145 (II)

Ethics

Adam, Uva, Can Hu, and Valor departed a few moments thereafter. They took Choki, the time dragon, with them, Uva controlling its mind so it would follow them of its own accord. A sprawling mass of Dimensionality swallowed the dragon and pulled it across the gateway. After that, there were only the midnight breeze, Shiv, and the orcs.

“Gosh, I’m in so much pain. It hurts so bad!”

Oh, right. There were also the still-living inquisitors. The orcs stared at Shiv. Shiv stared at the orcs. He did a brief double check to make sure Adam was gone, and then he let out a sigh. “Alright, we’re going to talk about a new deal, and also ethics.”

The moment he mentioned ethics, the orcs broke into an uproar. Things were pelted at him. Shiv dodged left and right, avoiding severed limbs, pulped organs, literal handfuls of shit, and a thing that looked vaguely like a baby that vanished through the gateway. “Godsdamn it,” Shiv cursed, holding his hands wide as he tried to get the orc to stop. “Stop throwing literal shit at me! Or babies! Male pregnancy, I’m gonna fucking kill you! I’m—I’m gonna let you kill more people if you just listen to me!”

And at that, the orcs immediately stopped. Several orcs complained about why he didn’t start with that. Shiv, meanwhile, pointed into the crowd. “I saw that shit! Get Male Pregnancy out of there! Where is he?”

“Where is what?” Bonk said. The expression was one of feigned confusion. “What are you seeing, Insul? Men here can’t get pregnant, last I heard. Perhaps you’re experiencing post-battle stress.”

“No, you pieces of shit! I saw that! And I’m gonna find that goddamn disgusting orc! I’m gonna flay myself next time, and I’m gonna…” Shiv’s outburst trailed off as he watched a spread of satisfied looks splash across the gathered orcs. “Oh godsdamn it, you sick pieces of shit.”

The Deathless composed himself and frowned at the orcs. “Alright, look, here’s the new deal. Adam doesn’t want you torturing these people, and neither do I.” Another series of protests came from the orcs. Shiv held out his fist. “However, we might be letting you attack the Necrotechs of your own accord on the surface. And also raid the vampires, if you can promise to behave. We’re loosening the leash. With certain conditions.”

Several of the orcs side-eyed each other. “Define ‘behave’,” Mortar said, steepling his hands and tapping his fingers together in a wavy motion.

“No raiding random villages, flaying children, throwing dead babies at people, torturing the innocent.”

“What really is innocence?” Tequila mused, staring at one of his cigarettes as if it were an instrument of great profundity.

“You know what I’m talking about,” Shiv snapped. “No civilian bystanders. And they’re not exactly innocent, but also no prisoners who don’t pose any threat. Stop playing stupid. Look, you want to scratch the itch, fine, but have some felling self-control. Do it by killing, godsdamn it. You’re gonna have plenty of killing to do too. What kind of fun are you gonna get from these ruined people?” Shiv asked, waving the Skysplitter at the sobbing pile of inquisitors. “Most of them are on the verge of death anyway. I can practically smell their injuries.”

“I can make that go away,” Helix said, arching an eyebrow. “First among which is keeping them alive. For some of us are actual Biomancers.”

Shiv grunted, and he pointed a specific finger at Helix. Helix’s left eye twitched. He waved his own finger. A brief spell pulsed into existence and faded. Suddenly, Shiv felt a horrific burn spread in his groin. The Deathless forced himself to stay upright to ignore the brutal itching. “Look,” he grunted, trying not to scratch. “Felling—Helix, did you give me a venereal disease?”

“Of an extremely potent variety.”

Shiv pinched the bridge of his nose and bit back a frustrated sigh. Helix waved a hand again, and the itch went away. “Alright, look. Just don’t torture, and don’t kill any children or non-martial Pathbearers who aren’t behaving like bastards.”

Bonk raised a massive hand. Shiv sighed. “Yes, Bonk?”

