"Our tribe originally fights united around the Great Chieftain."
A wounded shaman.
Borjin began to explain in clumsy Korean.
...Anyway.
What did he just say.
"The Great Chieftain?"
At that name.
Even I could not help but flinch a little.
"Great Warrior and High Shaman were already brutal to deal with."
The Great Chieftain, he says.
"Does that mean there is someone even stronger left, seriously?"
Listening to him.
This Great Chieftain is clearly a tier above the Great Warrior or the High Shaman.
It means he is something like the head of the race.
"Someone like that was still around."
I will admit I was a little rattled.
Whether to call it a relief, though.
"After the Great Chieftain died... that unity started to crumble bit by bit."
"...Hoo."
"...?"
Apparently.
This Great Chieftain fellow had already died long ago.
Anyway.
"Looks like an important seat. Did no one think to fill it right away?"
"They did. The Great Warrior, Kargara, was supposed to build experience and rise to that seat. But... Kargara was too young. The God of the Steppe granted him the talent for battle, but did not give him time to accumulate wisdom."
The tribe was made up of various groups.
Among them, two wielded the greatest influence.
"Warriors and shamans."
Those who use the body and those who use the head.
Naturally.
It seems the relationship between the two groups was not very good.
You know how it is.
Even on an ordinary worksite, it is hard for the field side and the desk side to get along.
It seems it was a similar relationship.
It was the Great Chieftain who mediated that.
After that seat of the Great Chieftain turned vacant.
"Friction began between the warriors and the shamans."
"Friction, huh."
From what I hear.
At least until recently, there had not been a major problem.
"There were too many external enemies for us to be fighting among ourselves."
It was the same back at Myohyangsa.
The most efficient way to unite your own side is an external enemy.
Warriors and shamans.
Both factions understood it was not a situation where they could afford to fight among themselves.
"Even if we did not like each other, we at least managed to cooperate on the surface somehow. Yes..."
However.
That peace did not last long.
Kkadeudeuk...
The old shaman clenched his jaw so hard his teeth looked about to shatter.
Discord piling up in the tribe.
The one who threw a proper spark onto that discord was.
"High Shaman Kurdan."
"...?"
"Until that one betrayed the tribe...!"
The head of the shamans.
The High Shaman himself.
"In the last battle... we did lose, but given time we could have fully recovered!"
Yet.
Even after seeing the Great Warrior die, that High Shaman did not choose a safe retreat.
There was one reason.
"Because from the start, that one did not care about the safety of our tribe!"
He does not care about the tribe’s safety.
If so.
"What did that High Shaman go to the battlefield for?"
"A demon!"
"...!"
The answer came back at once.
It was the very existence I had been most focused on.
"That one made a contract with a demon!"
A High Shaman who made a contract with a demon.
In other words, he was.
"...a Demon Contractor."
Only then.
I could grasp one fact.
The one Taejun said would "come bearing information."
I had of course assumed it was a human.
When Changsu came to us I guessed, so it was Changsu, and moved on.
But looking now.
That existence was not talking about Changsu.
From the start.
There had been no line saying it would be human.
The unidentified humans who attacked us.
The one who could tell us information about them was.
"It was this one."
This monster in front of my eyes.
****
"You said a demon."
"Yes."
The moment that word came out of his mouth.
I could not be bothered to care about any other circumstances.
"I did not expect to hear that name here."
Not long ago.
A force that freed the monsters of the surrounding military bases and sent them at us.
However.
I still do not know exactly why they attacked us.
I do not know exactly what power they hold.
"You."
I know one thing.
The humans of that force definitely bore the name Demon Contractor.
"Explain in as much detail as possible. About that demon."
"...Krrk. Judging from how you look, that existence has approached you as well."
On the other hand.
This one showed extreme hatred toward those Demon Contractors.
"Why do you hate demons so much in the first place?"
If I can just learn that reason.
I can also prepare countermeasures against the enemy.
"The reason to hate them... It cannot be otherwise."
"...?"
"As I said, we gain strength by communing with the Spirit of the Earth."
The structure of receiving strength from another existence.
In itself is similar.
"A contract with a demon is not the same as communion with a spirit. Even the word itself, contract, not communion, says so."
"A contract, huh."
"A demon gives the contractor power and grants wishes. And in return for that contract, the demon takes payment."
A contract means there is something traded.
The demon gives power.
The contractor...
"Body and soul."
"..."
"Demons are exceedingly greedy beings."
One’s own body and soul.
To devote everything.
"What the hell."
I recall again the description I saw in those guys’ skill window.
[Skill - Contract]
[By offering the price, you proceed with a contract with a demon.]
[Whether the transaction proceeds is determined entirely by the demon’s judgment.]
So even whether the contract proceeds is decided by the demon.
And on top of that, this side has to give both body and soul.
There is no unfair contract more unfair than this.
"...At this point, should we not question the heads of the ones who entered that contract?"
