The view of our short battle was obstructed by the wall I had formed earlier, it had only been partially destroyed in the orc's first attack, now I walk around it holding his head in my hand, raised for all to see.
Once I have allowed appropriate time for the gasps of dismay that echo only in my head as I imagine my enemy's response, I call out to them using the same technique as earlier. "Your leader is dead, killed by only a single blow on my part. Surrender now, as discussed before the battle, or your lives are forfeit."
I expect a foolish resistance, but after giving them only a dozen or so seconds, a column of unarmed orcs come across the earthen bridge over the stake-filled ditch. In total, twenty seven orcs cross, with the last being the trio that had guarded the bridge.
I approach their group slowly, relishing in the rush of being their conqueror as I look down upon these foolish orcs that have willingly elected to stand unarmed before me.
"Is this all?" I ask.
"Yes," the orc most near to me answers immediately.
"Good. Now, I would first like to thank you all for your immense stupidity; it is at this moment of great amazement that I am left questioning how a species so foolish as yours could find itself persisting until this very moment, on the promise of an enemy."
Before I can continue, the orc nearest to me again speaks, blurting out "Well, it's not like we have much choice. Submit to you and cling to a slim chance of survival or face the certain death that anyone capable of defeating our leader can undoubtedly unleash upon us."
"Hmm, it is as I suspected, you are not mindless brutes after all. Though I would imagine that entering deep into enemy territory would be considered a suicide mission, did you lose your resolve?"
"The answer to that is none of your business."
"Perhaps not, but it shall be soon," I reply coldly. "Now, I only have need for precisely one of you, all the rest are extraneous, which, to you imbeciles, means unnecessary. So-"
I am again cut off by the orc nearest to me, a clearly talkative fellow who was clearly never reprimanded by his teachers for blurting out answers in class. "Are we imbeciles and mindless brutes or not? Make up your mind."
"So, as I was saying, failure to do exactly as I command will result in death. Now, eat this disrespectful skum before me, or die."
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the beasts do not take up my offer, instead electing to stare at me as though I am some insane despot who just gave them a ludicrous order.
"Good. Well, in that case…" Saying this ominously, I unleash only a sliver of the wrath that has built up in me over the course of this very interaction. A red chain of flame forms in the air before me, a chain which then lashes down. To the left and the right of the fool before me, those who failed to follow my orders are afflicted with the flames of my wrath before being burned away body and soul by flames unquenchable.
They scream, of course, they run like beheaded chickens, arms flailing comically, they carry themselves with great disgrace, but in my magnanimity, I forgive them.
[In my flames, be quenched of the sin of your existence, pass beyond this realm free of your debts to me, the only moral absolute good in this world of abhorrent evil.]
The screams of the dead and the dying - though they are in effect the same when before the might of flame unquenchable - serenade my ears as I stare expressionlessly down at the only orc unaffected, he who they refused to eat when ordered to.
Where there was previously a proud glint within them, his eyes are now occupied by despair as he watches his brethren die around him. It is only when the last of the screams has died away with the owner of the voice which produced it that either of us speak.
"You monster! You humans view us as beasts, how can you not see the nature of your own behaviors?! This is a way in which not even those who hate all the world, the reavers themselves, would behave! How much evil must you carry in you to do this?!"
"Me? My dear friend, I fear you are projecting your own guilt onto me. If I may remind you, I offered, of my own free will, to spare those who surrendered to me, only following up with the demand that they do as commanded. You then had the audacity to level insults towards me, I gave them the reasonable command to deal with it appropriately. They failed to follow this command, so I revoked their protections as I had warned them I would, where have I behaved in an evil manner here?"
Apparently this is too much for his small mind, he can only grit his teeth and look down darkly in response to my logic. However, I am still not done.
"As for you, insulting the man to whom you owe your life and then standing in the way of the task which I gave your comrades through your very existence, it is you who are evil here! And even before this, to stand in my path at all, why, that is the very definition of what it is to be evil!"
"Are you at all serious right now?!" he suddenly exclaims, spittle flying forth as he locks his enraged gaze upon my face, finally looking all the bit the monster that would stand in the way of my aims.
"Why, of course. This is a, ahem, [deathly] serious moment."
"You… you… in this situation, you have the audacity to make a joke?!"