“Well, in my objective opinion, subjectively, I think everyone who isn’t an orc is a bastard. Not including you, of course, Insul.”

Shiv closed his eyes for a moment and tried to stay calm. It was the wisest thing he’d ever done, telling Adam to leave, because if Shiv was this annoyed, the Gate Lord would have probably already shot one of them by this point. “Thank you, Bonk. Very interesting. But, so that we can have a unified set of standards, how about we follow my definition of bastard, which is not based on racial supremacy, but on the assumption that someone who hurts the weak or those who don’t deserve it is a bastard.”

“I understand,” Whisper said with a nod.

“Do you?” Shiv asked, his suspicion roused.

“Yes,” Whisper continued. “I think the solution to this is that we simply bring some orc Initiates with us, and then we mind control a few enemies to attack these Initiates.”

Shiv ground his teeth together. His eyelid twitched much like Adam’s did. Yep, this is absolutely fucking miserable. “You know what,” Shiv said, “let’s just have you attack some specific people like the First Blood or Sullain’s Necrotechs. Don’t touch anyone else.”

“What about these inquisitors?” an orc with a pointy wizard hat asked.

“Sure. Yeah. Great. Kill them.”

Bonk held up his hand again. “Bonk, put your arm down or I’ll cut it off.” Bonk lowered his arm but kept his hand held up. “Listen, I’m literally going to let you guys roam free across the surface battleground and First Blood territory. There won’t be anyone breathing down your necks or looking over your shoulder. You’ll get to do whatever you want to the vampires, whatever you want to the Necrotech fighters. Just don’t give me or Adam or anyone any reason to try to police you. Just don’t go overboard. Keep it to killing, not tormenting.”

“But that’s boring,” Mortar moaned childishly. “We want a war. We want a fight.”

“And I want you to war and fight,” Shiv retorted. “I just want you to war and fight with the right people, and do it properly. Have you got enough scratching from beating the Inquisitors bloody? They barely stood up to us. I feel unsatisfied. Why not dominate better foes? Stronger foes? Don’t waste time with this.”

“It’s like a snack,” another orc muttered. “I like snacking.”

“Yeah, well, how about instead of a snack, you can get another meal. You just need to make sure that meal is a Necrotech or a vampire.”

A robed orc stepped out, then. Bookworm regarded Shiv with a curious expression, and then he briefly stared at the other orcs. “How about this?” Bookworm began diplomatically, “if we agree to these terms, first, you will no longer decide what we do to our enemies in the field. We will not capture andtorture them per se, but we might take a little longer when we kill them. Withinreason.”

Shiv considered that for a moment and decided he had to give them something. “Yeah, sure. As long as they’re our enemies.”

“Agreed!” Bookworm called. All the other orcs threw their fists up. “Hurrah!” There was no enthusiasm in their unified cheer.

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“Secondly,” Bookworm held up a finger, “we want allowances for collateral damage.”

Shiv pressed his lips together as several orcs began to grin. “It has to be actually collateral,” Shiv said through clenched teeth. “Not just you bastards murdering random people and then pretending it was collateral. If I catch anyone breaking the rule, your ass is getting sent back to the Tutorial, and not the nice way.”

“Hurrah!” the orcs all cheered again.

“And finally,” Bookworm cleared his throat, “we torture these inquisitors to death right now; quickly, and with great mercy. For old time’s sake.”

Shiv stared at the orcs speechlessly. A couple of leaves drifted by, and he could almost hear the sound of the faraway ocean crashing against the Tidewall in the quiet. “Did you just use ‘mercy’ and ‘torture to death’ in the same sentence?”

“Yes. Sometimes, life,” Bookworm hesitated dramatically before he finished the sentence, “is very mysterious.”

“It’s not mysterious! You’re literally just still trying to torture them to death, even after I negotiated this ethics bullshit with you! The entire thing came up because this shit bothers Adam. Mainly because they’re Republic people.” He saw several orcs put up their hands. He cut them off. “Yeah. I know. Hypocritical. Who gives a shit? Did you see what he did to that dragon rider with his arrow?”

