Chương 15: Chapter 12 - Professionalism

A few hours later, a massive orc army finally arrived. The elves' expressions turned serious in an instant. Birds scattered from the trees overhead. The ground shook under the stampede, the whole forest's stillness shattering at once.

"Attack anyone you see! Spare no one!" an orc elder bellowed. One orc spotted a group of elves and struck immediately, a wind cutter slicing through the air. One elf reacted in time, a wooden wall rising to absorb the blow. Sarante answered with a thrown projectile, detonating into a fine poison mist that sent one of the orcs into a coughing fit almost instantly.

"It's Sarante..." the young orc managed, right before the poison started working through his system. The name rippled through the ranks. Several orcs stiffened at once, memories surfacing of exactly how the Bounty Hunter Association described him. Then the mist scattered—Geldo's doing, a single contemptuous flick of wind tearing it upward before it could spread further into their own ranks. By the time it cleared, the elves were already gone, vanished without a trace.

Outnumbered and outmatched by sheer scale, the elves had chosen retreat over a fight they couldn't win. A healer rushed to the poisoned orc, and within moments the young warrior's body flared with restored vitality; poison coughed clear from his system.

"Thank you," he said, breathless. Geldo stood motionless, gaze fixed somewhere in the distance, the permanent furrow between his brows the only sign he was thinking at all.

"Sarante..." he muttered.

"Quite the reputation these days, isn't he?" a voice beside him said—Roc, broad-faced and grinning before he'd even finished arriving.

"He is indeed. And you're late, Roc."

"Your presence was already enough," Roc said, smiling. Geldo studied him with the flat, patient look of a man who had spent decades waiting for Roc to stop being impulsive.

"That's unlike you. I figured you'd be itching to fight someone with a name like his." Roc clapped him on the shoulder—the same easy, unthinking gesture he'd probably used since they were both green recruits—and turned to bark orders.

"Set up a temporary base. We'll wait here until the door opens." The orcs got to work, settling in to wait out the days ahead. Dendron watched it all unfold. The sheer number of orcs was staggering. The Black Ape numbers were considerable too, though nowhere near as many, stronger individually, if not in raw count. It came down to quality versus quantity. The orcs answered to just two elders, both Rank 2 Peak Stage, commanding the entire army between them....

The goblins watched the orcs take control of the area and felt whatever hope they'd had slip away.

"Shame, but it makes sense. This spot was always too close to their territory," one of them sighed. They'd known the odds were thin going in. With nothing left to gain, they turned and started the long walk home.... A day later, the Lizardmen found the northern outpost and erased it. No warning passed between them, only two fingers raised, then lowered. The sentry never got the horn to his lips. A spear caught him mid-breath, silent, and his skull cracked open before the sound could leave him.

At nearly the same instant, shadows burst from the reeds on every side. Blades clamped over mouths. Spears found throats. A guard woke just long enough to see a scaled face inches from his own before a blade slipped beneath his jaw. Another reached for his weapon. He never got it free. Every sleeping guard had already been assigned a killer before the assault even began. It took only a few minutes. It wasn't a battle. It was an execution.

The captain made his way along the length of the silent outpost, unhurried, stopping after each step to look at some sign—a broken weapon, dislodged earth, an open door. His warriors had already begun to search the bodies, ensuring that no one had been faking death. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Report."

"Three sentinels on the north wall. Dead."

"Four in the east hut."

"Dead."

"Two around the west fire."

"Dead." The captain nodded once and kept moving forward. No celebration. No bragging. Not even any relief. They had just done their job. The captain crouched beside the extinguished campfire. Still warm.

"They haven't held this place long," he muttered.

"Captain, we've got one of the orcs alive, for questioning."

"Why are you here?" the orc managed, once he was dragged forward.

"Isn't your tribe's territory far from this place?"

"Before I entertain your question, answer mine first," the captain said.

"How many of you are stationed here?"

"Hundreds. Elders included." The orc didn't bother lying. The captain had heard enough condemned men lie before. This wasn't that voice.

"Hundreds, huh." He nodded slowly, then raised a hand in dismissal.

"An honest answer earns an honorable death." The orc's face shifted.

"So you're going to let me live?" The captain shook his head.

"No." He walked closer.

"I am allowing you to die without fooling yourself." The orc looked at him for a moment.

"That's fair." The captain raised one hand. Thunk. The spear hit from behind. The orc fell silent. The cleanup began at once, footprints swept away, bodies gathered, the ground smoothed back until the outpost looked all but untouched. One young warrior lingered a moment too long over a corpse.

"Leave no thoughts on the battlefield," the captain said, without looking up.

"Yes, Captain." The warrior lowered his head and went back to work.

