A Day in the Life of Daya

"Mine, mine, all mine—" An orc hummed a tune, marching south in high spirits with jaunty strides. In appearance, he differed little from his kin, merely standing a fraction taller and burlier. He was unkempt and hideous, draped in ragged beast hides and shouldering a massive club fashioned from the leg bone of some unknown beast. A foul, rank stench wafted from every inch of him... His sole distinguishing feature was a pair of long, thick tusks protruding from his jaws. Yellowed and stained with blood, their sharp tips nearly brushed his nose. These orcs that sprouted from the soil had no names; they picked up whatever word caught their fancy. Because of these two tusks, this orc had been dubbed "Daya" by his clansmen. He was exceedingly proud of it. To keep his name from being stolen, he had even beaten up several nearby orcs who dared call themselves "Daya" as well, snapping their tusks and sending their teeth scattering across the dirt. After that clash, the moniker "Strong Daya" made its rounds. Many orcs came to throw their lot in with him, and step by step, he became an orc boss commanding about a hundred underlings. Life for these green-skinned orcs was exceedingly simple: they were either fighting or on their way to a fight. Their reasons for brawling were endless—plundering resources, seizing nesting dens, or even a single dirty look. Merely disliking someone's face was reason enough for a fight to the death. Everything the orcs possessed came from raiding and pillaging. The strong robbed the weak, the many robbed the few, and if someone truly couldn't win, they could always join the robbers and become another lackey. Through rapid reproduction, the green-skinned orcs formed their own society. Naturally, its framework was extraordinarily crude—essentially countless bands living off plunder, preying upon one another and robbing downward rank by rank. As for the weaklings stranded at rock bottom? They were either physically weeded out by orc society and turned into rations, or they banded together to raid other races. In Daya's short life of barely a year, he had carried out over a hundred raids and been robbed seven or eight times by stronger brutes. To him, this was simply the natural way of the world. And so was this impending war. They were going to beat those frail yet wealthy southerners to a pulp, seize everything they owned, and become the masters of the continent. "Whatever I see, all belongs to me!" Daya softly chanted their crude, self-made ditty, continuing along with the grand horde in an exceptionally cheerful mood. "Boss, after we sack Evindeldan, I'm gonna make a club outta wood!" "Worthless weakling! Those humans and dwarves are filthy rich. Once we rob 'em, I'm makin' a big club outta iron!" Daya sneered in utter disdain at his short-sighted lackey. Daya's mindset reflected the general attitude of most orcs toward the war—wildly fanatical, completely clueless, and driven purely by the thought: *Sounds good to me!* At first, their Great Boss, Soro, had tried rallying them with talk of historical heritage and racial honor. But the green-skinned orcs couldn't comprehend a word of it, only scratching their heads in bewilderment. In the end, driven to his wits' end, Soro had hoisted his spear and roared, "We're going to war! We're gonna strip every city in the south clean!" An orc below had asked, "Are they rich?" Soro replied, "Clansmen, listen to me! A single human is richer than a hundred orcs, and a single elf is worth more than a thousand orcs!" "What about dragons?" another orc had chimed in. Hearing that, Soro broke into a wide grin. "Dragons are the greediest, strongest, and richest creatures alive! The hoard of one dragon is worth hundreds of thousands—even millions—of orcs! "Their scales can be forged into the toughest armor! Their bones can make the hardest clubs! Their—" "Waaaagh!" "Rob 'em all!" "I'm gonna rob a dragon!" The green-skinned horde erupted at once. Astounding war cries surged from the sea of orcs, their boiling fervor piercing the clouds and making the very earth shudder. Back then, Daya had stood amidst the crowd, pumping his fist and roaring like any war-crazed orc, daydreaming of a glorious future where he could plate his tusks in gold. That way, no one would ever be able to shatter his teeth or rob him of his name. Suddenly, a huge commotion broke out at the front of the horde. "Look!" "That's Evindeldan! Truly the old capital of the dwarves!" "Waaaagh! That city looks ripe for the