A boy lay beside his mother on the massive midrib of a towering tree. He compared the palm of his hand with hers. He traced his hand from her palm to her thumb, gripping it tightly. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't fully wrap his hand around her thumb, which was as large as his entire arm.
"What are you doing?" she confusedly asks.
Her voice resonated stern and unyielding, bearing a subtle echo that added an eerie quality. It was the kind of voice that could reduce children to tears with just a single utterance, yet for the boy, it had become a familiar companion. He had grown accustomed to the sound of his mother's voice every day.
"Mother, your hands are so big. Will mine be as big as yours when I grow up?" the boy asked with curiosity.
She pulled her hand away, her expression distant for a moment.
"I don't know. It might be hard or even impossible."
The boy frowned, puzzled. "Why, Mother? Am I not your son?"
The mother felt a sudden unease creep in, unsettled by the boy's question. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something about how he posed the question left her uneasy.
"It's impossible because we're different," she responded. "You are a human, and I am something called an orc. But, if you insist on calling me 'mother,' I suppose you can do so, at least for now."
The boy is confused and full of joy at the same time. He did not clearly understand what his mother said, but he was happy to hear that from her.
He grabbed her hand again and declared,
"So, even though we're different, we're still family!"
This is the story of a human child raised by an orc.
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Dungeon
A demon tower
or the Devil's Labyrinth
These are the names humans have given to the dungeon, a place filled with monsters and demonic mana.
A thousand years before the dawn of human history, a cataclysmic war raged between angels and devils. To counter the demonic forces, angels bestowed their divine blessings and mana upon god's creation such as: humans, elves, and the other racest who lived in the middle of Mediusphera. In contrast, the devils employed various kinds of monsters that possessed their own mana. However, unlike the angels' subordinates, devils and monsters have different mana called-the demonic mana.
Mana is one of the most abundant elements in the world, second only to oxygen. Like oxygen, mana is almost everywhere, and every species in the world absorbs mana into its body. The devil's subordinates, like monsters, couldn't absorb mana like angels, but they had another option: demonic mana.
For a thousand years, the angels' subordinates waged a relentless battle against the demons, never faltering in the face of adversity. In the end, they emerged victorious, driving the devils back to the depths of the underworld. However, the scars of that long conflict ran deep. The battlefield, saturated with the intense negative energies of both sides, caused the remaining mana to become corrupted, transforming into dark, demonic mana.
Unlike divine mana, which permeates the world, demonic mana remains confined within devils and their monstrous minions. Allowing this malevolent mana to spread across the world would result in the birth of monsters in every corner of the world. To prevent such a catastrophe, the angels united their powers to confine the demonic mana within a place called a dungeon. These dungeons, scattered across the world, served as confine for the corrupting force of dark demonic mana.
One day, inside the dungeon.... the sound of a crying baby echoed down the passageways of the dungeon, reaching even the depths of its entry hole. Among the diverse assortment of monsters dwelling within, a female orc found herself nearest to the source of the child's wailing.
This orc, with height of nearly three meters, her every step resonating like a mighty hammer striking the stone floor beneath. Her body was dark green covered in rough leather clothing, with wavy, fiery red hair. Her countenance bore no trace of a nose, but instead, two fearsome tusks jutted from her lower jaw, adding to her intimidating presence. In her right hand, she grasped a massive wooden weapon like a mace.
'a human?' thought the orc.
The Orcs were typically creatures driven solely by their primal instincts and desires, but this one was different. Over the course of two centuries, she had evolved into the Queen Orc, a title earned through surviving countless battles with humans. As a result, she possessed a level of human-like thinking and intelligence.
When the Queen Orc arrived at the source of the cries, she saw a dying woman, drenched in blood, huddled against the damp stone walls of the dungeon's corridor, clutching a wailing baby.
"Bringing babies to dungeons... humans have gone mad," the Queen Orc mused.
The devil's subordinates, like orc, had an ingrained instinct to kill angelic subordinates, such as humans. The monsters' desire to kill the humans and other angelic subordinates who entered the dungeon sprang from this instinct. The urge to slay these intruders was as fundamental to them as drawing breath.
As she gazed upon the two helpless humans before her, Queen Orc raised her colossal bmace with the intent of delivering a merciless end to them both.
The woman is aware of her fate but refuses to give up. The woman's strong desire for life and her desire to save her child caused her mana to flow more quickly.
Summoning the last vestiges of her strength, she raised her hand, pressed her index and middle fingers together, and aimed them at the Queen Orc.
A thin, thread-like beam of light shot from her fingers, aimed directly at the orc's head.
'Mana emission?!!! I let my guard down! I thought she didn't have energy left to use her mana!'
The Queen Orc spontaneously slammed her mace at the woman, brutally crushing the woman's head. Blood sprayed over the baby, who wailed even louder now. Meanwhile, the orc was struck by an unbearable headache, her thoughts reeling.
'"W-what is this? It really hurts! But this isn't an attack-type amnis. What was that woman up to? Is this her skill? A god's blessing?"
Amnis was the term humans used to describe all powers that harnessed and manipulated mana. Over time, the entire race, not just humans, began to refer to the manifestation of mana as amnis.
The Queen Orc, writhing in agony, relinquished her grip on her mace, forcefully pressing her head in a desperate attempt to stave off something from within that tried to ruffle her head.
"I realize now, this blasted woman implanted her mana in my mind so she could continue her determination to protect this baby! She is trying to brainwash me! I can feel this woman's memory of the baby creeping into my mind!"
In a futile effort to resist, the Queen Orc repeatedly pounded her head, but the woman's mana clung tenaciously. In an act of desperation, she raised her weapon, intent on ending the baby's life, believing that by doing so, the connection to the woman's determination would break. Yet, it was a task that proved insurmountable, as the woman's mana had begun to intertwine with her demonic mana. Queen Orc flung her mace but missed; she purposely missed it. Her instincts and desire to kill the baby diminished, and instead, a new feeling of wanting the baby to live arose. Inside her mind, she was torn between the urge to kill the child and the growing inclination to raise it.
"Right now, killing this baby is impossible; in eleven years—no, twelve years—when the dungeon reset starts, this woman's mana will be gone from my body."
Seeing the crying baby, the orc grabbed the baby with her right hand, neither rough nor soft, as she determined something in herself.
"In year 12, I will kill this baby."