Please Call Me the Hundred-Handed Death God (Part 1)

Murlocs, the most common and unbelievably annoying monsters in Azeroth, could be found in nearly every coastal mudflat and any reasonably large lake.

Their slick skin, huge "clever" eyes nearly bigger than your fist, bizarre delinquent-style dorsal fins, gaudy colors, and shameless behavior were their trademarks.

A lone Murloc was absolute trash. A one-on-one fight usually went like this.

"Gahwo—" The Murloc let out a strange cry and attacked without warning.

"Gahwo!" Feeling a bit of pain, it immediately turned and ran.

If you chased it, these creatures with powerful limbs, fish heads, and fish bodies ran incredibly fast—and they could swim. The moment you gave chase, they ran home.

"Gahwo gahwo gahwo—" Before long, a whole squad of Murlocs would come charging at you, ready to teach you a lesson.

If you were insanely overpowered and managed to drive them all away, even more Murlocs would join in hunting you down.

This chain reaction, which could erupt at the slightest provocation, had caused Duke no end of grief back in the day.

So why was Duke looking for Murlocs?

First, Murlocs were servants of some powerful deep-sea creature that was either still slumbering or waiting. It could be said that Murlocs were used to being enslaved.

Second, Murlocs were not as stupid as many people imagined. Some evidence suggested that their steady, gradual occupation of land was actually highly coordinated and organized. However, whether this plan aligned with the Murlocs' own wishes and interests was unknown.

Most importantly, after Duke had fed the corpse of some miserable thief from the Brando family to the Murlocs as a midnight snack in Elwynn Forest that day, he had discovered an absurd language in the system notifications—Murloc.

The ridiculously awesome system had actually deciphered the relatively simple Murloc language for him.

Before his transmigration, knowing two foreign languages was more reliable for finding a job than having gone to college.

Unexpectedly, it seemed to be the same after transmigrating.

After linking up with the translation software provided by the system sprite, even if Duke wanted to say "Fuck your mother," what came out of his mouth were comical, sing-song sounds like "Wala, gahwo."

This gave Duke an idea—perhaps he could subdue the Murlocs.

Under normal circumstances, Duke would never have been foolish enough to do something like this. But think about it: the Orcs had not yet invaded, the Dark Portal had not yet opened, and every nation in Azeroth valued seniority and pedigree. Unless Duke found another path, there was no way he could raise himself to a level capable of influencing the war before the Dark Portal opened.

Only by acting on an idea as soon as it came to him could he turn the impossible into possible.

So early that morning, Duke headed to the beach alone.

He had clearly prepared to first communicate with the Murlocs through magic, kill the idiots, keep the ones who were not quite so idiotic, and finally appoint a Murloc sage with at least a little intelligence as their representative. Yet Duke discovered—

Two large Murloc tribes were playing Clash of Clans on the beach.

Wow! Hundreds of Murlocs were going to war!

Surely the scene would be one of flying flesh, boiling blood, and savage carnage, right?

Duke suddenly realized that having such expectations was unbelievably stupid.

When hundreds of Murlocs fought, the scene looked more like a massive game of... hide-and-seek!

Oh? Tribe A had gathered three Murlocs to face two from Tribe B. Sorry, there was no actual battle at all. The side with fewer numbers fled the instant they met. Despite their tiny short legs, they scampered faster than rabbits.

Huh? Suddenly, the side with two ran into two idiot members of their own tribe. Fine, now it was three against four. They decisively counterattacked—oh, no, they counter-chased.

Now it was the side with three that fled.

After both sides finally gathered roughly equal forces, the first-generation Murloc on this side viciously threw a rock, swelling up the eye of the second-generation Murloc on the other side. That side instantly lost all courage and scattered in every direction.

Listening to their strange cries of "Gahwo gao," the translation was probably: "It's not that the Nationalist army didn't try! It's just that **** had Gundams!"

Gundams my ass! You called a tiny pebble a high-speed kinetic weapon... Apologize to every Gundam in the world right now!

Hearing the system sprite's bullshit translation, Duke felt like strangling it to death.

Still, that was fine. Seeing the Murlocs' pathetic excuse for a war, Duke gave up on the idea of reorganizing them into an army.

When you already knew they were all idiots,

why would you specifically go over there to act like an idiot yourself?

Duke was not that stupid.

With a long sigh, Duke made his move.

According to his original plan, Duke had thought he would need to kill at least a hundred Murlocs before these idiots calmed down even a little. Who would have thought that the moment Duke acted, every Murloc on the beach fell into dead silence.

The next moment, cries of "Gahwo" rang out without end as great swathes of Murlocs on the beach dropped to their knees and bowed.

There was only one reason—Duke's Mage Hand.

Mage Hand was a simple spell in which a mage condensed arcane energy into the shape of a human hand to perform basic tasks for them. For example, retrieving a key hanging high outside an iron cage.

Duke's Mage Hand was somewhat different. After the system sprite automatically extracted the workings of motion-capture systems from Duke's mind, Duke estimated that his Mage Hand was at least a level-two spell.

Not only was its quantity beyond what ordinary mages could achieve, but so was its quality.

Eight hands of light floated in the void behind Duke's back. Four more Mage Hands easily tore apart the Murloc that had charged fastest, intending to attack Duke.

"Gahwo olala o! (Great messenger of the ocean, I, Old Blindman, represent the entire West Coast Tribe in submitting to you!)"

"Olala oola! (Mighty god of the ocean, I, Fish Spear, represent the entire North Tide Forces in submitting to you!)"

Hundreds of Murlocs noisily knelt and worshipped Duke like a god. The sight was truly... hilarious!

That settled it?

It had been so easy that Duke could hardly believe it.

Perhaps this proved that there was no such thing as a free lunch. Suddenly, a violent splashing sound came from the sea.

Duke's pupils abruptly contracted.

Those were creatures that should not have appeared here—Naga!

Unlike the other monsters of Azeroth, the Naga actually came from noble origins. Roughly ten thousand years before this point in time, Sargeras, leader of the Burning Legion, had tempted Queen Azshara of the High Elf kingdom and a group of High Elf nobles into preparing to open a portal for the Burning Legion to invade Azeroth.

That ancient war ended with the defeat of Sargeras, the Demon King. When Queen Azshara and her confidants fell into the sea, they accepted the call of the Old Gods in order to survive, all transforming into Naga—creatures with humanoid upper bodies and serpentine lower bodies that could live beneath the sea.

Thus, Naga were actually highly intelligent creatures. Female Naga, having inherited the beauty of the High Elves, had rather beautiful upper bodies. Unfortunately, their lower halves were snakes.

At that moment, two groups of Naga were clearly fighting.

The leading female Naga spotted the Murlocs and immediately shouted in Murloc, "In the name of Aivis, I order you to help me stop those foolish male Naga behind me!"