“I hate this place.”

Jonathan wanted to say he was surprised, but he wasn’t. Some part of him felt that something like this would happen. Ever since arriving on Arda, he had been put into situations that escalated quickly, often due to things not in his control for no foreseeable reason. Jonathan sat down and looked at Runt, who was moving two of the dead imps into a pile in an effort to impress his new boss. Jonathan quietly chuckled at how grotesque it all was, Runt reminded him of a cat that killed birds in an effort to feed its master.

Jonathan checked his wounds. He had pains all over his body but the claw slashes he received had started to scab over. He received a notification accompanied by a low robotic sounding female voice.

[Congratulations. [Pain Tolerance Lv. 1] skill has levelled up to [Pain Tolerance Lv. 2].]

Instantly, he felt the pain dull. It was still clearly there, Jonathan was just less cognisant of it. He thought that a skill that allowed him to not feel pain would have been better, but he didn’t complain. Out loud, anyway. He suddenly became aware of his fatigue. The fight had taken more out of him than he had thought. His arms were starting to feel heavy. In an effort to avoid thinking about how tired he was, he looked over his clothes;

His shirt was a mess; it was torn up from the fight with the crows and the imps. He decided that the shirt might as well come off. He tore a piece of cloth from the shirt and tied the shirt to make a makeshift bag. He gathered some stones that looked like the ones he used to make the fire and put them into the bag and gathered up the feathers that scattered during the battle with the imps. He didn’t know if they had any use but he figured that they would make a good pillow when he slept. It was almost dark anyway.

Jonathan foraged for some dry leaves and made a small heap before starting a fire using the stone and short sword method he used the last time. It took him about 45 minutes to start a fire this time. He enjoyed what he felt as the fire warmed him up.

Jonathan still didn’t know why he accepted the ogre as his subordinate. Every person he had met in this world so far wasn’t trustworthy, excepting maybe the [Chosen], but even they were a little condescending and slightly idiotic. Maybe that assessment wasn’t fair but Jonathan didn’t like the way Brian called him ‘Johnnyboy’. Everybody he met in the world so far, was above him in some way; Augus and Florence could have killed him with no consequence, the [Chosen] were all so much stronger than him that he had to follow their plans and the two beings who sent him quests were both too abstract for him to grasp.

He wondered what kind of beings they were; where they gods, ordinary people just posturing or monsters? Perhaps they were the same person, perhaps not. Jonathan didn’t know and figured that idle thoughts about things that he had no way of understanding weren’t productive. All he knew was that for some reason he had gained their attention after he joined the chosen and they really did not like him. He was sure that the voice that now accompanied the notifications he got announced everything with a glaringly evident disdain for the listener.

Maybe he accepted Runt’s request because he was the first thing he saw in this awful, awful place that was both weaker than him and wasn’t trying to kill him. The image of the old man flashed in his mind. His image fresh in Jonathans mind, but it was slowly starting to fade, a fact which ate at him. Maybe he accepted Runt as some form of atonement, he didn’t know.

Jonathan heard a low growl; he looked at Runt and saw that he had piled two of the imps on top of each other and was looking proud of his own work. Runt then pointed at the third imp. Jonathan understood. Runt was asking for permission to take it. Jonathan nodded. Runt pulled the imp towards the rock formation and balanced it on one of the larger rocks. He then looked around and picked up a stone with a sharp point. He brought the stone down hard onto the imp repeatedly with a desperate passionate thud until he was able to separate the arm from the body. The whole process took almost 30 minutes. By the time he was done it was dark. Jonathan watched as Runt brought up the arm to chew at it furiously.

Jonathan had the instinct to retch but felt calm. Maybe it was the effect of the [Lead] skill, but he didn’t judge Runt, he just understood his hunger. Jonathan himself was hungry but couldn’t eat the imps. They were grotesque and he would get stats, sure, but they just looked too human for him to try. A wave of fatigue suddenly hit him. He still couldn’t sleep though, everything was uncomfortable and itchy. He motioned for Runt to come closer.

Runt was hesitant but timidly walked towards Jonathan, arm in hand. When Runt reached the fire, turned his head down and paused before offering the arm to Jonathan. There had been a misunderstanding. Jonathan felt a bit appalled before pushing the arm away and getting Runt to sit down near the fire. Runt mimed a bite, asking to eat. Jonathan nodded. Runt immediately started to rip at the arm.

