WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

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◈ Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint

Chapter 488

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Ende's Spring - 1

"The Magician. Who in the world is he."

The old orc let out a heavy sigh. In better days, his spirited subordinates would have swarmed over to say it was nothing, that they would go kill the bastard right now. But after everything they had suffered blow after blow, the orcs' confidence had taken a serious hit.

The old orc muttered with a bitter face.

"The 'Fang' we had is broken. The godmothers who gave Orcma such solid backing are cowering in fear. The rank-and-file members are slipping away one by one. Not from the Magician, from our own Orcma. Hmph. We're a laughingstock now. Nobody fears us anymore. I went out to the street today and some bastard at the butcher's shop was hollering at the top of his lungs that he was selling pork. Said that because of us, he'd had to turn it all into sausages and stash it in the storeroom."

"Which bastard? I'll go kill him!"

"That's the problem. We can't."

The old orc answered with a self-mocking look as the young orc leaped up in fury.

"We laid a hand on Sapien of Oberli. Even if we were tricked by the Magician's scheming, it's a painful blunder we can't take back. The security forces now see Orcma as a dangerous organization. They eye every pig-kin with suspicion and are ready to lock someone up the moment any trouble starts."

"That was the same as always!"

"No it wasn't. Before, they didn't even register us. We weren't treated as the same as human beings."

No matter how numerous the pig-kin were, no matter how well Orcma hid, there were limits. If they had been stronger than Ende's public authority, they would have built a city of their own.

Orcma had only ever lurked within the crowd and acted for pig-kin interests. The moment things escalated and Oberli moved to respond, their shrinking was a foregone conclusion.

"Those Oberli bastards, who never cared about Ende's public order any other day, going around arresting everyone because one of their officials got attacked!"

"The Magician's scheming, most likely. Damn it all. Just what kind of person is he... The way he moves, he seems to know Ende's inner workings well. Maybe he's been here ten years or so."

"Then why did someone like that start moving right now of all times! There has to be a reason. A reason for all of this!"

In truth, the Magician had arrived in Ende less than a month ago and was acting on the extremely simple reason that he disliked being nagged. But the orcs, who had no way of knowing any of that, went looking for other reasons.

"There is something that comes to mind."

All eyes turned to the old orc. He rose slowly from his seat and spoke.

"Gruel of the Beast Faction. Everyone knows him, I trust."

A complicated silence settled over Orcma's leadership.

Not all pig-kin are the same kind of comrades. Some belong to the order called Ende and live in peace; others, like Orcma, nurse resentment and move in the shadows. But even that is a story that unfolds within Ende.

The Beast Faction are the wild ones who live on the harsh ground of the Enger Plain.

The Enger Plain is blessed land, for humans and beasts alike. Rich soil gives rise to dense growth, and the herbivores that graze on it put on plump flesh.

Then come the beasts that hunt other beasts. They must wage endless battle against other predators seeking to claim this land and its prey, and against prey that does not yield easily. Whether they die of old age or die of weakness, they die, one way or another.

The Beast Faction survived there.

They cultivated a civilization of their own, they use a written language, wear clothes, build houses. But compared to ordinary humans, these things take up less than half their lives. Most of the time, the Beast Faction are struggling simply to stay alive.

After energy techniques were passed down, that struggle came to include energy practice as well. The Beast Faction learned and used energy to survive. Evolved in an entirely independent direction, their energy techniques produced a miracle.

The orc who touched reason, Gruel. The glory of pig-kin.

"The fight against the King of Wolves is about to unfold. It seems he will be joining that fight as well."

"I had heard he was afraid of the Beast King."

"Word appears to have reached him that there is a King of Dogs on our side. And the boy who brought the King of Dogs is said to be a powerful being in his own right, a match for the Beast King. That seems to have had some influence. We, causing trouble as fellow pig-kin, must have been a thorn in his side."

The old orc let slip what seemed to be Oberli's secrets, gleaned somewhere along the way.

Shei was not particularly careful, but she disliked inconvenience. So when she visited Oberli, she had given firm instructions that matters related to the King of Dogs were to be kept confidential. If the dog-kin who recognized Azzy came swarming in, it would be a nuisance.

Ende's market keeper Triber had kept the secret diligently enough in his own way, but regrettably, the secret he was trying to conceal had seeped all the way down to the lowest corners of Ende.

The orcs who heard this flared their broad nostrils.

"Hmph. If Gruel has come, pig-kin will have a major role to play in this fight."

The glory of pig-kin standing as Ende's vanguard was undoubtedly welcome news. And yet the pig-kin could not receive that glory without reservation.

Because..."But the problem is that pig-kin isn't 'us.' Combat sage Gruel has no interest in pig-kin rights!"

The glory of one individual is not the glory of a species.

Where there is light there is shadow, and the dragon that grew up in the gutter looked down on the place that had birthed it. The ones who felt the most savage hatred toward that dragon were the gutter creatures who watched their kin ascend alone.

"He is arrogant! All he does is spout nonsense about how pig-kin who are looked down on simply lack effort!"

"Touching reason is something even the celebrated genius Sapien could not do! He acts as though something whose very existence is a miracle is something anyone can achieve!"

