Chapter 6.2 Booby-Trapped Bait Zell

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Thanks for reading everyone, and stay safe! Conclusion to chapter 6 coming tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Zel was desperately begging for her life.

“Really, I was just passing through! While I was traveling alone with just the clothes on my back, I found a cave that looked nice. I had no idea it was your home, and I apologize from the bottom of my heart for intruding. I’m really, really, really, really sorry that I disturbed you. I’m a Faerie, so I can make powder. Powder! Everyone likes powder, right? Fairy dust!”

Just as she entered the cavern, naturally, Zell got caught, and had kept on saying similar things the whole time while surrounded by vicious looking criminals.

The bandits looked puzzled.

They had noticed an eerie glowing light flitting around the cave, and when they finally caught it, it began begging for its life for a whole hour.

The bandits, who were used to hearing captives beg for their lives, couldn’t help but pity her as she was bound in a tiny bamboo mat and crawled around like a caterpillar, and even kissed the bottom of their feet.

While it wasn’t very well known, but prior to teaming up with Bash, this Faerie was known as “Zell the Beggar.”

She had also been caught by the infamous “Faerie Eater Gordon”, who ate all the Faeries that entered his grasp, and made it out alive.

Her begging induced pity in all that heard it.

It was one of the many techniques that had allowed Zell to survive the war.

“Well, I guess we don’t really need to kill Faeries, do we?”

“Yeah, I guess… there’s the dust too.”

“No way I’m doing it. Don’t wanna get cursed.”

The bandits looked to each other as they said this.

These hairy, burly, unkempt men were all humans.

It was said, since long ago, that taking a Faerie’s life would curse both you and all your descendants.

Considering the fact that the dust emanating from their bodies cured disease and injury and that she posed little to no danger on her own, there was no real reason to kill her.

“So, hey, how about you untie me and let everyone shower in my dust, huh? Doesn’t that sound good? Happy, happy powder for everybody!”

“Are you stupid? No way I’m freeing you.”

Unfortunately, Zell remained as locked up as ever.

Faeries are ephemeral creatures.

The members of this gang weren’t idiots. They knew she would flee the instant the ropes came off.

When a Faerie was caught, it was kept in a cage or a jar, their dust collected for years to come.

That was the usual way they were treated.

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“No, really! You should untie me! The dust comes out better when I’m not all bound up like this! Seriously, I produce so, so, so much of it, that back home, they used to call me “Powder Blower”! I swear!”

Zell was aware of this.

Which is why she was desperately trying to appeal to them and not be restrained any longer than necessary.

Well, most of the time, it didn’t work out.

“Hey. What’s going on here?”

A loud, baritone voice echoed out from behind the bandits.

They all turned around in unison.

“Boss!”

They sounded happy.

As a few of the brigands gave way, this “Boss” figure came into Zell’s sight.

The bandit they called “Boss”.

She had wondered what kind of nasty man this “Boss” was, and sure enough, he was one vicious looking motherfucker.

He had thick, muscular arms, a wide, toothy mouth, and sharp, piercing eyes.

He wore a worn-out leather vest and a necklace adorned with skulls hung around his neck. A macabre ensemble with no sense of cohesion nor fashion.

And amongst all of this, his most distinctive feature was the color of his skin.

Green.

And to top it all off, two long, sharp fangs protruded upwards out of his lips.

Yes, this “Boss” was an Orc.

“Ah…ah!”

As soon as Zell saw this Orc, she felt a glimmer of familiarity tugging at her from the back of her mind.

A foggy, fuzzy memory.

She couldn’t recall his name.

But the fact that she remembered anything at all meant that they had met during the war.

“Chief! Hey Chief! It’s been a long time! It’s me! I’m Zell! Zell the Faerie!”

As a side note, Zell wasn’t very good at remembering people’s names or faces.

The only Orc she could identify without fault was Bash. The others she could only vaguely put a name to.

Of course, she couldn’t remember the name of the Orc in front of her.

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As so, she called most of them either “Chief” or “Big Bro”.

“Huh? You’re one of Bash’s buddies, aren’t you? What are you doing here?”

And Zell was famous.

Nobody was unfamiliar with the Faerie that followed Bash the Hero throughout the battlefields, especially among the Orcs

“Oh, no, no, no, listen to me Chief! After the war was over, I got bored and started travelling around the world. And then I came across this cave. And I told myself, “wow, what a nice cave!”. And it smelled like treasure! And then I went in, but it turns out it wasn’t the smell of treasure, just the stench of stinky, unwashed thieves! Please help me Chief!”

Zell jumped up and down, flopping like a minnow out of water, struggling to come closer to him.

She looked absolutely miserable, but from the perspective of this “Boss” Orc, she was also a comrade-in-arms.

He couldn’t even count the number of times he’d been saved by Bash and this tiny Faerie.

