Chương 53: Chapter 52 Another Tyrant

No enormous change came to the settlement immediately after the ogre hunt. The day following the celebration, some warriors began repairing the traps destroyed during the battle. Others departed to hunt as they normally did. The only meaningful difference was that the hunting parties began traveling slightly farther from the village. There was one other difference.

"I am jealous, Karath. Kaden wants one of those." Kaden stared at Karath's new white weapon while drooling almost as much as Buddy. Karath held the ogre's femur. Although the exact structure of an ogre's skeleton differed from that of a human or orc, it was still a bipedal creature. The overall shape remained similar. Karath had wanted a weapon like the one Grild carried for years. The chief's club, one of the relics left behind by Garthon, had also been fashioned from an ogre's femur.

Whenever Karath swung a stone axe with his full strength, the handle either broke or separated from the head. Since Karath had surrendered the heart to Gwein, he used his right as the hunt's greatest contributor to claim one of the ogre's thigh bones. Testing revealed that a full-powered swing could shatter an ordinary boulder without much difficulty. The femur itself suffered no visible damage. It was neither sharp nor pointed, but that hardly mattered.

The tribe's stone axes had never been particularly sharp either. They were little more than blunt weapons. If Karath was going to use a club, the ogre femur was a hundred times better than the fragile stone tools he had carried before. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. He had defeated a monster and received an item, just as though he were playing a game.

"Tch. Karath told you to use your head, Kaden." Krog criticized his older cousin as usual. To make the insult worse, he casually swung the ogre femur in his own hand and displayed it proudly. There had only been one ogre corpse, while many warriors participated in the hunt. They obviously could not divide every useful part without restriction. Karath received first choice because he surrendered the heart to Gwein and selected a femur. Krog noticed what Karath was doing and immediately claimed the other one.

Kaden, meanwhile, remained true to everything he had shouted during the battle. The moment the warriors began dividing the trophies, he seized the ogre's skull. Karath still had no idea what Kaden intended to do with it. Perhaps he had always envied the skull of the ogre displayed inside Karath's home.

"Damn it. The next time we kill an ogre, Kaden will choose a femur."

"Everyone will probably want the femurs after seeing these. Do you think your turn will come?"

"Hmph! If Kaden smashes the ogre's skull and earns the greatest contribution, he can choose anything he wants."

"You intend to break an ogre's skull with that wooden-handled stone axe? Your own skull will probably break first. Keh heh." The two continued arguing like Tom and Jerry. Karath smiled as he walked through the forest beside them. Buddy followed behind, still sulking over the ogre heart that had never belonged to him.

"It is still difficult to believe," Krog said, swinging the femur in his hand.

"We can hunt ogres now."

"Keh heh heh. Nothing in this forest can stop the Bloodclaw Tribe anymore!" Kaden nodded proudly. Karath did not rebuke either of them.

"Yes. From now on, we should continue building traps and expanding our territory." As they expanded, they needed to search for ore. They also needed materials that could be turned into cloth and crops such as wheat or rice that could be planted and harvested repeatedly. There was no longer anything inside this forest that they needed to fear. Once the tribe expanded its territory and secured metal and food, Karath intended to search for other orc tribes and bring them beneath Bloodclaw rule.

The tribe's current population was far too small. For faster development, population would ultimately be the most important resource. While Karath considered how to expand their territory and slowly advance the tribe's civilization, a strange sense of familiarity came over him. The forest had become silent. The quiet felt familiar, but Karath could not immediately identify why. He was not the only one who noticed. Krog and Kaden's expressions changed. A moment earlier, they had been Tom and Jerry.

Now they were warriors of the Bloodclaw Tribe. A cold chill climbed across Karath's body. Thump. Thump. As though resisting that chill, his heart began pounding violently. Then the ground trembled. Thud. Thud. The vibrations were slow but heavy. The word ogre naturally appeared in Karath's mind. Krog and Kaden seemed to reach the same conclusion, and all three looked toward the direction of the sound. The creature waiting there was not an ogre.

The instant it appeared, Buddy, who always remained silent during a hunt, released a low growl. Karath could not scold him. The irrational existence before them left no room to worry about such a minor issue. The moment Karath saw it, he understood. He had underestimated the monster-infested forest.