Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint-Chapter 493: The Spring of Ende (1)

“...The magician. Who exactly is he?”

The old orc let out a heavy sigh.

In the past, his spirited subordinates would have stepped forward, dismissing the concern as trivial, vowing to hunt the man down and kill him on the spot. But things had changed. The orcs had suffered one setback after another, and their confidence had been severely shaken.

With a bitter expression, the old orc muttered,

“Our Fang has been broken. The grandmothers who once firmly supported Orcma now tremble in fear. The rank-and-file members are fleeing, one by one. Not from the magician—but from us, from Orcma itself. Sniff. We’ve become a laughingstock. No one fears us anymore. When I walked the streets today, I heard a butcher shouting at the top of his lungs, proudly selling pork. He even bragged about how he had stocked up on sausages, thanks to a certain someone.”

“Who is he? I’ll kill him myself!”

The young orc stepped forward in a rage, but the old orc responded with self-deprecating amusement.

“That’s the problem. You can’t kill him.”

The young orc bristled, but the elder continued,

“We crossed a line when we went after Lord Sapien of Obeli. Even if it was a trick of the magician, it was a grave mistake. Now, the city guards see Orcma as a dangerous organization. Every pig beastman is under suspicion. If they so much as cause a commotion, they’ll be thrown into a cell immediately.”

“But wasn’t that always the case? They’ve never treated us fairly!”

“No. In the past, they didn’t even care enough to look our way. They didn’t see us as people to begin with.”

No matter how many pig beastmen there were, no matter how well Orcma hid, there were limits. If they had been strong enough to overpower Ende’s law enforcement, they would have built a city of their own.

Orcma had thrived by lurking in the shadows, fighting for the rights of pig beastmen. But once the situation escalated, once Obeli started responding, it was only natural that their influence would shrink.

“Those bastards from Obeli never gave a damn about Ende’s peace, but now that one of their officials was attacked, they’re ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ arresting people left and right!”

“It must be the magician’s doing. Damn it. Who is he? The way he operates... he understands Ende’s ways too well. He must have lived here for at least a decade.”

“If that’s the case, why is he acting now? There has to be a reason for this!”

In truth, the magician had been in Ende for less than a month. And the only reason he was causing all this chaos... was because he hated being nagged.

But the orcs, clueless to the simplicity of his motives, searched for a deeper meaning.

“There is one possibility.”

All eyes turned to the old orc as he slowly rose from his seat.

“Grull of the Beast Faction. You all know of him, don’t you?”

A heavy silence fell over the leaders of Orcma.

Not all pig beastmen were comrades. Some lived peacefully within the order of Ende, while others, like Orcma, resented that system and worked against it. But even their struggles remained inside Ende’s boundaries.

The Beast Faction was different. They were savages from the wild plains beyond Ende.

The plains of Ende were a land of abundance. Blessed by nature, they provided for both humans and beasts alike. The fertile land nurtured lush vegetation, feeding the herbivores until they grew fat.

Then came the predators.

The beasts that hunted those fattened prey faced constant battles—not only against rival predators but also against prey that refused to die easily. They fought endlessly to claim their place in the brutal cycle of survival. They either grew stronger or perished.

The Beast Faction had survived.

Though they were technically a form of civilization, they were nothing like humans. They had their own writing, they built homes, they wore clothes—but only a fraction of them did so. Survival took precedence over everything else.

Once the art of Qi cultivation reached them, they added it to their struggle for survival. Their own unique evolution of Qi led to miracles.

And among them, there was one—an orc who had reached enlightenment. A pig beastman who had become a living legend.

Grull, the Unshakable. The Pride of the Pig Beastmen.

“The battle against the King of Wolves is coming. And it seems... he’ll be joining that fight.”

“...I heard that he fears the King of Beasts.”

“He must have caught wind of the fact that we also have the King of Dogs on our side. And the boy who brought her is said to be a warrior as powerful as the King of Beasts himself. That information must have influenced his decision. As for us... to a pig beastman like Grull, we must seem like nothing more than a disgrace.”

The old orc spoke words he could not have known on his own. Somewhere, whispers of Obeli’s secrets had reached him.

Shei was not the most meticulous person, but she hated dealing with unnecessary trouble. When she had gone to Obeli, she had explicitly requested that information about the King of Dogs be kept under strict confidentiality. If word got out, every dog beastman in the city would flock to them, causing a massive headache.

Ende’s mayor, Treavor, had faithfully kept that secret.

Unfortunately, that very secret had already trickled down to the lowest depths of Ende’s underworld.

The orcs twitched their broad snouts.

"Sniff. If Grull is here, then the pig beastmen will play a major role in this war..."

Grull’s presence should have been a triumph for their kind. A pig beastman standing at the forefront of battle—what greater honor could there be?

But not all of them saw it that way.

"...The problem is, he’s not one of us. Grull the Unshakable doesn’t give a damn about pig beastman rights!"

Individual glory did not equate to the glory of an entire race.

Where there is light, there is shadow. A dragon that rises from the filth often despises the filth it came from. And nothing fuels hatred more than watching one of your own ascend alone.

“He’s arrogant! He has the nerve to say that oppressed pig beastmen just ‘haven’t worked hard enough’!”

