Chapter 43: The Riverbank
"You—you reckless little bastard!!" the orc screamed at Ravian, on the verge of working himself into a frenzy after watching his commander lose his life to a lowly human moments ago.
"Hmm? What’s that? I can’t hear you from over there—why don’t you come a little closer?" Ravian said, picking at his ear mockingly.
"You bastard! How are you still standing here?! We watched you jump into the waterfall with our own eyes!" the orc shouted, trying to advance—only to pull back quickly the moment he felt the water threatening to sweep him off his feet.
The water came up to roughly the waist of the smaller orc compared to the Ninth-Rank one, and with the strength of the current, it would be all too easy for him to take a one-way trip exactly like his commander, who had died moments before.
But what nearly drove him out of his mind was how this human—clearly nothing more than an Awakened at best—could stand in the middle of the current like that. Worse, how he had been submerged beneath it the entire time, calm and cunning.
"Hmm. Why in the hell would I jump into a waterfall? Do you think I’m insane or something?" Ravian asked, looking at the orc as though he were an idiot.
"B-But—we saw you jump?" The orc was still drowning in disbelief at what had unfolded in front of him.
"Ah. You mean the fool who fell off the waterfall before your commander did?" Ravian asked, his expression brightening as if eager to explain.
The orc nodded, genuinely desperate to understand how this had happened.
"That was your other foolish friend. What was his name again—the one you mentioned earlier? Ah—Krug! Yes, that’s the one." Ravian’s face shifted into an expression of sorrow and respect.
"He was so very gallant, sacrificing himself to save me."
"You lying human—what did you do to Krug, you bastard?!" The orc was truly starting to lose his grip on his sanity at the way Ravian was behaving.
"Hey, hey—watch your language, friend. And I didn’t do anything to your precious Krug. I only killed him. That body that fell was just his corpse, nothing more," Ravian said with a frown, as though scolding a small child.
"Graaaa—!" The orc screamed in rage as the full picture finally settled in—how they had been played like dolls in this human’s hands.
"For a Wandering Beast and an Awakened Beast to die on the same day, to a freshly Awakened human, in a manner like this—it’s a disgrace that must be wiped clean at any cost!"
"Hmm? How did you know I’m just at the Awakened rank and not a Walker?" Ravian asked with genuine curiosity.
"Tsk. I’ll tell you right before I kill you," the orc said, climbing out of the river and standing on the bank they had come from.
"Oho. You think you’re capable of killing me?" Ravian said, watching the orc take his stand on the bank and glare at him without trying to approach—instead waiting for Ravian to come to him.
The orc didn’t answer. He drew his own bone spear and held his ground, eyes fixed on Ravian.
Ravian sighed.
He had noticed the orc hadn’t charged this time as he had anticipated. He had wanted to finish things quickly while he still held the advantage—but it seemed he would have to use his muscles a little after all.
While Ravian had been baiting the Ninth-Rank orc over the falls and then chatting with the Tenth-Rank one, his right hand had stayed hidden beneath the water the entire time.
Anyone looking below the surface now would have seen exactly what he had been doing: his right hand was clamped around the handle of one of the black daggers he carried—the one he had taken from Xavier after killing him—and the blade was driven deep into one of the massive boulders beneath the water.
Yes—Ravian had been holding his breath underwater from the moment he leapt into the river. He had anchored the dagger into the rock at the edge of the river and the lip of the falls, let the orc’s corpse drop over the edge, and then waited.
That move could have led to three outcomes, and Ravian had accepted all three before committing to it. First: the Ninth-Rank orc might leave the moment he saw the body fall over the falls—in which case Ravian would simply wait for him to move off before climbing out and fleeing.
Second: the orc might come, just as he had, see Ravian beneath the water, and kill him with ease—or kill him the moment he climbed out. But that outcome never came to pass, because the orc had never once suspected that the falling body was his own comrade’s corpse, used as a decoy.
And the third possibility was the one Ravian had bet on most heavily—which was exactly what had just happened.
