Chapter 9: Escaping the Orc

Chapter 9: Chapter 9: Escaping the Orc

’What the hell? Again?!’

Of course, it wasn’t enough that he had encountered potential enemies. Now he was facing a real enemy.

Hidden away, hugging his backpack and breathing heavily, he looked toward the canopy of trees. The heavy footsteps of the monster reverberated through the forest as leaves fell onto the damp ground.

Victor broke out in a cold sweat, clinging to every possibility of survival. Right then, he heard a guttural breathing that rasped through the air. The orc had stopped near the tree where Victor was hiding.

’Just go away, you damn monster. I have nothing for you.’

No matter how badly he wished for it, that wasn’t going to happen. And so, the longest seconds of his entire life passed. The silence was deathly, occasionally interrupted by the creature’s breathing, but then, all of a sudden, it stopped.

Nervous to his very core, Victor cautiously peeked his head over the branch. He frowned and immediately ducked back into his original position.

’Damn it...’

Even through the darkness and the faint glow from the crack that gave him some visibility at night, he could see it.

It was a horrifying creature, something straight out of a horror movie: a tall, bulky beast with disproportionate, deformed limbs. One of its arms was larger than the other, and its fist was even bigger, like a wrecking ball.

Those long feet were similarly disproportionate, and its face was what disgusted Victor the most.

Its head was quite large, with a huge mouth full of rotten teeth and a long tongue dripping black saliva. A single, enormous eyebrow, resembling a tumor, sat above its bulging eyes, while its smaller hand held a rusty sword.

’I’m sure those damn gods are having a blast watching what I’m going through.’

And that frustrated him to no end, but there was nothing he could do except hide and wait until the creature left. That’s what he did for the next hour: trying to breathe as little as possible and praying to his luck that nothing bad would happen.

Seconds turned into endless minutes that eventually became hours. The waiting was maddening, ironically enough, and Victor was beginning to worry.

’When the hell are you going to leave?! There are plenty of other idiots besides me! Go after them!’

If the beast wasn’t going to leave, Victor would have to find a way to escape from it, but the real question was: how? Based on what he had smelled and heard, the orc was extremely fast.

With everything Victor was carrying on his back, he’d be far too slow to even attempt to outrun the monster. So what? What was he supposed to do? What if that bastard never left?

Only a few hours had passed. Victor found it impossible that the orc hadn’t moved from the spot. Then he heard something else. It was snoring, the beast’s snoring after it had dropped to the ground with a powerful thud.

Victor peeked out once more. Right beneath the tree, the orc lay sleeping. He looked in the other directions, and it didn’t seem like anything else was lurking nearby. Besides, he couldn’t smell anything different other than the beast’s foul stench.

’Did it fall asleep? Just like that? No, this is good. Now I can escape!’

There were many problems, however. He didn’t know the strengths and weaknesses of this strange mutant orc. What if it was sensitive to movement? Or sound? The slightest scrape against the wood could wake it up.

Damn, Victor was trapped. This wasn’t even comparable to escaping from a bear. Well, he’d never escaped from a bear before, but the simple comparison felt like the best simulation of what his escape would be like.

’I don’t think I’m in any condition to escape from this bastard. What do I do? If I climb down the tree, I’ll make noise, and he’ll be right next to me when that happens.’

With his hand very close to his knife, he briefly considered killing the orc in its sleep, but he almost laughed at how stupid the thought was. This little knife wouldn’t be able to pierce such a colossus!

Just when he thought he had no options, he caught the soft scent of Ayax’s little companion nearby. He raised his gaze to see if he could find it, and then the scent of strawberries appeared nearby as well.

’No way. They’re approaching fast. Why? Even those two are here,’ Victor thought.

Along with the other scents, the twins surrounded the area. A second later, an arrow whistled through the air, and defenseless against any attack, Victor’s eyes widened when an arrow buried itself in the wood right beside his face.

He turned around on pure instinct, only to find a piece of cloth tied to the arrow. He then looked to see if the noise had alerted the orc, but the big guy was still sleeping peacefully.

Hesitantly, he took the arrow and untied the piece of cloth. When he examined it closely, he found a single sentence written in blood.

[Water falls like rain, and rabbits run to their burrows.]

’Run to its burrow... It’s not my language, but I can understand it,’ he thought. He looked in the direction the arrow had been fired from. ’They... are they going to help me?’

Would those adventurers really be capable of committing such stupidity just to save a stranger? It almost seemed like an irony of life, considering that Victor had been calling them enemies earlier and had even been thinking about how to kill them.

Now they were about to save him.