As I was thinking that.
"You are thinking their heads must be broken to enter such a contract."
"...Ahem."
As if he anticipated my thought.
Borjin spoke first.
"I admit it. Under normal circumstances there is no reason to enter it."
"And yet there were those who entered that contract."
"Strictly speaking, there came moments when even such a contract had to be entered."
"...?"
There are cases where even a contract like that must be made.
I wondered if such a case could exist.
"For example, when the fate of a race is at stake."
The answer was simpler than I thought.
"My homeland was a world where many races jostled and fought for hegemony."
"Hmm."
"Not only we orcs but [N O V E L I G H T] innumerable races lived under the care of their respective gods."
Among them.
The Green Manes tribe was under the protection of the God of the Steppe.
They reigned as rulers of the blue steppe, the same color as their eyes.
There were many other orc tribes as well.
Among them, the one that always took the leader’s role was the Green Manes tribe.
With their numbers and strength they confronted other races in sharp opposition.
"No matter how high a wall might be, with the strength of us who ran the steppe, we could bring it down."
A long time passed like that.
One day.
"Beings from another world began to descend."
Beings from another world.
Each called them by a different name.
By now I could tell well enough what he meant.
"Just like us... they were invaded."
Now I was sure.
I do not know if the other mindless-looking monsters are the same.
But at least the monsters with intellect were all.
"After going through the same kind of ruin as us..."
They fled here.
"Our tribe possessed strength that did not fall short compared to other races. Yet in the fight against those beings we were the first to face the brink of ruin."
"What was the reason? You swaggered that even if you lost troops you could replenish fast."
"It is simple."
A tribe that ran free across a vast steppe.
Their numbers were violence made manifest.
"The God of the Steppe granted us the power to run the steppe, but did not grant us the knowledge to build fortresses there."
"...Huh."
"We were always raiders. We were not used to fights where you defend something."
Come to think of it.
The vampire who inflicted crippling damage on them last time...
Ariella was like that.
"I did think we could inflict some damage, but I did not expect it to be that effective."
If they had had a proper defensive system in place.
They would not have taken that much damage from Ariella and a handful of vampires.
But.
They were only skilled at widening their land.
"The ability to hold what they had taken was abysmally immature."
No wonder they relied on those shamans’ astrology alone for their internal surveillance network.
The moment that astrology was neutralized.
Their surveillance was so absurdly lax they could not even tell what was happening inside.
"No. Is this only someone else’s story?"
Thinking about it.
This was not a flaw that belonged only to them.
"Right now our situation is not so different from theirs."
The fortress defense is sturdy.
But outside that there are indeed some defects.
To be blunt, what is happening on the outskirts of Chuncheon.
We cannot know it without Taejun’s astrology.
Whether to call it a relief.
A way to break through this situation was already prepared.
"...We need to hurry and link up using the communication devices of the military bases."
If we make use of the ability Minjae newly awakened.
We can rebuild a network centered on the places where the military bases are located.
Even without leaning on Taejun’s astrology.
We will be able to raise our control within the territory.
"Your fortress is impressive."
As I was thinking that.
Borjin’s explanation continued.
"Not as much as yours, but the other races had also piled up fairly high walls in their own way. Unlike those who held out inside and endured the attacks... we, unaccustomed to defense, could only be helplessly beaten."
"I see."
"The moment it became certain that the God of the Steppe’s blessing and our communion with the Spirit of the Earth would not be enough to defeat those enemies, we shamans had to seek another method."
Another method.
The phrase does not sound good.
"There were many proposals, but none were practically feasible."
"Well. New methods are not so easily found."
"Just so. To the point that there was even talk that we should ally with races we had been confronting..."
An alliance with other races.
"...?"
That.
How should I put it.
"...Could you not have just chosen that?"
What is that.
It sounds like a pretty good option.
Just from the story, it was the most rational choice.
I wondered why they did not choose it.
"You natives can say that because you do not know the history of our homeland."
To Borjin.
That option was what made the least sense.
"We lived in opposition for hundreds, thousands of years. It is not an exaggeration to say the struggle with other races is that race’s very history."
"Heh."
"An alliance with such enemies? It was only mentioned, and it was the option with the least reality. The tribe member who said it said it almost as a joke."
I do not know the details.
But because of that long history, they were in a situation where they could not choose the option that looked good.
"...So you chose another."
"Yes."
Which was.
"A contract with a demon."
A contract established by offering one’s soul and flesh as the price.
An absurdly unfair contract.
"Insane. You entered that kind of contract?"
"...I understand that you think so, but it was not a choice that was purely inefficient."
"Huh?"
"I told you. What the demon wants is soul and flesh. And..."
At the next words.
I could not help but frown.
"Our tribe bears many children at once, and it does not take long for those children to become adults."
...Damn.
Mad bastards.
"There was more than enough soul and flesh to pay as the price for the contract."
