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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: The Black-Haired Sacrifice
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"W-Wait, she just fainted for a moment! Please...!"
"Step aside."
"Nooo! Don't!"
An orc clad in armor dragged away a child who had collapsed from overwork.
Naturally, the child's mother wailed in despair and clung to the sword-bearing orc warrior with both hands.
If the child was taken like that, the orcs would surely devour them without leaving even a bone behind.
The mother had nothing left but the instinct to protect her child.
But the orc who scooped up the child kicked her away as if mocking her.
Thud!
"—————."
Her screams fell silent.
Struck in the stomach by the steel boot, the child's mother lost consciousness in the filthy mud.
Yet the villagers didn't rage. Instead, they bowed their heads and focused on fulfilling their quotas.
The orcs dragged the child along like picking a chicken from a coop for dinner.
This tragedy was a familiar sight that unfolded every single day.
Scrape, scrape.
The dumb orcs lacked the dexterity to whittle arrow shafts properly.
Thanks to that, small humans like me were stuck producing arrow shafts for them to use.
The quota per person was 150 a day—a hamster wheel metric for our lives.
Repeat, and repeat again.
But the girl who appeared starting a week ago began to shatter my monotonous routine.
"Why didn't you look away?"
"You could have stopped it."
It was pure coincidence.
Pulling out the sword hidden in my shack to clean it, and the girl happening to witness it—all coincidence.
A human possessing a sword was an unforgivable crime.
But the girl's first words upon meeting my eyes weren't a snitch or a scream. They were a dry plea.
'Teach me the sword.'
Ridiculous.
Asking me to teach swordsmanship to a human who wasn't even allowed to hold a small farming tool.
If anyone else had heard, they'd have rolled on the floor laughing until they came to their senses.
But she was too earnest and persistent for it to be a joke.
'Teach me the sword.'
'No!'
'Just once.'
She seemed neurotic.
For a full week, the girl hounded me with pleas, refusing to leave me in peace.
Teach her the sword, show her even once how to swing it.
I had no idea what drove her desperation, but I had zero intention of entertaining such nonsense.
I asked the girl, who was draped in a filthy, ragged cloth.
"You blaming me?"
"...No, just angry."
"Swallow that anger, if you wanna live long."
Suppose I was some great swordsman and saved the kid and the woman. Then what?
The orcs would swarm like dogs, kill me for swinging a blade, and slaughter the entire village for my defiance.
And our corpses would become their evening feast, without even a grave marker.
One mistake could kill everyone. That was the harsh reality.
Never step up.
That was the one lesson eight years of reality had drilled into us humans.
But before she could reply, the bell signaling ration time rang out.
My interest vanished in an instant.
Ding! Ding-ding! Ding!
The one proper ration per day—the only food doled out to keep us from dying.
People swarmed toward the rickety ration cart like a cloud of locusts, bowls in hand.
They shoved and shouted at each other for their share.
The contents were just bean pulp left after pressing oil and coarse tree roots, but to survive, we had to eat it.
"Damn, they cut the portions again."
"Bastards. How the hell are we supposed to work on this?"
Once the war-like ration scramble ended, people slumped onto the cold snowy ground.
They wrapped themselves in their stinking straw mats, despairing over their wretched lives.
Quotas kept rising, while rations steadily shrank.
The orcs snickering from afar must have tampered with the rations again. The bean pulp lumps looked smaller today.
Munch, munch.
But the complaints, too faint to hear, didn't last. People shut their mouths and stuffed the loathed bean pulp into theirs.
As I started eating with them, my eyes caught a distant scene.
The woman who had fainted after losing her child, and the girl tending to her, feeding her bean pulp.
No one paid it any mind, but it stuck with me more than usual.
"Haa..."
What was the point?
No matter what, nothing would change.
Worn out by today's biting cold, I let out a deep sigh and recalled eight years ago.
'Find my successor.'
It had been eight years since I left for the North to find the king's heir.
In that time, I'd selected over ten candidates, each brimming with talent and zeal.
But that was the end of it.
No matter how gifted, none could match the Knight King's uniqueness.
Those who couldn't distinguish courage from madness, those swallowed by the swamp of their own talent.
As time passed, candidates left my side or died, and I burned through eight years.
That time was more than enough to dull the hope I once carried.
I was exhausted now.
Exhausted enough to spit harsh words at a desperate young girl because no potential shone in her.
Ignoring my increasingly guilty conscience like an old habit, I watched the girl walk away.
Then, forcing down the lump of emotion and bean pulp in my throat, I stood.
Grueling labor and endless repetition.
