"There are about nine hundred of them," the chief began. Aris cut him off, his mind racing as he reconciled the number against the observations he had gathered over the last seven days.
"Nine hundred? Impossible. The settlement isn't large enough to sustain that many." Aris paused, eyes narrowing. "Don't tell me… they're underground?"
The chief's lips curled. "So, you've discovered it. Indeed. Most of them dwell beneath the surface, where they process their… harvest." A flicker of anger crossed his face, vanishing as quickly as it appeared. "As for your second question, I don't know their power hierarchy. I am their enforcer, yes, but to them, I am just a useful dog. I don't know their secrets, only the number of heads I have to deliver every year." He paused. "And even nine hundred is merely an estimate."
"Wait. You had access to their underground space? How?" Aris leaned in, the floorboards creaking under his weight.
"When I inherited my father's role as their enforcer, they implanted the Sacred Gu worm into me there." The chief's lips formed a thin line. Good. Here comes my chance.
"Sacred Gu worm? You mean the parasite burrowed against your heart."
The chief's eyes went wide, and a jolt of genuine alarm spiked through him. How in the hell did this brat know the exact location? Not even his own sons, those ambitious, incompetent vultures had ever pried that secret from him. But he reined in his panic, trying not to show enough for this insidious brat to leverage.
If the boy knew, it meant he was dangerous and privy to the secrets of the masters, but it also meant he was cautious and smart. Cautious and smart men could be reasoned with, or even manipulated. The chief's chances of survival had just climbed from zero to something he could work with, and he exhaled.
"Indeed," the chief said, leaning into the deception. "It has become part of my body. The moment my heart stops, they will know. If you kill me, you invite their entire wrath down upon your head. They do not play games when it comes to the life and death of their enforcer."
Aris's expression shifted into a mask of conflict; his brow furrowed and his jaw worked as if he were struggling with the weight of the choice he had to make. Then, his face hardened, snapping into something terrifyingly convincing. "Hah. You think that stops me? So what if they know? As long as you breathe, I'll keep you alive. Chained. I'll peel the secrets out of you, layer by layer. I'll break your mind until you're a drooling mess. I don't need to kill you to make you wish I had."
Break me? The chief smiled inwardly, though he kept his features painted in trembling, desperate dread. You can certainly try. I've survived agonies beyond anything this brat could imagine. As long as I continue breathing, there is still a path out of these chains.
Aris watched him, his gaze unblinking as Prime fed him a steady stream of data: the slight dilation of the chief's pupils, the way he held his breath a second too long after feigning fear, the tension coiled in his neck, the subtle, relieved exhale. It was a clumsy, desperate performance. Without the chip, Aris might have been fooled by the old man's feigned submission. Now, it was just pathetic. Keep acting, old man. I'll drain you dry of every drop of information, and then I'll kill you.
"Is there a way to escape this slavery?" Aris paused, clenching his fist, his face a mask of contained anger and powerlessness. "No, we are worse than slaves. Meat—we are just meat to them." Aris's tone was thick with performative despair.
The chief felt a surge of triumph at the question, though being called "meat" invited a flicker of unwanted emotion that he immediately buried. He's bought it. The brat is looking for an exit.
"There is no way to escape that I know of," the chief said. He paused, letting a tinge of practiced sadness color his voice. "There were… attempts. A few fools like you tried to vanish into the plains, but no one ever heard from them again. We never knew if they found utopia, or if the grassland became their grave."
"If I knew of a path to freedom, do you truly believe I would still be rotting in this village, serving those monsters?" His expression became one of quiet resignation. "No…I would have left long ago. And so would everyone else."
Aris stared at the chief, his vision blurring as the weight of the realization settled in his chest. No way out. He mumbled it aloud as Prime's silent, unwavering confirmation echoed in his mind, stripping away the thin veneer of hope he had been clinging to.
For a fleeting second, the terrifying reality pierced his chest: Am I merely waiting for the inevitable? Should I drag Lilly into the sunlight of the plains, knowing death waits there, or should I hide in the cave until they come to finish us? The thought of Lilly—her small, trusting hands, the way she looked to him for a future that might not exist—sent a jolt of agonizing panic through his body. He could not watch her die before him. He could not let his only family become just another statistic in the orcs' ledger.
"But…" The chief's voice pulled him out of his grim thoughts. "I once glimpsed a map in the masters' hall. Within the inner settlement."
Aris looked up, narrowing his eyes on the old man. "I wonder if that is enough for you to let me go," the chief continued, his gaze desperate, his mind racing to find leverage in this sudden opening. The brat believed him, for some unknown reason. Perhaps he really had a chance. "I will go there. I will memorize it. I will bring it back to you. On the mighty name of Volrag."
Does he take me for a fool? The old man was offering him a path into the belly of the beast, the very heart of the orcs' power, in exchange for his own miserable life. But Aris knew better. The moment he released the chief, the old man would do anything to preserve himself, whether that meant betraying Aris or leading him into a carefully prepared trap.
Yet the old man's words were not without merit. Infiltrating the inner settlement on his own was not merely dangerous; it bordered on suicide. There was truth in the offer, but truth alone had never been enough to earn his trust. Caution had kept him alive this long, and he had no intention of abandoning it now.
