Nathan’s breath hitched. He opened and shut his mouth multiple times before producing a single sound. His two hands seemed to hover in the air, frozen.

  “Oops," he said.

  At that, an orc in a booth opposite him pointed at Nathan.

  “Get him!”

  Dozens of orcs started charging at Nathan from every direction. He was surrounded from every angle. There were orcs coming in from the booth above him, orcs coming in from his sides and below. Orcs who were jumping up to meet him in the middle. Orcs doing backflips and making kung-fu poses (Nathan was wondering who distributed kung fu informational material to a bunch of orcs.)

  Nathan grimaced. His left eye twitched. He really did have a way of just consistently screwing himself over, didn’t he?

  Angry orc senators and legislators who had taken his ignorant actions as the worst kind of arrogant boasting— they were all coming straight for him. And unless he wanted to start deploying lethal weaponry, there was very little he could do about it.

  Nathan’s hands flickered translucent. He needed to practice the skill anyway, so this was probably as good a time as any.

  He jumped forward right when the orcs were only a foot away from him. His entire body flickered away into water and he passed through a gap between two bodies.

  Already, he could feel his consciousness fading. He had no ability to see, smell, or hear, yet he remained distinctly aware of everything that was happening. The moisture in the air and in the ground provided a rough idea of the room’s dimensions. And the water inside everybody’s bodies marked them out clearly.

  But even that awareness was fading, replaced with the cold nothingness of un-thought.

  Before it could get any worse, he gathered himself together and reformed.

  He flew through the air, straight for an orc who had been staying out of the fight. The orc let out a scream as Nathan slammed into the guy like a bowling ball hitting the last pin. A massive cloud of wood shards and dust erupted from the crash site. Nathan stood up and rubbed the sweat off his forehead.

  He frowned.

  Was it just him, or was the entire building a little bit draftier than it had been before? He looked up at the roof to see if somebody had accidentally opened a hole.

  In particular, his lower body felt unusually cold.

  “Nathan, what are you doing?!”

  Emi was pointing at him, her face so red that even with the hood back up Nathan could clearly make it out.

  Nathan tilted his head. “What do you mean? I’m okay, aren’t I?”

  He figured she was referring to the fact that he had turned into water. He looked over at his hands. Nope, still fleshy and human.

  “Your clothes!” she shouted. “Your clothes, Nathan!”

  Nathan then noticed the fact that off in the distance, where all of those orcs had nearly gotten him, his shirt, vest, and pants were slumped over the railing.

  Nathan squinted his eyes as his 500 IQ brain put together the pieces.

  If my clothes are over there, he thought. And if I’m here… then…

  He looked down at his body.

  He blinked.

  He blinked again.

  Suddenly the cold draft made a lot more sense.

  Unfortunately, he had no more time to contemplate this, as there was a flash of green in the corner of his eye. He ducked underneath the incoming fist and grabbed the attacker’s arm. He pulled forward, using the orc’s momentum against her and throwing her into a wall. Internally, Nathan noted the fact that that was the first female orc he had seen in the orc diet.

  And he fought her naked.

  Man, my reputation is going to be in tatters by the end of this.

  Another orc was swinging for him. He dodged and delivered an uppercut that sent him into the ceiling. One by one, the orcs approached him. One by one, they each fell. It struck Nathan that he had been an idiot earlier because these guys were incredibly weak compared to him.

  With this extra bit of permission, Nathan started to go on the offensive. He jumped from booth to booth, delivering fist to cheek that was knocking the orcs out cold. They started coming in groups of two or three. It didn’t matter. They all went down the same.

  And of course, he was doing all of this while completely buck naked.

  He noticed out of the corner of his eye that Emi had her eyes locked on him the whole time. And was it just him, or was there a trail of blood coming from her nose?

  She must be supporting me. She’s casting some sort of debuff on the orcs. That’s why they’re going down so easy!

  Empowered by this knowledge, Nathan ran even faster and hit even harder. He was like a farmer harvesting wheat with a scythe.

