Orcs are not very good at identifying things that enter their sight. Not because their eyes fail them, they simply lack a grasp of understanding what others do – if it’s not theirs, they have no idea what it is. Luckily, these orcs are on the road for quite some time and after a few dozens of encounters, the concept and practice of camps is finally engraved into their heads.

As the sun rose, the expedition leader, leading the expedition, was the first to notice yet another camp in their path. Following the protocol, he shouted:

“Blow the horn!”

The command echoed. Each orc, after three or four rows, reshouted the order to make sure the hornblower listened to it.

“Blow the horn!”

“Blow the h-- Wait. What for?” asked the blower.

The sound wave that started at the leader started to come back to him, his ears alerted. One by one, the orcs shouting the response became clearer and clearer.

“Hg wor?”

“Har hor?”

“Walt mor?”

“What for?!” Shouted Makiel, second-in-command, positioned immediately behind the leader.

“Seriously?! This is the question?!” He growled. “It’s a camp, of course!”

“Wait, my mouth is dry.” Markiel sipped his canteen. “It’s a camp, of course!”

The orchestra restarted, although it took a little longer since a lot of the shouters started sipping some water.

Finally, after the horde had awakened every possible being near their path, living or not living, the final message reached the hornblower.

“Saying that in the first command would’ve saved us a lot of time...” He filled his lungs with the pure air from the forests, releasing all of it to create one of the most menacing sounds ever produced, slightly behind the snore of a dragon and the chant of a nymph during that time.

The entirety of the expedition was now aware of what was lying slightly ahead of them – and basically everyone could see it anyway since the road was inclined downwards. Like mentioned before, practically all of them could notice a camp since they had seen so much of them, but only one in that group perceived the little humans running away into the woods. Fortunately, he was right beside the expedition leader, so no shouting this time.

“Lord Leader! The humans have noticed us and they’re escaping!” He informed.

“Really? Where?”

“Now they’ve all gone into the forest, but I saw the trail they took!”

“Good, good… So what? We don’t need to go out of our way to be Evil, we only do it when we can’t avoid the encounter.” He sighed. “Damned they be, these Laws of the Universe.”

“I get you. However… You should send the scouts anyway…”

“The scouts? The two dorks?” The leader scratched his mistreated beard.

“Oh, yes… It’s the perfect opportunity to get rid of them. Let them follow the trail and when they get deep enough we just keep going.”

“It would be a good plan, but what about the Shaman? He definitely knows that they’re idiots and that we’d do anything to get rid of them, he’d get our plan as soon as we told him about their disappearance.”

“It’s easy, it’s easy. We can babble a story about how they wanted to prove themselves after many failures and whatnot… Very believable if you know them, huh?”

The leader looked behind him, noticing two orcs riding their horses backwards.

“Ok, you convinced me.” He turned around again. “Where are the scouts?! I summon them!”

Immediately after, Markiel repeated the order.

…

“Oh, man.” She took another mouthful. “This is delicious.”

Max looked at her, raising an eyebrow. Would she at any point start becoming Evil? Maybe the good taste was a trick of the Dark Lords…

“Ooh, ooh, let me taste it.” Harry got up from his rock, excited by the Barbarian’s reaction.

“Get your own.” Rasla responded. “This one’s all for me.”

Erion picked up another wide cup and filled it with the aromatic slime soup, giving it to the Warlock.

“Are you sure you aren’t poisoning us?” He asked, looking at both him and the dish.

“One hundred per cent. I’ve eaten quite a bit of it while perfecting the recipe and, well, I’m still here.” The chef said.

The Cavalier came closer.

“Are you though? How do we know that your brain wasn’t substituted by a monster’s after drinking so much of this goo?”

“Well… maybe you don’t.” Erion laughed at his serious face. “There’s always the chance that I’m converting all of you into slimes.”

Rasla interrupted her second bowl.

“And I take the risk!”

Harry followed her, trying just a little sip and not being able to stop it, only finishing when his cup was empty.

“This… My gods… Your meat with onion cream was pretty good, but this is just… wow. Who would’ve said that slime is this good?”

The Warlock could not be the most agile or quick person, however, the speed in with he poured another full cup of soup was pretty impressive. He and the Barbarian kept eating without losing too much time with talking or breathing.