“Alright, alright… untie her, I know her.”

“Are you sure? Faeries are known for being loudmouths. We can’t let anybody know we’re here…”

The Orc’s ugly face twisted as he looked at the reluctant bandits.

Bringing his face closer to Zell, he slyly whispered.

“Hey, us being here is a secret. Don’t tell anyone, okay?”

“Of course, I won’t tell anyone! Don’t worry! Have I ever told anyone any secrets before?! Nobody has ever made me crack! Nobody! I’ve got the stiffest lips around! If I was that much of a blabbermouth, Mister Bash would have already died a thousand times over and they’d have build a nice memorial statue for him back in Orc Country!”

This was technically the truth.

She often divulged things that weren’t secrets. But then again, which pieces of knowledge were considered secrets, and which weren’t were up to her own discretion.

Which is why she’s never leaked a secret.

“Hey, free her.”

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“…Ugh.”

The bandits seemed to have some reservations about the Boss’ words, but finally, they relented and untied Zell’s bindings.

The instant the Faerie was freed, instead of making a mad dash for freedom, she fluttered midair in front of the Orc brigand.

“Thank you so much for helping me out! That’s the Chief for ya! But hey, Chief, what are you doing out here with a bunch’a Humans?”

Her task was to gather information.

No matter how free-spirited she was, she hadn’t forgotten her job.

“Eh, what the hell, I’ll tell ya. Nemesis wants to be buddy-buddy with the Humans. And I thought, “what good is an Orc if he can’t fight?”. Fuck that. So, I left on my own. And then I met these guys, and we hit it off.”

The bandits chuckled as the Orc looked around,

“At first I thought that this wouldn’t work. I’m an Orc, they’re Human. But turns out there are people from other races that feel the same way.”

“Whoa, so all these people here are just warriors looking for a fight, huh! Do you guys kill everyone you see? A Destroyer Army?!”

“Yeah! Well… that’s what we’d like to do, but it wouldn’t work. Right now, I’m slowly accumulating power so that nobody, neither Orc or Human, can find out. And when I’m strong enough, I’ll begin the full scale activities!”

“Ohh! That’s the Chief for ya!”

While pretending to be impressed and surprised by the Orc’s declaration, Zell floated around, pondering on how to get out of here now that she got what she needed.

She then noticed several large silhouettes, deep in the darkness of the cave, their eyes glinting in the shadows.

“Hey! There’s something down there!”

“Heh, it’s not a thing. Did you forget? I’m a Beast Tamer!”

His words reminded Zell of the Daemon’s Secret Arts.

A strange technique, slightly different from standard magic.

A dark power that could be utilized even by non-mages.

A method to cloud one’s consciousness and bend them to your will.

Which you could use to, for example, manipulate low-intelligence magical beasts…

“You’re controlling bugbears!”

Right at this point, the Orc’s identity tumbled out from the depths of Zell’s tiny brain.

This Orc’s name was Boggs.

One of the eight surviving Battalion Captains.

Boggs the Beastmaster.

The hundreds of bugbears he controlled have sent thousands upon thousands of Humans to their grave.

Of course, controlling bugbears wasn’t the only thing he could do.

All Orcs were warriors in their own right.

In addition to his Tamer skills, Boggs himself wielded a steel mace and had personally crushed hundreds of enemies.

He was a veteran who had spent more than 40 years of his life on the battlefield.

“Well, their numbers have dwindled down quite a bit…”

Boggs looked fondly over at the bugbears lounging in the cave’s corner.

During the war, the Beast Tamer had over a hundred of these creatures under his care.

Out of any Orc, he was the one who could control the most.

But by the end of the conflict, his bugbears had been devastated and their numbers reduced to single digits.

Today, there were only a dozen or so left.

A couple of them were large, muscular, and scarred – veteran beasts bearing clear signs of battle.

The rest, however, looked like adolescents.

Their bodies were significantly less built that the more experienced ones.

Boggs’ bugbears were an Orcish trump card. They were stronger than Ogres and quicker than Lizardmen.

“Well, that’s just for now… I’m steadily increasing their numbers. And then I’ll train them up and assemble the strongest army this land has ever seen!”

Looking back at the pack, Zell noticed that a few of them were still incredibly small, about the same size as her.

Bugbear cubs.

It took about half a year for a newborn bugbear to grow into a full-grown adult.

They were rarely seen as juveniles.

“When that happens, I’ll take over as the Orc King, and I’ll conquer the world!”

The human bandits applauded, commending Boggs for his great ambition.

There were cries of praise and approval.

But to Zell, the brigands didn’t look all that motivated.

They seemed to be satisfied with a life of leisure and petty crime and were just paying lip service to the Orcish veteran.

“Garurururu…”

Suddenly, one of the bugbears roared.

Hearing this, Boggs and several other bandits stood up, weapons in hand.