“Sorry for interrupting. Can you keep talking?”
“…”
“Egru? Egru!”
“Ah…”
“You scared me! Don’t close your eyes! I told you not to sleep!”
Egru blinked slowly.
“I-I’m sorry…”
“No, you don’t need to apologize.”
The Orc subordinate smiled bitterly.
“So D’Élysée and Levian are your family? This Mayfield person doesn’t seem to be family since you call her ‘Miss’.”
“…Th-that’s right.”
Egru smiled involuntarily, but it wasn’t very visible on the outside.
“Th-they’re all family…”
“Hm? What’s this? A pouch?”
“Gasp…!”
Egru quickly hid the cheese pouch that was slipping out of his breast. The Orc subordinate opened his eyes in surprise. The big dog growled at the Orc subordinate.
“S-sorry… It’s something my brother gave me…”
Egru took shallow breaths while barely calming the big dog.
“Don’t worry. I understand. I have something like that too.”
The Orc subordinate rummaged in his chest and said:
“Look at this. It’s an amulet my mother passed down to me.”
“It’s… really beautiful…”
“Thank you.”
The Orc subordinate smiled and put the amulet back.
“That’s like your brother to you, isn’t it? I feel the same way. D’Élysée? Or Levian?”
“D-D’Élysée…”
“That’s a nice name. Suits your brother.”
Wait, where have I heard that name before? It felt strangely familiar.
But the Orc subordinate soon shook off the thought. This wasn’t the time.
“Did your brother come here with you?”
“N-no… D-D’Élysée is human…”
“What?”
The Orc subordinate hesitated with a bewildered expression.
“Well, I guess that’s for the best. I don’t know what the circumstances are, but you’ll go see him again once we escape from here, right?”
“Y-yes…”
“What do you want to say to him the most?”
“…”
Egru’s eyes sank deeply. They were both blank and contemplative. Soon, his parched lips moved.
“I-I’m sorry…”
His amber eyes wavered with welling moisture.
“F-for losing the demon stone… For ruining everything…”
“Don’t worry about that. No family would get angry over something like that.”
“B-but… Someday…”
Egru took a deep, raspy breath.
“I’ll… try to live the way we hoped…”
The Orc subordinate wiped Egru’s eyes once.
“That’s a great goal. Do you have any other dreams?”
“I… want to live with my brother…”
“No, no. Not that kind of thing.”
The Orc subordinate looked down at Egru with steady eyes.
“I mean a dream for yourself.”
“…”
Egru couldn’t answer for a long time. The Orc subordinate was worried Egru might fall asleep again.
“If you can’t think of anything, you can say something else. Shall we play a word chain game?”
“B-breath…”
“Huh?”
“I want to eat… until it’s hard to breathe…”
“Eat what?”
“Anything…”
“Yaaaaaah―!”
It was then that Tuunri’s shout was heard. The Orc subordinate turned towards the source of the sound.
“Run away quickly! Carry Egru on your back!”
“We’re doomed! We’re really doomed!”
Tuunri and Bey came running, carrying armfuls of the least dirty cloth they could find, shouting.
“Scatter!”
As the Orc Chief shouted in his deep voice, the demons scattered in panic.
The fireballs that had been constantly rotating suddenly stopped. Then they began to charge.
Towards the high-quality life forms trapped in the garbage dump.
As if they had eyes, they detected and preyed on the demons’ mana.
“Don’t let the fireballs touch you! You’ll turn into stones!”
“Stones?”
The Orc subordinate questioned Tuunri’s shout. But he soon realized what she meant.
“Aaaagh―!”
Not even ten steps away, a demon disappeared. As soon as it touched the fireball, its scream was unnaturally cut off.
Thud.
A shining gem fell to the dirt ground. The demon’s life was instantly converted into a convenient mana stone.
Good heavens.
The Orc subordinate immediately picked up Egru. The big dog stuck close to his side.
“They’re planning to use us as fuel for the war!”
Tuunri, who started running alongside them, shouted through gritted teeth.
“How can they come up with such an archaic idea? I thought they were going to isolate and starve us to death, but this is much worse!”
“What on earth is that? I’ve never seen fireballs like that even in war.”
“It’s obviously forbidden magic! It must be ancient magic if even I haven’t seen it before!”
“Does the Empire even have humans capable of activating such complex formulas?”
“It might not be human.”
The Orc Chief, who had joined them, said. He then reached out his hand, but his subordinate shook his head. He meant that he would carry Egru himself. The Orc Chief obediently withdrew his arm.