Aris rose and shook his head, casting aside his disappointment. He refused to become a slave to fate. If one path ended in a dead end, he would carve another. A labyrinth offered countless routes to those willing to burn down its walls.
The fragile confidence he had once held in his own survival swelled into unwavering resolve. He possessed the poison, the great equalizer, as he called it and more importantly, the will to use it against those who called themselves masters, not like this brainwashed old guy.
As long as he drew breath, he still possessed agency. And as long as he possessed agency, the future remained unwritten. He would not wait for death to choose him. He would choose his own path, even if he had to carve it through blood and fire.
He stepped back and studied the chief, his eyes sweeping over the old man's deceptively frail frame. "How are you this strong? How does an old man like you possess such strength?" With power like that, survival would no longer be a gamble. Escape would become a certainty.
"Nothing much, truly. Just the masters' gifts."
The chief's eyes flickered toward his own chest.
The Gu worm. Aris understood at once. Of course. It has other uses other than control.
Borrowed strength. Nothing more. The so-called masters could reclaim it whenever they wished. Anything another could grant could just as easily be taken away. He almost pitied the old man. Almost.
Whatever power Aris built for himself, it wouldn't come with someone else's hand on the leash.
He began to pace. "You know nothing about your so-called masters. You know nothing of the world beyond this settlement. You spend your life serving creatures who see you as little more than livestock."
He stopped and looked down at the chief. "Your entire existence is that of a dog. One kept alive only until it has outlived its usefulness."
The chief stared at him, confusion slowly giving way to genuine panic as Aris strode toward the northern wall and tore the smith's finest sword from its mount.
No…
He wouldn't.
He can't.
Aris returned and stood over him, lowering the sword until its point rested against the old man's chest, directly above his heart who was looking at him with true terror for the first time. With deliberate slowness, he pressed forward just enough for the blade to pierce the skin.
A muffled scream escaped behind the cloth gag, and his face drained of color. High-pitched whimpers forced their way through the fabric as his body convulsed against the chains.
"Pain means little to you, doesn't it?" Aris asked, his voice utterly devoid of sympathy. "Then let's try a pain you actually understand."
He leaned a little more of his weight onto the blade. The Gu worm reacted instantly. Whether it truly screamed or the sound existed only in the chief's mind, Aris couldn't tell. It burrowed frantically into the old man's heart, its tendrils tightening in a desperate instinct to preserve both its host and itself.
The chief arched violently. Thick veins bulged across his neck, his eyes widened until they seemed ready to burst from their sockets, and his muffled cries dissolved into raw, animalistic agony.
Minutes later, Aris tore the cloth from the chief's mouth.
"Now," he said evenly, "if you don't wish to experience that tenfold—"
"I'll speak! I'll tell you everything!" the chief blurted, his voice breaking. "Please… please, just stop!" Whatever dignity or courage the old man had possessed had vanished.
This parasite is even more potent than I anticipated, Aris thought. I thought a few rounds of pain were enough to shatter him. But well, one seems enough.
His gaze lingered on the Gu worm beneath the chief's skin. The orcs possess biological and mystical knowledge far beyond my estimates. Then again, with an entity like that behind them, such creations are hardly impossible. A specimen like this warrants careful study.
Dragging a wooden stool across the floor, he sat before the chief with the composure of a judge passing sentence.
"Speak," he ordered. "In Orcish. No omissions. And no repetitions of words. Absolute accuracy."
He tapped the flat of the sword against the old man's chest, directly above the worm.
"One mistake…" he pushed the tip in slightly. "…and I push."
The chief swallowed hard. For a fleeting moment, bewilderment crossed his face, as though wondering why Aris had not simply asked from the beginning. The thought disappeared the instant the sword shifted.
The old man began to speak, and harsh, guttural syllables filled the cramped workshop. Prime, Aris commanded inwardly, record every phoneme, every tonal shift, and every inflection. Construct a complete phonetic model.
The interrogation continued for over an hour. Whenever the chief hesitated, misspoke, or repeated himself he would tap his chest with the sword. Sometimes that alone was enough. Other times, Aris pressed the point just deep enough for the Gu worm to stir.
By the end, the chief's voice had become little more than a rasp. His head hung limply, his body trembling from exhaustion rather than pain.
Aris rose. Prime, optimize the recorded data. Construct the lexicon. Increase my Orcish fluency to above fifty percent.
[Optimizing Orcish Language… Estimated Time Remaining: 7 Hours.]
"Seven hours." Aris nodded once. "Perfect. That gives me enough time to rest."
His gaze settled on the chief, who sat slumped against the warmth of the stone forge. The old man's spirit had been hollowed out long before his body failed.
Without hesitation, Aris drove the sword through his heart. The chief's eyes flew open, and several emotions flickered across his wrinkled face: pain, shock, anger, regret. Then, unexpectedly—relief. For a fleeting instant, Aris frowned. He had expected hatred or fear until the very end, not the expression of a man finally released from a nightmare. The thought lingered for only a heartbeat before he dismissed it.
The dead required no explanations, enemies least of all. Remorse could not resurrect the fallen, nor could apologies erase the consequences of a choice already made. Once blood had been spilled, the only meaningful question was whether the sacrifice had achieved something worth its cost. History remembered outcomes far longer than intentions.