"Move. We've got what we came for," the captain added.

"The Black Ape Tribe's probably still biding their time out there. That patience is exactly why they've stayed strong." The lizardmen finished and vanished shortly after, leaving nothing behind....

"Efficient bastards," Dendron muttered, and meant it as a compliment. But, even as he considered it, something else stirred beneath the admiration. Loneliness. The lizardmen were creatures of this world, born into it and molded by it. They moved through the violence as if it were just another language, one they'd known since birth. Dendron was still just a man pretending to be a tree, a monster, or whatever he needed to be to survive.

"I wonder if it gets easier," he remarked to the wind.

"Or if I just get better at lying to myself." The wind didn't respond. It never did. He observed where the lizardmen had vanished, their footsteps already faded from the soft earth. He'd watched the whole thing unfold, his improved vision letting him take in far more than he'd ever managed before.

"They don't feel guilt," he explained.

"Or maybe they do. Maybe they're just better at hiding it." He wasn't sure which answer scared him more. Different species, he noticed, fought in entirely different ways, shaped by whatever it took to survive out here. Orcs relied on numbers and raw force. Black Apes on patience and caution. Lizardmen on discipline and precision. Strength alone, he realized, clearly wasn't enough to survive in this world.

Every truly powerful tribe carried something beyond raw power, a philosophy, a way of thinking honed across generations of staying alive. Maybe that was the real line separating the great tribes from the merely strong ones.

"Lizardmen, huh. I always wanted to see real fantasy creatures up close." Even so, watching them work made him feel distinctly small. Ascension or not, he was still weaker than most of the warriors in these tribes. Even the unremarkable ones always seemed to have a handful of standouts carrying the rest. He replayed the lizard captain's calm, commanding presence, and admired it a little. When that spear had flown true, all he'd managed to think was Elegant. He hated that it was the first word that came to mind....

A few hours later, the news reached the orc camp.

"Elder, the northern outpost's gone dark. Every orc stationed there, vanished. No signs of how, and the place is far too clean."

"Assassins, then, or someone strong enough to keep them from ever reaching the horn." Roc muttered, turning it over.

"I got too comfortable relying on that horn. Should've seen this coming."

"Change of plan," he said.

"Pull the outer posts in closer. Safety first."

"Yes, sir." The warrior relayed the order down the ranks at once. An older voice spoke up beside him.

"Any idea who did it?"

"None," Roc admitted.

"Could be anyone with a grudge, or just an enemy we haven't met yet. We're sitting right in the middle of everything happening here."

"Could it be the Black Ape Tribe? Suspicious that they haven't made a move."

"Maybe. But my gut says it isn't them." He decided he needed to see the site himself, and followed his own order down to the scene in person. The place was clean. Too clean. Roc combed through the area methodically, pausing at intervals to check the ground for anything out of place. He thought of the warriors who'd died there and stood in silence for a moment. No bodies remained, and yet he knew exactly where each of them had fallen. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again with a slow breath.

"They fulfilled their duty." It was the only comfort he had to offer, even if there was no one left to hear it.

"Is there really nothing?" he finally asked one of the investigators.

"To be precise, blood—underneath the soil. Probably soaked in when it splattered. Beyond that, nothing. No bodies, no wreckage, no footprints. Though there are a few wet patches, we're guessing a water attribute was used to clean the whole scene." Roc remained silent for a long time.

"Names?" The investigator stuttered, "We've found most of them."

"Read them."

"Elder?"

"Read them." The investigator gulped and started reading. One by one the names were read and all the time, Roc kept silent. When it was finally over, he lowered his head.

"They were good warriors."

"Yes." Roc looked down at the empty ground below him.

"Make sure their families know how they died."

"Yes."

"And do not tell them it was quick." The investigator had a look of confusion. Roc frowned, "Since we don't know, let us not make up a lie that would be soothing." And with that, he walked away.

"They deserve the truth."... Dendron felt something twist in him, watching Roc stand over ground that held no bodies at all, mourning warriors he couldn't even point to. He wondered, briefly, whether anyone back home had said something like that over him. Probably not. He hadn't exactly given anyone reason to.

"Focus," he told himself.

"Not your funeral to grieve." Still, it stuck with him longer than he wanted it to. There was something about watching an entire army treat its dead with more ceremony than he'd ever gotten in his old life, quiet, deliberate, a whole ritual built around loss, that made the whole ordeal feel less like background noise and more like a preview. Torou hadn't even reached the door yet.

Whatever waited on the other side, it had already killed enough reconnaissance-minded fools that an army this size was treating the crossing itself like a funeral rehearsal.

"Cameraman," he thought, not joking this time, "you'd better be as careful as you are annoying."