Recruitment

Late that night, Leiluo returned to his quarters. Lying on his bed and thinking about the battle earlier that day, he still felt his blood boiling.

"These are orcs—brown-skinned orcs, living peacefully in Draenor, loving both battle and life." As he thought, Leiluo clenched his fists.

Although Leiluo had once only been a casual Warcraft fan and knew only a few famous characters, that did nothing to diminish his fondness for orcs. Now that he had become one of them—and even the Chieftain of a clan—Leiluo felt that he could finally turn his old dreams into reality.

Thinking of those old fantasies, Leiluo suddenly rose and straightened his clothes. He silently said, "Activate." Two panels immediately appeared before him: one displayed several 3D orc settlements, while the other was a slot machine. These were the cheat abilities that had followed Leiluo into this world.

The slot machine gave him one draw per day, and whatever he drew was what he got. Before the unrest among the warriors, Leiluo had possessed nothing but physical strength and knew no combat skills. Then he drew the axe technique of a fierce warrior named Darius. With combat skills and the immense strength of his mixed-blood body, he had been able to defeat the battle-hardened Saxi.

As for the orc settlement panel, it had initially been gray. But today, when Leiluo saw the orc warriors, a notification told him that one of the barracks had lit up.

Leiluo eagerly tapped the illuminated barracks, and a small panel lit up beside it:

Orc Barracks (Activated)

Orc Warriors (20/month)

Available for Recruitment (20/20)

Cost (10 gold per unit)

The panel had seemed somewhat familiar to Leiluo at first, but upon seeing this, he finally remembered. Wasn't this the interface from the Heroes of Might and Magic games he used to play? Although the thought of recruiting twenty orc warriors excited him, why did it take a whole month for the unit type to replenish?

When he first learned that he could recruit units, Leiluo had thought he could become the strongest clan through recruitment alone. But the long cycle made him realize that while a clan could indeed grow stronger through recruitment at first, compared to powerful clans with hundreds of thousands of warriors and populations in the millions, true strength still depended on the clan's own development.

Shaking his head and casting aside those unrealistic thoughts, Leiluo excitedly pressed the recruitment button.

"Insufficient gold. Unable to recruit."

"What the hell?" Leiluo instantly bristled when he saw that recruitment had failed. It required gold? In orc society, clans had little interaction with one another. Only during the last month of spring and the last month of autumn did they hold inter-clan trade gatherings.

At those times, the orcs bartered goods for goods. They had no concept of currency at all, so where was he supposed to get gold?

Looking at the twenty muscular orc warriors on the panel, Leiluo finally understood the meaning of Tagore's poem, The Furthest Distance.

"The furthest distance in the world is not between life and death, but when you stand before me flexing your muscles, and I have no money to recruit you." Just as Leiluo was privately grieving, Delong's voice came from outside the room.

"Chieftain, Chieftain! As you ordered, I've gathered the clansmen's surplus pelts." Delong walked into the room and saw Leiluo's glowing eyes. Instinctively covering his butt with both hands, he said, "No way... does the Chieftain have that kind of hobby too?"

Like a drowning man clutching at a lifeline, Leiluo had been racking his brain over how to obtain gold. Hearing Delong's words, he slapped his forehead.

"Why did I get stuck in that mindset? I don't have gold, but I have things worth gold." Leiluo muttered, "Delong, bring me ten bundles of pelts."

Seeing that the Chieftain had no special designs on him, Delong hurriedly agreed and made himself scarce. Before long, he delivered ten bundles of pelts to Leiluo's room.

"Chieftain, what do you need pelts for so late at night?" Delong asked doubtfully as he set them down. "You're the strongest warrior in the clan now. Don't tell me you're afraid of the cold? It's not even the coldest time yet."

"Don't ask what you shouldn't. Leave." Once Delong had put down the pelts, Leiluo impatiently drove him from the room.

→

With some apprehension, Leiluo tapped the recruitment button again.

"Recruitment successful. One orc warrior absolutely loyal to you will join you within one day."

One bundle of high-quality pelts was worth one gold coin. Leiluo could feel the system's deep malice. Too bad there was no little system sprite around, or he would definitely have fought it to the death.

Recruiting just one orc warrior was far from enough for Leiluo. Now that he knew pelts could be used for recruitment, he did not hesitate. He used up all the pelts intended for next month's trade gathering.

It was just enough to recruit the remaining nineteen warriors.

This also meant that after Leiluo gained twenty fresh warriors, if he failed to obtain enough food for the clansmen to survive the winter or enough pelts to trade before next month, many clansmen would not make it through the winter.

But the greater the risk, the greater the reward. These twenty warriors could make up for the warriors his cheap father had lost, strengthen the clan, keep it from being swallowed by other clans, and bolster Leiluo's authority within the clan through twenty warriors absolutely loyal to him.

If a Chieftain had no warriors loyal to him, then he would soon become a warrior himself. That was the orcs' way of thinking.

Filled with anticipation, Leiluo drifted off to sleep.

Early the next morning, Leiluo gathered all the warriors and set out on foot into the wasteland to hunt. Why on foot, you ask? You had to know that raiders' wolf mounts were high-end goods. Leiluo's small clan did not even have a single wolf tamer, so there was no point hoping for mounts.

Leiluo's target was the pack of Thunder Lizards that had killed his cheap father. Although Saxi desperately opposed the plan when he learned of it, he agreed after seeing Leiluo unleash Gold Tier strength. A Gold Tier warrior could easily serve as the Chieftain of a medium-sized clan.

The old Chieftain whom Saxi respected had only been Silver Tier, just like Saxi himself, though much stronger than him.

Perhaps because of his mixed blood, Leiluo's talent was exceptional. When he received his memories the night before, he learned that the original Leiluo had long since reached Gold Tier. If the original Leiluo had not been so withdrawn—even somewhat cowardly—he would have become famous throughout the clan long ago. His father would not have wasted the strength of a Gold Tier warrior, and if a Gold Tier warrior had accompanied him, perhaps his father would not have died. That was probably why the original Leiluo had died of depression: he had blamed himself for everything.

As for why Leiluo had fought Saxi instead of simply showing off his strength, it was because he had only learned about it the previous night. He had been depressed over it all morning, feeling as though all his efforts yesterday had been for nothing.

Not long after Leiluo's group entered the wasteland, they saw a twenty-man orc squad running toward them—the standard size of an orc unit.

Seeing that Leiluo made no move, Saxi assumed Leiluo did not know about the wandering orcs of the wasteland. The orcs wandering the wasteland were survivors from clans that had been destroyed because they could not withstand disasters.

Their survival proved their strength, and unwilling to join other clans, they wandered the wasteland instead.

They would occasionally rob small clans heading to trade gatherings of their weapons, but they never killed fellow orcs or took food. They only seized the things that allowed them to keep fighting in the wasteland.

Naturally, Saxi was unwilling to be robbed and prepared to organize a defense.

But Saxi had not expected that, just as they stood ready for battle, the squad of orcs would stop ten paces away. They dropped to one knee, held their hammers in their right hands against their left chests, and swore loyalty to their Chieftain.

While Saxi was still shocked that wandering orcs would suddenly pledge loyalty to his Chieftain, Leiluo had already stepped forward and helped the lead orc to his feet.

Seeing their identical armor and weapons, Leiluo understood that this orc squad was the twenty warriors he had recruited from the system barracks.

Looking at the force that truly belonged to him, Leiluo could not hide his excitement.

"Let's go. We continue onward." After incorporating the squad into his group, Leiluo waved his hand.