After extracting everything we needed
from the Green Manes shaman,
Borjin,
"...Well, that’s how it is."
I shared what I got from him with the squad-leader-grade soldiers.
The key parts were intel on demon contractors.
And...
"This is the egg."
The shaman, Borjin.
The big egg he’d pampered so much he even cast a transparency spell on it.
[Primitive Orc Embryo]
"Sir, what exactly are those eggs?"
"Mm. Put simply, he was trying to set up an expand."
"An expand?"
"Uh, what’s that?"
Expand.
A term you use a lot in strategy games,
but those games themselves were a fad from pretty long ago.
Su Hyeok and Gwangil don’t look like the type who play games anyway.
If a soldier doesn’t know games, he might not know the term.
"With your main base still operating, it means building an ‘expansion base’ somewhere else."
There are multiple reasons to build that expansion.
One is to gain additional resources there.
In our case, leaving Inje County and establishing a foothold in Chuncheon is that example.
Another case is
"when your main base is gone."
When you’re forced to need a new base.
"The tribe was on the verge of annihilation, so they tried to make a new start on new land."
Crisis came upon the tribe.
To prevent the species’ extinction,
Borjin fled the tribe’s territory with that egg.
"Pure Orcs not tainted by demonic power."
At the time of the demon contract,
when they learned a demon’s power could boost the tribe’s abilities,
the Great Chieftain gave Borjin a separate order.
"The Great Chieftain’s most gifted children."
Those children,
he ordered sealed separately so that no external power could affect them.
And someday, when an annihilation crisis came to the tribe,
they would attempt a new start through those children.
When the crisis truly came,
Borjin set about carrying out the order.
Raise those children somewhere safe
and aim for a new beginning for the Orc race based on them.
The problem was...
"While he was trying to flee, he ran into Changsu’s group."
"Talk about rotten luck."
Borjin seems to be a pretty capable shaman,
but acting alone outside the tribe,
he wasn’t that big a threat.
From his point of view it must feel absurd.
Even if it was the outskirts, it was still Green Manes territory,
and he got ambushed out of nowhere there.
"I see... so that’s what happened."
After hearing the whole story,
Corporal Seo Suhyeok nodded and stood up.
"Then..."
"Hm?"
I wondered why he suddenly stood.
Clack.
He raised his rifle and aimed at the egg.
"First off, we’ll dispose of this—"
"W-wait!"
Aiming at the eggs without the slightest hesitation,
I hurriedly reached out and lowered his muzzle.
"...?"
"Why, Sergeant Shin?"
The soldiers looked at me, puzzled.
"We’re not disposing of it?"
In particular,
Corporal Seo Suhyeok, whose muzzle I was holding, asked with a face that said he didn’t get it.
"...For now, let’s wait."
"Wait... even if we keep the shaman alive to squeeze more intel,"
he shot Borjin a momentary look of contempt,
"these eggs aren’t going to give us any intelligence."
"That’s true."
"Then there’s nothing good about letting them live, is there? If they escape, we’ll be allowing another hostile force to grow somewhere else."
Cold and clean cut, as usual, from Corporal Seo Suhyeok.
He approaches most matters coldly.
The issue was—
"Agreed."
"Youngjun? What are you thinking?"
not only the other squad leaders,
even Minjae hyung shared Seo Suhyeok’s position.
...In the end, they’re monster offspring.
From the soldiers’ standpoint, of course you eliminate them.
There were rare exceptions.
"Killing children who weren’t even born yet is a bit off-putting."
"Excuse me?"
"Well... they are monsters."
"That’s true."
Corporal Jeon Gwangil scratched his head.
"The Green Manes are our enemy, sure. That shaman used humans as slaves, so I say we put him down. But..."
"You don’t feel right about eliminating kids who haven’t done anything yet?"
"I’m just saying it feels a bit iffy."
At that,
Minjae hyung frowned.
"That’s insane."
His tone was rough,
the signature electricity of an angry Pikachu flickering on his face.
"You want the Legion to take on risk because you feel iffy?"
"No. That’s not what I meant."
Watching him,
I thought to myself.
Not long ago you asked me to do something that could harm the Legion...
It’s a reminder
not to get the wrong idea.
Minjae hyung has emotional sides,
but he’s fundamentally rational.
On most issues, he and Corporal Seo Suhyeok supported the same conclusion.
Even so,
he proposed radio broadcasts earlier for two reasons.
"One is... he knows what my cooking does."
Not everyone in the unit is some emotionless psychopath.
Everyone worries about other humans.
But it’s a problem with no clear answer.
With my cooking, I was dampening that anxiety.
However,
Minjae hyung knows what my cooking does,
so its effect hits him a little less,
which makes him, along with me,
one of only two in the unit who don’t get proper mental care from my cooking.