“So…” Jonathan started, feeling awkward about the position he had put himself in.

“Tell me about yourself.” Runt paused in the middle of his meal and gave Jonathan a confused look. He clearly had no idea what the hell Jonathan was talking about. In the midst of this awkwardness, Jonathan heard a loud thud. Evidently, Runt had heard the same thing because he shot up, alert. They both waited. They heard another one. And another. The thuds were getting closer and more frequent. Just as Jonathan was thinking about running, he heard a booming roar resound through the forest and saw the shadow of a large figure in between the treeline. Runt picked up a rock, shivering as he did.

Runt rarely thought about his life. He was always a simple ogre with simple thoughts. In fact he didn’t think much about anything at all. He knew that thoughts led to questions and early in life had he learnt not to question anything in the tribe. Questions were always answered with beatings and he knew he didn’t want any more of those.

The thoughts he allowed himself to have though were focused on taking food back to the tribe and not dying. He didn’t know what happened after death; no one in the tribe had ever said anything about it but he knew he did not want to die after seeing his mother die giving birth to his younger brother. Runt was the 137th child of the King, his mother being mother to 20 of them.

His name was the result of the older generation ogres’ disappointment with his generally unimpressive stature. He shared his name with four other runts in the tribe. He was the smallest. He had never met his father. He wished to, long ago, but he had nothing to offer the King and all those who meet the King do so at a cost. He never told his brothers about his wish, he was afraid they would kill him for being an annoyance.

Not long after his mothers’ death, the King decided to move the tribe. He said the land they were in was making the women sick and the children weak. The King left all the ogres that were too weak to survive the trek in their original land. Runt was one of them.

Not long afterward a group of goblins took over the village settlement. Ogres are usually much larger than goblins, but these ogres were weak and the runts were. The goblins took over with ease and killed the bigger ones and made a deal with the smaller ones: Give the goblins food or die. Runt did not want to die.

A week later, on a day where he caught a rabbit, the goblins that he was supposed to give food were killed by imps. Runt saw the human do it. He knew the human could kill him and he did not want to die.

The human was strange, Runt thought. He let Runt eat the imp and did not eat any food even after fighting so hard to kill it. He let Runt eat in front of him when others would kill him as soon as it looked like his food was better than theirs. Runt was first to hear the thud. He shot up because he knew what it was, it was an ogre. The roar identified it to be from his tribe. It was a scout but even scouts could kill him and this one was hostile. Runt did know why, he just did not want to die.

Jonathan grabbed the short sword as soon as he saw the figure in between the trees. It was at least three times as big as he was. He felt his brow get sweaty and he swallowed his saliva. He did not want to die.

“Runt!!”

There was no response from Runt.

He looked over at Runt who looked to be stuck to the floor. Jonathan immediately tried to run, Just as he was about to move a notification popped into his vision. The voice that accompanied it in his head sounded cheerful.

[The skill [Lead] activates.]

[The skill [Lead] will not allow you to abandon your subordinate.

You will be affected by status ailment [Chains of Commanding] if you attempt this again.]

[[Chains of Commanding] will eat at your wellbeing every time you attempt to abandon your subordinates or you put them in potentially deadly situations.]

“What.”

He couldn’t believe what he was reading.

[Your mind is being corroded.]

[Skill: [Mantra of Madness] has temporarily stopped your mental erosion and eased your fatigue.]

[You mind will be under more stress later on.]

“shitshitshitshitshit”

He looked over at Runt again. He was still stuck in place. Jonathan realised Runt had urinated where he stood and was shivering.

“Runt, run!!”

Still no response. Jonathan ran at him and picked him in a fireman’s carry and ran as fast as he could into the forest while a deafening roar followed them. After a few minutes of running, the roar no longer followed them. Jonathan put Runt down underneath a tree before covering Runt with some leaves to keep him warm. He was still shivering. As he did he spoke a single sentence under his breath;

“I hate this place.”

Another notification pooped up in front of his face. The voice was back to sounding cold.

[Congratulations, as you have saved your subordinate even as your life was in danger, you have been rewarded with 2 stat points and bonus experience.]

“I still hate this place.”

[As you have saved its life, you have gained the respect of the ogre, Runt.]

[You can now allocate stat points for the ogre, Runt.]

"What."