Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

"Since childhood?" General Emilio raised an eyebrow, "exact age?"

"Six years old. It was my weirdest birthday present ever, that's why I remember." I answered with a light chuckle.

"Sold off to an army as a birthday present? What a peculiar pair of parents you had, little cub," general Zhang said with a little bit of surprise written on his face, "but since childhood, eh? Didn't expect that one."

"I know right, they didn't even give me a cake." I laughed as I tossed a cleaned-up bird to Luke, who caught it with ease.

"They employ children over there? Sheesh, whoever made that rule should rethink their life choices." Luke grumbled as he started preparing whatever it was he was going to use to cook.

"Of course not! How can a country properly grow if they send their children to war? And my country is very well-developed. Tsk, tsk." I waved my finger at him in disapproval.

"Then how come you got involved?" General Zhang asked, capturing my attention again.

"Well, so that day--"

'Creeeak.'

Our heads simultaneously turned towards the source of the creaking sound that seemed a bit more creepy now that it was midnight.

"Someone came." I whispered into general Zhang's ear, who was sitting beside me.

"Finally, the orc we've been waiting for~" He hummed as he patted my head slowly, "now wait here. I'll go get our prey."

"I can do the dirty work, too." I puffed my cheeks in annoyance.

"I know you can, little cub, I just want to show off a bit." He said as he pinched my cheek.

"Shut up, both of you. We're going to get spotted." General Emilio growled.

Ack, true. We were being too loud for a 'hidden' mission.

I tried stomping on general Zhang's left foot to warn him, but he moved his foot right before I inflicted damage. So I tried with my other foot, and alas, I got the same result.

'Thonk!'

'Thonk!'

"Hehe~" He giggled while observing my futile efforts, which irked me more than it should've.

"You--"

'GRAWR!'

Before I could continue bickering with that sly eel, we were interrupted by a snarl.

"Shut up." General Emilio appeared, holding a rope that was tied to a huge, squirming orc that he dragged on the ground with its stomach down. The green orc itself was probably at least 3 meters tall, clad with wooden armors that covered its vital parts. Despite all of that, general Emilio pulled the rope as if it was nothing.

"Oops. Sorry." I apologized for getting distracted by a certain white-haired eel, so much that general Emilio himself decided to get the job done before the orc finished doing its business in the outhouse.

'RAW--RRH?'

Without letting the orc speak, or rather, growl anymore, general Emilio shoved the ball of cloth that we had prepared before into its mouth. Great. This way, we wouldn't attract much attention... Although we were already being loud, though. Ugh, what happened to me and my focus?

'Thud!'

General Emilio stomped the bald orc's head and plucked out 5 needles from his arm.

"We ask. You answer. If you don't, you die." He explained shortly, yet simply.

I came up beside him and crouched down in front of the orc's angry, frowning face, "you understand what we're saying, don't you?"

'Rrrr...'

No response. Just a low, faint growl and some angry puffs of breaths. So it wasn't going to cooperate, huh?

"Oh no, general. It seems like this one can't understand us. What should we doooo?" I loudly exclaimed while frowning.

"We kill." He replied with a straight face.

"No, no! That'd be such a waste," I said, still with a relatively loud voice, "let's skin it alive. I heard that fresh orc skin can be used as anti-aging medicine. The fresher it is, the better. So let's do it while it's alive?"

"Sure." General Emilio nodded.

'Rrrrrr?'

"Alright, orc dude, please stay still, okay?" I grinned at it and pulled out a dagger that I stole from one of the assassin elves that we killed, "or else, it'll get messy."

'STAB!'

'RRRHHH--!!'

Fresh red blood spurted out from its meaty finger which I had just cut in a single stab. Right before it started flailing its arm, general Emilio impaled his needle right through the middle of it and stomped on its arm to prevent it from moving too much.

"Ah, ah, not good, orc dude," I smiled brightly, "I'm just taking one finger off to practice, you see. Be patient."

After picking up its severed finger and bringing it closer to its face, I brandished my new dagger and made sure that it was paying attention.