  By the end of it, he was sitting atop a mountain, more of a small hill of unconscious orc bodies. The only one left was Fenrir, who had stayed out of the conflict. He looked at Nathan, then down at Nathan's stomach. Then a little lower.

  Nathan wasn’t sure what he was staring at, but he still met the orc leader’s gaze head on.

  “Can you put some clothes on?” Fenrir asked.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Nathan blinked.

  After getting some clothes on, one by one, the orc diet started to wake up. Multiple orcs came by and slapped Nathan on the shoulder, congratulating him for a good fight. A few shook his hand, while some others went in for a “bro hug.” When things had settled down, he’d gone over to Emi and thanked her for helping him out during that fight.

  “I don’t know what buff you put on me, but I was really at the top of my game,” he said. “Thanks for that.”

  “Listen, I promise I’m not a pervert. I was just looking at the fight—”

  Her face froze.

  Nathan stared at her. "Everything alright?"

  She slowly smiled and nodded her head up and down. “Yes. I’m glad that my buffs helped you.”

  Her voice had been weirdly robotic at that last part, but Nathan paid no attention to it.

  Eventually, everybody had woken up and the meeting had been allowed to continue.

  “The floor is now yours, Nathan Lee,” a particularly elderly-looking orc said. “Please present the reasons for why you wish to have a vote of no confidence.”

  Nathan narrowed his eyes.

  What would appeal best to a bunch of trigger-happy orcs who liked fighting so much that their legislative body now looked like somebody had dropped thirty pounds of explosives straight into the middle? Not logic, that was for sure. Maybe emotion?

  No. Through that one fight, Nathan had an idea of what they would respect most of all.

  “Fenrir is weak,” Nathan said. “I’m strong. I should be the leader.”

  The entire orc diet went silent. Bjorn looked over at Nathan and squinted his eyes. It seemed that he had been expecting a slightly more articulate response.

  In response, Nathan nodded at him and gave him a thumbs-up.

  The elderly-looking orc nodded slowly. “I see. And do you have any other reasons?”

  “Also, I heard through the grapevine that Fenrir is going crazy,” Nathan said.

  Surprisingly, multiple orcs muttered to each other, offering words of affirmation.

  “He has a point.”

  “Everybody knows that his mind has been slipping as of late. The mental decline has been unusually fast.”

  “Fenrir is great, but all those knocks to the head had to have an effect at some point.”

  A growl.

  “I’m not crazy!”

  The room fell silent at Fenrir’s declaration.

  He jolted back from a shadow. “You don’t understand. She’s everywhere. She sees everything. She is everything!”

  Nobody in the orc diet looked surprised by this statement.

  “You may be strong.” Fenrir looked at Nathan. “But even if you were to take my place, there are other problems. Take your friendship with the elves. You would surely side with them over us!”

  Nathan opened his mouth to respond when Emi stepped forward and cut him off. “That’s not true.”

  Fenrir narrowed his eyes. “Who are you? And what do you mean, that’s not true? How do you know?”

  Emi glared down at Fenrir. Nathan reached out a hand toward her.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he whispered.

  She didn’t respond.

  “You see, Fenrir, I think there’s a fundamental misunderstanding. You seem to be under the impression that there would still be a war with Nathan leading you. You’re incorrect.”

  Fenrir narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

  Emi pulled off her hood, revealing her pointed ears, white hair, and red eyes. Every single orc in the room staggered back. Several had somehow turned pale despite their green skin. A few summoned weapons from their inventory, drops of sweat rolling down their heads.

  “My name is Eminia Laplanta!” She cast out her hand to the side as if she were making some sort of declaration. “Nathan Lee’s betrothed by right of conquest!”

  Jaws dropped. Eyes widened. Weapons fell to the ground.

  Bjorn stepped forward out of nowhere and gestured toward Nathan as if presenting a prize animal.

  “All hail Nathan Lee,” he said. “Conqueror of the elves, mightiest in the apocalypse, and our new ruler!”

