NOVEL FROG Chapter 730 – Taking it Slow
“Far too many never realize what a luxury it is to be able to relax and enjoy life while they still could.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.
“I had not understood what my teacher meant when I was young, but he is right in that being able to take things slow is indeed a luxury to bask in,” said Miro as he sipped on his hot bowl of tea while watching Celia spar with some of the clan’s youths by the riverside. Aideen and one of Miro’s older disciples – a human man well in his sixties or so – were seated next to him in similarly relaxed postures.
“Pretty sure I taught him that,” chimed in Aideen with an amused voice while she leaned a bit back, supported by one arm. Her other arm nonchalantly picked up a piece of walnut-like seed from a platter the three of them were sharing. The seed came from a plant local to the prairie that some of the foragers found the day before, and just like walnuts, the seed had a very hard outer shell that covered its edible interior.
Aideen just grabbed a couple of the hard seeds, positioned them in her palm so they rested against each other, then squeezed hard. An audible cracking noise came from her clenched fist, and as she opened her hand the two hard seeds were visibly cracked where they touched each other, with the cracks extending all over their shells.
Her fingers deftly removed the edible nuts inside the cracked hard shell and discarded the inedible bits before she tossed them into her mouth and munched contentedly.
“Seeing young people like them reminded me a lot of my younger days,” said Albert, the human man seated next to them as he looked at the sparring youths with a nostalgic look on his face. The old man then carefully sipped at his still-steaming bowl of tea before he let out a sigh of contentment and shook his head. “I’m honestly envious of their close friendship and camaraderie.”
“Things weren’t as pleasant during your own younger days, I presume?” asked Aideen, who was not too familiar with the old man other than his status as one of Miro’s disciples and an honorary shaman for Clan Bloodfang, a rare honor for a human to receive to say the least.
“Aye, Milady. Having now lived with the clans for as long as I have lived in the Empire, I can’t help but notice how petty we were to ourselves back there,” replied Albert with a somewhat disappointed look on his face. The look turned to an approving one when he looked at how one of the younger orcs helped the opponent he just slammed to the ground back to his feet, the two clearly enjoying themselves regardless of who was victorious. “The people where I grew up were a lot more prejudiced in many ways, really shameful in comparison to the youths over there, to be honest.”
“I was born to a knight household in the Andras County in the Empire, that’s up north, south-east from the plains,” he continued. Aideen and her group had not passed through the County he mentioned during their trip, so she was unaware of the situation there. “Never been any good at fighting, to be honest. I have some talent with magic instead, but not the sort usable in a fight,” added Albert with a wistful look on his face. “Back then I’d get beaten up by the other kids who’d call me a wannabe dwarf or other names like that.”
“He was caught when he did his damndest to block our warriors off so his fellow camp followers and other non-combatants could run away during the last human expedition three decades ago,” said Miro with an approving note to his voice. “He had laced the camp full of pitfalls and earthen blockades in the direction we came from, to the point that he collapsed of mana exhaustion, even. That was praiseworthy, and the warriors who caught him agreed with me.”
“My talents are not the most useful since the clan does not often use houses made of earth, but I can find some use here and there,” said Albert with a satisfied look on his face, clearly pleased by Miro’s praise. “I’d build walls for shelters to lean on when there’s a lack of some, prepare the fire pits and the latrines and save up time and effort for everyone, and so on. It’s not groundbreaking things, but it’s useful, and I’m pretty content with that.”
“Always a good thing to have found your place in life,” approved Aideen with a nod. There were notably more humans amongst the clan, since there had been multiple expeditions aimed at the northern plains in the century or so she had been gone. All they did was to teach the Empire and the other nations that sent their troops a harsh lesson.
Namely that they wasted their only chance to conquer the northern plains with the first expedition over a century and a half ago.
The orcish clans had increased their numbers by more than several times over since then, many having felt the threat and urgency and having more children to increase their numbers. With the increased manpower and relative unity against outsiders shown by the clans, it reached the point that even if the Empire was to get serious and send a subjugation force, it was no longer a winnable situation for them.
After all, the Empire was large, and needed a large number of troops to guard its own borders. Even if the Emperor somehow managed to scrounge up enough troops from all his nobles and gather them for a massive expedition, it was still highly questionable whether they would be able to defeat the northern clans at all.
The losses from the previous expeditions had already crippled several noble houses financially after all, a few of which no longer existed due to the losses they took. While the temptation of land, riches, and plunder were always present, the risks and the lessons learned from the multiple failures have outweighed greed, if for the moment.
