Joji and the party passed five more bat caves along the way, but for the moment, he only inspected them. He already understood what they were seeing.
These were juvenile colonies, not the true wolf bat nest, and hunting them all would still take time he did not yet want to spend.
By the time they crossed the fifth mountain, the scenery changed.
Dusk had already settled by the time they reached the peak, and there, spread across the heights, stood tent after tent after tent.
Joji narrowed his eyes. Pig-faced Orcs.
These were not the familiar sort from crude fantasy, not the muscle bound beasts made for little beyond smashing and dying.
From the original Joji's memories, he knew better. Pig-faced Orcs were among the best creatures for building an army.
They bred structure where others bred chaos, and of the monstrous races, they came closest to human habits in the way they organized, camped, and followed command.
At a glance, there were thousands of them.
Joji understood the shape of it soon enough. They were not merely another wandering tribe.
At this scale, they likely served as a living barrier against the wild creatures moving along the migration route, even as they themselves followed that same road.
He raised a hand, and the party halted. Then he hid and pulled Rizz out of the dungeon.
"How was it?" Joji asked.
Rizz stretched like a man dragged from an afternoon nap.
"I didn't know I'd finish in an hour. Honestly, I got bored."
"Good. Come look."
Joji beckoned him forward and showed him the camp below.
Rizz studied the tents and snorted. "I remember creatures like these from an MMORPG. What do you intend to do with them?"
"We'll talk to them," Joji said. "If they can help us, that would be best. I'm not hopeful, though."
He already knew the problem. A force this large would have its own order, its own pride, its own chain of loyalty. They would not be like the Forest Trolls, easy to sway with a little strength and a little opportunity.
Communities this established did not simply hand themselves over to strangers.
Joji turned toward Sharp Wee.
"All right. I'll do the talking. No swinging clubs, and they are not food."
Sharp Wee slapped his chest hard enough to make the sound crack across the stone.
"I will follow Big Brain Chieftain."
With that, Joji led his party into view.
The Pig-faced Orcs guarding the perimeter stiffened at once. Weapons shifted. Eyes fixed on them. Then one figure stepped out from among the guards, larger than the rest by far.
He was no pink skinned caricature, but a heavy brown brute of a thing, twice the size of the others and standing nearly seven and a half feet tall.
One eye was gone, and three deep claw marks ran across the ruined side of his face.
He looked Joji over more than once, lingering on the obsidian armor.
When he finally spoke, his voice held caution rather than challenge.
"Knight, what troubles you?"
"I'm just looking around," Joji said. "Mind if we join your camp?"
The large Pig-faced Orc studied Joji's party for another beat, then gave a short nod.
"I will inform Lord Grunter."
He turned and began walking toward the largest tent in the distance, leaving Joji and the others waiting beneath the last light of dusk.
Before long, a larger Pig-faced Orc emerged from the camp. Black fur covered his massive frame, and beneath him rode a tamed boar king so huge it stood nearly as tall as the trolls.
"Joji, isn't that pigception?" Rizz muttered.
Joji drove an elbow into the donkey before the fool could break into that ridiculous yea-ho laugh of his.
"Don't start, Rizz. I was already thinking he looked like a hog rider."
Lord Grunter's ears twitched at that. Far from offended, he seemed secretly pleased.
"Knight, you thought me a hog rider?" Lord Grunter asked.
"Well, yes. I took you for a fellow knight, riding such a majestic beast." The flattery landed cleanly.
Lord Grunter looked him over again, this time with warmer eyes, taking in the dark obsidian armor and its severe lines. Then his gaze shifted past Joji to the Forest Trolls, and one thick finger lifted in their direction.
"Knight, you are welcome here. But we cannot feed the Forest Trolls. I hope you understand."
"I brought their meal with me," Joji said. "There is no need to worry."
That seemed to settle it.
"I would invite you to my tent, Knight. Are you able to come?" Lord Grunter asked, trying for human courtesy with careful, deliberate manners.
Joji gathered the kobolds and told the rest to stay put and keep to one place. Then he brought Rizz with him. Another man from Earth was useful to have close, if only for a fresher set of eyes.
Inside Lord Grunter's tent, several female Pig-faced Orcs moved about in quiet attendance.
"Come. We will drink," Lord Grunter said, raising a clay jug in invitation.
Joji sat and produced his own mug. Lord Grunter filled it without comment, and Joji drank.
"What business do you have for us, Knight?" Lord Grunter asked.
"I am here to inspect the state of the migration. Do you have any information that could help me?"
As Joji spoke, his eyes had already gone to the thing hanging behind the Orc Lord.
A map. Lord Grunter noticed at once. Quick fellow. He rose without offense and brought it down, then spread it across the table between them.
Joji and Rizz leaned in and forced himself to memorize every line and mark. He found the red markings first, the route from which they had come.
Then the five mountains they had already crossed. Beyond that lay a path marked in black, and Joji understood at once that this was the road the pig orcs themselves were following.
Lord Grunter tapped the red line with one thick finger.
"Human settlement," he said. "Orcs and beasts not allowed. Ancestor said so ten thousand moons ago."
Joji understood that much well enough, but something else on the map caught his eye.
It lay beyond the animal markings that tracked the migration routes of rats, elk, moose, and falcons. One section had been redrawn over and over, as though each new hand had tried to preserve it and failed a little more than the last.
Joji pointed to that place and looked up at Lord Grunter.
"May I know what is here?"
The question changed the Orc Lord at once. A melancholy settled over him like an old wound opening in damp weather. He drew in a long snorting breath, and for a moment, it seemed he was holding back tears.
"Knight," Lord Grunter said quietly, "you may not believe this, but the ancestors said that long ago our Pig Race had a small kingdom of one million souls. That is where the kingdom once stood. Even I do not truly believe it."
Joji said nothing at once.
The original Joji had not risen to the top of the academy through swordsmanship alone.
In truth, he had been even more gifted as a scholar, sharp enough that more than one faction had tried to drag him into research. He had refused every time, which made Jonathan think, not for the first time, that the man had been both brilliant and foolish in equal measure.
And with all that buried learning, Joji had never once heard of a Pig Orc kingdom.
That was what made his silence heavier.
If such a kingdom had really existed, then even if it had vanished ages ago, traces of it should have remained somewhere in old records. History did not disappear so cleanly. Not entirely.
There were countless examples. The seventy two Kingdoms of Magic had long since been swallowed into Wickworks Empire of Magic, yet their names still survived in ledgers, fragments, and court records.
Even the lesser realms that had fought and died before the rise of the great magical empire had left shadows behind.
So why not this one? Lord Grunter gave a rough snort and managed a bitter little smile.
"Knight, I do not blame you for doubting me."
The great Pig Orc rose, walked to a large chest, and began rummaging through it. After a moment, he pulled out a tattered book, so worn that it looked one hard winter away from falling apart in his hands.
Even so, he carried it back with care and laid it on the table between them as though it were something sacred.
"Humans are the strongest keepers of knowledge in Primeria," Lord Grunter said. "I would like to give you this. Even if it has become no more than a story, let it at least survive as recognized knowledge."
Joji looked down at the book. The script was old. Not merely old in wording, but old in the font. The sort of age that could not be faked by a village elder trying to dress up a tale.
Lord Grunter rested a hand beside it.
