1 Chapter 1 : First Encounter
A boy was lying down with his mother on the midrib of a big tree. The boy compares the palm of his hand with his mother's palm. From the palm, his hand goes to the thumb, gripping his mother's thumb tightly. But no matter how hard he tried, he could not grab his mother's thumb, which was the same size as his 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 big. Will my hands be as big as yours when I grow up?" The boy inquired with curiosity.
She withdrew her hand from his, her expression momentarily distant,
"I don't know. It might be hard or even impossible."
The boy's face wrinkled in a frown as he asked, "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," the woman responded with a touch of severity, her voice reflecting the underlying tension of their contrasting origins. "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 his mother's hand and said,
"So even though we are different, we are still family!"
This is the story of a human child raised by an orc.
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Dungeon
A demon towers
or Devil's Labyrinth
That is how humans refer to a dungeon because dungeons are filled with monsters and demonic mana.
A thousand years before the dawn of human history, a cataclysmic war raged on, between angels and devils. To counter the demonic forces, angels bestowed their divine blessings and mana upon humans, dwarves, and elves. 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 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 angel's subordinates fought the demons fiercely, never faltering in the face of adversity. In the end, they emerged triumphant, driving the devils back to the depths of the underworld. However, the scars of that protracted conflict ran deep. The battlefield, saturated with the intense negative energies of both sides, caused the mana left on the battlefield to become corrupted, transforming it into dark demonic mana.
Unlike divine mana, which permeates the world, demonic mana remains confined within the devil and their monstrous minions. To allow this malevolent mana to disperse across the globe would mean the birth of monsters in every corner of the world. To avert such a catastrophic outcome, the angels unite their powers to confine the demonic mana within a tower called a dungeon. These dungeons, arising in various locales across the world, served as confine for the maleficent force that was dark demonic mana.
One day, 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, an imposing figure height of nearly three meters, her every step resonating like a mighty hammer striking the stone floor beneath. Her formidable frame, tinged with a vivid shade of green, was adorned in rugged leather attire, complemented by a cascade of 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 firmly grasped a massive wooden bludgeon as its weapon.
'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 more than 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 crying source, she saw a dying lady, 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 devil's subordinates, like herself, had an ingrained instinct to kill angelic subordinates, like 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 bludgeon with the intent of delivering a swift and 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 straight, thread-like light came from her finger, aimed straight toward the orc's head.
'Mana emission?!!! I let my guard down! I thought she didn't have energy left to use her mana!'
The orc spontaneously slammed her bludgeon at the woman, brutally crushing the woman's head. Blood sprayed over the baby, who wailed even louder now. The orc, meanwhile, experienced an unbearable headache, her thoughts reeling.
'W-what is this?! It really hurts! But this isn't an attack-type of amnis. What is that woman up to? Is this her skill? A god's blessing?'
Amnis is the term humans use to represent all powers employed to harness and manipulate mana. After numerous decades, the whole 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 bludgeon, 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 infant'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 bludgeon 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 desire to kill the baby and the desire to raise the baby.
"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."
