As Nafız slowly opened his eyes, he kept seeing that same ugly face in front of him. This cycle continued for about five days; each time, a few spoonfuls of porridge were spoon-fed into his mouth, and he was put back to sleep.
On the morning of the sixth day, in place of the face that haunted his dreams, he saw a dome made of brown leather. This change surprised him, but he experienced the main shock when he sat up. When he checked his body with his eyes, he discovered that he had developed to the size of a ten-year-old child.
As his gaze swept across the inside of this tent-like, domed structure, he saw about fifty creatures. When he calmed down and moved to one side, the leather door of the tent opened. The owner of the face he had seen on the day he was born entered, carrying an animal the size of a bison.
This woman was known in the tribe by the name Asıksurat, and her job was to look after newborn Orc babies. Nearly two meters tall, with muscles that would make bodybuilders jealous, Asıksurat threw the animal onto the ground and said:
"This will be the first and only free meal you'll ever eat in the tribe. Enjoy it!"
The children, having gotten over their shock, virtually swarmed the animal lying on the ground. Since the rumbling of Nafız's stomach was now audible to his own ears, he jumped forward to grab a piece, no matter how disgusting the sight was.
His thought of, "With my metrobus experience, this is child's play for me; I'll sneak between them and grab a piece," evaporated when he was sent flying by a kick to his stomach.
His belly ached fiercely, and as he looked at the crowd, he discovered something interesting. Everyone except him appeared to be at least seventeen or eighteen years old.
"The same as the previous simulation."
This sentence and the laughter that followed echoed in her mind.
Now she had deciphered the meaning of the laughter, and she slowly started to remember the other things too. When the question and answer regarding gender came to her mind, she was devastated once again. In her new life, she was a female Orc; she would have the physical features of her previous life, and worst of all, her consciousness was fully intact.
While the crowd ravaged the animal, Nafız stared blankly at the leather ceiling, not moving an inch from her spot. The hungry Orcs had gnawed the animal like a zombie horde, leaving behind only bones and a thin layer of meat on them.
Nafız was awakened from her reverie by another Orc lying next to her getting up. This Orc, who walked towards the remaining bones on the ground, was at least a head taller than every other child in the tent.
When he picked up the remaining carcass on the floor and walked towards Nafız, her heart started pounding. Nearly two meters tall, with tusks as thick as an adult male's wrists, and muscles similar to Asıksurat's, this Orc struck fear into people, yet his most terrifying aspect was something else entirely.
Nafız barely managed to keep herself from swallowing her own tongue when she saw the size of the creature's head—it was large even by Orc standards. Due to the size of his head, this Orc was forced to walk with a wobble, barely maintaining his balance.
When he arrived, he threw the bones he was holding in front of Nafız and called out to her with a thick voice:
"Let's eat together."
A warmth surged within Nafız following this action by the person who could not walk or sit up properly because of his body. Nafız, taking one of the bones in her hand, began to scrape and lick off the remaining meat. She cleaned these scraps of meat—which the other Orcs could not scrape off due to their thick teeth and huge jaws—as if she were eating boiled corn.
Some Orcs who couldn't get enough during the meat frenzy watched this scene with envy. Although some stood up to grab the food from Nafız's hand, unable to bear it, they quickly sat back down.
The entire tent, including Asıksurat, watched the big-headed one next to the underdeveloped female Orc. This Orc was busy crunching down the bones he took in his hand, like eating stick pretzels.
Every time he put a bone in his mouth, the resulting sounds grated on the nerves of those inside the tent, but no one dared to make a sound out of fear.
When the eating was finished, Asıksurat left the tent and returned with pieces of leather resembling rags in her hands.
"All of you, wear these. You will go to the chief's tent for the naming ceremony!"
The male Orcs who received the leather pieces wrapped them around their waists, while the females took two pieces, as they also needed to cover their chests. When the dressing was complete, the Orcs inside the tent went outside, led by Asıksurat.
At first glance, Nafız discovered that many similar tents were around. These structures, with dirt floors and supported by a pole in the middle, looked like semi-circles from the outside. It was obvious that the tents, which were all in motley colors, were made by stitching together various animal hides.
Countless Orcs were roaming nearby. Their number was so vast that Nafız made no attempt to count them. This first time she saw her new world was proving quite interesting. The nomadic tribes living in tents came to Nafız's mind; she had watched a few documentaries on the subject in her previous life.
The fact that the current situation had nothing to do with what she had watched surprised her greatly. In the documentaries, these types of groups chose flat areas to set up their tents, while the Orc village was located on a mountainside. Although the slope was not very steep, one could feel oneself climbing upwards.
Walking towards the chief's tent, Nafız saw many Orcs mating, fighting, tearing apart bones and eating them, and even joking around by hitting each other on the head with wooden sticks.
Based on her observations, she understood that the Orc race, regardless of gender, had a muscular physique and were close to two meters tall. The most important features distinguishing the females from the males were their large breasts and their two front tusks, which were relatively a bit thinner. Her own group consisted of Orcs averaging one hundred and seventy centimeters in height and looking physically somewhat weaker.
Looking at the Orcs wandering around, Nafız estimated that with this growth rate, the newborn group would reach full adulthood in three to five days at most. Based on everything she had seen, everything was falling into place, except for two specimens.
The first oddity was herself; she had become a freak of nature as a result of the choices made before birth. In her previous life, she was a male, about one hundred and eighty centimeters tall, with a rather large physique. The measurements she would reach in this life signaled that difficult times awaited her. Her face and mouth structure were also quite far from the appearance of a normal Orc. She had a humanoid face and two front tusks the thickness of her small finger.
The second anomaly was the walking sledgehammer next to her. Not yet fully grown, he was two meters tall, had a body as muscular as an adult male, terrifying two front tusks, and a head that was noticeable no matter where he was—making him the most striking member of the newborns.
Because the two deviants walked side-by-side, the group became the center of attention for the Orcs in the areas they passed through. Everyone pointed at them along the way.
Fortunately, after approximately a twenty-minute walk, they reached the summit of the slope. A single-colored structure, ten times the size of the tents scattered around, stood before them in all its splendor.