Orc Eiyuu Monogatari Sontaku Retsuden

And there they were, Bash and Zell, with puzzled faces.

Outside the cave, the sky was blue. Apart from the occasional sound of the wind, everything was calm. The dragon was visible in the distance for a while but soon disappeared into the horizon. There were no signs of its return.

“What does all this mean?” It was Bash who spoke those words. He didn’t ask Zell; he just couldn’t help but say it about the strange event that had just occurred.

“Oh, well… right. Huh? Let’s see. I think I’ve heard a legend that says dragons can transform into humans. When the dragon realized it couldn’t win against you, Mister, it quickly disguised itself and deceived you into thinking it was a human, and then it managed to escape.”

This was almost the same as what Bash had thought.

“Why didn’t it kill me?”

“The dragon understood your words. It was listening to what you were saying, Mister, and I think it got interested in the word ‘honor’ towards the end. Even the last word sounded like ‘honor’. It sounded like it were saying something like, ‘I will protect your honor.’ So, as the person who cornered it was a first-rate warrior, the dragon respected your honor and let you live… wait? Would a dragon do that? Really!?”

“I see. So, dragons are creatures that value honor too.”

The dragon boredly listened to Bash’s story from beginning to end. But it wasn’t that it wasn’t listening.

“…”

Neither of them knew the truth. But the beautiful woman who had been there a moment ago was already gone, and so was the dragon. All that stretched before them were the cold mountains and the blue sky. Bash couldn’t get his beautiful wife, nor the honor of being a dragon slayer, nor anything else. That was reality.

“Haaa…” Without realizing it, a sigh escaped Bash’s mouth. A sense of exhaustion overwhelmed the relief of having survived the dragon’s threat, and a feeling of hopelessness seized his whole body. He had come all the way to the far north, to the deepest snow and ice of the mountains, marched up the mountain, fought against a dragon, failed to notice the dragon disguised as a woman, foolishly tried to seduce it, but it escaped. He gained nothing. What the hell had he been doing?

Even being Bash, his whole body felt tired with a sense of exhaustion.

“What do we do now, Mister?”

“Now?” Bash was quite anxious to hear that question. He had gathered information and came here for better or worse. Starting from human cities, elves, dwarves, beastmen, succubi, and demons. There were no more people around here. There was nowhere else to go.

“We have no choice but to go back.”

“It… it’s true! Fortunately, the dragon is unlikely to return to this area anytime soon, so I suppose we should go back and report to the demons.”

Bash thought about it. He wondered if going back to Fortress Gije… would demons really be attracted to him? Sequence told him he could do whatever he wanted with the women in the team that went to kill the dragon. But there were no survivors. They didn’t thoroughly search the cave… but the dragon wasn’t a dumb lizard. It was a cunning serpent that disguised itself as a human and deceived people. If there had been other survivors, it wouldn’t have had difficulty finding them, and if the dragon had deliberately kept anyone alive, there would have been no need to become human.

Sequence didn’t allow him to keep anyone other than his daughter and her subordinates. If that was the case, he would have to go back to Fortress Gije and start from scratch to woo the demons. Considering if that would work, based on his previous experience and the temperament of the demon women…

“No, I don’t think a demon woman will be my wife because I’m an orc.”

“Then what will you do? Go to the land of the ogres? Or go back to the Beastmen? You won’t go with the Lizardmen or the Harpies, right?”

“Right…” Bash thought. Where should he go? He had left the land of the orcs, traveled to many different countries, met many different women, and had been rejected.

Where should he go to get what he wanted? Bash had no idea. Orcs were not known for being thinkers.

He tried to remember what he used to do on the battlefield in the past… but he couldn’t find any similar cases. In the past, once a battle was over, he could move on to the next one. When he had no idea, someone would come up with something and give him an order. There was never a moment when he was alone and not directed on what to do next.

Then Bash remembered: “No.” There was indeed a moment when he thought and acted on his own. It wasn’t on the battlefield… but he had a guideline at that moment. When he realized it, he reached a conclusion.

“Let’s go back to human lands.”

When Bash left the orc country, he decided to take a Human as his wife and went to Krassel. Why? Because he thought a human would be better.

So, he should go back. Bash also learned many things through his travels. In the human country, he learned about other races’ perspectives on love; in the elven country, how to confess; in the dwarf country, the art of flirting; and in the land of the beastmen, the importance of dressing up and dating. Fighting was an accumulation of experiences. Just as some combat techniques that were familiar to elves were also familiar to beastmen, what he had learned so far would surely be effective in his dealings with other races.

Then he could challenge humans again. At least he should have more hope than with demons.

“I’ve come this far, so I suppose I should. I think it’s for the best. There was a human enclave in the southeast, I think. Maybe we should head there for now.”

His policy had been decided.

“Alright, then let’s go.”

“Yes!”

Once the decision was made, it was swift. Bash and Zell nodded to each other and began to descend the mountain.