Chương 6: Out with the Old, In with the New

```html Chapter Six Out with the Old, In with the New A few days later, another change appeared in the settlement. More precisely, a new development appeared within hide-and-seek. The game had originally been played only by children around Karath's age, between eight and eleven years old. For some reason, Chief Grild, who had been watching them play, suddenly issued an absurd order.

"Those approaching their coming-of-age ceremony will begin playing hide-and-seek from today onward!" From that day, two separate games of hide-and-seek took place in the settlement at the same time. On one side were the young orcs between eight and eleven. On the other were enormous adolescent orcs between twelve and fourteen, either undergoing their final stages of growth or already waiting for their coming-of-age ceremonies. Orcs matured more rapidly than humans.

Some began developing as early as eleven, though most did so around twelve or thirteen. By thirteen or fourteen, an orc could possess a body comparable to that of an adult male. They grew into the sort of hulking figures who could pat a massive action star on the head and call him adorable. To Karath's great misfortune, he was expected to serve as an experienced instructor and play hide-and-seek with those oversized older boys.

Their minds were more developed than those of the younger children, and their bodies had already become overwhelmingly powerful. What they played could no longer reasonably be called hide-and-seek. Violence was permitted in orcish hide-and-seek because Karath himself had created that rule. Unfortunately, if an eight-year-old Karath took a direct blow from one of those hulking adolescents, he might genuinely be sent into the afterlife.

His fighting technique was excellent, and he often battled boys of eleven or twelve, but hide-and-seek was an entirely different matter. Ambushes were permitted. If Karath lost focus for even a moment and one of the fully developed boys struck him from behind, he might be forcibly ferried across the river of death. Those innocent battle maniacs did not understand the concept of holding back. Fortunately, Karath did not need to worry about dying that day.

The thick vegetation that had painted the forest green in every direction was beginning to change. Few plants remained green throughout the year. One by one, the leaves of the monster-infested forest turned orange and red as cool winds began to blow. It was the day of the Harvest Festival, one of the few celebrations observed by the Bloodclaw Tribe. The entire settlement had been busy since early morning.

Every adult male orc who had completed the coming-of-age ceremony prepared to leave on a hunt for the offerings needed during the festival. Boom! Boom! Drums echoed through the settlement to announce the hunters' departure. Boom! Boom! Some orcs struck their chests in time with drums made by stretching animal hide over wooden frames. Boom! Boom! Others stamped their feet against the earth, sending tremors through the ground.

"Hua!"

"Huh!" As excitement gradually rose, some orcs released powerful shouts.

"Grrrr."

"Krah!" Others produced savage cries that sounded more like the voices of beasts. Scrape. Scrape. Click. Click. Some scraped branches together, while others struck pieces of wood against one another. All of those sounds blended together. Thump. Thump. The result carried an effect almost like sorcery. The strange rhythm made every orc's heart pound, as though the response had been engraved somewhere deep within the body of their race.

Even Karath, who still carried a human soul, found it difficult to suppress the violent pounding in his chest whenever he heard it. Before long, the eyes of the adult male orcs preparing to hunt were streaked with red. A strange scent of blood seemed to surround them, as though they were commanders marching toward a battlefield rather than hunters setting out in search of prey.

According to a story Karath had once heard from Delina, the song, or perhaps ritual, had been passed down among orc tribes since ancient times. Each tribe possessed slight variations, but the fundamental rhythm and cries remained largely the same. Its original name was Morning of Battle. Orcs had sung it before battle since ancient times. At some point, however, it had become something performed only on festival days. The song attracted far too much attention to be used casually.

Drawing attention inside the monster-infested forest was little different from committing suicide. Even so, the orcs valued tradition. Once each year, on the morning of the Harvest Festival, they willingly departed for the hunt while singing the ancient song. When Delina first explained it, Karath had wondered whether the orcs had once lived somewhere outside the monster-infested forest.