takin'!" "Outta the way! Let me through!" Hearing the shouts, Daya shoved aside the orcs in front of him and elbowed his way to the vanguard. "Th-this is..." Daya looked up into the distance, his jaw dropping in shock. His massive tusks jutted out, exhaling puffs of foul stench. High upon the distant mountain stood a colossal fortress built of stacked iron and stone along the mountain's rugged spine. In the skies above the citadel, countless wyverns beat their wings in disorderly swarms, resembling rolling thunderclouds. "How... how much iron must be inside a place like that?! How many clubs could I make?!" Daya marveled from the bottom of his heart. His heart pounded furiously, a warm current coursing through his veins. Every drop of blood and every cell in his body roared in frantic unison: *War! We need war!* A pale green mist of orc spores drifted in the air. As they bumped against one another, they sparked a peculiar chemical reaction that made the horde even more frenzied and fearless of death. "Charge!" "Strip 'em bare! Waaaagh!" In an instant, every orc went mad. Brandishing spears, bone clubs, and stone axes, they surged in an overwhelming tide toward the fortress ahead. Their heavy footfalls hammered the earth like war drums, causing even distant Blackrock Mountain to quiver and groan. The orcs jostled forward. Shoving aside a throng of scrawnier kin, Daya laughed maniacally, sprinting at the forefront of the main horde. "Fat sheep, here I come! Waaaagh!" To Daya's mind, the battle would be a complete walkover. Just like every scrap he had ever fought, the orcs would swarm in and tear their trembling foes to shreds. "Charge!" "Take the fort!" Boom! A deafening roar erupted. Shattered earth and rock flew high into the air alongside orc blood and severed limbs, leaving a massive crater in the ground ahead. —A landmine. To counter the orcs' tsunami-like assault, the imperial army had laid a minefield tens of kilometers long and two kilometers wide, presenting the horde with an unforgettable "gift." Yet the orcs knew nothing of this. Clueless as to how their brethren had died, they kept hurtling forward, shouting curses in chaos. "What was that?" "How'd they die?" "Kala's head flew off! I'm takin' it for a trophy, he was my best pal!" "Bullshit! I'm Kala's best pal! That head's mine!" Amid such carnage, several orcs actually began brawling over their comrade's severed head, an absurdly dark spectacle. Boom! Amid the pandemonium, another blast shook the ground. The orc who stepped on the mine was charred black, and jagged shrapnel tore through dozens of orcs in an instant. Immediately after, explosions rattled like dense drumbeats throughout the sea of greenskins, carving a gory trench of grit, shrapnel, and mangled limbs. Their formation was simply too packed! Not even the imperial combat engineers had anticipated their minefield yielding such horrifying lethality. Yet fueled by the catalytic spores, the orcs paid no heed to the deaths of their comrades. If anything, the spore-laden blood misting the air drove them into an even wilder frenzy. "Waaaagh!" "Push through!" Like moths hurling themselves into an open flame, wave after wave charged headlong into the minefield, triggering firing pins with sharp clicks before being blown skyward by shattering detonations. Mangled, charred corpses soon carpeted the ground, and the orcs behind trampled their fallen kin to press the assault. Within mere minutes, thousands had perished in the blasts. Daya, however, had not rushed headlong into the fray. He trailed just behind the front rank, advancing only after the orcs ahead of him had detonated the mines. His lackey Hawke was itching for action and tried to bolt forward, but Daya yanked him back. Hawke turned around, his face flushed with impatience. "Boss, why aren't we chargin'?" "Idiot!" Daya cuffed him over the head and barked, "Let them short-lived runts go die first! We follow behind 'em! That's how we live to grab the loot!" "Ow!" Hurting from the blow, Hawke clutched his head and nodded half-comprehendingly, muttering under his breath, "If you hadn't stopped me..." Under Hawke's envious gaze, another wave of orcs howled and charged to the front, only to step on more mines and get blown sky-high. Daya kicked a charred head that had rolled to his feet and grunted, "If I hadn't stopped ya, that'd be your skull! Move!" As a green-skinned orc, Daya had no fear of death, but he had no desire to die pointlessly like those expendable fools—he still had a fortress to pillage! It