Underground Plan

After that great battle, Guk deliberately went to scout around Red-Eye. He saw the dense defensive works with his own eyes. He had once considered taking the fortress in one push, but immediately gave up on the idea.

Now was not the time.

What followed was a long stalemate. Things became boring all at once. For a long time, neither side launched any major war; only small bands of troops constantly slaughtered each other across the vast wasteland. Guk occasionally led his boys out on "hunts," while Agugu sometimes led his retainers to attack the White Hand Tribe's camps. Overall, each side won and lost in turn, but the White Hand Tribe could link its defenses together through its camps and Beast Smoke. Most of the time, Red-Eye's guerrillas ended up being surrounded and wiped out.

Time slipped quietly away. The windblown sand slowly became like an endless hourglass, making time across the entire wasteland crawl by. Orks had no concept of lifespan to begin with. Without outside interference, perhaps things would have continued like this forever.

Orks had no habit of counting years. From the marks carved into the wall, Guk roughly knew that more than six hundred had passed.

That was not especially long. His body had not even grown much larger, but to his ambitions, the time felt unbearably long.

He increasingly wanted to chop off Agugu's head and decorate his battle banner with it. That bastard had destroyed over a hundred of his camps and killed quite a few of his guards. Of course, Guk had personally chopped down plenty of Agugu's boys too.

Guk had once planned to settle this great enemy with a carefully arranged ambush, but Agugu was like a sneaky little Snotling, always avoiding the most dangerous places at the crucial moment.

"Haaah..."

Holding a cup of clear Sleeping Wine, Guk let out a long breath. He suddenly thought of that human again. The bastard was a slippery schemer, but at least he had given Guk quite a few good ideas.

The tribe still had just as many matters demanding his attention. Green Tooth had moved his beast pens out of Blackstone Fort. He raised too many things, and there was no longer room for them inside the fortress. He had also trained many Black Snotlings. Now the entire White Hand Tribe knew that the toughest Snotlings had to be Green Tooth's. The lower levels beneath the fortress had been opened up, and many boys had moved underground. This greatly eased the housing pressure around Blackstone Fort. It had been far too crowded before, to the point where even Guk's patrol routes had been packed solid.

Sok had gathered every Black Snotling he could find. He had now become a Snotling boss whom the Snotlings greatly feared. Not only because he was as fierce and combative as a boy, but because he was an incredibly treacherous little bastard. Many boys who offended him had their throats slit in the middle of the night.

Of course, if Guk had not protected him, Grak would have crushed him to death long ago. Many bosses hated Sok, but Guk preferred keeping an interesting Snotling close by.

Everything seemed fine, but Guk knew this dull calm would not last forever. He was preparing. Using his projection in the Hazy Realm to win over those Weirdboyz and Freak Boy, he could gather the boys' chaotic psychic strength. Weirdboyz from many nearby tribes had become his hidden eyes, and Agugu's every move could not escape his notice.

He was waiting. Waiting for a chance to kill in a single blow, without giving the Blade Bite Tribe or Blood Skull Tribe any chance to take advantage.

That chance was coming soon.

"Oi! Big lad, where're you from?"

A hurried figure crossed the noisy street and was just about to enter the fortress gate when several boys gathered together boasting noticed his unfamiliar face.

"I'm talking to you!"

"I'm new."

The tall boy stopped, his tone somewhat stiff.

"New?"

Those lads gathered around him, several pairs of eyes sizing up the newcomer with ill intent.

Poor, strong, with a dagger tucked at his waist. Definitely a newcomer, aside from being a little taller than usual.

"We got rules here."

Ganging up on the weak was Ork nature. These boys were already planning to squeeze something out of him. Even a few teeth would do.

"What rules?"

"New boys gotta recognize a boss."

The burliest of them curled back his lips threateningly, baring a row of teeth.

"I don't need to."

"That ain't how it works. If you're standing here, you follow the rules."

"Then I'll leave."

The boys immediately surrounded him and drew their weapons.

There was no such thing as public order in Ork society. Fighting and death were as normal as eating. No other boys even paid attention to the conflict about to erupt, because there was bigger entertainment elsewhere.

"Let me count how many teeth you got."

The leading boy charged with his cleaver raised, but the other lad neither dodged nor moved. Before the cleaver could fall, he grabbed the boy's wrist, twisted it, and snapped it.

"AAARGH!!"

The thick wrist instantly went limp and bent sideways. The cleaver clattered to the ground. The boy had only screamed twice before a dagger stabbed up through his jaw, cutting off every sound.

"Run!"

The other Orks took one look and scattered at once. This lad was not someone to mess with.

After tossing aside the corpse, the big lad immediately slipped into the fortress. He headed downward, avoiding the busy areas, until he reached a remote corner.

"Good."

After glancing around and confirming there were no Orks nearby, the boy took a black object from the pouch at his waist. It was a thin, spiral shell.

He crouched down, dug a hole in the ground, placed the shell inside, and covered it with dirt.

"That'll do."

