Trials of the Orc

Butaro sighed, said goodbye to the clerk, and decided to go to another shop.

”The closest one would be… Tsk! ”

Butaro clicked his tongue looking in the direction of the closest twenty-four-hour store, on the way there, there was a hostess bar and about this time many drunk patrons would stumble their way home.

Butaro didn like drunk people.

For some reason, drunk people would always try to pick a fight with him even though he hasn done anything to provoke them!

Those types of people were the ones who demanded compensation for being sent to the hospital…

But another shop was twenty more minutes away than the one near the hostess bar and his mother would get worried if he was gone for too long.

It would be different with public transport, but Butaro took just enough money for the pudding so he didn even have enough for a bus.

”Oh well. ”

The youngster sighed and started jogging in the direction of the store near the hostess bar after all.

Lucky! He hasn encountered even one drunkard and the store had the special pudding his mother wanted!

He left the store humming happily.

”Oi, why don you girls come with us to have some fun, hmm? ”

”Yeah, you look the part. Come one, this uncle has a lot of pocket-money to give, what about it? ”

”What? N—no! We are just returning from our cram school! Please leave us alone! ”

”Oh, come on sweetie, don be like that! This uncle will be gentle! ”

”You geezers deaf or something!? Ai asked you to leave us alone! ”

”Y-yeah…! ”

”Oh! I like the spunky one! Hehehe! ”

”… ”

The voices coming from one of the alleys grabbed Butaros attention, making the peaceful boys face turn grim.

The voices he picked out, at least the ones belonging to the girls… he recognized them.

The girls being bothered were definitely his classmates! They were in trouble!

How could he just walk away without doing anything?!

Butaro felt blood rushing to his head as he dashed in the direction the voices were coming from, and indeed, his female classmates were there, surrounded!

And not just any classmate of his! Nikutani Ai in person, together with four of her friends – two other classmates and two girls that Butaro didn recognize. Those five girls were surrounded by a group of drunk salarymen-looking youngsters that seemed to be barely out of university.

It was obvious that those guys were trying to pick up girls even though they were wearing their high school uniforms!

Those guys had to be seriously drunk!

Or dumb.

…or perverted…

Butaro rushed to help without hesitation.

”…! ”

One of the salarymen reached his hand and tried to touch Nikutanis hair, which alone almost made Butaro swat him into another buildings wall like some annoying fly.

”Oh come on, cutie, stop playing hard to get… ”

The drunkard laughed obnoxiously cutting off Ais escape route.

”Hey, those girls aren interested, are you all blind or something? ”

Butaro said in a bit more intimidating voice than he was planning to, and he grabbed the mans shoulder.

”Huh…!? ”

The grabbed man hunched under the ridiculous weight of the boys hand and turned around to confront Butaro.

”Who do you thi… Wh-what the hell!? ”

The angered drunkards voice changed from aggressive to completely stunned in a mere second after he was forced to raise his head almost completely vertically to look up at Butaros face.

”Wh-what the hell are you!? ”

”Huh!? ”

”What the!? ”

”What is that!? ”

Very quickly all of the salarymens attention was pulled away from the scared girls and focused on the huge fat guy that showed up out of nowhere.

”Eh!? What!? You wanna fight? You lard mountain!? ”

One of them was more feisty than the others and actually went at Butaro with his fists raised and started punching him in the stomach with all his might.

His form was good, he must have had some practice with boxing.

”Take this! And this! ”

He shouted confidently launching powerful hit after hit.

”A-and… And this…! Ugh…! ”

At first, his friends were laughing but their laughter stopped as soon as his feisty friends voice started trembling from shock and fear.

*WHAM*

”I-impossible…! ”

The drunkard trembled, looking up at Butaros face, holding back tears on the verge of pissing himself.

”Are you done trying to tickle me already? I don have all night, and you
e rather pathetic. ”

The boy scoffed, breathing out the hot air through his nose before shaking his head disapprovingly.

Even the drunkards most violent punches had completely no effect on Butaro!

”Wh-what the hell are you!? ”

The man took a step back, then another, until he bumped his back against one of his friends who all sobered up enough to realize in how grave of a danger they got themselves.

”M-monster! ”

One of them shouted and all of them started running as fast as they could.

”Whats wrong with them? Rude people, calling others names. ”

Butaro scoffed after the fleeing men and turned to the confused girls.

”Are you girls okay? Those guys didn do anything to you, did they? ”

He asked.

”Eh?! Shibou!? Is that you!? ”

”Gentle giant…! Thank goodness…! ”

One of his classmates – not Ai – exclaimed and breathed out with relief, while the third one straight up came up to him and leaned against his giant belly, and let out a relieved cry.

”Ah, its cool, hes Shibou Butaro from our class! Kiku! You
e bothering Shinbou! Ai, don act like you don know him! Thanks for saving us, Shibou! Man, you really are our gentle giant! ”

His classmate informed the girls Butaro didn know about his identity while pulling Kiku away from snuggling to his belly and scolding Ai for backing off.

”Nah, its nothing, Shirohime. I was running an errand for my mother and heard the voices on my way back. Its good you girls are alright. ”

Butaro raised the bag with the special pudding and shrugged his shoulders while smiling at Kiku who was looking up at him with grateful puppy-dog eyes.

|I-is this my chance…?|

But the only person Butaro was paying attention to was the girl he had a crush on, and so he thought to himself and his heart started beating faster.

|I-I mean Ai is not alone, but I helped them all, right…? They should be grateful enough to not mock me for shooting my shots… And maybe… Maybe Ai would actually agree to go with me on one date as a thank you?|

His imagination started working at full throttle but then…

”An orc…! ”

The next words coming from Nikutani Ais shapely mouth shattered his fantasy and brought him back to reality.