IDWTBTHQ Chapter 103 - Biting Conscience

For the first time since his rebirth, Blueskin was looking at civilization.

The land in front of him was covered by a patchwork of cultivated fields as far as the eye could see, with many farms and villages scattered all around and tied together by a network of gravel and dirt roads. Smoke rose from dozens of chimneys, and even at that distance the oni could smell cooked food as the inhabitants prepared their dinner.

This vision filled him with a weird sense of relief. Life inside of the Caligare Forest was harsh, and while his strength had allowed him to have better conditions compared to everyone else he still missed the comforts and security of a stable, civilized society.

Now they were his for the taking.

He took a deep, satisfied breath. His plans were finally close to fruition. His army, which was already a force to be reckoned with, would become outright unstoppable after enough orcs would turn into ogres. With such military might under his command, coupled with his enormous personal strength, Blueskin would have no problem conquering Medelan first, and then the rest of the Empire. And then he could even take the whole world if he felt like it, as no one would be able to stop him.

He smiled slightly, picturing all the things he could do after becoming the ruler of this world, but then a sudden commotion distracted him from his dreams of the futured and dragged him back to the present. He turned to see a group of orcs arguing, screaming and beating each other, and all of his good mood immediately dissipated, turning into an exasperated and quite murderous irritation.

Of course, there always had to be at least one problem, he thought. Even for a main character like himself.

With an exasperated sigh, he walked up to the brawling orcs and casually smashed the nearest one into the ground with a single punch before even saying anything. As he had long since learned, a show of strength was the best way to get his subjects' attention, and indeed it worked perfectly even now. All of the orcs immediately stopped arguing and stared at him in silence.

Satisfied by the atmosphere of terror he had managed to create, Blueskin finally started speaking.

“What's going on here?” He asked in a sarcastic tone. “I hope you have a good reason for making all of this ruckus.”

The orcs hesitated, with no one daring to talk for fear of becoming the target of their leader's irritation, and this silence only further irritated the oni.

“I'm not in the mood for waiting.” He growled. “Either one of you start speaking right now, or I'll have you all chopped into rations.”

The orcs exchanged a worried glance, and finally one of them started talking.

“Ehr... we were just getting our meat back from Loudsnore group.” He said. “They got more than us during distribution and didn't want to share it.”

“The meat was given to us directly, so it wasn't yours to begin with!” Another orc cried. “It was also not enough for us! We couldn't share it even if we wanted to!”

“We got half of what they gave you!” The first orc replied angrily. “We can’t live with so little meat...”

“Silence!” Blueskin roared, immediately putting an end to the discussion. “If there was a problem, you should have told your officers!” He looked around, failing to see the telltale appearance of an ogre or a bigger-than-average orc. “Where are they?”

“In the mines.” The first orc said. “They're still getting the rest of our units to cross.”

Of course they were, Blueskin thought bitterly. But for the moment he bottled up his irritation since he couldn't really vent it properly.

“Just stay quiet and wait for them to get out of the mines then.” He said. “And if you cause any more ruckus, I'll turn you all into rations for real.”

The orcs collectively nodded and the oni turned away, returning to his previous spot to look at the lands around him. However, his good mood had been completely ruined now that he had been reminded of the current problems plaguing his army.

The root of it all was the delay in  crossing the mines. At first it had seemed that everything would go well, as the kobolds had managed to open the tunnel to Grimdale well within the established schedule and Blueskin had quickly guided the first group of scouts to the secondary exit. It had only taken a day to trace the correct route from the Caligare Forest to Grimdale, and after that the oni had expected that crossing the mines would take a day or two at most.

Sadly, that hadn't been the case.

It had been three days since they started crossing the mines and barely half of the orc army had reached the other side. The rest was blocked in some sort of traffic jam, apparently caused by the narrowness of the tunnels —which the orcs could pass through only one at a time— and the general lack of discipline of the orcs. It'd gotten so bad that brawls and fights had started all over the place for the right of crossing first, and Blueskin had to send most of his officers back to the other side in order to restore some semblance of order. And while all of this happened, the delay had brought another problem, one that could potentially threaten the success of the whole campaign.

They were about to run out of food.

