Chapter 17: The Curse of the Mystic Forest (2)

"There's nothing around."

"Still, let's be careful. We don't have much time."

Claude and Elric slowly stood up from the cover of the low-growing bushes and leaped over them, into the central clearing of the orcs. The huts here were held up by planks of birch and oak with wetted wines and limestone insulating the walls. Unlike the previous clearings with about two dozen each, there were only ten huts set up in the large clearing, taking up the entire space with what could be called majesty for the Orcs.

"Still smelly." Elric frowned and pinched his nose as Claude took the lead in scouting the place and leading him to the biggest house in the center. On the way, Elric's gaze fell toward the side of the lake. The growth was comparatively scarce from the center to the lake and a small path was trampled over the ground to the water body, the lake was likely used by the Orcs to bathe.

Elric swallowed his anger and followed Claude. The struggles of a water attribute weren't light.

Claude rushed ahead and took cover against the frame of the large hut. He first checked the left and the right, and then, he placed his ear on the wall. When he was sure that there wasn't anything off, he beckoned Elric over.

The two of them peered into the gate of the hut that was completely covered by leather.

"Hmm," Elric's eyes swept over the inside of the hut of the chief. Clay brought over from the lake outside was padded on the ground of the hut to create floorings while a bed of sticks and hay was set up in one corner. Just like the hut before, there was a fireplace and a table in here, the woodworking much better than the previous. Chairs made from the stumps of trees were placed haphazardly over the place while ivory totems made from the bones of many games filled the place like paintings in a museum.

"There…" Claude muttered, directing his and Elric's gaze to the back of the hut. Halfway through the wide place was a podium of old stone with girthy moss and mold growing in their cracks. The polished stone of white and gray rose higher than the ground of the hut. No matter how one saw it, the platform existed much before its roof did.

At the center of the stone platform, atop a lofty altar, slumbered two pitch-black gauntlets. Not a sign of rust nor a trace of wear was present on the gauntlets as their scaled frame and intricate casting absorbed every bit of light.

An ominous feeling crept down their spines the longer the two looked at the gauntlets.

In a daze, they walked inside the hut. Slowly looking around at the shining bones of imps and elks alike as their feet carried them toward the altar. Softly, they stepped on the podium of stone.

Claude's eyes shifted down as the cold feeling of the cracked rocks and strands of moss tickled his feet through the tears in his boots. Elric, on the other hand, went up to the altar at once. His eyes remained fixed on the gauntlet as his hands reached out. Carefully, as if trying to pick up a newborn child, Elric stretched his hands to touch the gauntlet.

"Ahk!"

A crack of black lightning struck the tips of Elric's fingers.

"Hey!" Claude called out.

The boy reeled back and stepped away from the gauntlet as he winced and bit on his fingertips.

"My, my. You shouldn't be so reckless."

Elric and Claude snapped to the back at once. Standing there, in front of the entrance was a giant green monster. White hai cascaded from the top of its head and down its chin as the monster hunched its back with the support of a cane. Two scars ran down its closed eyelids, likely tearing deep into the eyes. The monster smirked at the two of them, the brown rot in its teeth gazing into their eyes.

Claude gulped and took a step back while Elric tilted his head to the side.

"To think humans would come this far into our settlement, we would have gladly greeted you at the gate," The Orc's words were refined, yet they dripped with the wild sense of hate in every syllable. "Let us do that now, yes? A grand welcome?"

The old Orc snapped his fingers.

A thundering thud resounded in the air as the walls of the hut all around them squeaked. Claude looked around in fluster.

Log after log, the walls of the hut fell in. The roof shook and dust fell from it as the support hoisting it up broke apart.

From each part of the wall that fell,… stood an Orc.

Before they could barely touch the altar in the house, they were surrounded. Claude looked to his front, his back, Orcs everywhere. Even from the left and the right. That was when he noticed another thing.

Elric was gone.

Claude's eyes snapped to the old Orc in front of him before he followed its gaze and turned to the table. Under the legs of the wooden table with his hands covering his head sat the Elric whose beauty hadn't faded by a drop from the days he had spent in the forest.

'What?' he seemed to be asking through his eyes.

Claude looked at Elric, and then at the Orc. The Orc seemed to be doing the same, alternating his gaze between the two of them.

"Ahem," the Orc coughed. "Then, human! Let's begin your welcome party!!"

The decision to ignore Elric's existence was unanimous.