Earth’s Doom Starts with… Me?

"Come here, Chaerin," general Emilio called out to me while he extended his arm to me, offering me the stick, "take this."

"Okay, okay." I stood up and took the stick from him. Yep, it was just a regular stick we found on the ground while walking all the way from that abandoned well to here.

"I shall begin asking," general Emilio said as he pressed the orc's head deeper into the ground, "the rule is simple. Blink twice for 'yes', and blink thrice for 'no'. Don't do anything besides that. Do you understand?"

The poor orc struggled to look up just to see general Emilio's face, which earned it a painful stomp from the latter.

"Don't make me repeat myself. I asked, do you understand?" General Emilio impatiently asked.

'Grrr..'

The orc slowly blinked its trembling eyes twice, indicating that it understood and agreed to our terms, albeit unwillingly.

"Good. Now answer, are you out here alone?" He questioned while keeping his leg on top of its head.

Two blinks came from the creature beneath him, confirming our suspicion.

"Who were you with, other orcs or elves, included? Ah wait, I can't ask that. Were you in a group of only orcs?" I added, almost forgetting that I could only ask a yes or no question.

It blinked twice again, earning a relieved sigh from us. Good. We didn't have to worry about elves for a while, then.

"Are there more than 10 orcs out here?" General Emilio continued.

Three blinks. Gotcha. That was even better.

"Then, around 5 to 10?" I inquired, and it answered me with two blinks, "okay, I'm going to ask the number one by one, alright?"

After I repeated the numbers from 5 to 10, we found out that there were exactly 6 other orcs still wandering around here, and soon enough, they would probably start to notice that their buddy was missing. We should probably hurry this up a bit...

"Alrighty, now answer me, do you guys have some kinda hideout or like base, or something like that?" I tilted my head.

'Grrr...'

It hurriedly blinked thrice right after I asked, denying my accusation.

"Oh, really?"

'STAB!'

'GRRR!'

Warm blood gushed out from its forearm as I dug my dagger deeper into its thick skin, all the way to the base of the dagger. It squirmed and groaned in pain while I stared into its eyes, "hey. Stop moving around if you don't want it to hurt more."

'Grr...'

It looked up at me with trembling eyes and a frown. Its breathing was understandably getting heavier, and it got even worse when general Emilio stomped its head again for looking up.

"Don't lie. Didn't we tell you already that you shouldn't do anything unnecessary?" I coldly said while keeping eye contact with it.

Instead of answering me, I saw it averting its eyes away from me. So, I did what any sensible person would do.

'SCHLK!'

"GRRHH!!'

"Hey, where are you looking? I'm right here. Answer me. Do you understand?" I said as I twisted the dagger that I had lodged into its forearm. As its muscles and skin tear and rip, more blood started to gush out of the fresh wound.

Ack, come on, just answer! At this rate, you're going to die from blood loss and shock, you dumb orc!

'Grrhghh!'

And finally, it blinked twice furiously in panic.

"Good. Let's try this again, shall we?" I smiled in satisfaction, "so do you orcs have a secret base of some sort?"

Upon seeing it blinking twice, I was starting to think that probably our speculation about Jeanne and Firiell's kidnapping was true, after all.

"Alright. You're going to help us draw a map of your base's layout." General Emilio instructed.

"And don't try to do anything weird again, or this time, I will just chop your leg off so you won't be able to walk back to your buddies." I happily added.

Well, I actually had no way of knowing if it lied or not. I just assumed it was lying since it seemed to be in a hurry to deny our accusation about them having a base. At least now that it thought we could figure out its lies, the chance of it lying should've lessened, right? Works for me~

"Get up." General Emilio released his foot from the orc's head, and I followed by giving it the stick from before.

After it sat nervously with a trembling body, I pointed at the ground and said, "go on. Draw the map, please. As detailed as possible, if you can. If you include the room name, that would be great! Ah, but do you understand human writing? Probably not, huh?"

'Urr...'

It fidgeted with the stick that I gave, as if it had never seen one before.

"What's wrong?" I tilted my head to the side, "oh, so sorry! I forgot that I've cut your fingers!"

"Damn, little cub. That's pretty harsh of you. Hahahah!" I frowned once I heard general Zhang's laugh coming from behind me.

"Hey, I didn't mean to..." I pouted as I grabbed the stick and the orc's other hand, yeah, the one with full fingers, and placed the stick inside its grip, "there. Now you can draw properly."