“Where do we run now! Do we die if we stop? What kind of miserable death is this!”
“I absolutely can’t die! My family is waiting for me!”
Bey answered Tuunri’s shout.
Egru was busily moving his hand alone. He barely managed to grasp the cheese pouch that was trying to slip out of his violently shaking breast.
“Everyone stop!”
Just then, the Orc subordinate abruptly halted. He narrowly avoided a fireball that suddenly sprang out from a pile of garbage. But with the recoil of immediately dashing in the opposite direction—
“Ah, aah…!”
The cloth pouch slipped out of the pale green hand. The hand, caked with dried blood, flailed.
“W-wait…!”
“Woof!”
“No! Don’t go!”
It happened in an instant. The big dog, trying to protect the cheese pouch, disappeared into the fireball. The amber eyes filled with red flames.
“Damn it!”
The Orc subordinate turned back for a moment, then immediately ran forward again. Egru grasped the Orc subordinate with his hand that was growing cold. And he exerted all his strength to try to get up.
“L-let me go. I have to go…”
“You just saw what happened! Forget about that stupid pouch! Your brother would prefer that too!”
“N-no. That’s not it…”
Tears welled up in the amber eyes. His voice trembled helplessly.
“It’s… it’s my friend… Its hind legs aren’t good, so I… I need to go help…”
“Get a grip! Do you want to die too?”
“I-I can do it. I’ll be right back…”
“Shut up! Damn it!”
The Orc subordinate chewed out curses.
“We’re all on the brink of death, you know? Don’t make things worse!”
The Orc Chief struck his subordinate’s shoulder.
It was then that Egru burst into tears. He sobbed aimlessly with eyes that could no longer produce tears. His amber eyes, growing increasingly dry, stared only at the space where the big dog had disappeared.
“I-I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”
“…”
The Orc subordinate kept running without stopping, with a face that regretted the emotional words he had just shouted.
***
The force of the fireballs grew stronger as time passed. The sound of fleeing footsteps had already decreased by nearly half.
“Are we just going to die running like this?”
Tuunri shouted, dripping with sweat.
“Isn’t there any other escape route?”
“Th-there’s a dog hole in the back…”
“I checked! It’s blocked by the barrier, we can’t get out! But thanks for telling me! Egru!”
Tuunri was particularly kind only to Egru.
“Hey! Hey! You there! Hurry up and come up with something! Aren’t you the chief!”
“…There is one way.”
“What?”
Tuunri shouted angrily.
“You idiot! Why were you keeping that to yourself!”
“…”
“Spit it out quickly! Before I use your uselessly large body as a shield!”
The Orc Chief, who had been glancing at Egru, frowned.
“I found the core of the barrier. It seems to be in an old closed underground waterway. They’ve just made a long downward passage to hide the core in the hemispherical barrier.”
“Right! I told you the casting core would be inside the barrier! There’s no magician in the system who could layer such a barrier!”
Tuunri shouted with an excited face.
“Now we just need to go get it quickly!”
“The problem is that the core is at the bottom of the underground waterway. The passage down is extremely narrow and long. Probably none of us can enter without breaking the periphery. Of course, the periphery is surrounded by a barrier that can’t be destroyed.”
“…Then it’s over. Damn, it was nice meeting you all.”
“However.”
The Orc Chief seemed to have difficulty speaking for some reason. His anguished gaze turned towards the one with the smallest build among them.
“Oh no…”
Bey let out a sigh. That alone was enough to understand the situation.
“That’s impossible!”
Tuunri shouted.
“How can he move all the way down there! He can barely breathe!”
“I think so too. Even if we tied him with a rope, I can’t guarantee we could wait in front of the manhole entrance.”
The Orc Chief glanced at the fireballs.
“It would be unstable and dangerous. This is unfair.”
“I’ll go!”
Bey raised his thick hand high.
“I appreciate you volunteering, but you can’t fit in with your build. Let’s keep running for now and observe the situation a bit more.”
“Wait, wait! I’m already at my limit!”
Tuunri’s feet inevitably slowed down.
“Damn it! I should have eaten dinner, even if it was late! I’m starving to death!”
“What was on the menu!”
Bey asked, supporting Tuunri.
“Roast beef and fish stew! And caramel ice cream!”
“Oh my, that’s worth regretting!”
Bey laughed heartily.
“I’d be satisfied with three glasses of cold wheat beer! Gulping them down in one go!”
“I… I’ll…”
Just then, a small voice was heard. Egru, who had been listening to the conversation, slowly raised his upper body from where he was being held.
“I’ll go…”