’A shame I lost the Ninth-Rank corpse. It would have let me complete my physique with ease, along with the one I hid before fleeing.’ Ravian shook his head, then decided to focus on what was in front of him.
’Well—a Tenth-Rank corpse plus the Ninth-Rank one I hid should do the job just fine.’ That was his thought, right before he suddenly dove back beneath the water.
"What—?!" The orc jolted in place when he saw Ravian vanish underwater again.
He began scanning the entire river like a man possessed. But the water wasn’t clear—between the darkness of night and the fact that it was running, not still, it was far harder to make out anything below the surface.
Meanwhile, underwater—
Ravian pulled the other black dagger—the one Lysandra had given him a little while earlier—from his waist belt and drove it into a nearby boulder. Then he pulled the first one free and embedded it in the same rock as well. Then he drew another and sank it into a boulder closer to the bank where the orc was standing.
And Ravian continued like that—pulling a dagger from one rock, driving it into the next, breath held the whole time. It wasn’t especially difficult, given how far his body had developed, and his use of Absolute Focus to regulate his mental state and breathing, keeping himself underwater as long as possible without needing air.
After roughly two minutes, Ravian’s head and white hair surfaced on the bank where the orc stood—and not far from him at all.
Then Ravian sprang up onto the grassy ground, both daggers raised in a ready stance—and caught sight of the orc charging at him.
"Hyaaa—!" The orc hurled his spear with everything he had the instant he saw Ravian emerge, intent on ending the fight in a single strike.
"Tsk." Ravian clicked his tongue and slipped past the spear with precise ease, clearing it by barely a hair’s breadth.
The orc didn’t dwell on the missed throw. He surged forward, drawing a bone dagger and rushing straight at Ravian.
But Ravian didn’t wait, contrary to what the orc expected—he charged forward to meet him head-on.
"Kraaa!" The orc didn’t care, pouring the full force of his muscles into the very first swing of his dagger, intent on overwhelming Ravian with the crushing strength of an orc—only to be stunned by what he saw.
Ravian parried the strike with one dagger with complete ease, then swung the other and opened a wound across the orc’s chest with blinding speed.
"Krrg—?" The orc was shocked at how effortlessly Ravian had turned aside his attack. It had felt like... he matched an orc’s strength. No—he was stronger.
The orc couldn’t believe it and kept attacking with everything he had, swinging the dagger relentlessly.
But he soon understood his predicament. Ravian was turning aside every single one of his strikes with ease—and not only that. Ravian would block one of his blows, then answer it with a strike from his other dagger, leaving a small or moderate cut somewhere on the orc’s body each time.
Within a few seconds, there wasn’t a spot left on the orc’s torso that didn’t bear a clear or shallow dagger mark.
Then—
Thud!
The orc dropped to his knees from the sheer blood loss, while Ravian stood in front of him without so much as breaking a sweat.
"You... what in the hell are you? This isn’t the strength of a Tenth-Rank human," the orc said, no longer able to hold Ravian in his gaze through all the bleeding—barely able to keep his eyes open at all.
"No. You’re just far too weak," Ravian said, driving both daggers into the orc’s neck without a shred of mercy.
After all, there was an absorption waiting to be done.
Though he genuinely wanted to know how the orc had figured out he was only an Awakened, he decided he’d rather find out later than drag the matter out any longer.
’I suppose he wasn’t as strong as the one I killed back at the cave.’
’Damn it — why couldn’t this one have come out first? Then I wouldn’t have had to sacrifice the other one earlier just to fake my own death.’ Ravian felt a flicker of irritation, but chose to focus on the present.
Swish—
He spun around with the speed of lightning when he caught a sound in the grass behind him.
He saw nothing. But he kept his eyes fixed on that same spot, and a sudden weariness crept into them.
He didn’t want to redo this day. Even though the day had only just begun — when he’d woken to find Claria tending to his condition — the effort he’d poured into fighting those three orcs was something he had no desire to repeat.
As if the world had heard him, Ravian saw a small rabbit hop out from between the blades of grass.
And in that moment, Ravian decided that tonight’s dinner would be rabbit.
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