The orcs grunted and nodded enthusiastically.

“Nice blast, right?”

More agreements.

“Well, if you keep annoying him, he might never do it again, out of spite. So mind his godsdamned feelings.”

The orcs began to complain and grumble with dissatisfaction again.

“Well, what do you want us to do, huh?” Bonk asked, shouldering his massive club. Blood, skin, and hair dotted its length. “Do you just want us to beat them to death right now? Is that it?”

“Yes,” Shiv snapped. “Just kill them mercifully.”

“You see, Insul, the thing is, Insul, we just have no clue how to do that, Insul,” Tequila said, clasping his shaking hands together. The orc adopted an expression that vaguely resembled Adam’s from earlier, and Shiv almost let out a laugh at how absurd it was. “Can you please, please, show us, Insul, how to mercifully murder a few hundred people?”

“You pieces of shit,” Shiv said for the umpteenth time that day. The orcs chuckled as a collective. “Just throw a fireball at them or something.” New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novel※fire.net

“But a few of them have Master-Tier Toughness,” an orc chimed. “A fireball will not cut it. It most definitely won’t kill all the automata.”

“Yeah,” Mortar said. “And personally, I think it’s merciful if the automata are properly disassembled by me so they can become part of my armor.”

“What part of mercy are we missing here?” Shiv growled.

“Philosophically, what is mercy?” Bonk asked. Shiv threw a severed limb at the orc, and he caught it between his massive teeth. But before the Deathless could continue his tirade, Helix waved at another orc, and he emerged from the crowd holding what looked to be a peculiar chest piece.

Shiv hesitated and narrowed his eyes. His body filled with paranoia, and he regarded the piece of armor suspiciously. It resembled a badly damaged set of armor that—wait, he could feel it with his Biomancy. It had a few white plates running down its chest and back, while its arms were layered in muscular tissue. The armor set was missing legs, and parts of the body were cracked, but there was something about it that left Shiv on edge. Half of its helmet was still connected, and a very mantis-like face greeted Shiv.

“What the hells is this?” Shiv muttered. “What are you sneaky shits planning now? What is this? Some kind of organic armor?”

Helix took the armor from the other orc and casually walked up to Shiv.

“Yeah, take a look at this.” He held the armor out before Deathless, and Shiv squinted as he examined its details.

Equipment Obtained: [Husk of the Voidmantid]

Tier: Master

Condition: Severely Wounded

Composition: Voidmantid Ceramic; Bloodroach Chitin; Deepcrawler Silk; Fleshdrinker Fungi

Enchantments > Compound Ocular Network; Antennal Resonance; Pheromonic Cipher; Master Regeneration; Magnified Vibrosense; Trauma Mantle; Myomeric Amplification; Mycelial Interface; Binding

“Master-Tier,” Shiv noted. “And what the hells are these enchantments?”

“Insectiod Skills,” Helix answered, grinning. With a snap of a finger, his Biomancy field pulsed, and that made the armor come aglow with blood-red mana. “It seems that one of the inquisitors managed to create a good piece of armor from the body of a Voidmantid, a terrible, vicious creature from the darkness above. It also seems that said Inquisitor added more than a few other insectoid skills to the armor somehow. There must be quite the story here. Alas, the poor fool won’t be able to tell it. Still. The best thing about this armor is that it might make you less blindand deaf.”

Shiv watched as the armor slowly knit itself back together before his eyes. Small strings of fibrous tissue bubbled out from its missing parts.

Helix pounced on Shiv’s silence and continued. “It is entirely manipulable by your Biomancy. Understand that your current armor is not truly a piece of equipment in the eyes of the system. I think that’s improper. It is time for you to be properly equipped. Behold, a proper piece of biological armor that you can learn from, that you can potentially develop your own crafting skill from. Observe the exterior. Behold its ossified ceramic plating.”