Another meaningless day slipped by.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Swish, swish.
It had been eight years and ten months since I took up the king's sword and wandered the North.
And every single day without fail, I'd polished that sword for eight years and ten months.
But the blade I pulled from under the bed today gleamed sharper than usual.
As if rebuking me for this life I led.
Behind the dawn-lit edge, my haggard, filthy reflection stared back.
No amount of polishing or oiling could brighten that face.
The orcs' civil war dragged on.
The two-year throne struggle had turned the southern and central continents into wastelands.
But the humans under orc rule in the North weren't dreaming of rebellion—they suffered under ever-harsher governance.
Yesterday alone, twelve people died.
With nearby trees all felled, this village wouldn't last much longer.
Time to leave.
As always, I prepared to depart before the village remembered me.
Canned edible roots smuggled from the orcs, tough rat meat dried in the frigid northern winds.
I carefully packed provisions for the journey to the next village into my leather satchel.
And the most important item—the sword—I wrapped in clean cloth and quietly hung at my waist.
In thirty minutes, the wake-up bell would toll.
I had to slip out before then. Leaving the battered bed I'd used for a while, I opened the shack door.
Creeeak, clunk.
"......"
Habitually, I glanced sideways.
And there she was, as expected—huddled under her cloth hat, shivering as she waited for me.
If only she'd given up today, she could have avoided this early winter chill.
On the seventh day of clinging obsession, the girl had come begging for sword lessons again.
As our eyes met quietly, the blue-lipped girl looked up.
"...Mister."
I was angry. It was backlash from eight years of solitary torment, irritation at the girl who wouldn't quit.
Why struggle in a world where all hope had ended?
Hiding what might have been shame, I spoke coldly to the trembling girl.
"If you're gonna snitch, do it now. Add leaving the residential zone to the charges, and you might get a bread crumb."
"I-I wouldn't..."
Bam!
I slammed the door, cutting her off.
The girl, who had started to stand, fell flat on her butt.
Why keep coming to me, shaking the resolve I'd just steeled?
Gripping my stirring conscience, I turned away and left the shack.
Her hand, reaching toward me, slowly dropped amid tremors.
Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Snow began to fall.
Winter had started, so the village would begin winter preparations to survive.
But I planned to roam the North, where cold winds blew over frozen ground.
In this white wasteland where no one cared anymore, searching for the king's heir.
There was no reason.
I was a wandering ghost myself, after all.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Hurry it up! Stragglers become tonight's dinner!"
Crack!
The orc overseer cracked his whip.
The human slaves trembled and quickened their steps carrying loads.
Smoke rose from dismantled forges and pots boiling meat.
The stench of steel and rotting corpses defined the orc encampment.
But orcs, who loathed winter, planned to relocate starting today.
"—————."
The annual camp migration repeated every year.
Knowing the date precisely, I hid near the encampment—not far from the village—and waited for night.
With countless orcs and human slaves moving, the camp was chaos.
Security, usually tight, was lax today.
Perfect chance to steal.
I slipped past busy orcs and quietly entered the stables.
Snort! Snuff!
The biggest hassle of wandering the North was lack of transport.
Ordinary horses couldn't endure the brutal cold and froze to death.
But white-horned deer, born and bred here and adapted to the chill, fared differently.
D docile and easy to tame, with stamina to cross high mountains effortlessly.
In the North, nothing replaced the white-horned deer for travel.
Snuff!
Fortunately, no guards at the stables.
I leisurely stroked one white-horned deer, grabbed its reins, and loaded my gear.
My eighth such companion, destined to aid my Northbound wanderings.
Unaware of the future ahead, it lightly followed me.
But as I moved to exit—
Laughter and presence erupted right in front of the stables.
"Keh! Arrow Shaft Village, huh? Shoulda been me on duty."
"Execution in early winter? Sergeant's in a good mood today."
Orcs.
Passing nearby, thankfully not entering.
But one word I overheard pierced my held breath.
The orcs' "execution."
A ritual for victorious war—and public execution of defiant humans as example.
And it was set for the arrow shaft village I'd just fled.
"Sacrifice is top quality, they say. Planning to send the head to the homeland."
"That good? What is it?"
"Heard rumors myself. The sacrifice is that."
"That?"
"You know, black hair."
Black hair.
The trait only the Knight King and I possessed, symbol of human resurgence.
In that instant, the image of the girl—always hiding her short hair under a cloth hat—flashed through my mind.
The chattering orcs passed the stables. I slowly ran a hand through my hair, now fully white.
My right hand, gripping the reins, shifted toward the direction I'd come from.