Dungeon of Pride, Laplace

It was natural for the Diluvoian High orcs to be disturbed when something like this was revealed. This news also made the words Berigard uttered earlier seem more plausible. After all, if a member of their race was communicating with a foreign race inside their territory, the latter would have to somehow mask their scent or risk being discovered by the orcs.

However, there was no such incident where a foreign race managed to enter deep inside their territory. If they were using the plant, to cleanse their scent, it would be possible to escape the senses of the orcs roaming around.

Plus, the fact that the intruder had this item on him, made it all the more certain that someone was working with the humans or else there was no way they would be able to get the leaves of that plant.

"What is the guarantee that human had it on him? It could also be forged by you to make it seem like that? What's more, you say that the leaves of that plant when mixed with another item, has cleansing properties. However, all I see on that pouch are just the leaves, where is the other item?"

Belgarious argued back, he had this sudden hunch that he shouldn't give any more chances to Berigard.

The orc general knew this was coming hence he arched his chin towards his army who quickly removed the wraps from around the human.

"Mmhh… Mhhh" the moment the human was free from his wraps and was able to see around him, he started to struggle from the cuffs he had on his mouth, hands and legs.

"I knew that a simple recording of the transmission conch won't be enough. That is why I have prepared another piece of evidence that will bring out the truth in front of everyone. Bring that man here" Berigard ordered.

The man was brought where the meeting table was.

"Now then… tell us what is your name?" the orc general asked removing the cuffs from the man's mouth.

"Haa… Haa… gulp… Cain— Cain Waltz" the man muttered.

"For what reason did you come here?" Berigad pressed on.

"I… came here to retrieve this month's s cargo" the human as if his spirit was already broken, answered everything.

"Were you using the leaves of Kuniga Plant to mask your scent?".

"Yeah"..

" Who are you working with?"…

Berigard asked the human one question after another.

"Oi.Oi—wait a minute, are you trying to make us believe everything that humans said? How do we know that he is not lying and working with you to deceive us?" Belgarious asked bringing one of his hands behind him surreptitiously.

He took out something from his space ring while all the eyes was focused towards Berigard.

The matter that the orc king asked, was precisely on the mind of the orcs. Even if it was a solid evidence, it was not like they can trust the human.

Berigard knew this and thus prepared a solution beforehand—"Naturally, the words of a human are not something that can be trusted easily. Hence we are going to use the Rengue Fever on him".

This statement immediately settled the doubts the crowd were having. Rengue Fever, a kind of fever that the orc caught when bitten by a Rengue Mosquito.

A Rengue Mosquito was one of the dangerous monsters that lived inside the western region of the Ghastly Winding Forest and fed on the blood of the many tribes that lived there. It was as big as the average head of a Diluvian High orc and their bites were powerful enough to pierce even steel.

However, that was not what made them one of the dangerous monsters that lived inside the forest, it was the disease that they spread to the bitten prey.

Regnue Fever, even the Diluvian High orcs are afraid of it, it not only heightened their sense of pain, it also made them hallucinate and weakened their systems.

Even a powerful Diluvian High orc above level 300 would succumb to their death if bitten by a few Rengue Mosquitos. It was not known if a human would be able to survive the Rengue Fever, but they should be able to survive for a couple of days at the very least.

Berigard was trying to use the hallucination property of the Rengue Fever to make the human talk. It worked more than as sufficient evidence for the orcs since they knew how the Rengue Fever worked.

An orc captain from Berigard's army brought out a Rengue Mosquito that they have captured beforehand.

Looking at the Rengue Mosquito, the Orc King's eyes twitched slightly, he didn't expect Berigard to employ this kind of method to make the human utter the truth.

In fact, the human that was captured by Berigard, was the handler for this month that he had just seen off a few days ago. He had ordered the latter to lay low for some time since the night of the moon dance was approaching near and even supplied him with some leaves from the kuniga plant.

However, he didn't expect that the latter would get caught even after all this preparation.

Belgarious cursed the useless human in his mind, if not for that man he wouldn't be having this much of a headache dealing with Berigard.

'I guess I have no choice. Althoguh doing this would strain our business a little with that kingdom, it cannot be helped' the orc king thought internally.

The Rengue Mosquito that was captured was brought near, its proboscis easily dug itself inside the human amidst their scream.

Before the mosquito could suck too much blood out of the man, it was pulled away. However, the disease had already spread to the man as he was showing symptoms of Rengue fever.

His whole body was starting to heat up and perspire and he had that laidback expression on his face.

"That worked faster than I expected"…

"Of course, he is a human after all, not an orc"

Was the discussion that was going around in the crowd.

"Alright, now answer my question. What is your name?" Berigard repeated.

"Cain Waltz"… those words were enough for the orcs to know that the fever was having its effects.

"Where did you come from".

"Ingolf Kingdom".

"What is your objective behind coming here?"..

"I... was send here to get the cargo"…

"What is this cargo you are referring to?" Berigard asked, the man was about to reply when suddenly his body started jolting abnormally and before long, veins started appearing on his face and foam from his mouth.

This phenomenon that made everyone perplexed, lasted for a couple of seconds before the man succumbed to the pain and laid motionless on the ground. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that the man was dead.

At this moment, when nobody was looking, Belgarious surreptitiously stored an item back into his space ring.

While every eyes was focused on the motionless man, the orc king stepped forward and declared "It seems like your plan worked against you Berigard. You were trying to frame me; however, you didn't expect the man to die from the fever did you?".

Nobody knew how the man had died, thus they can only connect it to the Rengue fever.

Berigard had a baffled look on his face as if he didn't expect the situation to go down like this. Sure he had used the Rengue mosquito to make the man hallucinate; however, the fever shouldn't be powerful enough to claim the life of the man within a few minutes.

There was something wrong here, although he couldn't tell, he knew that it had something to do with the orc king who had suddenly changed gears.

The orc King's words made sense to everyone. They did not know what would happen to a human who got bitten by a Rengue mosquito as there was not a precedence before. Therefore, it was easy for them to accept this explanation rather than relate it with something else.

The orcs who were starting to believe Berigard shook their heads at this moment. The evidence that the general brought out was all frivolous. If he had nothing else to prove his claims, he might very well be severely punished or even killed for the offence he had committed.

"If you have any other so-called proof, right now is the good time to take it out," Belgarious jeered, a smile of victory on his face.

There was no need to even ask who would the orcs on the plaza side given that there was no definite proof against the orc king.

The Orc King's prestige and reputation was something that was known by every orc. Their loyalty to him surpassed the boundaries of respect and borderline near faith. It was only natural that they would be angry at Berigard given that he had insulted their pillar of faith.

The orc general clenched his hand in frustration, he didn't know what the orc king did, but it ruined his final chance of bringing the truth in front of everybody.

Seeing Berigard ball his hands, Belgarious knew that he had won this bout.

"Hahh—I knew it from the start, the orc king can never do something like that to his tribe. His existence is the reason why we are able to somehow fight off the ogre tribe. I believe everything is clear to everyone now. General Berigard is a traitor that is working behind with the ogre tribe to overthrow the orc king and ruin our tribe" Berirock spoke out.

"I believe he is also the one that is working with the humans to traffic our fellow comrades to weaken our power. He has committed a heinous crime that cannot be pardoned. I petition the orc king to punish Berigard with the most severe punishment for betraying our tribe".