Observing the End, Volume 3: Protagonism

Chapter 8: Hellstorm

What the f**k do you want from me Inari? What do you expect me to do in this situation? Is this some kinda test of ‘sacrifice’ or ‘trust’? Am I supposed to slaughter your goddamn Kitsune or try to force them to let my family hide in that bunker?

No, I don’t even know for sure if they’re actual Kitsune. Those bastards might just be pretending. If it was just me, I wouldn’t even hesitate to m******e them all. Even if I’d get shot a few times, it’d be fine in the end. But I can’t risk the lives of all my kids, just because I’m afraid of trusting complete strangers.

This is probably a way for her to punish me for enjoying myself. Well, she probably doesn’t give a s**t. There’s most likely something out here that I’m supposed to do or experience. It ain’t just about the orcs.

You’re probably confused right now… Umm, so basically, the Matriarchs guided their tribes to this big-ass bunker in the side of the mountain. It has huge steel gates and all kinds of security. They opened for a little while yesterday and there was another gate inside, except there were two giant sentry turrets. By that, I mean, automated or remote controlled machine guns. Which were protected by lots of armor and were on the ceiling. Like four meters off the ground. In other words, I can’t destroy them.

Supposedly, all of the orcs that live in the plains are actually just rejects that were kicked out of the bunker once they reached adulthood. From what I gathered after listening to the Matriarch, being translated by Jane and Adam, the conditions inside are pretty good. They have practically endless amounts of food, water, clothing and other resources. Even computers and games. Their level of technology is a little higher than humanity back before the apocalypse.

Still, there are some downsides. In the end, the people inside literally spend their entire lives cooped up in what is essentially a giant basement-city. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good basement. Spent most of my life in basements. But a lot of orcs choose to leave and return to nature, rather than living as slaves, doing manual labor for the rest of their lives without any hope of getting promotions.

My kids are smart and biologically superior to any of the orcs out here, but I can’t say for sure whether they’ll be able to maintain that superiority inside of there. For all I know, the people inside might be superhumans or ‘super orcs’. Still, there’s one thing that was painfully clear: Talia wasn’t allowed to enter their fancy ‘Holy Sanctum’. Not that I would let her anyway. It just pisses me off when I don’t have a choice.

***

Alright, I ain’t got time to whine and complain about how the world isn’t fair anymore. I had a dream last night; a good ole fashioned vision, courtesy of Inari Okami. Which means she still reads my journal, but also, that she really likes to f**k with me.

In a typical ‘Godly’ style, she didn’t feel the need to actually talk to me. Nope, just a vision. But it was enough. I made sure that all my kids, except for Talia, made it inside the bunker first. As for the Obsidian Tribe? Well, I gave them a choice: Let my kids go first, or die. Some of them chose the latter, but given a bit of friendly persuasion, they eventually saw my point of view.

Obviously I made sure that they didn’t have any castrated guys going in there. Although I don’t think that they’d be able to do anything, but I didn’t wanna take any chances on revenge. Oh, and just for kicks and giggles, I decapitated their Chieftain and forced their Matriarch to give me his tattoo. It was a pretty quick process, since she just put it on the back of my left hand.

As I suspected, it’s another triangle. This one is white, with a circle around it. Then there’s the number seven in the middle. Kinda hard to see it on my pale-ass hands though.

The first was silver, second was gold and the third was white. What does it mean? f**k if I know! Probably something about “Immortal Soul”. Maybe she wants me to go to Alfirin? Or maybe there’s a portal on this world that leads there?

Too many questions and not enough time to worry about them. For now, I need to find a way to keep Talia alive. The other orcs… Well, I’m almost certain that they’ll die, so I won’t get my hopes up. Even if this didn’t happen, Skullface, Black Hand and the other women I made babies with would probably die soon anyway. I’ve already steeled my emotions and have been trying to keep my kids from noticing, but now it doesn’t matter.

The Hellstorm is basically just a hurricane. A radioactive hurricane. There’s probably tons of radiation in the atmosphere all the time, so orcs most likely have a higher resistance to it than humans. Unfortunately, once that storm hits, it’ll literally rain down poison into the water, soil and air. Enough that I’ll probably get sick too.

Fortunately, Inari gave me a hint. This s**t has happened tons of times before. Which means that these giant redwoods are able to filter the radiation from the water around here and also protect the animals to a certain extent. The crux is that we’ll need to basically live inside of the trees for however long it takes for the storm too pass through.

We need food, first of all. Stuff that’ll last, like seeds, sun dried meat and fruit, or whatever else we can scrounge. It’s a good thing I have Talia with me, otherwise I’d never be able to communicate with the other orcs. Now that the Matriarchs are gone, I’ve basically become their leader. Even if most of them are going to die regardless of how they struggle, at least a few of them will survive.

I don’t have much time, so I’ll cut this entry short… Wish me luck, I guess.