Chapter 4. Employment
by Foreigner Β· 2026-08-21
They said the peak would appear after three days to the east.
On the third day, Gihun couldn't find the peak.
Instead, he found something else.
It was a path.
More precisely, it wasn't a path.
There was a strip about ten meters wide in the middle of the forest. The grass was flattened, young trees were broken, and the soil was dug up. It was a place where something had passed.
Many things had passed.
Gihun squatted down at that spot.
There were footprints.
They weren't human. The feet were wide and the toes were short. Claw marks were imprinted at the front.
'.......'
Gihun searched Aron's memories.
Orcs.
'They form groups of ten to thirty. No records beyond that.'
Gihun looked at the footprints again.
It didn't seem like it would look like this if thirty of them had passed.
Gihun walked along the path.
At first, he didn't even know why he was following it.
'Because that's east.'
Gihun thought so.
It was indeed east.
After about an hour, the strip widened.
Gihun stopped and looked at that point.
Another strip was joining it from the side.
'.......'
He walked for another hour.
It joined again.
'.......'
Gihun stopped at the third junction.
It was three times in three hours.
'What is this?'
At night, Gihun didn't climb a tree.
Instead, he went into a crevice in the rocks.
The top of a tree was too conspicuous.
And that night, for the first time, he smelled something.
It was sour. The smell of wet animals was mixed with something burnt. Aron's memories didn't contain such a smell. Because smells weren't written in books.
Gihun held his breath in the rock crevice.
It wasn't far.
At dawn, Gihun saw them.
There were six.
They were human-sized, with broad shoulders and long arms. Their skin was greenish-gray, and two teeth protruded upwards from their lower jaws.
They wore leather.
They carried weapons.
That was what Gihun found most strange.
Wolves don't carry weapons. Trolls don't. Spiders don't.
'.......'
One of them held an axe.
It was a human axe.
Gihun remained in the crevice of the rock.
He waited for them to pass.
But they didn't.
One of them stopped and sniffed.
'.......'
Gihun then remembered he hadn't washed in three days.
Orc: Sniff.
A sound.
Gihun didn't know what it was. It sounded like an animal, and yet not.
Orc: Sniff. Smell.
'.......'
It was speech.
Gihun froze on the spot.
They spoke.
The pronunciation was odd, and the accent slurred, but it was definitely speech. And Gihun understood it.
Orc: Sniff. This way.
The six of them came towards the rock.
Gihun had about three seconds to organize his thoughts.
One, run away. Six of them would chase him. He didn't know how fast orcs were.
Two, fight. There were six.
Three, stay here. They would find him.
'.......'
Gihun gripped his club.
'Hit the first one as hard as I can.'
And he burst out of the rock crevice.
The first one went well.
The club hit the side of its head. The orc flew sideways and crashed into a tree.
The second one didn't.
The moment Gihun swung the club, the orc blocked it with its arm. Its arm broke, but it blocked it.
'.......It blocked it?'
And the third one came from the side.
Gihun lowered his body.
An axe passed over his head.
It was different from wolves.
Wolves came one by one. If one jumped, the others waited.
Orcs came simultaneously.
Two held him from the front, one circled from the side, and one waited from behind. If Gihun retreated, there was already one standing there.
'.......'
It took Gihun a few seconds to realize it.
'They're thinking.'
During those few seconds, an axe struck his side.
It didn't go in deep. His breastplate blocked it. But the impact was transmitted directly.
Thud.
Gihun heard the sound of his own ribs.
Aron: Gasp.
He couldn't breathe.
Gihun retreated, leaning his back against a nearby tree.
His back was covered.
Then he only needed to look forward.
'.......'
His breath came in short gasps. If his ribs were broken, he couldn't breathe. He had experienced that in the dojo. Once you experience it, you learn a trick for next time.
Gihun took several short breaths.
The orcs spread out in a semicircle.
Orc: Hiss.
The one in the middle said something.
Orc: Human. One of them.
'.......'
Gihun heard those words.
And despite the pain, he felt a little annoyed.
'One?'