'Grr...' It nodded with hesitation, but then went and placed a few strokes on the ground.

"...Hey, uh..." I muttered as my eyes tracked the movement of its stick. Up and down, left and right, left and right again?

"What's wrong, little cub?" General Zhang asked in-between his munching.

"Hey, don't talk while you eat," I pointed at him, "and um, isn't this... Bad?"

"What's bad?" He asked again, this time with a little head tilt.

"This whole thing!" I exclaimed as I used both of my arms to gesture towards the ground.

General Emilio inched closer to examine the ground, and raised an eyebrow in confusion. After observing for a while, general Zhang also decided to see it for himself, followed by Luke who placed his arm on my shoulder as he peeked at the ground. Gah, tall people privileges!

"This..." General Emilio said,

"...Is indeed very bad."

--------

'SCHLK!'

A dagger flew right through the middle of a humongous green orc's head. It went from the back of its head, all the way to the X-shaped mark on its forehead.

'THUD!'

After its body loudly hit the ground, a fed-up sigh escaped my lips.

"Tired already, little cub? Aww, not used to some exercise?" General Zhang giggled beside me while he shot out little lighting zaps from his long finger.

The zaps hit another orc's legs and arms precisely, rendering all four limbs of it useless. While it was convulsing on the ground, general Zhang peeked a glance at me.

"Heck yeah I'm tired. I'm tired of not making a progress." I frowned as I looked for another orc to stab with my dagger. Psychokinesis sure was helpful in a situation like this. I didn't need to walk or chase it, I could just yeet my dagger all the way from here.

"Progress is relative, little cub~ I think we've made a lot of progress. Not regarding the throne thingy, though." He chuckled.

"Well, we literally came here for the throne," I replied, "or rather, to gather some army to extract general Owen and general Enzo, before taking the throne."

'STAB!'

'GRRAA--!'

'THUD!'

The orc that I had just hit screamed a little bit too loud for my liking, so I instantly smashed its face down on the ground, to prevent alerting other orcs or worse, the elves.

"So sorry, but please stay quiet," I muttered to the orc, which wouldn't be able to hear me anyway, "hey, eel. Should we just ditch that orc and go bonkers on their hideout?"

"Ooh, finally learning from me?" He approached me with a giggle and pinched my left cheek, "cute. I like it."

"No," I shoved his hand out of the way, "that orc's drawing is gibberish. It's like a kindergartener's drawing, but drunk! How will it be useful for us?"

"What's a kindergartener?" He questioned.

Oh? Different education system here? So maybe they didn't have a kindergarten...

"It's like um, a toddler who's just starting to learn basic school stuff?" I answered hesitantly.

"Ah, all the more reason for us to wait. Tee-hee!" General Zhang ruffled my head.

"How so?" I raised an eyebrow in confusion.

"That porcupine is great with kids. He'll understand somehow~" The white-haired general said so casually and confidently.

Sighing deeply, I nodded and said, "well, if you say so... We still have to wipe out these orcs anyway."

'BZZT!'

"Exactly. So let's enjoy our time together while we can, little cub~" He hummed while zapping another orc, this time straight on its plump butt, before laughing like a madman.

"They better be finished by the time we're done," I said as I flew my dagger and lodged it into the convulsing-butt orc's head, around its X-mark again, "why are you playing with them?"

"Haha! Sorry, sorry~" He giggled.

I puffed out my cheek, looking at how childish he could be sometimes. I guess it wasn't necessarily a bad thing to have a chill guy around here.

A few minutes had passed since I and this eel decided to go hunt the remaining orcs around here while general Emilio stayed behind to decipher whatever map that orc was drawing on the ground. I didn't want to babysit, so I volunteered to go hunt, and this eel just tagged along for fun, I guess.

"Hey, eel. By the way, I want to ask about those humans--"

'Poof!'

"Eh?" I flinched when a puff of smoke suddenly appeared before me.

"Yo, kid."

As the smoke slowly cleared, I was able to recognize the shape of the creature that decided to pop up and interrupt me.

"Big brother Luke, you spooked me." I pouted as my body eased upon recognizing the tanned man in front of me, who had his chest exposed by his robe as usual.

"Well, I got spookier news for you." He said as he mimicked my pout.

"Oh? What is it?" General Zhang joined in on the conversation while placing his elbow on my shoulder. Ack, these tall people needed to stop!

Luke put his hands on his hips, and said,

"it's a false alarm."