"Hm? I know not to which you refer. This is a serious moment indeed, you have chosen the path of sin, the way of evil, in placing yourself against me. My goal requires me to grow in power, which I do by taking on guild-assigned missions. You and your group stood in the way of completing this mission; therefore you all must die, for impeding my goals."
"You believe death is a fitting end for those who do not give up everything to you merely so that you may complete your goals?!"
"No, no, of course not. Do you think that I would be so vain as to believe that my time and effort is worth so much? No, death is a fitting end for those who are evil, impeding my goals is a mark of allegiance with the world and its evil, thus, those who impede my goals are evil and must be destroyed. You see, it is not the act itself that determines that they deserve death, rather, the act of impeding my goals is a marker for those who are evil, and the evil deserve to die.
"Besides, you must remember that I gave your group a chance to repent of their sins even after you showed yourselves to be in opposition to my goals, all I demanded was a degree of respect that is appropriate for one who just saved your life and obedience while under my care. You violated the first of these unspoken arrangements, while your force violated the second, which I even took care to enunciate just in case they failed to understand the unspoken."
The orc looks at me blankly, apparently to stupid to follow along. My, I do hope that not all orcs are like this, otherwise, they will all have to face my justice!
Finally, he speaks again. "You are insane! How can you go to such lengths to justify what is an obviously horrible action! If you had used such an attack on us from the beginning, that would be fine; we were enemies then, after all. However, to lure us out of our guarded state with false promises of safety only to then kill us in the most awful manner for the most petty things, such is the behavior of a man of evil!"
I scoff at this, replying "Evil? How can I, the only pursuer of justice in this entire, wretched world, be evil? How can justice be evil? Justice is just, and what is just is opposed to what is unjust; and what is unjust is evil. Thus I, an enforcer of justice, cannot be evil but by a severe misunderstanding of an equally severe word."
"Listen to yourself! You speak like a man of madness! Even among those humans I have interacted with, none were so deluded as you!"
"I am mad, so what? Perhaps 'madness' is only a way of saying that my mind has been expanded in such a way that the truth has only become more apparent? Now, enough self-righteous blabber, I can see what you are trying to do here, trying to make me mad enough to kill you, and it's not going to work; I learned to control my wrath a long time ago. Now, answer my questions honestly, or I'm afraid that I may have to resort to violence to obtain what I want. First, why are you all here?"
The orc does not answer, and I ask again, and a third time. When he has still rendered no answer, I give him a light kick, and then a harder one. Finally, I give him a closer look, and see that his eyes have glazed over. By listening carefully, I can hear no breathing from him. I place my hand on his bare chest, and feel no beating of his heart.
I snort. [It seems this scum has died. But how?]
I look him over closely, and I find no signs of injury upon him, only spatters of the blood of his brethren. [Hmm… a real mystery… Well, I'll just have to assume it was a fancy skill or he had poison on him or something. It's possible that it could be something else, but I really don't care enough to investigate further.
[While I would have liked to get some information out of this orc, sometimes you can't always get what you want. Whatever, I completed the quest fully and without issue, even my potions went unconsumed; by this time tomorrow, I could be free of the shadow of Lector which hangs over me!]
And a truly great thing that is! While I have preferred not to think of it, preferred to ignore the tunnel and fixate upon the light at the end, the threat that Lector could appear at any time and take everything from me once again is terrifying. And who knows; maybe this time I wouldn't wake up with a decent amount of my powers mysteriously returned to me.
I scour through the camp, looking for valuables and coming up empty handed. I sigh, questioning aloud why these orcs couldn't have had some successes against prior victims. Seriously, to pierce so deep into enemy territory without taking any loot that I would be able to pocket without anyone knowing, how irresponsible of them!
Afterwards, I throw the body of the orc I had talked with and the corpse of the one I had battled into the camp before setting it ablaze with a massive fireball. My battle had actually consumed minimal magical energy from me, consisting of only a handful of basic spells (plus one usage of wrath manipulation), so I am able to make a big, strong ball of flames without having to much worry, allowing me to incinerate the camp and the two corpses in one go.
As for why only two made it into the pile, well, only charcoal remains of even the bones of the recipients of my wrath, there is no need to bake their ashes in another helping of flame, especially one not nearly so brilliant nor unique as the first.
Seriously, imagine how cool it would be to be consumed by the very wrath which you had generated in your attack. I prefer life to death in any form, obviously, but one must admit that that is a pretty interesting way to go out.