Gihun moved first.
He went to the one on the left.
That one raised an axe. Gihun dove inside its arm. An axe only gains power when the arm is fully extended. If you get inside, it's worse than just a club.
Gihun put his elbow into the orc's jaw.
And then brought the club down.
The second.
One attacked from the side. Gihun didn't extend his leg towards it. Instead, he spun his body and swung the club sideways.
It hit the waist.
The orc folded.
The third.
His breath was getting shorter. His ribs hurt more and more.
Gihun looked at the remaining three.
The three looked at him.
And one of the three took a step back.
'.......'
Gihun saw it.
There was a beast-like part to them.
They get scared.
Gihun took a step forward.
Two ran away.
One didn't run away. It grabbed its axe with both hands and screamed.
Orc: Chiiik!
Gihun looked at it.
And for a moment, he felt strange.
'.......'
That one was angry now.
It was angry because its three comrades were on the ground.
'.......'
Gihun raised his club.
After it was over, Gihun slid down to sit with his back against a tree.
It took him a moment to catch his breath.
He touched his side. It felt like two of his ribs were broken. It hurt to touch them, and it hurt not to touch them.
'.......'
Gihun sat there for a long time.
Then he looked at the four.
The four were on the ground.
'.......'
Gihun looked at them for a long time.
He hadn't felt this way when he killed the wolves. Not the trolls. Not the spiders.
These things had spoken.
They spoke, signaled to each other, and got angry.
'.......'
Gihun pushed that thought away.
'They killed people.'
After thinking that, Gihun was a little surprised.
There was no evidence. No evidence that these six had killed anyone.
Gihun pushed that away too.
About an hour later, Gihun stood up.
And he searched the bodies.
The dead don't need things. That's how it was settled in the village.
Three leather pouches came out.
The first pouch contained dried meat. He didn't check what kind of meat it was.
The second pouch contained stones. He couldn't tell why they carried stones.
He opened the third pouch.
There were a few things inside.
One brass button.
One broken spoon.
There was a hair tie. It was blue and one end was torn.
And a shoe.
It was a single shoe.
Gihun took it out.
It was small.
It was a woman's. There was embroidery on the instep, but the thread was worn, and half the pattern was gone. The heel was worn down. It had been worn for a long time.
Gihun held it in his hand.
'.......'
It was a single shoe.
Gihun searched for the other shoe.
He rummaged through all three sacks. It wasn't there.
'.......'
Of course, it wasn't there.
Gihun searched, knowing it wouldn't be.
Gihun sat there for a long time that day.
He had the shoe resting on his knee.
'.......'
After a while, Gihun put it into his sack.
He didn't think about why he was putting it in.
In the afternoon, Gihun walked again.
He followed the trail.
After an hour, he reached another junction.
This time, Gihun squatted down and counted.
The footprints overlapped, so he couldn't count them precisely. Still, he got a rough estimate.
The trail was twenty meters wide.
Judging by how the grass was flattened, five or six were walking abreast in a line.
So, with a width of twenty meters.
'.......'
Gihun stopped calculating.
Aron's mind had come up with an answer, but he didn't like it.
He counted again.
The same answer came out.
'300.'
Gihun stood there.
'Where are 300 of them going?'
Gihun looked in the direction the trail was heading.
It was east.
Straight to the east.
Gihun pulled out a map from his sack. It was one he'd taken from the village. It was half-torn and hand-drawn.
There was a mountain.
There was a river.
And there was a dot to the east.
There was writing next to the dot.
Seton.
Gihun folded the map.
He looked up at the sky.
The sun was setting. The second sun was also setting with it.
'.......'
Gihun stood there for a long time, then looked at his sack.
There was one shoe inside.
'.......'
Gihun tied the string of the sack.
'Let's find the peak first.'
Gihun walked.
His side ached.
At the same time, thirty li to the west, two orcs were running.
They ran all night.
They arrived at the horde at dawn.
The horde was large. Very large.
One of them stepped forward and said something.
The words roughly meant this:
There is a human.
One human killed six.
And that human is coming this way.