Muttering under his breath, the tall boy—Truf, chief scout of the White Hand Tribe—quickly vanished into the bustling fortress.

"Move! Why ain't it moving yet!"

"Could it be dead?"

In the dry underground Graystone Zone, Sok sat impatiently on a rock while a large group of Black Snotlings noisily crowded around something.

"It moved! It moved!"

Suddenly, cheers erupted from the pile of Snotlings. Sok hurriedly jumped down from the rock and shoved aside the ones in his way.

On the ground, a pale blue Slime Squig was wriggling its body. Its protruding little eyes faced one direction as it slowly crawled toward it.

"Great! Water! Pour water on it! Don't let it die!! Hurry up!! You lazy gits!!!!!"

The news quickly traveled upward through the tunnels.

"Boss, that thing moved."

Guk lifted his eyelids. Outside the door, Grak in red armor was striding into his bedroom. In the entire tribe, only this fellow had the right and guts to do that.

"Good. Tell Idea Guy to get the digging tools ready."

A tunnel. Guk's new plan, born from a stray idea while drinking.

If the ground was wine and the underground was a bowl, then however much wine there was, there had to be a bowl of equal size. The surface and underground had to be connected. To prove this idea, Guk used a Snail-shell Squig bred by Green Tooth. It was a variant of a Slime Squig, with a thin shell grown over long periods of living among minerals. It had once been one of Guk's personal delicacies, and tasted particularly good roasted.

But its crucial trait was that this kind of Squig recognized its own shell. No matter how far away its shell was, it would try to crawl back to it.

So Guk had Truf disguise himself as a new boy and infiltrate Red-Eye Fortress, then toss a shell into the fortress's lower levels.

Before this, he had worried that such a great distance might make it ineffective. But now, the result looked good. Before long, he would be able to reach beneath Red-Eye Fortress.

"Boss! I wanna fight from the front! I don't wanna go in from underneath!"

Grak did not leave immediately. Instead, he offered one of his own ideas. He rarely had ideas, but this time was different.

Guk's plan was not to attack directly from below. The space was too narrow to hold such a huge force. He would lead the main army in a frontal assault, while Grak would lead his Blood Axe Group in an internal surprise attack after the battle began. With attacks from inside and outside, the odds of taking Red Eye Fortress would be high.

"This is a plan, a tactic! How many times have I told you? Can't you put something besides rust and blood clots in that head of yours?"

"I just wanna smash 'em from the front!"

"The back and front are no different. And you're the toughest fighter besides me. I don't trust anyone else with it."

Those words pleased Grak greatly, and he finally promised not to bring up anything like that again.

After sending Grak away, Guk no longer felt like drinking. He left his bedroom, crossed the boys' living quarters, and arrived at the White Hand Tribe's workshop. Twenty catapults now stood there, surrounded by fierce-looking White-Helm Guards. Many Snotlings and boys hurried back and forth between piles of timber and heaps of scrap.

"Bring it here! Mine's that one! The pointy one! Not the square one! Get lost! That one's round!"

Agum was buried in a pile of gears with his backside facing outward, his hands constantly switching between different tools. Recently, he had been fiddling with something that was supposedly capable of flying.

"Oi! Agum!"

Guk's arrival made many Snotlings and boys panic and bump into each other. This legendary boss was rarely seen by ordinary boys.

"Boss!?"

Hearing Guk's voice, Agum immediately pulled his head out of the pile of gears.

But before he could stand, Guk's iron boot gave his backside a heavy kiss, kicking him back into the scrap heap.

"How many times have I told you? Build the catapults first, then mess with those useless stupid things."

"Boss, I've been building catapults all along."

Agum clutched his backside, looking deeply wronged.

"Rubbish."

"No, Boss. I told you a few days ago. We're out of steel, and there aren't any bearings left either."

When he mentioned it, Guk remembered. With so many more White-Helm Guards lately, the last bit of steel he had on hand had been completely used up.

"I know. I'll allocate some more to you."

Catapults were more important than a few boys. Guk calculated that he could probably get some leftover steel from Bucktooth. One-Ear and Idea Guy had swindled quite a lot from him before. It was time to take it back.

As he pondered, Guk suddenly spotted a suspicious fellow—a boy hiding beside a shed, looking left and right with shifty eyes and highly abnormal behavior.

Guk waved away the boys watching nearby, then slowly approached the shed as if unconcerned. The boy was staring at the huge catapults and did not notice Guk coming closer.

Until an icy great hand seized his throat.

"Where're you from?"

"I-I'm new!"

Clutched by that iron hand, the boy looked extremely panicked. Guk did not believe him and summoned Agum, Big Mouth, and a group of Orks.

"Do any of you know him?"

All the boys shook their heads. Guk stared at him, then snapped his neck without waiting for an answer.

Maybe he really was a new boy, but Guk preferred to believe he was a spy sent by Agugu. Diego had said that during human wars, they sent disguised people to scout information and learn how strong their enemies were. Guk had every reason to believe this boy was one of them.

A mistake? There were no mistakes in this tribe. His will was everything!