If they had been able to sing before every battle in ancient times, perhaps their ancestors had inhabited a place where attracting attention was not so dangerous. There was no way to learn the truth. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. None of the other orcs knew. Even Grandfather Jark, the oldest among them, had never heard stories reaching that far into the past. Soon, the Morning of Battle came to an end, and the male orcs left the settlement to hunt.

Some of the adult female orcs followed afterward, heading into the nearby forest to gather fruit, branches, and other materials for the festival. The remaining women stayed behind to decorate the settlement with the children. Karath should naturally have helped as one of those children. That day, however, presented an opportunity he could not waste. If he failed to act now, he would once again lose every following day to fighting and hide-and-seek. By early evening, the sky had turned orange.

The thick forest canopy made it difficult to see the sunset directly, but the changing light still reached the settlement. By then, an altar had been constructed in the center of the village. To Karath, it looked more like a campfire. Branches gathered that day had been arranged into a rough square frame, and the offering brought back by the hunters had been placed on top. The sacrifice consisted of meat taken from the largest creature caught by the twenty-one adult male orcs who had entered the forest.

The monster had stood nearly three meters tall and measured around five meters from its tail to its face. It possessed a strange appearance, with a lion-like head and a pair of wings. Its body was far too heavy to place on the wooden altar without crushing the entire structure, so only its most valuable parts had been cut away and offered. With meat roasting over the wooden frame, it was difficult to tell whether Karath was looking at a sacred altar or a barbecue over a campfire.

Once the meat began to cook, Aunt Garlik, the shaman of the Bloodclaw Tribe, approached the altar carrying her ritual staff. Karath still found it difficult to think of her as an aunt. He had heard that she belonged to the same generation as Gerina and was somewhere in her thirties, yet she looked far older than Grandfather Jark. Click. Click. While Karath considered her appearance, the sound of small wooden sticks striking one another began to spread through the gathering. Thrum. Thrum.

A low and gentle drumbeat followed.

"Haaa... huuuh..." Garlik moved her staff in time with the rhythm and produced a sound resembling a low hum. It was completely different from the Morning of Battle. The melody was quiet, yet it carried a strange power that drew the attention of everyone listening. Karath had never personally witnessed a traditional shamanic ritual on Earth, but he imagined it might have looked something like this. In truth, what Garlik performed was very similar to such a ritual. More precisely, it was sorcery.

The Harvest Festival was held every autumn. Despite its name, it was not truly a celebration of the harvest. Winter in that terrible wilderness was unimaginably harsh. The crude huts could barely resist the freezing winds that swept through the forest. Fruit and medicinal plants became even more difficult to find. Monsters and ordinary animals either entered hibernation or disappeared elsewhere, making prey increasingly scarce.

Even in an environment already defined by hardship, winter was the season during which the most orcs died. The Harvest Festival was therefore not a celebration of what had already been gathered. It was a ritual asking the heavens to provide enough food to survive the coming winter and praying that the cold would be slightly less severe.

"Tch..." Karath watched with a strange mixture of fascination and sorrow. As a modern man, an engineer, and a developer, he could not help feeling conflicted while watching people seek solutions through superstition.

"Hmmmm... hmmm..." Regardless of Karath's thoughts, Garlik's ritual continued. Then he noticed something strange. A faint haze seemed to escape with the shaman's breath. Between each stretch of humming, a pale mist leaked from her mouth. Each time it appeared, Garlik's already aged face seemed to grow older at a frightening speed. Karath wondered whether he was seeing an illusion. Perhaps the shadows cast by the evening light had deceived his eyes.

Before he could examine the phenomenon more closely, Garlik's humming came to an end.

"Haa... haa..." The ceremony had lasted only around ten minutes, yet Garlik appeared to have exhausted every trace of her strength. As she began breathing heavily, nearby orcs hurried forward to support her. Karath could not understand what he had just witnessed. It might have been an illusion, but the sight continued to trouble him.