Shiv glanced at Helix, who now held the demeanor of a slimy merchant rather than a Biomancer. But the Deathless couldn’t resist staring down at the armor again. Its outside was ridged with pieces of pale, crystalline plating, but along the limbs were dense strands of chitinous fiber. They were midnight black and seemed almost as pliable as cloth. “Here is a dense cross-hatched weave of external chitinous fibers. Bloodroach chitin. You know such a creature is fifty meters large and can swim in magma?”

“No,” Shiv muttered.

“And underneath the chitin,” Helix said as he gestured with his bio-mantic field. One of the fibers was pulled out, and Shiv found another string hiding underneath it. It glistened like silk. No, it was silk. “This is Deepcrawler silk. If you press against it, you will quickly discover that its properties are non-Newtonian.” The orc jabbed a finger against the silk, and it suddenly went hard. “This allows it to remain flexible during normal movements, but at other times, and under heavy impacts, it grows increasingly strong.

“Then, there are the eyes and currently missing antennae. But that’s best experienced directly. After I show you how to mend the armor faster.” The orc Biomancer waved a hand as the armor opened up entirely. Along the insides were ridges of threaded tissue. This reminded Shiv of a mushroom’s mycelia, and it glistened invitingly, seeming almost warm. “And finally, here is a mycelial network. It allows your skin and this armor to be properly interfaced together. It will glide under your epidermis and allow you to feel your armor. In fact, it becomes like an external organ for you. An exoskeleton, if you will. More of an exoskeleton than what you currently have.”

Slowly, the orc placed a large hand on Shiv’s shoulder. “Insul Shiv. My dearest Deathless. We managed to find this piece of armor on a particularly hard-to-kill Inquisitor Biomancer. And though my covetous heart wanted it for myself, I said to my little greedy heart, You can starve for a while. Starve because I know someone else that might have a proper use for this. In fact, I know someone else who desperately needs a piece of armor. So…” Helix leaned beside Shiv’s ear. “I have a counterproposal for you.”

“A counterproposal?” Shiv said, trying to fight his own itch—an itch born of material greed.

“Indeed,” Helix breathed. “You let us have a little bit of time, nothing truly excessive, with these still-living hostages… I mean, uh, victims… I mean, uh, inquisitors, and you will never see them again. Afterward, we will fight according to your…” The orc barely held back a laugh. “…ethics. And make sure your pet Gate Lord is never bothered by our actions again. You, however, need to amuse us some more. Because we need it. The amusement. To keep ourselves controlled. And ethical.”

Shiv finally looked away from the armor, and he glared at Helix. “You think bribing me with this is going to make me softer? Gonna make me let you just torture those people to death?”

“Mercifully,” Bonk added.

“Mercifully,” all the orcs chimed in, speaking in uncanny sync.

Helix, meanwhile, was utterly unashamed. “Yes,” Helix said, “I think that bribing you with this armor will make you look the other way just long enough.”

A long moment passed as Shiv stared in the orc’s eyes, and the orc stared back. The Deathless clenched his jaw together, and then he looked at the pile of writhing inquisitors, and when he looked behind himself, the dimensional gateway was stable. No one was coming in or out. Shiv’s fingers tightened around the armor. “…and I can fuse my bone armor with this?”

“Why do you think I brought it to you?” Helix asked, his voice filled with vindication. “We’re going to teach you how to get a Crafting Skill through Biomancy as well! There’s more than one reason why I wanted you to have this.”

Shiv stared at the orcs. Stared at the armor. Stared at the pile of groaning and whimpering inquisitors. And looked at the Surface Gateway again. “Huh. Well. Uh. You know. Just be merciful as soon as you can.”

The orcs cheered. And Shiv discovered another weakness about himself: He was very, very bribable. And now the orcs knew. But that meant they were going to bring him more shit in the future…

What is mercy philosophically, anyway? Shiv pretend-ruminated while blatantly bullshitting himself.

Deception 21 > 22

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