All of the captive Rantul hybrids had long since been slaughtered for their meat and on this side of the mountains, so close to human settlements, there simply wasn't enough game to feed his army. Even his old solution of using insubordinates as rations wasn't feasible anymore, since he was already short staffed as it was after leaving a few thousand of his troops to mount that diversionary attack on Brettholz. Because of this, they were left with barely enough food for today even while halving the rations, and by tomorrow they wouldn't have anything to eat.

This was a colossal problem, especially because it'd take at least another two days for the rest of the army to cross, and spending two days without food was utterly unthinkable for an orc. Even with himself trying to keep them under control with his enormous strength and charisma, the army would devolve into anarchy by tomorrow evening.

So it was imperative to find a solution, but he couldn't think of one. He just kept racking his brain, silently chewing on the problem with angry bitterness, until he noticed a movement to his left. As he turned, he saw that Tiny-Sneaky was standing right beside him.

True to her name the ogress had been incredibly sneaky, to the point that not even the oni had noticed her. Nonetheless, he felt pleased to see her, as he really needed to blow off some steam.

“Tiny!” He said. “What a surprise. I didn't expect to see you so soon.” He gestured for her to get closer with a lecherous smile. “Come here. We've got to make up for the time you spent away.”

“I would prefer not.” The ogress replied coldly, making Blueskin frown angrily at that rejection. Before he could say anything, however, she added: “I can't afford to have babies right now. The territory around here is very open and populated, very different from the forest, and I can't explore it well if I'm not perfectly in control.”

The oni felt rather disappointed, but decided to accept that excuse. After all, Tiny was his best scout and he needed her skills, so his bodily needs would have to wait for now.

“Fine.” He said in a rather sulky tone. “Why have you come here then?”

“I've scouted out the nearby human villages.” The ogress explained. “There are a lot of people there, but I saw no soldiers. They aren't expecting us at all.”

“That's good.” Blueskin smiled again, feeling rather relieved. “That means we still have time. If those idiots in the mines would hurry up, we could reach Treval without any resistance!” He paused and then asked, in a more serious tone: “By the way, did you find any food sources while you were out there? Our supplies on this side of the mountains have just run out.”

“I just told you, boss.” Tiny replied with a predatory smile.

“What?” The oni said in a confused voice. “No you didn't. You just told me about the human villages.”

“Exactly.”

It took a few seconds, but then Blueskin finally understood what Tiny was speaking about.

“What?” He cried. “That's out of the question. We can't raid those villages, because if we do so the humans will know we're here!”

“Not if we get them all.” The ogress insisted. “If we kill or capture all of them, they won't be able to warn the others about us.”

Blueskin blinked in surprise, needing a moment to process what his underling had just told him. His first instinct was to tell her that this wasn't feasible, but the more he thought about it the more he realized that Tiny had a point. After all, he couldn't win without feeding his army and humans were an ideal food for orcs, not to mention that these would be easy prey due to being unharmed civilians. If anything, this solution was so obvious that he wondered why he didn't think of it by himself.

In a quick and rather rare moment of introspection, the answer to this question actually came to him immediately: due to his past life as a human, he still wasn't used to thinking of his past kin as prey. While he had no problem seeing them as subjects to be conquered or even slaves, he still couldn't bring himself to completely envision them as cattle to be slaughtered.

For some reason this realization made him feel rather uncomfortable, but he forced himself to suppress this sensation, deeming it illogical. After all he wasn't human anymore, so why would the fate of a few members of a different species matter to him? Besides, he really needed to find a suitable food source soon, otherwise his plan would likely fail. Killing a few innocent humans was regrettable, but it was a necessary sacrifice.

“Great rulers must be ready to do anything in order to achieve their goals!” He told himself. “Things like good and evil and all that nonsense is good only for the masses! I am beyond those petty concepts! I only do what’s necessary.”

He nodded to himself, as this rationalization finally managed to suppress his illogical feelings, and turned to Tiny-Sneaky.

“We'll do as you suggested.” He told her. “Take as many soldiers as you need and go raid the nearby villages. Don't let anyone escape but try to capture as many humans alive as you can. They'll be more nutritious this way.”

“As you want, boss.” The ogress replied with a smirk before getting away to gather the orcs she needed for her raid.