I Refused To Be Reincarnated-Chapter 867: Ancestral Ritual

Adam felt Bao finally relax against his neck and said. "If it’s going to be my last day, I hope you’ll bring double the portion. I’m starving." He emphasised the starving part.

The leader scowled, but eventually left with a grumbled nod about seeing what he could do.

For the next couple of hours, Adam reassured Bao by offering her most of the meat he got from the leader, which wasn’t much in the first place. Ever so slightly, the baby panda calmed. But her growls were accusatory. Something Adam understood as: "I thought we would fly and have fun, that you would terrify bad creatures with your magic. Instead, I’m the one terrified in the middle of this green horde of bulky orcs."

"But I’m having fun discovering their secrets." He chuckled as Bao slammed her paws on his leg. "Alright, don’t pat me so hard. I don’t know what everything will lead us to, but that’s the thrill of adventure. You never know what you’ll find or learn. Perhaps nothing, perhaps groundbreaking knowledge. Didn’t they say they evolved?" He shrugged. "That might be a lead to help you overcome your limits."

Bao’s eyes widened as Haldris’ words echoed from a corner of her mind. In seven years, she would reach maturity at the mage rank. Unable to speak the human language, to transform like the more powerful beasts... to be closer to Quintella and Adam.

He read it all on her face as if she were an open book. Then the same steely glint she had when he trained her entered her eyes, and she nodded. "Adventure is great. Help me, please."

"Nothing’s sure. But even if we don’t find anything here, I know a gentle caw, a drunkard spider, an aloof crane, and an arrogant serpent who might help us. There is also a centipede, but this one... did he ever open a book?" He shook his head. "Anyway, don’t worry, Bao. I’m not leaving you behind."

Bao covered her snout with her tiny paws, her eyes watering with unshed tears of happiness.

Adam spent the rest of his limited time adapting to his new height and orcish traits. He opened his jaws wide, tusks pointing, then shook his head. Bao rolled on her back, laughing at his ridiculous grimace. It warmed his chest. After all, adventures were more fun with friends.

The cloth of his tent flew open. Bao scrambled to his shoulder, closing his hair like a curtain to hide herself. But this time, she didn’t tremble.

Outside, the sun burned high above clusters of drifting clouds, its rays drooling as if winter were an unpleasant guest it didn’t acknowledge in the gorge. Thinking about it, he had seen no snow here, while cold white had covered the college.

Solemn-faced, the patrol leader walked in. Chains rattled, and soon, he untied them from the tent’s central pole.

"The time has come. Fight for your life honorably, Adomash." The scarred orc frowned at the axe planted on the ground as he had left it. He pulled it out, then swung. Bao gasped, but Adam simply smiled.

The chains rattled as they fell, links clinking across the ground in a scattered rain. The leader thrust the axe against Adam’s chest, growling. "You are too meek for an orc. I expected you’d at least try to escape. Now it’s too late." He gestured toward the tent entrance. "Follow me."

Adam shielded his eyes from the bright sun rays. Beneath the shade of his palm, the abandoned stalls and silent square, which had been a boisterous market just hours ago, struck him.

The people weren’t far, though. He saw them, an uncountable crowd of green orcs, jostling and roaring as they formed a wide circle around the shaman’s tent. On the nearest walls and seated atop the wood-reinforced roofs of tents were even more, their shouts merging into chaotic wagers and taunts as they watched the leader guide him.

The crowd parted to let him through, broad hands patting his shoulders with solemn nods, others shoving tight fists between his nose as they hurled profanities. No arena or duel venue, just the cold, hard stone in front of the shaman’s tent.

Armored patrolmen flanked the crowd, drawing the limit of the circle. Seated cross-legged on the platform arranged in front of the tent, orcs slammed their palms on drums, shaking their ponytails to the entrancing beat.

Once he stood at the center, the drums and the voices faded into expectant silence.

The shaman emerged with a chorus of rattling skulls and a fluttering red cloth. Beneath his hood, his eyes burned like two orbs of fire. He raised his bony staff, the crowd following the beast’s skull in zealous silence.

"After fifty years, Zul’Rakhan welcomes you to our ancestral ritual fight." The shaman’s voice boomed across the village, and with it a wave of excited shouts followed.

Zul’Rakhan struck his staff down. Silence. He continued. "Our champion, Uzar, died in single combat. May his soul rest in Grash’Thul’s embrace."

The crowd repeated the words in solemn whispers.

Zul’Rakhan raised his fist, roaring. "But the orc who bested him, a relic of a distant past, will take his place. A living ancestor as clueless as a toddler, a warrior who proved his strength, but not his honor." He gestured toward Adam. "Make Adomash hear your voices!"

Adam rolled his eyes as the crowd cheered and chanted his weird orcish name. That was about everything he did despite the incessant glare of the crowd. What? Did they want him to raise his arms wide and parade around them like some gladiator? At least they had armor. He, on the other hand, still only wore his stolen tassets.

"No sense of tradition," Zul’Rakhan snorted, his gaze shifting to the parting crowd on the opposite side. "Against him, coming from Zul’Gora’s village, a warrior whose brutality makes his squad tremble when he bashes heads with his axe, an orc so powerful that some say he can stud a siege engine with nothing but his bare fists. Make Tragg hear your voices!"

Adam observed Tragg’s massive frame emerge from the crowd. He was a good head taller than him, with arms broad as trunks. Beneath his leathery harness, his corded chest bulged each time he raised his broad battle axe overhead. Then, he towered in front of Adam, his lips curved like a knife beneath his Corinthian helmet.

"That brown shrimp is my adversary? Ah, my bad." Tragg licked the blade of his axe. "You look more like a walking piece of shit than a shrimp."

Adam knew from the crowd’s cheer that these taunts must be part of the ceremony. He tilted his head, an exaggerated, thoughtful grimace creasing his brow. "What would I tell an orc about to be killed by a walking piece of shit? That he was even less than that?" He tilted his head to the other side, smirking. "That his mother forgot to teach him decency? Or that she never told him who his father was because even she never knew?"

The crowd’s cheers instantly dimmed into horrified glares. Tragg trembled, his knuckles white around his axe.

Seemed like orcs were as sensitive to these insults as humans.

"Begin—" Zul’Rakhan screamed before the inevitable happened, but Tragg’s roar drowned his voice.

"I don’t need a father!" He leapt at Adam, his frame bloating out the sun, his axe whistling downward.

Adam’s eyes widened. "Wait... I was right?"