As the orc slithered down the cliff, shocked by a kick to the side, the group at the fire rushed to their feet in a panic.
“She threw our brother down; kill the bitch!”
At the behest of the one who appeared to be the leader of the community, ten orcs savagely attacked Nafız.
“Stop! We’ll go our way, and you go yours.”
Although Alyon has not been very merciful about the death of the orcs to this day, on principle, he did not want his kin to lose their lives in vain.
“Shut up! My brothers, kill that gorilla first, and then you can take turns tasting the female orc!”
Fueled by their leader’s words, the orcs increased their speed, while Nafız hid behind Alyon with the air of a delicate maiden.
“Brave Knight, do not leave a young girl like me in the hands of these oppressors. My hero, please protect me!”
Alyon laughed at her friend’s actions while waiting for the attackers to arrive. When the orc slapped him, foaming at his mouth, swinging his ax, Alyon responded with a punch that ripped his jaw.
The journey was full of unknowns. Armored, Alyon only had to stretch his chest against the attacking group. The last enemy of the orc, who crippled the attackers with his fists without using his weapon, would come to outsmart the others.
Seeing that attack to armor did not injure his enemy; he had set his target as his head. The laughter he gave due to his opponent’s failure to defend during the attack he made by jumping; would be stuck in his throat with his broken ax.
As the ax landed on Alyon’s head shattered into pieces, he caught his airborne opponent with clawlike hands. The orc writhed in pain as five vise-like fingers pressed against his windpipe, calling for help from his leader with the faintest voice he could make.
“Damn, what an orc is that!”
The leader was shouting as if he had lost his mind as he ran across the bridge to the other side.
Alyon broke the orc’s neck he had caught by the throat with his thumb and hurled him to the other corpses.
‘You bastards, how dare you to commit banditry in my land?’
Pulling a tiny mechanical bird out of his pocket, Alyon pulled his tail to record.
“Haydo the butcher, I order you to find and kill those who steal and slander in the lands under our control! An elite unit should be dispatched to the entrance of the bridge as soon as possible!”
When Alyon, who released the bird when his massage was over, started to walk towards the bridge in anger, he saw that Nafız was chasing the bandit leader who had already escaped.
“Save me! Help! Help!”
Still screaming when he reached the other end of the bridge, he looked behind him and shouted louder when he saw Nafız. After a while, unable to run, he fell to his knees and called with pleading eyes to the orcs gathered around him.
“Where is the Rebel Heart? The murderer is after me; protect me!”
Listening to the orc that mingled with the crowd and floundered on the ground as if nothing had happened, Nafız lamented as if surprised by what he heard.
“Look that, come on!”
As the stammering bandit leader pleaded with the crowd, he saw the female orc chasing him calmly listen to him and began to flee on his knees.
“Here, the devil is here!”
Captured by a sense of helplessness, the orc stopped abruptly as he fled on all fours. He was crying, hugging the feet in front of him as if it were his last hope.
“Rebel Heart, save me! The killer is here, save me!”
Nafız had figured out what was going on with the scene she saw. She was the head of the wretched group of scouts on the ground. The person he ran to help with must also be the bandit leader. The situation couldn’t be more precise. She took the first step by saying, we’ll kill these and move on, but a voice echoing in her ears stopped her.
Rebel Heart, who slapped the orc that asked for help by hugging its feet, started to shout.
“You rascal! So you survived across the bridge and came back here without shame!”
Nafız was utterly shocked when the others watching the orc, who was stunned by the slap he received and the pressure of the fear he had been experiencing for some time, began to kick him. As the lynched orc’s body swayed, Rebel Heart spoke in a calm tone.
“Ma’am, please don’t worry, this person is a criminal we kicked out of our community. You are safe here!”
Rebel Heart dealt with the female orc; he tried to calm her down, and a shout shook the ground.
“Let go of the girl. I’ll feed the carcasses of your regiment to the wild creatures!”
Activating his blood technique after his roar, Alyon struck the ground with his war hammer, revealing a slit twenty feet long and two spans wide.
“Calm down, champion! I guess these are good boys!”
The quake destroyed many tents, and half of the crowd fell to the ground. By the time Alyon, throwing his stuck-in-the-ground hammer on his back, realized the situation, the thirty-foot radius was in ruins.
When Nafız felt the hands on her shoulders tremble, she looked into the eyes of his owner and spoke.
“Sir, please don’t worry! This person is my close friend, and you are safe here!”
Nafız, who started to walk towards her friend by leaving Rebel Heart, whom she tried to calm down, spoke with a smile.
What’s wrong, knight? Are you angry or what?
Alyon attacked without restraint because of the other side of the bridge and the situation he saw with Nafız. Since the blood technique was strengthened in direct proportion to the user’s fury, in this case, its devastating effect was at its peak.
Rebel Heart knelt in front of Alyon after he was freed from the effects of the Warrior’s Fury technique.
“Sir, the orcs here are not at fault; it is all my fault! I beg you, spare their lives!”
When the fanfare was over, Alyon and Nafız in the small tent were listening to what Rebel Heart was telling them, as if they had swallowed their tongues. Although Nafız was able to digest what was said because of the textbooks she read in her previous life, Alyon was devastated by what he heard.
“I didn’t hear wrong, did I? Did you say Orcs were bought and sold as slaves in their lands?
When Alyon tried to speak after the long story he had heard, the words resisted coming out of his mouth. The orc pride that had passed to him from his inherited master had been broken beyond repair.
“Yes, man. Unfortunately, that’s what happened!”
Seeing that her devastated friend was not in a position to speak, Nafız broke in.
“Well, what are you doing here?”
After taking a deep sigh, Rebel Heart continued to speak.
“After my birth, I was given a caravan of slaves from the tribe to the port city of Parthenia. When I reached adulthood, the caravan was attacked by wild creatures.”
Meanwhile, Alyon, who had recovered, was listening to the conversation.
“During the turmoil, we fled into the darkness of the night. Since we could not return to the tribe, we began to look for a place to live. After a long journey of hiding and being chased, we lost many of our brothers and were able to reach this remote part of the region.”
The story touched the hearts of Nafız and Alyon, as it was similar to the experiences of their masters.
“Who was the person lynched today?”
Alyon asked, remembering the events of the morning.
“The person is chosen as leader by a group of dishonest people we threw on the opposite shore. After we settled here, we tried to cross to the other side via the bridge, but the human soldiers waiting for us rained arrows on us before we even stepped on land.”
While Alyon and Nafız were eagerly waiting for the point where things would reach, Rebel Heart continued his words breathlessly.
“We are supplying soldiers and food by staging attacks on slave caravans. Unfortunately, sometimes the orcs we rescue are treacherous and corrupt. As a death sentence, we force them to cross the bridge.”
Nafız laughed bitterly, but she could not tell Rebel Heart that the bandits were the reason they survived. When the Nikonian armies began to prepare for war, he recalled the unit stationed on the bridge, giving the bandits a chance to live for a while.
“It’s time for dinner. Please join us, brothers!”
When Rebel Heart headed for the tent’s exit, Alyon and Nafız stood up one after another.
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Love me or hate me, both are in my favor. If you love me, I will always be in your heart. Always on your mind if you hate.
Louis Aragon