"Look here carefully, orc dude," I said while I waved his finger around, "you see, peeling skin is quite different from peeling an apple. There are so many layers to it, and the moment you dig your knife into it,"

'STAB!'

"The blood just makes it messy, you know?" I frowned while I slowly demonstrated how to peel skin in real-time, "oh no, it seems like I didn't skin your finger quite well."

'SCHK!'

'GRRR--!'

I cut off another finger, and this time, I took out some hair ties and tied the stumps on his hand tightly, "there, there. Can't have you losing your blood so much. Or else, we will lose that freshness."

'GRR! GRRR!'

"Quickly finish your job, Chaerin." General Emilio piped up.

"Okay general. Such a shame that it can't understand us," I sighed, "let's go get another orc after this, and this time one that understands our language. It'll be a useful hostage."

"Sure." He nodded.

"As for you," I turned to look at the wide-eyed orc on the ground, "your skin will fetch quite a good sum of money for us. Sounds good, right?"

'GRRH!'

The huge orc shook its head furiously and groaned desperately, although all that came out of its mouth were muffled.

"Huh? You don't like it?" I tilted my head and looked into its eyes for a while, before flashing it with a big smile again, "no way~ You don't understand what we're saying anyway~"

'GRR, GRR!'

Again, it shook its head profusely, while its pupils trembled with terror.

"It's not like you'll suddenly understand us, right?" I chuckled, "hey, if you really can understand us now, blink twice, and make the last one slower." I poked its nose with its bloody, severed finger. Ah, it must've sucked to smell your own blood up close like that.

After nodding with the speed of light a few times, it blinked twice at us, with the second one being slower than the first.

"Oh, you really can! Wait, can you try winking your left eye for us? Do you know what a wink is?" I inquired further, still playing with its severed fingers in front of its eyes, to remind it of what we could do.

To no one's surprise, it followed our instruction and winked its left eye at us. Rather than doing it cutely, horror was apparent on its face. I mean, who wouldn't be scared if they got treated like this?

"General, I think it actually can understand us now. What should we do?" I exclaimed happily.

"Spare it. We shall interrogate it, then." He said with a flat expression.

"Aw, no orc skin for us, then," I giggled and leaned closer to it, grazing my dagger along its cheek until it drew blood, "you should've told us from the start that you can understand us. That way, you wouldn't lose 2 fingers... Well, at least now you've avoided losing all of your skin along with your life. So good for you."

'Grr...'

Its trembling stopped for a bit, and so did its breathing. After I inched away, I could see its chest lowering down, as if it was releasing a breath that it had been holding for a while.

I looked over to general Zhang and Luke, who apparently had started eating without waiting for us, and gave them a thumbs-up.

"Kyaa~ That was a great movie, little cub! Didn't know you could act~" General Zhang giggled while he munched a bread, presumably from our stash.

"Shut up, you know I did bad." I frowned.

"Yeah, your acting was terrible, but at least you got the job done, kid," Luke added while he fanned some roasted meat, "now hurry up and finish your business and come eat. It'll get cold."

"You have the talent to be a dad, you know?" I chuckled as I teased him. At least he was better than my real dad who never invited me to eat before the food got cold.

Well, all jokes aside, it was no surprise that we already knew beforehand that orcs could understand our language, although they did not speak it. Did that orc really think we'd be so careless to plan this with uncertainty?

... Actually, I just knew not too long ago, though. General Emilio told me about it, and we constructed a plan to torture it if it didn't want to admit and cooperate. We didn't have the time to argue with it or to coax it, anyway.

Of course, we also had a plan ready on how to interrogate an orc that didn't speak our language. Thankfully, there was a universal language called body language. And even better that he could understand what we were saying. A simple 'blink twice if yes, blink thrice if no' could do wonders.

Same goes with prisoners who had their tongue cut off already. They could still give information through other means. And I knew that because I had seen a few myself.

Now the only problem was how to identify its lies.

"Let's start the interrogation." General Emilio announced as he raised... A stick.