"Fucking pathetic!"
He walked up close to Mikhail, looking down on him with disdain. "Our kin are known for their monstrous capabilities… Yet you only served to waste my time!"
With an angry scowl, the orc of the Demon Clan reared back his sword, and then swung with a horizontal slash!
He aimed to behead Mikhail in one swift motion!
Time seemingly slowed down as Mikhail felt a deep and primal fear encompass his entire being. His pupils had constricted to pinpricks as he looked at the incoming saber.
He wasn't ready yet!
He didn't want to die yet!
He had so much to do still!
"NO! NOT LIKE THIS! GET AWAY FROM ME!" he screamed while closing his eyes and pathetically raising his arms upwards in a shotty attempt to stop the blade.
BOOM!
A translucent, glittering silver sphere exploded outward from within Mikhails head. It enveloped the entire carriage and even crossed over the back of the next carriage over.
Everything nearby him had been blown away, hitting the walls of the carriage.
And then, suddenly, a fierce and incomparable headache drowned out the pain he felt all over his body! But then, it grew worse. It started from his mind, and then spread to everywhere else.
It changed from a headache to an intense and all-encompassing pain that made his bloodshot eyes shoot open.
And what he saw was… Gruesome.
The orc had been thrown away to the opposing wall of the carriage, and… In a stroke of sinister luck, the spear Mikhail had used for his hunts was impaled into the poor soul's throat, pinning him to the wall.
He was shaking violently, looking as if every jitter was harder to perform than the last. As if a weight was pressing into him from all sides, making everything obscenely difficult to do…
And now, he could see the orc's face.
It was… Unnerving.
Seconds ago, he had been confused by what the orc was talking about. But now, it made sense.
It was like looking at a strange, distorted mirror.
The long and flowing silky black hair, and the dark brown eyes reflecting the orange light of the forest fire outside… The way his facial hair grew. The only difference was the vibrant green skin and the large tusks coming out from the sides of his mouth.
Mikhail watched as the shock in the orc's face turned into despair. He was feeling exactly what Mikhail had felt mere moments ago… Tears ran down the orc's eyes as he realized that this was it.
He was being sent to an early grave…
And despite everything that had just transpired, Mikhail couldn't help but feel sorry for him… He looked so young, as young as Mikhail did currently. There was no way that poor kid had chosen this type of life…
He had been born into it. He had been molded by it.
He had been trained from birth to be a cold blooded killer…
How many people of the demon clan were like that? How many poor souls had been thrust into a shitty lot in life and beat down into submission by everyone around them?
This orc had probably been a pure soul at one point, but… Now he was here, dying because he was groomed to harbor horrible sensibilities. Did the orc think he was in the right, and that Mikhail was the awful son of a bitch?
At that moment, the inside of the dark carriage lit up with an ethereal saffron glow, with strange saffron winds flowing out from Mikhail's body.
But he was lost in his many thoughts.
A seemingly impossible amount of thoughts, even.
They all ran through his mind as he watched the spark of life fade from the orc's eyes, his face left paralyzed, becoming an effigy of despair.
A memento to his last moment…
Yet he could not linger on those thoughts. Mikhail was overcome by the vomit inducing pain spreading throughout his body, causing him to pass out where he sat, his head hanging limply to the side as the sounds of slaughter drew near.
『A Few Days Later』
Seemingly no time passed between then and now, and Mikhail's first instinct was to stumble upward, the intense pain causing him to fall over. And the reason why he fell over?
"Huuurgh!"
Mikhail began vomiting, and landed face first in it. He tried to fight through the pain to get out of the puddle of sludge, yet he slipped on the vomit and fell again…
The poor bastard felt as miserable as he looked, and the vomit kept coming until he was left dry-heaving on the ground, shakily clutching at his stomach while groaning, cussing to himself in English.
He was on the floor of the storage carriage, the one he had first woken up in.
A little while later, he heard a commotion outside, and Yagnar was quick to enter the carriage, punching the door open.
"Aw hell, kid! Are you okay?! What the hell happened to you?"
Yagnar picked the kid up by one of his arms, unphazed about the slimy vomit coating it.
Mikhail's vision was hazy, but he still managed to look Yagnar in the eye as he barely managed to voice out his own confusion. "I… I just- I don't… Know… I don't know… It hurts…"
Yagnar nodded, before his free hand began shining with a glittering blue light. A ball of water appeared, roughly the size of a basketball. It then deformed as it quickly flew through the air, cleaning Mikhail's arm and his own hand, and then the floor in one swift motion.
The previously azure ball of water had become… Gross. Yellowish-green. Unpleasant to look at.
Yagnar wasted no time sending the ball out of the door. And although Mikhail couldn't see it, the ball of water was flung far away from the current camp set up, splashing against a tree a mile or so away.
Just like the last time, Mikhail was left dry somehow… Yet he was in too much pain to pay attention to such a detail. He had trouble standing even with Yagnar's support.
Without much fanfare, a golden halo formed above the orc's hand, and he moved it over the young looking man. It was a simple diagnostic spell that Mikhail had grown familiar with by now, seeing it after quite a few hunts.
A short while later, Yagnar looked at him strangely.
"So you've awakened your Cerebral Core… It's strange, though. The power it radiates is an entire Minor Realm above what should be possible..."
He grimaced. "A case of {imbalance} like this is no small matter… And the best we can do is offer you pain relief medication. We don't even have the good stuff either…" Yagnar trailed off on that thought, a look of pity in his eyes.
"Don't worry, once we arrive at the human tribe… I'm sure you'll be able to get the help you need."