Chương 4: A New Game

Chapter Four A New Game Roughly half a year had passed since Karath's spectacular fighting debut. Life in the orc settlement, however, continued repeating itself like a wheel turning endlessly in the same place.

"Kweeeeegh!" Boom! The refreshing morning alarm that welcomed each new day was the roar of some distant monster, gently informing the entire settlement that its peaceful journey through the land of dreams had ended.

"Karath!" The moment Karath stepped outside his hut, children his age charged toward him with innocent smiles. Their fists and feet were already swinging. For the past six months, Karath's life had consisted almost entirely of eating, sleeping, and fighting. His determination to transform the settlement had accomplished very little. That did not mean he regretted the entire period. For the first month after his debut, fighting had been surprisingly enjoyable.

Arnold had been hopelessly uncoordinated in his former life, yet Karath's new body moved like that of a natural combat master. Discovering what he could accomplish with it had been genuinely exciting. The orcish rush, or perhaps simply an extreme surge of adrenaline, had also been dangerously intoxicating. For a time, Karath had become completely obsessed with battle. Enjoying it for a few days was one thing.

Spending half a year doing nothing except fighting was something a man raised in a civilized modern society could not easily accept. Karath wanted to put the endless brawling aside and begin working on something constructive. Unfortunately, the decision was not entirely his to make.

"Karath!"

"It is my turn this time!"

"Play with me too, Karath!" Nearly every child in the settlement was trying to charge at him. Children were innocent, but that innocence also made them honest about their desires. Whenever one child appeared special, the others naturally gathered around that child. As the strongest fighter among his peers, Karath had been forcibly turned into the most popular child in the village. He stared at the ridiculous sight of children forming a line for the privilege of fighting him.

At this rate, another entire day would disappear into nothing but brawling. The situation was becoming dangerous. If nothing changed, Karath might spend his entire orc life fighting other children without ever transforming the settlement. Before he could bring change to the village, he first needed to deal with the young orcs who challenged him every day. They needed something else to play. The greatest reason the children constantly attacked him was the complete absence of other entertainment.

The solution was simple. Karath needed to give the young orcs a new game. The following morning, Krog once again charged toward Karath with a bright smile and both fists clenched.

"Karaaath!"

"Wait!" This time, Karath firmly refused before Krog could throw the first punch.

"Why?" Krog tilted his head, looking genuinely confused about why Karath would refuse such an enjoyable game.

"Just wait for a moment." Rather than explain immediately, Karath decided to wait.

"Karath!" Krog was not the only troublesome child who would come running toward him. Explaining everything once to the entire group would be far easier than repeating the same explanation for each child.

"Everyone, wait!" The children, who had arrived expecting another joyful exchange of fists and flesh, all tilted their heads when Karath firmly rejected them. Their innocent confusion was unexpectedly adorable. Karath paused at that realization. He had just found a group of young orcs cute. Apparently, his sense of beauty was slowly beginning to fail him. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"I thought of an interesting game last night." Karath pushed aside his concerns about his deteriorating aesthetic judgment and addressed the children. If he delayed for too long, the impatient young orcs would inevitably begin swinging their fists.

"An interesting game?"

"Is it more fun than fighting?" The children's eyes widened at the promise of a new game. Karath responded with the polished business smile Arnold had learned during his years on Earth.

"Oooone!"

"Twoooo!"...

"Teeeeen!"

"I am coming to find you!" A young orc stood beside a large tree in one corner of the settlement. After counting to ten, the child turned around.

"Hmmm." He tilted his head and began searching for the other children. The first game Karath had introduced to the young orcs was hide-and-seek, something Arnold had often played with friends during his childhood on Earth. Karath would have preferred to make use of his professional experience and develop an actual game, but there was not even electricity in the settlement, much less a computer. He could theoretically create some form of tabletop role-playing game.

Expecting these impatient young orcs to sit quietly and enjoy it, however, would have been absurd. They needed a game that allowed them to run freely and release their abundant energy. Hide-and-seek was perfectly suited for that purpose. It also required no special tools. The children only needed to understand a few basic rules. Teaching them those rules had been an ordeal of its own. Karath watched the young seeker look around for his hidden companions and released a deep sigh.

The children were between eight and eleven years old, yet they did not even know how to count. Judging from the conversations among the adults, orcs were not inherently unintelligent. They simply lacked knowledge. The settlement was entirely focused on survival, so its children spent their days eating, sleeping, and fighting. In other words, the tribe was raising innocent and ignorant fighting machines.