"Waaaaah!" He did not have much time to dwell on it. The moment the ritual ended, children from across the settlement rushed toward the altar and began running around excitedly. In the end, it truly was a campfire. Karath smiled faintly as he watched them. People often claimed that few things were more entertaining than watching fire or a fight. Perhaps that was why the orcs, who loved fighting so much, also took enormous pleasure in playing with fire.

The only problem was that they could not safely light fires whenever they pleased in the middle of such a dangerous forest. Children were normally forbidden from playing with flames. Only on special days like this did the adults quietly allow it.

"Waaaaah!" Pretending to join the other children, Karath approached the campfire, or rather the altar, and casually picked up a burning stick.

"Waaaaah!" He ran around while waving it like a toy, carefully imitating the others. Once the adults stopped paying attention to him, Karath slipped toward a secluded corner of the village. Something he had secretly prepared throughout the day was waiting there. Fwoosh. Karath brought the burning stick close and began carefully heating the structure. He was almost finished with the work he had spent the entire day preparing when a familiar voice came from behind him.

"What are you doing?" It was Grandfather Jark.

"Huh? Grandfather?" Karath had believed he had slipped away without attracting attention. He turned in surprise, already worrying that another argument like the one over hide-and-seek was about to begin. Jark did not appear angry. The elder merely looked confused.

"Yes. What exactly are you doing?"

"This?" Karath shrugged lightly.

"Karath was trying to build a house." The object he had been heating with the burning stick was a model house. It was a miniature earthen home built from small stones, clay, and wooden sticks. Karath had spent the entire day constructing it in secret while avoiding the attention of the adults. He was now using the flames to harden the clay and complete the final stage.

"Keh heh heh. Is that not far too small to be a house?" Jark apparently concluded that Karath had merely been playing with mud. He laughed warmly and looked at the child with affection.

"It would be difficult to build a large house alone."

"Keh heh. Karath, a large house cannot be made from clay. The higher the walls rise, the heavier they become, and the clay will collapse beneath its own weight."

"Karath knows. That is why he is baking it with fire." Jark's expression changed. He had apparently assumed that Karath held the burning stick near the model simply to see better in the growing darkness.

"What difference would exposing clay to fire make?"

"Of course it makes a difference. Is that not how the pottery in the village is made?" Jark's eyes widened.

"If houses are made this way, they will block the wind more effectively, and their walls will be stronger." Recognizing his opportunity, Karath immediately continued explaining. The entire purpose of building the miniature house had been to persuade the adults. Spending winter in one of the settlement's miserable huts was madness. Creating soap had been the first goal Karath set after being born as an orc. Building better houses had become his first goal after surviving his first winter.

An eight-year-old child did not possess the strength required to construct an actual house. That left only two possibilities. He could wait until adulthood, or he could persuade the adults to build one. After enduring several winters in the forest, Karath had reached the conclusion that he might freeze to death before ever becoming an adult. That was why he had secretly created the miniature earthen house.

When persuading others, a tangible example was often far more effective than an impressive plan described only in words. It was a lesson Arnold had learned painfully through years of office work and through running a small game company of his own.

"Many children freeze to death every winter. Rather than praying for the cold to weaken, would it not be better to build houses capable of keeping it outside? And there is more." Karath continued explaining without pause while Jark stared at him in shock. Engineering students were often said to be poor presenters. To a certain extent, that stereotype had once applied to Arnold as well.

During his university years, he had cared only about development and had never considered presentation skills particularly important. Assignments requiring public presentations had always been his least favorite. Years of professional life had forcibly changed him. As the head of a small game company, Arnold had delivered countless presentations while trying to persuade investors. Karath would never boast openly about it, but his ability to convince others had become quite respectable.

"Ha... hahaha." Jark listened to the entire explanation without interrupting. Then, at some point, the elder began to laugh.

"Keh heh heh heh heh!" ```