Traded Away
A year of barely scraping by, and Wes was eleven and a half. If he saw a mirror, he probably wouldn't even recognize himself. His face had grown skinner, his body lean—not because he was starving, but because food came in spurts. Some days he ate well enough. Other times, he went days on scraps, hunger gnawing at his ribs like a second heartbeat.
He didn't trust anyone. He couldn't. Especially not adults.
Orphans disappeared all the time. Some were taken. Some wandered too far from whatever passed for safety. Some just stopped waking up.
No one asked questions.
No one cared.
He had tried running with a crew once. A handful of kids like him, clinging together like stray dogs, thinking that numbers meant safety. Thinking that loyalty meant something.
They were wrong.
The world didn't give a damn about loyalty.
Hunger didn't care.
Cold didn't care.
The monsters—human or otherwise—sure as hell didn't care.
Some starved. The youngest ones went first, too weak to last through the brutal nights. The older ones fought longer, but hunger always won. Some got sick—wasting away, shivering, coughing blood until there was nothing left in them.
Some ran into the wrong people.
That was worse.
Wes would never forget that night. They had thought they were being smart, sneaking into a storage tent. They weren't.
There were three guards waiting inside.
Wes was fast. He got away.
The others didn't.
One of them tried to fight back. He was dead before he hit the ground.
Another was dragged off.
Wes never saw him again.
There was no burial. No mourning.
Just empty space where they used to be.
That was the way of things.
Wes learned fast.
Alone was better.
Alone meant no one begged you for food, no one slowed you down, no one made you hesitate. No one got you killed for being too soft.
So he ran. He kept moving.
That was the only way to survive.
No plan. No dream of something better.
Just the next meal. The next warm place to sleep. The next way to stay out of trouble.
He should have died. Just like the others.
But fate had different plans.
Because in the end, it wasn't humans who saved him.
The ones who changed his fate weren't even from Earth.
They were Orcs.
Unlike the goblins, who were cunning but savage, these newcomers were different. They didn't strike from the shadows or overwhelm with sheer numbers.
They moved with purpose.
They were warriors.
Bigger. Stronger. Faster. Clad in thick leather and steel, their movements were practiced, efficient—nothing wasted. There was no frantic desperation, no unchecked aggression.
They weren't just here to survive.
They were here for something.
Their numbers were small—not because they lacked strength, but because they couldn't bring more.
Earth's membrane restricted outsiders. Every portal had limits, capping how many could pass through at once. Even if an army stood waiting on the other side, they couldn't all step through at the same time.
Only a few at a time. Hundreds, not thousands.
And for a world like Earth, still in its infancy?
Even fewer.
The orcs didn't come in force. But they came with a goal.
A peice of earth.
They needed recruits to bolster their numbers.
Not just anyone. Not just bodies to throw into battle.
They needed warriors.
It was a common tactic—integrating native races into their ranks. Some invading races were patient, building trust, slowly integrating locals into their cause. Others? They took a more direct approach.
The orcs?
They had no use for the weak.
You were either spit out, discarded like trash, or reforged into one of the best damn warriors the universe had ever seen.
They needed soldiers.
But they weren't looking for just anyone.
They wanted children.
Not because they were strong. Not because they were useful now.
But because they could be molded.
A child's ideals weren't set in stone. Their sense of loyalty, of identity, of purpose—it was still fluid. It could be shaped, broken down, reforged into something else.
And what better children to take than the ones already discarded by their own kind?
It wasn't just about recruitment.
It was about ensuring loyalty.
If a child was abandoned by their own people, would they ever trust them again?
Would they ever dream of going back?
No.
The orcs knew what they were doing. They didn't just look for any settlements. They searched for the ones where people had already turned on each other. The ones where survival came before morality.
Where selling out the weak was just another transaction.
Settlements like King's.
For those orphans, there was no path home.
The only path forward would be with the orcs.
It was a calculated move.
It had taken a couple of months to get King to the table their first visits including gifts of supplies and medicane before they finally got King to the table, goblins had made humans weary of other races, but eventually they were able to complete their trade.
And in a way, it was smart.
Take the ones everyone else considered worthless.
The ones no one would come for.
The ones with no future.
King, ever the opportunist, saw the deal for what it was—a trade.
The orcs had something valuable—a cultivation manual. A guide to forming a mana core, the foundation of cultivation.
But why would they trade something like that?
Because it was basic.
A rough outline, nothing detailed, nothing powerful. Just enough to get started, to spark the idea of cultivation among humans.
And the orcs? They weren't the only ones around.
More would come. More factions, more forces, other races, all with their own goals.
So why not trade something so very basic first?
It cost them nothing.
And in return, they got exactly what they needed.
In exchange, they offered something else—relief.
The goblins were a plague, gnawing at the settlement, forcing the humans into an endless fight for survival. The orcs agreed to thin their numbers, to give the settlement room to breathe.
A few starving kids in exchange for power and protection?
King didn't hesitate.
He handed them over without a second thought.
Wes tried to hide.
It didn't matter.
King's men swept through the settlement, rounding up every child that met the orcs' needs. It wasn't frantic. It wasn't chaotic.
It was efficient.
Methodical.
Wes was caught like the rest.
And when the orcs left, he was leaving with them.
That was the day everything changed.