was this sheer devotion to killing and looting that granted Daya a level of cunning quite uncommon among his kind. Boom! Boom! Boom! Explosion after explosion tore through the horde like stones skipped across an ocean, kicking up geysers of blood, yet barely making a dent in their sheer numbers. With unending blasts paving their way, the orcs advanced step by step at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. All the while, Daya stayed crafty, leading his followers right behind the front-line fodder and coming away with nothing worse than minor scrapes. "We'll be inside soon..." Daya licked his tusks, eyes gleaming with greed. He fixed his gaze on the distant fortress, already picturing himself bursting through the gates and laying waste to everything in sight. Whirrr— Piercing screeches suddenly ripped through the sky, echoing across the plains like claps of thunder and stirring the orcs into an even louder uproar. "What's that noise?" "Sounds kinda like eagles on the steppe, but eagles ain't this loud..." "Who cares! Keep chargin'! Strip Evindeldan clean! Waaaagh!" Unlike his heedless kin, Daya warily peered upward, only to behold a sight he would never forget. Rows of massive black-and-red monstrosities had appeared in the sky, dumping countless pitch-black "eggs" from their bellies that rained down from high above. "The weird birds laid eggs!" an orc yelled, pointing to the sky. Boom! In a split second, the "eggs" burst like fireworks. Surging infernos swallowed the surrounding orcs, instantly igniting everything on the ground—grass, rocks, and trees alike. The spores within their flesh offered no protection against fire; if anything, they served as excellent kindling. "Aaaaargh!" The crackle of burning fuel and popping air echoed across the plains. Tens of thousands of orcs in the vanguard wailed and writhed in the sea of fire, reduced to charred husks in moments. The blaze swept across the plains, heavy with the pungent stench of gasoline. Raging tongues of flame devoured the cheap lives of the green-skinned orcs without mercy. This was the napalm the Cinder Empire had prepared especially for the orcs. Small wonder the players had been granted the "Barbecue Master" title—this was a genuine roast, only with orcs serving as the meat. Witnessing the scene and feeling the scorching blast that blackened his skin, Daya couldn't help roaring, "Fall back! Stay away from them eggs!" Yet in the next breath, Hawke, who stood not far off, caught fire from head to toe, letting out an agonized wail. He had been splashed by the gelatinous fuel during his panicked retreat! "Boss, save me! I'm burnin' up! I don't wanna die here! I wanna loot Evindeldan!" Hawke reached out and stumbled toward Daya, his body engulfed in roaring flames, skin popping and splitting. Daya's face darkened. Glancing at the sticky substance clinging to the orc, he bellowed, "Piss off! I don't need a useless lackey like you!" "Boss, don't leave me..." Hawke made one last desperate plea. Thud! Showing no mercy, Daya kicked Hawke straight back into the sea of flames behind him, cursing, "Good-for-nothing trash, tryin' to drag me down with ya..." He patted out a spark that had nearly set his leg ablaze, veered around the flames, and ignored the desperate cries of his struggling kin as he sprinted toward an open patch behind them. Just then, the strange birds wheeled in a wide arc, turning around to unleash another bombing run from behind. Countless more bombs rained down and detonated violently. Boom! Boom! Boom! Flames swept the earth, thick black smoke blotting out the sun. The inferno spread with terrifying speed, closing in from both front and rear to form a colossal ring of fire that trapped tens of thousands of greenskins in a furnace of despair. Swoosh— Another napalm bomb dropped from the heavens, bursting in midair. Daya looked up in frantic fury, the brilliant, blinding glare mirrored in his murky eyes. Without any instruction, an expletive slipped from his mouth: "Motherfucker..." Boom! In an instant, the orc boss was consumed by the detonation's fiery fury. His body was charred black and melted on the spot, the rolling shockwave sweeping outward for hundreds of meters. And so, the green-skinned orc chieftain who in the previous life had led millions across the northern reaches of the Feanso Continent, slaughtering cities until people bitterly dubbed him the "Fang of Calamity" and the "Enemy of Civilization"—Daya—perished in the bombing, his name never to be known to the world.