Before Karath could even explain the rules, he had been forced to teach the children the numbers from one to ten by folding his fingers one at a time. Counting was not the only difficulty. Karath had tried to teach them a simple game to decide who would become the seeker. Since the children did not understand the concepts of scissors or paper, he had renamed the three signs finger, fist, and palm. The explanation had only created more confusion.

"Why does the fist defeat the finger?" Kaden, who was three years older than Karath, had asked the question with complete seriousness.

"Because when a finger collides with a fist, the finger hurts more."

"Huh? Then the finger only needs to become strong enough to break the fist." Kaden's solution had been thoroughly orcish. For a moment, Karath had been rendered speechless. While considering how to convince Kaden and the others, an equally orcish solution had entered Karath's mind. Breaking Kaden's finger with a punch would certainly end the argument. Karath hurriedly shook his head, trying to throw the disturbing idea out of his mind.

In the end, he had abandoned logical explanations and simply insisted that those were the rules. No matter how frustrating the discussion became, he could not break the fingers of innocent children merely to prove a point. Fortunately, the children trusted Karath. When he firmly declared that the rules were correct, they accepted them without further resistance. Only after explaining what the young orcs considered an incredibly complicated set of rules could the game finally begin.

"Now I can finally think in peace." Karath watched the seeker wander through the settlement in search of the hidden children and released a relieved breath. This was one of the reasons he had selected hide-and-seek from among countless possible games. The rules gave him an excuse to hide somewhere quiet and organize his thoughts. He settled into a secluded corner of the village and began considering how to improve the settlement's crude huts with the resources currently available.

One particular method seemed like the most practical option.

"Karath." A voice called his name from behind. Karath turned and found one of the tribe's elders, Grandfather Jark, standing there.

"Hello, Grandfather." Karath kept his voice as low as possible. The game was still underway, and he had not yet finished thinking. Jark did not appear pleased by the greeting. Ever since Karath had become known as a young prodigy, the elder had always looked at him with affection. The displeasure on Jark's face was therefore especially noticeable.

"Karath, what exactly are you doing?"

"What?"

"Krog told me about this game. He said it was your idea."

"Ah, yes." Jark's expression filled with anger and disappointment.

"We are orcs of the Bloodclaw Tribe, descendants of great warriors! Instead of standing proudly and fighting, you created a game where everyone hides. Have you lost your senses?" Karath was not surprised by the sudden reprimand. He had suspected something like this might happen. The adult orcs were unlikely to approve of a game built around hiding. Karath had introduced it anyway because he had already prepared an answer to that objection.

"Grandfather, please listen to me for a moment."

"Hmph. Speak." Jark had been glaring at him with clear dissatisfaction. When Karath met his gaze confidently, the elder released a rough breath through his nose and allowed him to explain.

"This is not merely a game."

"Oh? Then what is it? Training to help them hide and run away later?"

"No. It is the opposite. This is training that will help them catch prey more effectively."

"What?"

"As descendants of great warriors, we could never hide or flee from an enemy. Our prey does not follow the same rule. The animals the adults hunt every day do not walk toward the orcs and challenge them to a fair fight." Jark gave a reluctant nod.

"That is true." Karath pointed toward the child searching for the others.

"The seeker is training to locate hidden prey. The children who are hiding are learning how to approach prey without being noticed. They are practicing concealment and using cover." Jark fell silent and considered Karath's explanation. After a moment, the elder shook his head.

"They will learn those things naturally after completing the coming-of-age ceremony and beginning to hunt outside the settlement. There is no need to practice hiding and running away!" His response was as stubborn and old-fashioned as Karath had expected.

"But new hunters spend their first one or two years struggling to adapt, and most of them catch almost nothing." Karath continued before Jark could interrupt.

"I have been counting. Kugar completed his coming-of-age ceremony last year, but he only caught two animals during the entire year. As for the others..." Karath recited the number of animals each adult orc had brought back during the previous year. Jark stared at him in astonishment.

"You have been counting all of that?" That was only the beginning.

"Based on those numbers, shortening the adjustment period of new hunters by only half a year would increase the tribe's annual catch by at least thirty animals." It was the power of modern statistics. Admittedly, statistics had never been Arnold's specialty. Karath had merely used basic addition, multiplication, and division. Even so, the unending stream of numbers left Jark looking thoroughly confused, as though his mind had become partially disconnected from the conversation.

"And look over there." Karath decided to deliver one final argument while the elder was still struggling to recover. He pointed toward the seeker approaching the hiding place of another child. The instant the seeker discovered him, the hidden child burst from cover. Thud! His fist struck the seeker directly in the face.