"He tells us to train instead of whining, so if he comes, will he actually help us? He'll ignore us and climb up to Oberli and get the same treatment as any other official! He won't even need to cut off his ears and tail. Energy that has touched reason is its own qualification!"

They felt inferiority toward humans, but toward Gruel they felt betrayal on top of it. Like a loach doused in salt, a violent and painful reaction shook the pig-kin. Only after a fit of emotion bordering on a convulsion did the old orc open his mouth.

"Even so. He is our kinsman. That is a fact that does not change."

It was true. The glory of pig-kin had brought genuine glory. Since Gruel's appearance, every claim that pig-kin were ignorant or base or lacked intelligence had vanished entirely. From Oberli's officials to the most powerful unit bearing the name Obelisks, all were conscious of him.

A level of mastery beyond even the Obelisks, who held sway over Ende like kings. A single peak that training and effort alone could not reach, that only talent and luck stacked together could touch, and a pig-kin stood there. To feel inferiority toward them, those two were too remarkable as energy practitioners.

"The Obelisks only arrested our Orcma members and locked them up rather than doing worse because they're conscious of him too. They probably wanted to cage the troublemakers before Gruel officially joined Ende. First Fang Urukpaing and some of the other members are apparently getting along fine enough in Oberli's prison."

"Even Oberli's prison is still a prison, isn't it?"

"Each cell there is wider than your house. Hmph, they probably won't give one orc an entire room. But it shows they're being somewhat considerate because of Gruel."

Once again, the old orc shared information he had picked up somewhere. Several of the young orcs who heard it made complicated expressions.

"We'll be fighting the King of Wolves soon. It's something that requires everyone in Ende to combine their strength. In particular, our numbers, we orcs are the most numerous, are absolutely essential. Ende will come to us asking for help, asking us to die in their place."

"But the fight is something we need as well. If the wolf pack roaming the Enger Plain sweeps through, our orcs won't come out unscathed either."

"If we're going to risk our lives anyway, we have to get everything we can out of it!"

"Gruel will be the one fighting, and he won't do a single thing we want done! Fair treatment? Equal opportunity? Gruel doesn't care about any of that!"

"This time we have to step up ourselves and settle things directly. If we don't win it with our own hands, Ende will go back to the way it was."

But the foundation for doing so had been destroyed.

Orcma had been gradually expanding its influence. Hiding in anonymity, backed by the support of countless pig-kin, it had been on the verge of surging into a genuine power. If Orcma had remained intact, Oberli would have come to the negotiating table, if only to secure their help against the King of Wolves.

But now that secretive, vast organization had been broken. Not by Oberli, not by the King of Wolves, but by a single human.

"If it weren't for the Magician, we wouldn't have needed to go on hiding like this."

"Hiding is why nothing works."

An orc who had been listening in silence from a corner sprang to her feet. Now, with everyone gone quiet, was the only opening she was going to get. Tila, a young orc woman brimming with idealism, made her appeal earnestly to the others.

"Let's go out into the streets! Gather everyone we have left and march on Oberli!"

"March?"

"That's right. A march. We have to make our intentions known. But working in the shadows will take an eternity and get us nowhere. If we don't speak directly, our voice won't reach anyone. At least once, we need to make ourselves heard not only to Oberli but to everyone in Ende!"

Marching, demonstrating, this pig-kin had been making unrealistic proposals like this every day. As they always did, the other pig-kin turned on her with scorn.

"Hmph! Tila, you fool. A march? Are you asking the security forces and the Obelisks to come arrest us openly? A thousand people gathered together would all be subdued and rolling in the dirt within two hours!"

"But that would earn us the resentment of over ten thousand people. If they suppress voices demanding fair treatment even while the King of Wolves is bearing down on them, nothing will be able to justify their actions!"

"Do they need to be justified? Their opponents are the powerful of Oberli, who hold all the strength and authority. They'll just crush us by force, that's all!"

"Gruel will help us!"

This time, his name landed a little differently.

Gruel was Beast Faction. He had lived through survival of the fittest on merciless wild terrain. That was why he looked down on the pig-kin who dwelled in Ende and fed on its scraps.

"I think Gruel is right. If you don't act, you get nothing. Of course, it would be ideal if that were strength earned through grueling effort. But unfortunately, we haven't even been given the conditions to make that effort."

But that did not mean Gruel was truly cold-hearted.

If he were truly cold-hearted, he would have pursued personal glory alone instead of gathering the wild people of the Enger Plain and building a force among them. He would have become one of Ende's powerful rather than a guardian of the Beast Faction and lorded over them.

"We are making a demand. Give us even the chance to make effort. If we have the chance to eat, learn, and grow, we too can reach new ground, just as Gruel did."

So he would look down on pig-kin, but he would not turn a blind eye to them. With eyes that were quite political and yet full of longing, the young orc sang of a dream.

"Gruel did it. I don't think Gruel is special but one of a kind. Pig-kin have potential! Just as spring comes after winter passes, spring will come for us orcs too, after enduring such hard times!"

Unrealistic, fanciful, sweet as a drug.

But Orcma, beaten so badly by the Magician, needed whatever drug it could get.

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