After Surviving the Apocalypse, I Built a City in Another World novel Chapter 2122

Chapter 2122: Wars in Orc Territories

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has been supporting me so far! LOVE YOUUU!

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Althea, as she interacted with these creatures, found herself more and more eager to understand them. It was half the passion of a scientist, and another the instinct of a leader.

She had recruited a number of orcs into her region before, so she hoped to find out more about them. In retrospect, talking with the orcs of Quo Town back then wasn’t nearly enough to scratch the surface of understanding for another race. Not to mention, she had only stayed in Quo for a very short time.

"What happens when two tribes encounter each other?" she asked. Even if they rarely meet due to the massiveness of this area and the few orcs, there should still be intersections.

"They fight for the territory," Ohara answered her frankly, telling her a few examples and cases. This was more or less in line with her impressions of them being war-like.

Wars were innately bloody, especially orc wars. They fought with their claws, feet, and other appendages, so their killing each other looked much more brutal than human wars that used weapons and armor.

In a sense, it was why people had such a strong impression of them as brutes, when in reality the accumulated deaths in orc wars weren’t even a percentage of the deaths in a few human wars.

It was quite ironic.

Not that these orcs had any idea of their brethren’s impression on the outside world, of course.

Furthermore, unlike most human wars that started in pursuit of power and excess, the orc wars were mostly just a fight for resources and survival.

For example, the war Ohara was currently telling her about was roused because of the latest extreme heat. The extreme weather affected the entire world, though naturally its intensity and effects could vary from region to region.

The trees and other plants on this side of the world were much larger and more resilient, so they didn’t shrivel to death like the plants on the other side, but they had all dried up, stopped producing leaves and fruits, rendering them inedible anyway.

Orcs could feast on beasts, as humans did, and they could defeat them with less risk than humans could, but their bodies...were not meant for such heat.

So...even if they were stronger than humans, the difficulty orcs had when fighting with beasts while the sun was up was not much different from humans.

Their physiques were either filled with thick muscles, fur, or feathers. Though some Terran mammals were furry—because the fur actually served as insulation—it certainly wasn’t enough to handle the extreme heat.

Like humans, the orcs also struggled with sustenance because of this.

There were only small patches of land with ’living’ plants, likely fed by underground water resources. This attracted a few tribes, and they ended up fighting each other, causing the population of all three tribes to lose at least a third.

The extreme cold was also not easy for them, but orcs—due to their heavy furs and thick skins—had higher survival rates in extreme cold than extreme heat. For the most part, tribes would just find caves and other places to hide. They could huddle together for additional warmth, as well.

This tribe was also lucky to have a consistent source of fire, so Ohara and the others were fine during that disaster.

Regardless of the cause, losses were inevitable in war, which further reduced the orcs’ already small population. It was also why they tended to avoid it themselves.

A living thing had the instinct of self-preservation—many of which related to the entire race. Wars, in the Orcs’ case, would be 100% a lose-lose situation. They weren’t even sedentary creatures; what were they doing losing people over a piece of land?

Not to mention, in normal times outside of the Extreme weather, the supplies were ample. Orcs generally never went hungry, so they didn’t have this instinct to fight to the death for a bite of food.

This was quite enlightening for Althea, who had her own biases. Even popular culture in Terran would show animalistic people as creatures who mindlessly killed others, just because that is their so-called ’nature’.

In the end, the term ’acting on instinct’ heavily depended on the environment and actual living conditions. Combined with their ’simple’ minds lacking excess ambition, the orcs actually lived decent lives.

Ahem.

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