Chapter 2130: Garan Crosses Over

"This is amazing!"

"I didn’t know food could taste like this!"

"I was in Orc Heaven for a second!"

"I feel...I feel like a different orc!"

"Look, look! Did my tail grow longer!?"

"Did it?"

The tail, of course, did not really grow longer. It was an illusion created by his extreme emotions. Even if it did, it was probably temporary, like a goosebump.

The other orcs had more or less similar awed reactions as they tasted the strawberry and the new kind of sweetness that burst into their mouths.

When someone got too emotional and almost crushed the strawberry with his claws, he was sent flying away before he did so.

Orcs’ reaction speeds were really impressive, but she had never seen them so fast before!

Anyway, they all looked like they’d opened a whole new world after each bite. She could tell that strawberry would be the ’next big thing’ in this tribe.

This was also another one of her great leverages.

She silently noted to input some power in her space farm later. She also added more energy for the berries. This would be too useful for when she needed to build relationships later.

Further, since it was a plant she could grow in her space, it was a readily renewable leverage. It could be considered as currency here, which meant...that she could pretty much ’print money’.

That said, the only ’goods’ she was interested in were labor and information.

It didn’t take long before all the strawberries in the basket were gone, and there were even some arguments at the side, mostly escalating into brawls. Had the area been bigger, the brawl would’ve been bigger.

Right now, the two orcs fighting—a wolf and a tiger orc— just wrestled, trying to fight for the big piece of strawberry the tiger had on hand.

It was then that a hooved hand appeared to take it instead, and the piece went straight to the thief’s mouth.

!!!

The brawl escalated once more, adding one more member.

...

Ohara and some other orcs who were closer to Althea got a few perks, i.e. extra pieces of strawberries. "What is this thing?" the goat asked as she blissfully bit into the fruit, the sweet tart juices flowing into her tongue.

It was quite amusing that she only decided to ask this now, after she was on her third bite.

"It’s called a strawberry," she said. "It’s very unique to my place."

"I’m so curious about your homeplace!"

"Are there many magical things there?"

"Are there many of these?"

"Hmn. It is also made into various things like shakes, er, slimy cold juices, and other sweets." She realized she couldn’t use dessert names because they wouldn’t have recognized any of them.

"Wowowowow! I wanna go there someday!"

"Me, too!"

"That phone thing, too, is so amazing!"

"Althea said there are many who can do wood orc skills there!"

"Wowwww..."

Looking at them this way, Althea couldn’t help but remember the pureblooded orcs on the other side.

The great migration of the orcs from this side to that side happened a long time ago, and the orcs who were there were no longer alive. The orcs didn’t exactly keep records either, so it was unclear how they got there.

To the orcs’ knowledge, they were just nomads with nowhere to go and somehow ended up there.

But was that really so easy? Her impression of orcs was that they didn’t even like hanging too close to the walls because of the number of monsters there. There was no need to go to the walls unless they needed the meat of high-level beasts.

She had also grown to know more about them as she studied and talked to them. A few may have the ’spirit of exploration,’ but it certainly wouldn’t get to the scale of the migration of what had been a tribe or a few.

She, once again, began to wonder: Why and how did the first batch of orcs go all the way to the other side?

...

The fight ended with the tiger winning. He begged Althea for a piece, offering to exchange a whole carcass of a level 20 (in the future, since he didn’t have one on hand anymore).

Althea didn’t want to set a precedent of meaty IOUs, but she gave him a piece of strawberry as a reward for winning. The stolen piece was originally his, anyway.

Still, the other two stared at the tiger’s back with bitterness.

"They’ll probably brawl again soon, and a long time after that," Ohara muttered at the side, shaking her head.

"Hmn?"

"Us orcs, once angered by another orc, would really remember it for a long time."

It was here that Althea found out that among the orcs, grudges and insults were remembered forever—which was why Baku and Gill fight was still going on.

This was interesting because the orcs were supposed to be simple-minded. The impression was that they were easier to forgive and forget, right?

Apparently not. It seemed like it was this simple-mindedness that made them remember whenever they had been wronged or annoyed for a long time.

Without speaking, Althea moved towards the little trough she placed at the side of the cave near the light source. The plants there were vibrant.

Even if the place was not ideal, the natural density of the forest here was similar to a level 2 farm. How could it not grow well? Not to mention, Althea would feed it, too.

"I can plant some strawberry bushes for you," she said.

Silence passed over the entire cave for a moment, before the orcs broke into roaring cheers (literally).

"But you will help me harvest something, and let me keep all of them."

...

This harvest, of course, was none other than space stones. Since they had been trapped for a few days, and would be trapped for a few more, she decided to harvest a few things first.

She felt that she would level up after the next meditation. She felt that the two processes working in parallel would be efficient.

Because of her conscience, she needed to ask permission first. After all, albeit they were semi-nomadic, this place was still technically their home. She wouldn’t feel good just taking these things without asking, especially since they could have a use for it too.

Speaking of this, she was ready for a negotiation. For example, she was ready for a 20-80 split—

"OKAY!"

"..."

So easy to talk to? Were they really giving all that away for free? She was pretty sure she explained to them what it was before...

"I...will give you 10%," she just said, and they began to harvest the difficult-to-harvest resource.

Mining space stones must not be easy. Weren’t they accessible only to goblins back then?

She low-key missed those little green ones.

...

Garan’s ascent and descent could be said to be very chaotic.

There were monsters nearly every part of the way, though Garan naturally didn’t engage with all of them, avoiding a fight when he could, running away as needed to conserve energy.

Normally, they wouldn’t be this concentrated. The winds were generally wild and unpredictable, so it would disperse the scent, confusing the monsters.

It just so happened that that day had low winds, and it was the kind that lasted days. It was a natural phenomenon that happened a few times a year. Since Garan was pretty much the only ’cuisine’ in the area, the monsters of the area naturally gravitated towards him.

The unlucky Garan didn’t think much about his misfortune; his mind was fixed on getting to the other side. Although it might still be a while before he could reunite with his wife, getting to the same side of the world, at least, was a major step forward.

It took him more than a day to get past the saddle, even when he avoided most confrontations. The saddle was also very narrow. Though it gave him a narrow path to escape, it also controlled the number of monsters going against him.

After the wind died down, he got stuck here along with the other monsters. At least there were more hiding spaces here, rather than being out in the open. Anyway, his wife wouldn’t be out of her own marketplace until this windless period was over. For now, he could only focus on staying alive to see his wife.

Occasionally, he used metal spikes several meters apart to jump higher, farther away from most monsters. At other times, he’d recycle the same spikes to create a cell for himself when he encountered a small cave.

And it was sometime during this time that he realized that the col was a bit odd.

Instead of smooth, rounded contours naturally created from erosion, it had sharp angles, and some slopes were smooth and uniform.

It was a sign of it being artificially made.

Of course, considering there was a large mouth trying to bite him every second, he did not have the chance to dwell on it. At least not yet.