Chapter 322 - Crow

Eiro kept looking at the horizon, his mind going crazy to figure out the 'truth' of the situation. So far, this Orc was the oldest one that he had seen here in the village. It was kind of weird that this Orc knew Common so well, despite the fact that he was told by the child that he was the only one that knew Common.

Since that child was telling the truth then, this meant that it didn't know about this Orc's ability to speak Common. This elderly monster was hiding this from those around it, but felt free to simply show it to Eiro without a moment's hesitation just because of who, or rather what, he was.

Such things and much, much more ran through Eiro's mind before he came to a conclusion, "So it really is you that is killing the other Orcs."

"That is a surprising conclusion to come to so quickly." The Orc said, although he clearly didn't deny it. Eiro nodded his head, "Of course. I already figured that the Monster King was behind the creation of this particular village. And on top of that, this sort of civilized behavior isn't something that one is innately born with. Hence, the Monster King must have left a few people behind that had the purpose to 'lead' this village, as well as a few that had the purpose to 'get rid' of it after the village as a whole fulfilled its purpose. You are one of those, aren't you?"

"...You are quite a clever one, I must say. I assume you have been created by the newest King?" The Orc inquired, and Eiro slowly noddedh is head, "Mhm. But don't think that all of us are that way. I'm a bit of a special case."

"I see... Well, it matters quite little. You are completely correct. The first of this village were created by the Monster King that reigned a few hundreds of years ago, with the purpose of creating a single object of power. It was already retrieved by another minion of the current King, though. And then, as the only one that knew the secrets of this place, as the 'Keeper', my life's task was 'renewed'. I was to kill everyone in this village."

Eiro heard the Orc's words, and quickly understood what the Orc was trying to say, but he still had to make sure, "Did you do this to find a way to get around your task, or is this already part of a plan to get around your task?"

With a quiet laugh, the elderly Orc nodded his head, "The latter of those two. You see, the first language that a creature learns is their 'mother tongue', it is the language in which the system will be displayed. And due to that, the task was translated into the language of Orcs as well." He explained.

"So, since the Orc language seems to involve a lot of situational- and body-language, the words weren't enough to give you the intended meaning of your task without any way around it. Let me guess, right now, your task can be seen as 'Kill everyone in the village', or as 'Get rid of everyone in the village'. So you were trying to get rid of them in a way that didn't necessarily involve killing everyone."

"Indeed so." The Orc explained, "But as a few rules still restrict me, it became quite complicated. My time limit for killing them was 24 hours, but due to similar reasons as my task, that became a rule that required me to kill at least one of them every 24 hours. Beyond that, I couldn't share the task with anyone else, but that turned into me not being able to share it with any of the other orcs. And three... I am unable to kill myself to stop this task." The Orc explained, and Eiro slowly nodded his head as he heard the Orc's voice. The tone and the emotion that was mixed into it.

"I see. So you tried to chase everyone toward the closest other village to get someone to fight back and possibly find out the killer, so that they could kill you. This village itself means quite a lot to you, doesn't it?"

It was clear even without a direct answer from the elderly Orc, "Well... Then let me assist you with that later. First, there are a few things that I want you to tell me."

"Ask away. There's nothing holding us back from that." The elderly Orc said with a light smile on his face, before dark red blood started flowing out of the corners of his mouth. It seemed like he himself didn't even realize it yet. But what was worse to the Demon sitting next to him was that he only noticed the gaping hole in the Orc's stomach when it was already too late. 

Eiro could see the damage-notification pop up in the Orc's eyes, as if even the system wasn't ready for this sudden turn of events.

"What a bother... Now I have to slaughter all of'em? I thought I could watch this a bit longer, but I guess not..." A voice said. It was a voice that came from a man that Eiro hadn't taken notice of before this. The Demon immediately went back in his memory, and realized what was going on. 