Meanwhile, Anda kept silent on her sitting stance, pretending to not be paying attention to the events unfolding in front of her, and Erion definitely noticed it.

“What about you, Anda?” He asked from afar. “Weren’t you going to try it?”

“Well, Rasla and Harry seem so fond of it… Why diminish their portion?”

“Oh, shut up, you’re hungry and you want to try it.” He countered.

The Assassin giggled and got up from her seat, patiently waiting for the chef to finish pouring more soup into her cup.

“Here. Try it.”

She took a look at the gooey, shiny liquid. Although the appearance was not the best, something about the smell sort of seduced her into reaching the cup with her mouth. Almost involuntarily, she tilted the bowl and allowed the food to smoothly pass through her tongue, feeling every flavor possible.

Erion paid attention as she did not give up the first sip, hypnotized by the recipe just like everyone before her. When she finally went back to being aware of herself, the cup was empty.

“You don’t need to say anything.” The young chef said. “Your expression was enough.”

For a moment, he though that she would break her permanently stoic face, but as her lips trembled, she soon regained her composure.

“It was… interesting, I admit. Very different from anything I’ve eaten.”

“Well, sure… I’d be surprised if you ever had eaten a monster.”

And while no one truly paid attention, Max had approached the cauldron more and more. He was now looking at it directly from above, focusing on the strange spiral movements that happened on the soup’s surface. Erion went back to get more for Anda when he saw the Cavalier.

“Hey, get off. I’ll pour some for you if you want it that badly.”

“But I don’t...”

“It’s okay, Max, it’s not Evil. You can tell, can’t you? Stop being so reluctant.” The cook told him.

“Fine, fine. Give me some.”

After pouring the second bowl for Anda, he gave a bit to Max, still a bit doubtful of the dish’s nature. He handled it carefully, as it was an object of black magic. He moved the soup around, observing the nuances of its movement. Finally, after so much reluctance, he drank a little bit.

“So? Do you feel any Evil inside of you?”

“Nope… At least, not right now… It is pretty damn tasty, however.” Max smiled and raised his head. “I guess you’ve already proven yourself as fine chef, Erion. I definitely didn’t expect this.”

“Wow… If my party’s happy, then… I’m happy!”

There wasn’t a lot of food left due to the series of repetitions, but it was enough for Erion to serve himself and a little bit more for Max. They cheerfully went back to the rock they were sitting on, congratulating the chef and asking him about how he ended up cooking slimes.

It was around this time that the two orcs observed them, disgusted.

“We must stop this right now! And then pillage whatever they have left!” The one with barely standing teeth, Agramin, said.

“Y-Yes! Oh, these disgusting whiteskins… Eating the poor slime alive!” Said the one with slightly better teeth, Ogramon.

Agramin raised his fist in agreement, but then hesitated.

“Wait.” He said. “How do you know it’s alive?”

“It’s obvious!” Ogramon exclaimed. “Humans don’t prepare their food, don’t you know about that?”

“What? Where did you get that from?”

“Huh? I-It’s common knowledge… right? My father told me all the time that the humans were going to eat me alive...”

“Why did you say ‘my father’? We’re brothers, remember?” Agramin hit his sibling in the forehead. “And did you seriously carried his alerts as life knowledge? Gods...”

“Ok! Ok! Maybe the slime’s not alive… But we still should stop them! I mean, this is Evil!”

“Sure, sure. Let’s draw our swords. I take care of the women and you take care of the men.”

“Wait, yours are much easier! There’s two women and three men!”

“Yeah but have you seen the size of that woman with the axe? She alone may be stronger than your three targets.”

“Why do I have the impression that you’re fooling me?”

“Because you’re an idiot.” The orc smiled, showing his rotten mouth. “I’d never fool my brother.”

He was, though – three men were still three men.

The two furiously advanced through the bushes, causing quite a stir even before getting to the humans’ camp.

The party was instantly alerted by the sounds clearly belonging to a big creature, which proved to be orcs as Agramin and Ogramon jumped in front of them, raising swords and growling.

“Put down the bowls and we’ll have mercy!” Agramin shouted.

