowly shaking her head from side to side. Karath closed his eyes without much anticipation. Every prophecy he had heard until now had been nearly identical. For some reason, however, Garlik's humming continued much longer than it had for the previous children. Confused, Karath opened his eyes. Huuuuuu. Huuuuuu.

An enormous amount of pale energy was pouring from Garlik's mouth, far more intensely than anything Karath had witnessed before. At the same time, Garlik's face was aging at a terrifying speed.