Chapter 2070: Gossip in Warrior City
The most popular were gossip between nearby neighbors and coworkers, and then the most gasp-inducing ones were often related to nobles.
It was really like how it was anywhere. People cared too much about gossip between friends and acquaintances, but they also cared too much about the lives of ’celebrities’, which were the nobles in this world.
For example, they’d overhear a person’s daughter and that person’s son had been secretly in love. The problem was that the parents were mortal enemies! There was apparently a bit of drama. The city did not prohibit fights, but it did prohibit a certain show of force and above, so after a while, the two fathers went to prison.
Another was that the husband of a neighboring food stall owner was killed in a beast mob. However, rumor has it that the wife placed a lot of food on his body, making him very attractive to monsters. When he fell down the wall, he was gobbled up immediately. The wife happily gained ownership of the stall.
And then there was someone who had fallen in love with someone from Crystal City, but had been abandoned a year after she gave everything. The girl’s parents loved her and had apparently liquidated their assets to afford mercenaries to escort her home.
This one caused quite a bit of commotion because apparently, the girl was dumped because the man’s parents found out that the girl had half-orc blood!
It was very diluted and absolutely did not have physical manifestations on her at all, but even a tinge of half-orc genes was appalling to some people.
The residents were naturally offended, and some people unrelated to that family had even asked the Lord to go to war with Crystal City.
This must be the only City where its own citizens were so warfreak.
As for the nobles, it seemed like another noble daughter volunteered to enter Virion’s harem. According to Otto, Virion himself had a few women, but he was not a rakehell who’d sleep with every woman who approached him. He actually only had two women officially in the harem, which made it even more sought after among noble ladies.
It couldn’t be helped. Virion was very handsome, strong, and he was (for now) the heir to the throne.
This superfluous gossip came from Otto, but he mostly mentioned this in the context of some women in the harem possibly trying to gain advantages when making deals with them.
They were advised to always go directly to Virion.
Then there was even gossip about a beautiful elementalist woman who had once lived in the palace being pregnant. It wasn’t indicated who the father was, but the rumor was them was one of the royals.
Althea didn’t really mind gossip as long as they were not intrinsically harmful. For example, gossip about where the person is now, what they have accomplished, and so on. Some studies showed that there were positive sides of gossip, as long as they were not malevolent in nature.
Some of the interesting conversations they eavesdropped on were from a group of half-orcs. They seemed to be discussing some big event in an associated territory East.
"I heard another village was plundered by orcs and the women were taken."
"There’s a mission to rescue them," another said. "It’s an official one held by the territory."
"Shall we join?"
"I want to, but remember what happened when we went last time? Those people looked at us as if we were enemies. Our team was almost endangered."
"Yeah. Good thing our fellow Warriors were there, otherwise we really could’ve been attacked."
"It’s annoying how those few orc villages have been tainting every orc’s reputation for years...! Most orcs don’t kidnap humans to procreate, okay? It’s just a few orc-led villages, but the humans always believed they represent all of us. It’s so annoying!"
A pig-like half-orc looked particularly bitter. "They look at me like I’m going to kidnap their women! Oink!" he said, nose twitching in emotion. "I don’t know of any half-orcs attracted to humans at all. I’m a straight half-orc lover!"
"Which lover?" Them half-orcs have the smallest dating pool.
"Shut up! Oink! I’ll find my lady someday!" he yelled. "Anyway, I’m joining the mission east. Maybe I will find my wife over there!"
Half-orcs were rare. Naturally, he had to go where there were more of them.
"Well, good luck with that."
At this point, most half-orcs have accepted they’d remain single. Their estrus period wasn’t year-round anyway.
The others shook their heads, though the topic evidently lingered among them. "I don’t understand those people who do this to others."
"Isn’t it good that we don’t understand how their brain works?"
"Luckily, we found Warrior City."
The prevailing knowledge that harsh orc villages kidnapped women and forced them to bear their children was not the majority, which was truly fortunate.
Rather, among orcs and half-orcs, they were the great majority and were even condemned.
The reason why only a handful of these villages were left behind was not because humans successfully defeated the others for revenge.
Human villages generally could not go against villages led by orcs or half-orcs. The difference in strength was to stark.
Rather, it was fellow half-orcs who led the attacks, hoping to clear their name.
It was just that those who did evil deeds were the noisiest, and the news about them spread out more, so the biases were formed.
Not to mention, news spread out slowly, if at all, in general. Even if they try to spread out a different news to clear their name, it might not be as fast as gossip could.
Truly a pity.
Fortunately, there were territories like Warrior City that gave these poor half-orcs a chance. Many of them were not born out of love and had been rescued from those evil orc villages during their childhood.
A territory like Warrior City—and Alterra Town—hoped to be the starting point for their true integration with the world.
Comments