Savage Ascension: Starting with God-Tier Plunder Ability-Chapter 47: Exiled Brothers

"No!" 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Under the clear autumn sky soaring high, his brother Donetous shouted. Next to him, his brother Amantous lay sprawled in chains, beaten to a pulp with his thick tusk broken in half.

"Stand aside, Donetous! Everything has been decided according to traditional law, so we must kill him and return him to Mother Nature."

"We must return him to the earth before the twins’ curse descends!"

Donetous and Amantous were orc twins, identical in build, height, and face. And when those two impious beings were together, anyone would feel uneasy. Like a living lake, they were eerie and alien.

One orc reflected in the lake had come alive and burst into the world as two, with two hearts beating where there should be one. And the superstition about that had been passed down as orc tradition for generations untold, whispered from shaman to shaman, and this time was no exception.

"Great Warrior Souvlaki (Firm Foot)! Keep your promise! I became a warrior and earned the Hydra’s Tattoo that refuses tradition!"

Brother Donetous approached the great warrior next to the shaman with purposeful strides, his boots heavy against the packed earth, and showed off his right arm as if boasting, thrusting it high into the air for all to see. There was tattooed a seven-headed hydra, each head tangled with the others, driving teeth into his forearm in an eternal struggle.

All of it was a deep green hydra tattoo. Vivid as if alive.

"..."

"Souvlaki... Firm Foot! Why can’t the one who earned that name answer! You didn’t think I’d return this quickly! Isn’t that right! Say something!!!"

When Donetous, who only had a childhood name, put his hand on his axe handle, everyone shouted. They cried out.

"That’s enough! Donetous! This is tradition! Everyone wants it! It’s not something you can simply do as you please!"

Donetous shouted back.

"This tattoo is also tradition! This is the tradition you all want!! You’re the ones refusing that tradition!"

The shaman’s eyebrows trembled, his weathered face contorting with the conflict between law and convenience. Donetous had overcome the orc’s trial and earned the right to refuse tradition—a right granted by the very laws they claimed to uphold. But this wasn’t such an easy matter, not when power and fear collided.

’Every power holder wants the twin’s death.’

One of them had to die. They wanted the word "twins" itself to disappear. Donetous was an excellent orc warrior, but he wasn’t an influential one in the tribe.

Even Joan of Arc, greatly praised as France’s national hero, had to watch soldiers of her own country raise the gates while shouting, then get captured as a prisoner by the enemy. If even heroes couldn’t beat those in power, it was an unwinnable fight for Donetous, who’d merely proven himself an excellent orc warrior.

"If you insist on using the Hydra’s Tattoo to the end, leave this tribe. That’s the only thing you can choose without shedding blood!"

At the great shaman’s words, brother Donetous suddenly grabbed his beaten brother and hoisted him to his waist.

"Donetous!"

His family called him. He turned his head and approached them.

"Ugh, hic. I’m sorry. Sorry."

His mother, who particularly loved fruit trees and specialized in managing fruit trees in the mountains and chasing wild boars, shed tears before Donetous. She touched his brother’s head with her left hand and placed her right hand on Donetous’s chest.

"Will you really go? Orcs who leave the tribe have a hard time surviving."

Donetous squeezed his eyes shut. His father’s filthy honor-seeking seemed to seep into his chest. It was terrible. A young orc with only a childhood name had beaten down a hydra. Even calling it luck, it was unbelievable.

And he wanted to bite that hateful mouth saying such an orc would have trouble surviving outside, wanted to scream at the transparent lie. Not wanting to see his father spouting lies anymore, unable to bear another moment of this poisonous hypocrisy, brother Donetous left the tribe just like that.

With minimal mercy, he could at least get medicine to treat his brother.

"What are you thinking about so deeply?"

A thick baritone voice reached brother Donetous. The orc who’d entered the cave, cutting through the darkness, was his brother Amantous.

"Look at this. I told you I found a hornet nest before."

"You already made liquor? What about aging?"

"It’s already done~."

Amantous sat on the ground without hesitation. In a large jar made from clay brought and crumbled from the stream and then fired, hornets floated, drowned alive.

"Is your body okay?"

"Yeah. I’ll be fine after resting a few more days."

Brother Donetous’s condition, covered in several layers of wild boar hide, was terrible. His hair had lost its luster, streaked with white and gray. Rather than lively eyes, he had dark circles from sleepless nights spent in pain.

A forest troll living in the deep had targeted the mountain the orc brothers cultivated and raised, and they naturally resisted fiercely. From the aftermath of that battle, brother Donetous had been bedridden for three days.

Because he’d exerted himself to the point of crushing bones.

"Whew. Good."

Drinking hornet liquor mixed hot with various root medicines from the mountains, Donetous made a pleasant sound. Looking around the cave, he chose a topic.

"We have plenty of food. Where’d you go this morning?"

"Went around looking for medicinal herbs. Set several traps too, preparing for when that troll bastard comes again."

"Don’t wander alone for long. Get the liquor early too. Even orcs are in danger at night."

Even at those words, brother Amantous just shrugged his shoulders. Outwardly they were identical twin orcs, but his brother’s protruding tusk had been broken cleanly in half.

"The nagging. Look at this. After fighting the troll, the God of the Wild sent down a trial."

He opened his chest to show a tattoo that was only a faint mark. It was a faint tattoo of a figure with slit eyes and large earrings.

"I’ve heard of it."

He searched his memory. Brother Amantous looked expectant. And brother Donetous giggled.

"Ah, really. Don’t drag it out, just tell me quickly."

"Are you being serious right now?"