  For a second, Nathan was waiting for the ground to fall out from under him. Surely it couldn’t be that easy?

  A clap.

  Two claps.

  The entire orc diet was roaring with approval. Fenrir had a look of total devastation. He’d fallen to his knees and was staring off into the distance.

  Nathan squinted his eyes. Was he still dreaming? He was pretty sure he still had to be dreaming.

  He pinched himself. Still awake.

  Damn.

  There was no congratulation ceremony or passing of the torch or anything like that. Instead, Nathan basically had the title tossed at him along with a mountain of paperwork and a sweet new office.

  He looked over at the bust of Fenrir's head and wondered what exactly was with these people and making these weird statues.

  He shook his head and turned his attention back to Emi and Bjorn.

  “So now all I have to do is tell the orcs about my plan to bypass the sixth circle, right?”

  “You could do that,” Bjorn said. “If you wanted to get deposed a single day into your reign.”

  Nathan rubbed the temples of his forehead. “I knew there had to be a catch to this whole thing.”

  “It was extremely easy to remove Fenrir. That same easiness means it'll be easy to remove you as well. If you go around spouting off something as absurd as bypassing the rules of the system, you're going to have everybody think that this was an elaborate trap.”

  Nathan tapped his fingers against the desk. “So we'll need to trick them. Somehow get everybody into this town.” Nathan paled. “Wait a second. Who owns this town?”

  “Fenrir, of course—oh...”

  Nathan was half expecting a giant hand to materialize and squash him like a bug. Then he slapped his hand over his face.

  “Wait. He can't do anything. In fact, if I'm right—”

  A window popped up in front of him.

  [Town ownership transfer initiated…]

  [Transfer complete.]

  The two windows disappeared. Nathan breathed a sigh of relief.

  “What was that?” Bjorn said.

  “The authority system. Town lords lose respect and the loyalty of their bureaucracy, they lose authority. I think that given the fact that the orcs run themselves as a democracy, the authority bar is particularly sensitive. Meaning that as soon as he lost legitimacy from the vote...”

  “That was enough to immediately initiate the transfer?” Bjorn said.

  “Exactly.”

  Emi rapped her knuckles on the table. “I think we have more pressing things to talk about.”

  “You're right.” Nathan chewed on his bottom lip. “We've already got a way of bypassing the Sixth Circle requirements. We just need to get everybody into a handful of locations. Then the fish people are going to transfer us to the next circle.”

  Emi's eyes shot wide. “Already? When did you pull that off?”

  “It wasn't me. It was the fish people.”

  Bjorn mouthed out the words "fish people," a distinct look of confusion on his face. He shook his head.

  “So what are we waiting for?” Bjorn said. “I'll draft up some kind of excuse and get all the orcs inside of here.”

  “I need to speak with Chad about the humans.” Nathan felt a creeping sense of dread crawl up his spine. “The problem is that humanity is so spread out, even this far into the sixth circle. There's nine hundred million of us, and I somehow need to get all of them into my towns.”

  “It doesn't have to be just your town though,” Emi said.

  Nathan perked up and looked at her. “What are you talking about?”

  “You have an alliance with the rest of the top ten, right? All of them have soulbound towns. Some of them are unused, but that makes it even better.”

  Nathan furled his eyebrows together and thought about the suggestion. He would have to tell Greg about the revision to the plan, but Nathan was pretty sure that he would be able to adapt to the change.

  “You're right,” Nathan said. “I'll tell the top ten and get them on board with our plan.”

  “Do you really think that people will listen to you?” Bjorn said.

  “Not me alone.” Nathan felt a small smile rise onto his face. “But if Chad Mann, beloved streamer watched by millions, backs me up, I think that might just do the trick.”

  Bjorn shut his eyes. “I suppose that's the best we're going to get.”

  He opened them back up and looked between Emi and Nathan. Nathan could see the unspoken question on his face. In response, he shook his head.

  Not yet. They'd tell her at the right time.

  A window popped up in front of Nathan.

  A message from Dither.

  The second quest hub had been found.