“He achieved something not even Lord Sapien, that so-called genius, could! A feat that should be impossible—and yet he acts like anyone can do it!”

“When we struggled just to survive, he told us to ‘train instead of whining.’ Do you think he’ll help us? No! He’ll ignore us and go straight to Obeli, basking in the same privileges as any other noble! He won’t even have to cut his ears and tail! The Qi he’s mastered already gives him all the qualifications he needs!”

They resented humans, but their hatred for Grull carried an even deeper bitterness. It was the pain of betrayal—like worms thrashing in salted water. Their emotions festered, violent and raw, until finally, the old orc spoke.

“Even so, he is still one of our own. That is an undeniable fact.”

That much was true.

Grull’s rise had changed everything. Since his emergence, no one dared to call pig beastmen weak, stupid, or inferior anymore. Even Obeli’s elite, the mighty Obelisk warriors, took him into account.

A pig beastman had reached a height even Obelisk had never touched. A realm beyond mere training and effort—a pinnacle that could only be reached through a combination of talent and sheer luck.

They could not even feel inferior to him. He was simply too exceptional.

“Obelisk didn’t crack down on us just for fun. They did it because of him. They wanted to lock up the troublemakers before Grull set foot in Ende. Even the First Fang, Urukfang, and a few of our members are now prisoners of Obeli.”

“A prison is still a prison, isn’t it?”

“Their cells are bigger than your entire house. Sniff. Not that they’d give an entire room to just one orc... But still, it shows that they’re keeping an eye on him.”

Once again, the old orc shared information he had somehow obtained. Some of the younger orcs, listening intently, wore conflicted expressions.

“The battle against the King of Wolves is approaching. All of Ende must unite for this fight. And among them, we orcs, the most numerous, are indispensable. Ende will ask for our help. They will ask us to fight, to die in their place.”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“...But this battle is necessary for us as well. If the wolf packs roaming the Ende Plains rampage through, we orcs will suffer just as much.”

“If we’re going to risk our lives fighting, we should get everything we can out of it!”

“But Grull will fight in our place, and he won’t give us anything we want! Fair treatment? Equal opportunities? He doesn’t care about any of that!”

This chapt𝙚r is updated by freeωebnovēl.c૦m.

“This time, we must take matters into our own hands. If we don’t seize this moment with our own strength, Ende will revert to the past.”

But the foundation for that had already crumbled.

Orcma had been steadily growing in power. Hidden in the shadows, supported by countless pig beastmen, it was on the verge of becoming a significant force. If Orcma had remained intact, Obeli would have been forced to negotiate with them, if only to secure their help against the King of Wolves.

But now, that once-mighty, secretive organization had been shattered.

Not by Obeli. Not by the King of Wolves.

By a single human.

“If it weren’t for that magician... we wouldn’t have to be hiding like this.”

“Hiding is exactly why you failed.”

A voice cut through the room.

From the corner, a young orc stood up.

Now that everyone had fallen silent, this was his one chance to speak.

Tila, a young, idealistic orc woman, addressed the others with conviction.

“We need to take to the streets! Gather the remaining ones and march toward Obeli!”

“...March?”

“Yes! A march! We need to make our voices heard! If we keep lurking in the shadows, we will never be acknowledged. If we don’t speak, no one will listen. At least once—we must show all of Ende, not just Obeli, who we are!”

A march. A demonstration.

The dream of an orc who spoke of such things every day.

As always, the others dismissed her.

“Sniff! Tila, you fool. A march? What, do you want the city guards and Obelisk to personally come and arrest us? Even if we gathered a thousand, they’d crush us in two hours and leave us groveling in the dirt!”

“But if they do that, they will face the wrath of over ten thousand others! If the King of Wolves is at our gates and they ignore a cry for justice, nothing will be able to justify their actions!”

“They don’t need justification. They have power and authority. They’ll just crush us.”

“Grull will help us!”

This time, his name carried a different weight.

Grull was of the Beast Faction.

He had survived in the merciless wilds, where only the strong endured.

Because of that, he despised the pig beastmen who lived in Ende, feeding off its scraps.

“I believe Grull is right. If we do nothing, we will gain nothing. Of course, it would be best if we could achieve something through sheer effort—but the sad truth is, we have never even been given the chance to try.”

But that didn’t mean Grull was cruel.

If he were truly heartless, he would have abandoned the wilds long ago and claimed power for himself in Ende. Instead, he had gathered and led the nomads of the plains, carving out his own force.

“We are not begging—we are demanding. We want the opportunity to work for our own future. If we have the chance to learn, to grow, to fight for ourselves, then we too can reach new heights—just like Grull.”

For that reason, even if he despised pig beastmen, he wouldn’t ignore them.

A young orc, full of dreams, spoke with both political savvy and admiration in his eyes.

“Grull did it. And I don’t believe he is unique. There is potential in all pig beastmen! Just as winter passes and spring arrives, we orcs—who have endured hardship—will also see our spring!”

Unrealistic.

An empty, sugar-coated fantasy.

A narcotic sweet enough to make one forget reality.

But Orcma, having been broken by the magician, needed something to numb the pain.