Max was shocked by the audacity of the two popping right at the camp, imagining things way beyond reality.

“Dammit, we must be surrounded...” The Cavalier whispered to his group.

“I… don’t think so, Max.” Anda answered, looking around.

“There’s no way we aren’t! This kind of attack… putting two in the front. Smells exactly like orc horde to me.” Max said “Besides, these two would need to be stupid beyond measure to attack us on their own.”

“My guess is that they are indeed particularly dumb orcs…”

The green grunts started to get irritated by the constant whispering and walked forward a step.

“S-Shut up! Give us everything you got and leave the poor slime alone.” Ogramon ordered, clearly trembling.

“He’s dead, you idiot. They cooked him.” Whispered the brother into his ears.

“Aaaah, I can’t forgive what you’ve done to such pure living being!”

The orc went berserk. Two-handling his rusty blade, he advanced towards the party, fearless. Rasla was ready to take him down with a single swing of her weapon. Agramin initially watched in shock and ended up following his brother, as there wasn’t much he could do to stop him.

“I actually feel bad for them.” Anda said. “They’re clearly too stupid for battle. Harry, get their ankles.”

The Warlock nodded and raised his hands, making his fingers shine. With a bunch of confusing gestures, he drew a symbol in the thin air and used his palm to activate it. Shortly after, everyone felt a little shaking on the ground and two cracks appeared in the dirt. Like snakes going for a prey, two tentacles popped out of each crack and then proceeded to constrict both orcs, raising them into the air upside-down.

They swung their sword around, trying to resist at all costs. But the tentacles shook them until their grip got loose and the weapons fell to the ground, breaking at the first hint of impact.

“You two dishonor the name of the orcs.” Max declared, coming closer to them. “I’ve never seen such a lack of planning and skills, and I jumping in front of five people to fight them is much closer to dumb than courageous.”

“Release us, scum!” Agramin growled like a beast. “You’ll pay for your audacity!”

“Oh no… They’re going to eat us, Ag… Like they did with the poor slime!” Ogramon lamented.

“So you were spying us, huh?” Rasla asked. “And you have a problem with us eating a slime?”

Agramin aimed a spit at her, easily dodged by the immense Barbarian.

“Monsters are the Evil! No wonder humans are Evil too… You eat the creatures from the darkness.” The orc seemed serious.

“Pfft, what is the Evil of a slime compared to an orc’s.” Harry laughed.

“We orcs are good! Friends of nature! Humans are the Evil, eating even their allies in chaos… Probably you who transformed all the armadillos of our mountains into those hideous monsters… You’ll all pay, humans! Killing us won’t matter!”

Ogramon gasped and the humans laughed.

“We won’t kill you.” Rasla said. “You’ll just spend some time here.”

She turned to the Warlock.

“For how long does these tentacles last, Harry?”

“One hour and a half tops.”

“It’s enough. We can follow the trail and leave them here thinking about what they’ve done, haha.”

“Can’t they call the rest and follow us?” Erion asked, nervously thinking about a horde of raging orcs running after him.

“We’ll be too far away. And I don’t think these two are very important to their horde or even belong to one. I mean, their attack was really stupid.”

Agramin tried to start talking again, but a mini-tentacle came out of the main one and covered his mouth.

“Okay, we should go now. We rested for quite a while and now we’re perfectly fed…” She blinked at the chef. “Let’s just hope we find more slimes on the way.”

Erion turned everything back to their compact iron ball mode and took it back to one of his belt attachments. When he was finished, the four were almost out of his sight, so he desperately ran, thinking he was forgotten.

“Hey, Agramin?”

“What?”

“What is this nice smell?”

The orc sniffed around.

“I don’t know.” He admitted. “But I once heard about this thing called perfume that the humans bathe in to hide their putrid smell – could be it.”

“Oh...” Ogramon said. “It’s making me kinda hungry… We didn’t eat breakfast, did we?”

“Now that you say it… I guess the leader sent us here before we had time to...”

“Oh… Do you think they forgot about us?”

“No way… They’ll be here much before this one hour and a half the wizard talked about, scouts like us are too precious.”

And they laughed, carrying a profound fear deep within their eyes.