Orc Hero Story - Discovery Chronicles (Orc Eroica)
Chapter 13.2: The Great Eagle's Nest

After that, Bash talked to woman after woman, one after the other.

Put like that, it might sound like he had one hell of a great time, but that wasn’t the case.

The Elven women came up to the Orc, asked him one or two questions, and proceeded to quickly leave.

When the number of people he had been spoken to exceeded ten, Bash finally managed to put together the bits and pieces of their strange behavior using his Orcish genius and finally understood how this gathering worked.

The men took a seat and stayed seated.

A woman would sit in front of a man she found somewhat appealing and asked him some questions.

If the man’s answer meets the woman’s requirement, then good, that’s that. If not, then the woman would leave for the next man.

That’s how mafia the system worked.

Most of the questions were similar in nature, but yet, when he answered honestly, the women just picked up and left.

Apparently, this was a buyer’s market, and Bash was the merchandise on display.

From the Hero’s point of view, all the women he saw around here were fine marriage and breeding material. He’d be okay with anyone of them…

However, even without Zell’s help, it didn’t take a genius to realize the reason behind his repeated rejections.

Money.

The questions were worded in many different manners, but the Elven women here were essentially all looking for money.

Sure, they asked about status, position and prestige, but in the end, it all came down to cold hard cash.

No matter how much Bash insisted he was a person of eminence within the Land of Orcs, the ladies didn’t listen. And when they found out he didn’t have any money, they simply gave up pretending to be cute, cleared their throat, spit on the floor and disappeared.

Elven women were good at spitting.

After around ten failed “interviews”, all feminine presence around Bash vanished.

It seemed that the Elves shared their gathered intel, and figured out that this Orc was flat broke and that it was a waste of time to approach him.

[Unlike the Dwarves, Elves shouldn’t be this interested by money… so why?]

He didn’t understand.

For the time being, women no longer approached him, and some even glared at him with outright disdain.

Bash couldn’t just up and leave right, his companion still being passed out drunk, so he decided to have something to eat.

He remembered that the Elven Country’s diet was mainly composed of nuts and fruits, but he noticed that braised bear meat and grains had been added to the menu, probably to be more welcoming towards other races.

The seasoning was light, as is typical of Elves, but Orcs weren’t picky eaters.

The food was delicious, and Bash thoroughly enjoyed it, yet a question still remained…

“Why is it money…?”

Then, perhaps having heard Bash’s mutterings, a man came up to him.

“Why is it money?”

He was a Human dressed up in a dull, nondescript outfit.

His face was flush with drunkenness, and his eyes red with desperation.

He walked up to the Hero on unsteady legs, plopped himself down ungracefully on the neighboring seat, and threw his arm around the Orc’s shoulder as if greeting an old friend.

Bash didn’t mind, but if this were Orc Country and the youths that admired Bash were to see this scene, the poor Human would have been beaten up to the brink of death of his perceived insolence.

The man was completely and utterly drunk.

“Shall I tell you?”

Without even waiting for Bash’s reply, the man began.

“Alright, so you know how all the Elven ladies here are survivors from the units that fought against the Succubus Nation, right?”

According to the man’s tale, this is how things went down.

After the end of the war, there was a marriage-boom amongst the Elves.

The first to get married were the upper-class Elves – the rich, the noble, and the powerful.

After all, there was now a great surplus of Elves who were single. This was a buyer’s market, and all the unmarried Elves were being bought up like hotcakes.

At the time, it was said that the number one desire of a common-folk Elf was to be discovered by a nobleman and marrying into wealth.

Following in the steps of their “betters”, the common people soon began to marry as well.

But truthfully, most of these marriages were between people who already had ties with each other.

By “bonds”, he meant survivors from the same unit or childhood friends that had stayed behind.

“Now that the war is over, and the government is giving out subsidies, why don’t we get married? Everyone else is doing it!”

That’s how it went.

Then, before they knew it, the soldiers who were fighting against the Succubae were left behind.

The soldiers who were deployed against the Succubae were all women.

Taking into account the fact that the Succubae were a race that innately brought to the surface the deepest most carnal desires of men, yet at the same time preyed on them, it wasn’t hard to see why.

At first, the units fighting against in the Succubus front were of mixed genders, but that changed quickly as the Elves adapted.

Of course, the Succubae were also capable of flexible thinking, and changed their tactics in return. They began organizing their troops as to avoid the women and strike only at the men.

The women-only troops would be sent on rescue missions over and over again to save the men being assaulted by Succubae.

As a result, the number of men in Elf Country decreased slightly.

The ratio of women to men increased from 6:4 to 7:3.

And thus, the survivors of the Elf-Succubus conflict were left with little to no close male acquaintances, and the remaining men were fiercely fought over for.

Even so, they didn’t lose hope in finding a partner, and made their way towards Siwanasi Forest, where there were many single men from foreign nations, and began hunting looking for a potential spouse.

They were, for a lack of a better word, “leftovers” – the “problematic” ones; undesired women who were left with extensive scars from the war, both physically and mentally.

Still, Elves were innately attractive and a real treat for the eyes.

There were countless men all over the world that would love to take an Elf as their wife, especially among the Humans.

Therefore, these “leftovers” hung on to this last shred of hope.

After all, the entire town was in the middle of a marriage-boom, and there were plenty of opportunities.

But then, they thought about this whole marriage thing long and hard.

Due to the marriage-boom, many of the men whose asses they had to wipe during the conflict had found themselves a partner. And so, these ladies came to a decision.

They would not accept any compromise.