This man was a monster as well, and he was watching Eiro in the form of a crow sitting around in a group of another few. Although the Demon really didn't know how the Crow was able to get past his perception.

Without hesitation, Eiro stood up from the log he was sitting on and turned around toward the figure of the man that just dangerously injured this old man, "Nelli." The Demon said immediately, and the Naiad appeared next to him. Without Eiro even having to say anything else, the Naiad started to heal the Orc's wound.

Of course, if this was just any random Orc, Eiro probably would have let it die. But this was the first time ever that he met another artificially-created monster that he would be able to hold a proper conversation with. There was a lot that Eiro wanted to... no, that he had to know.

The monster in front of him was one that looked mostly like a person, really. He was wearing something like a jacket made completely of pitch-black feathers. His hair was the same color, and the rings underneath his eyes actually came quite close to it as well. Otherwise... This being seemed to be completely average in its build, if not below-average in height for a normal human a.d.u.l.t.

"I guess there ain't a reason to wait if nothin' interesting's gonna happen anymore." The crow-monster said, and then held its hand forward. At a speed that Eiro had never witnessed before, a feather shot forward at Eiro. He was actually barely able to react at all, even though he could see it. It was as if his body couldn't catch up to his mind. So, there was only one thing that Eiro could do.

The Demon had to activate the ring that he was wearing on his left middle finger. It was the ring that he had stolen from that Organization's executive before. There were only around two and a half minutes left on it, but that was more than enough to change the tide of the battle around if it came to it.

And right now, the only way that Eiro could react was to release the mana that he had bundled up right on the edge of infusion next to the gem that was actually important when it came to this ring.

"Guess I should take this chance to finish this quickly..." Eiro muttered quietly as he approached this crow-monster, simply stepping past the feather that it had shot off. It was alwayy pretty weird to move like this in this time-frozen space. Eiro stepped right up to the crow-monster and proceeded to simply punch its face a couple of times. When he would make time keep flowing, it would end up getting a lot more force hitting its face at once, which should be enough to take it out.

The Demon stepped away for a moment and grabbed a few pebbles off the ground, pebbles that he immediately proceeded to shoot toward the crow-monster. Of course, both physically and magically, practically hyper-charging their speed. And that only an inch or two in front of the crow's face.

For good measure, Eiro proceeded to position himself in a way that allowed him to shoot off a spell the moment that time continued to flow again. He couldn't cast spells right now, after all. 

And then, he pulled his mana out of the gemstone and time proceeded to move. The Demon immediately tried to cast a spell at the crow that he figured to be one that could damage it.

The crow was pushed back and dropped onto the ground a few steps behind where it stood before. The pebbles also seemed to dig into its skin, and since it didn't move, Eiro figured that it was dead.

Just to make sure of that, Eiro took out his three of swords and approached the presumably dead body. But then... the corners of its mouth twitched and formed a broad grin that only a maniac could pull off.

"I couldn't see it... How? How could I not see it? It was too fast for me? How? How?! Show me again, I want to see it again!" The crow started to scream out things that startled Eiro quite a bit on top of the shock-like realization that his nearly full-power punches, and a couple dozen of them hitting the crow's face at once, didn't do anything to it.

Eiro could see the pebbles slowly be pushed out of the crow's skin and drop back onto the ground as it slowly stood up as if it was completely unaffected. But of course, that wasn't true. Eiro could see the damage that he had done to this monster through its eyes, and it was actually quite a sizeable number.

But even then, the Monster was unaffected. Completely and utterly so. Maybe it was good at hiding it, or maybe... It was just that strong.

Somehow, Eiro's heart couldn't stop pounding in his chest at this thought. What if this monster was incredibly strong? So strong that it would be able to put up a good match against Eiro at this point? Sure, he was strong, but in the grand scheme of things, there were still plenty of monsters, and of course also numerous people, that would be able to beat Eiro.

And Eiro got excited whenever he got to face one without many consequences.