Apotheosis of a Demon - A Monster Evolution Story

88 - MONSTERS

When an army marched, it would need vast amounts of food. With humans, the larger the army, the bigger their supply network would need to be to transport the necessary food, medicine, and other consumables, and the slower their marching speed would become.

The orcs, however, were even eating the trees they had felled, and any wild forest animals they caught would be consumed alive, bones and all. There was no drop in the army's speed.

"MOOOO!!"

The enormous Orc King raised his battleaxe and roared a furious battlecry.

He, too, had realized the appearance of the Evil God on Yggdrasia. He had also felt the Will of the World Tree, telling him to liberate the Saplings, but he didn't care as much about this world as his grudge against the human race.

Orcs were more than the people's common perception of them. They weren't just crude, savage monsters.

They were fertile because they were weak. They knew they were big eaters, and so they had learned to farm, to cultivate fields, even to raise large herbivorous animals as food.

But ever since the human race monopolized the World Saplings — monopolizing the boons that should have been equally bestowed upon all living beings of the world — the orcs' lifestyle could no longer continue.

Humans stole mana from the Saplings, turning it into military power in order to drive all other races away from the Saplings. That alone hadn't been enough to satisfy them; they had even begun to take anyone not of their race as their slaves, their livestock.

As the humans took mana from the Saplings, the life-force that nurtured the surrounding forests began to drain away. There had been many, many deaths among the population of the exiled races.

But things got even worse. In just a few decades, the humans had proven themselves even more fertile than the orcs, and they began to invade the orcs' forests to massacre their inhabitants.

"The orcs threaten our new villages and towns."

"We can use their skins as material and feed their meat to our cattles."

"If we kill them, we would gain fame as adventurers."

These were the reasons the humans used to continued their killing of orcs all over the world. In the end, the only large-scale orc settlement left was on this continent.

The Orc King would never, ever forget this grudge.

He had taken the appearance of the Evil God and the subsequent worldwide chaos to be an opportunity.

Just as he expected, his scouts had reported that the humans' flying ships, the terrible machines that had stymied his many attempts to advance his armies, had left for somewhere far away. The Orc King immediately raised his army.

Luckily, there was none of the usual interference from the Heroine. The orcs hated her too, of course, but they detested the whole human race far more.

"The damn orcs are attacking?!"

Lansis's emperor, an elderly man, was in the middle of a meeting to discuss the dark pixies. The shocking news jolted him out of his seat.

"Yes, sir! The western army had already moved out, but as we have confirmed the existence of the supposed Orc King, it is likely only a matter of time before they reach this capital..."

"What the fuck were the lookouts doing?! Damn it, call the battleships back! And where the hell is the Sage?"

Faced with the emperor's terrifying visage, the reporting prime minister paled.