He’s in a position where he simply cannot cut off worry about others as much.
So he proposed broadcasts for the people.
And,
truth be told this is the main one—
the second reason:
"Radio broadcasts were... for humans."
Even if you broadcast info about monsters,
the chance monsters will hear and use it is slim.
Even if some who hear become potential enemies,
they’re still human.
By contrast,
"leaving these eggs benefits monsters."
So it’s not strange that the other soldiers think it’s obvious to dispose of them.
-...I envy you.
"Hm?"
While I watched the squad leaders talk,
the monster in chains,
who had been staring blankly,
Borjin spoke.
"Envy what."
The moment [Honesty] wore off he’d shut his mouth, and now he suddenly talked.
Curious what he meant,
I glanced at him and asked.
-...I envy being in a position to decide something.
"Huh?"
-You people... are in a position to decide my fate and those children’s. Even to kill or to spare—that is something you get to choose... and I can only envy that.
"Is that really worth envying that much?"
-...When annihilation stands at your doorstep, you don’t even have the right to choose.
"..."
That is the end of those who lose.
The most basic matter for a living being—
even life or death is no longer yours to choose.
It didn’t feel entirely like someone else’s story.
If we slip once,
we could end up in the same position as them.
Only...
"No right to choose, huh."
Of the things he said,
this part made me tilt my head.
"It’s not like there were no choices at all."
-What are you talking about.
When I lightly parried,
the monster looked at me, pride wounded.
"Sergeant Shin?"
"What are you talking with him about."
I felt the squad leaders’ eyes
turn to me.
"When monsters appeared in your world, there were options besides contracting with demons, weren’t there?"
-...I told you, all of them were unrealistic! Even if it drove the tribe to ruin... at that time, that was our only option...!
He is the very one who arranged the demon contract.
He seems to carry his share of guilt,
yet he still thinks there had been no choice but a demon contract.
"I’m not so sure."
My view was a bit different.
From what I heard
about how they ended up ruined—
"It’s not like they had no chance."
There were choices.
They just didn’t consider them choices.
[What about making an alliance with the other races.]
The words from that one they called Great Chieftain.
He’s said to be dead now,
but thinking back on it,
I feel frankly relieved.
"If he were alive, he’d be an immense threat to the Legion."
Not because he’d be stronger than some High Shaman or Great Warrior.
That judgment—
that’s the reason he could lead such a great tribe.
"Anyway, as I explained."
I turned to the soldiers and spoke.
"These guys, when their world fell, brazenly ran to ours."
"We heard that."
"Why bring that up, Youngjun."
"So put the other way around,"
from our perspective, in the middle of our own ongoing collapse,
"these punks, who already failed miserably, are an excellent negative example we must never imitate."
-...You mean to insult us!
Maybe he took my words as an insult.
Borjin glared at me, furious.
Yeah.
A fine negative example stands right in front of us.
If you learn nothing there,
you won’t survive long in a world like this.
"As you know, this shaman dealt in humans as slaves."
"..."
"I’m not going to pretend I don’t feel like killing him on the spot."
Honestly,
the impulse to kill him on the spot keeps bubbling up.
I find the Green Manes in general offensive on multiple levels.
They opposed us,
and even used humans as slaves.
Their history in their world—
from where I stand,
nothing but unendurable filth.
"But,"
that’s only that.
To survive in a world like this,
no matter how distasteful,
you grit your teeth and do it.
"The children in those eggs,"
I pointed to the egg Corporal Seo Suhyeok had just tried to pop,
"have done nothing at all because they haven’t even been born yet."
"Shin Youngjun!"
Minjae hyung seemed to catch what I was about to say,
his eyes going wide.
"You psycho... no way!"
Compared to the other soldiers,
he could catch my intent faster
for one reason.
He knows about vampires.
Among monsters already under me,
as for the Green Manes’ habit of treating tribesmen’s lives lightly... I hated that,
but there was precisely one thing
they did that I liked.
The order that last Great Chieftain
gave Borjin.
"Let’s flip it around."
"Sir?"
"He was going to use these eggs to plant an expand on new land and make a new start."
Sending a worker to build a new expand
when your main base is gone.
In truth,
that’s considered bad manners in strategy /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ games.
Unable to accept defeat,
resisting to the end, ugly and craven.
It wasn’t a good look.
But
that’s only in a strategy game.
"As I see it, I like it quite a bit."
To survive no matter what,
using any and every means,
wriggling like a dog to the last moment.
Heh.
"In that case, that expand,"
to qualify for joining our unit...
is more than good enough.
"why don’t we take it for ourselves?"
"...Excuse me?"
It’d be a shame to just throw it away.
