Suddenly, I awoke. Everything hurt. I took a strained breath, filling my lungs with air for the first time in what felt like months. I felt weird, like I was covered head to toe in some kind of sticky liquid. Something picked me up, and I heard a deep, scratchy voice say something.

'Gragh Roknar, khrat kishre du maar.'

I couldn't understand a word; however, I felt like I sensed deep sadness behind those words.

Slowly, I opened my heavy eyelids. Everything was blurry, but I managed to make out two giant, green figures looming over me and another unmoving figure to my left.

The smaller one of the not quite human creatures picked me up with rough, hard hands and took me outside of the dark room. I had to quickly shut my eyes closed as the blinding sunlight hit my face. What followed was a generous dose of washing, scrubbing, and cleaning all the grime off of my body.

The whole process was done systematically, with machine-like movements. I could tell the owner of these giant hands had done this exact process a million times before.

I was then taken back inside, in what I now realized was some kind of a primitive, round building. The creature put me down on a bed of leaves, which was surprisingly comfortable if not for the constant tickling.

Instead of there being one unmoving figure, there were now two. The big, tall one from before was on the exact same spot as before, standing still as stone.

As my eyes got used to the darkness, I began to be able to discern more details of the creatures' face. He was a man, with sharp features, bushy eyebrows, and a strong jawline. However, his most notable features were the two tusks protruding from the edges of his mouth.

I glanced around the room I was in. It was reminiscent of Iron age homes, with many furs lining the round walls and a dimly lit campfire standing in the middle of the dirt floor.

The man finally moved, wiping his teary eyes with the back of his hand. He turned to look at me for a brief moment before swiftly turning and exiting the room.

Now, finally given time to think, I began to piece things together. With my mind clear of distractions, I quickly came to the conclusion that I had most likely been reincarnated. Moreover, looking down at myself for the first time, I realized I was just as green, if not greener, than everyone else I have seen so far.

Damn, it seems like I have been reborn as an orc.

Turning my head, I looked at what I now realized was most likely the unmoving corpse of my mother. It was a horrible feeling, knowing she probably died during childbirth, yet I couldn't bring myself to cry or mourn her death, as she was just as much of a stranger to me as everyone else in this world.

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I hope she gets reborn as I did, living a happy, second life in a different world. I thought, before dozing off to sleep.

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I woke up to a fat green face, smiling inches away from me.

'Waaaah!' I yelled and pushed his face away from me.

After calming down a bit, I realized that he must be another orc baby, just like me. At least now I knew, to some degree, how I must look at the moment. Ugly.

To my surprise, my fellow orc infant didn't cry but instead started laughing at me. It seemed like the whole situation was quite funny to him, which really ticked me off.

'AAAARGGHHHH!' I screamed at him, as terrifyingly as a baby orc could muster. My new friend wasn't prepared for my show of power, and tears started to well up in his eyes.

Before he could start to cry, though, the older orc lady from before swiftly picked him up, rocking him up and down while quietly humming some song to him. It looked like she was quite the expert, as my little orc friend quickly fell limp and started sleeping.

She then turned to leave, but not before giving me a scary glance, as if she was telling me to not try anything like that ever again, or there will be consequences. I decided to obey her, as I did not want to make her job harder than it already was.

Still slightly tired, I decided to nap again. Just as I was about to fall asleep, I was picked up, once again. I instantly recognized these hands. I looked upwards, and sure enough, it was the orc granny.

She took me out of the house, and for the first time, I got to really look around and see how the surrounding area looked.

The small house was located at the edge of a small hill, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the green sea of trees.

There were many other houses just like this one, at least a dozen. They were all round, with thatched roofs. I saw a couple of small kids running about, and an older man butchering what I presumed used to be a deer.

Before I could take in more of the surrounding scenery, the old lady suddenly came to a halt.

We arrived at the center of the hill, at a house almost two times as large as the other ones. The granny pushed away the fur, acting in the place of a door, and stepped inside.

What greeted us were three orcs I had never seen before. The main star of the show was clearly a man, presumably the chief, who was sitting in a wooden chair facing the entryway. He was the largest orc I had seen so far, and had an impressive body, rippling with muscles.

To his right stood a woman, probably his wife, and to his left was a smaller orc, with an impressive collection of necklaces hanging from his neck and a sharp glint in his eyes.

The granny did a quick, yet respectful bow before placing me in the chief's arms. He quickly looked me up and down before nodding affirmatively and passing me on to the other man.

He took out a small wooden doll from his pouch and started chanting while waving it around. After a minute or so of doing this, he said the last few words and smacked me on the forehead three times with the head of the doll.

I was a bit disappointed, honestly, as I was almost expecting some kind of magic spell to form or to awaken my hidden abilities. This, however, seemed like it was just some kind of ritual with no magic behind it.

After the whole ordeal, the granny took me out of the house. What I saw there was a face I was already familiar with.

My father slowly took me out of the granny's arms and hugged me. He held me really close and flashed a big, toothy smile.

'Ruuk list ta khrum, du kat Raknar,' he proudly said before placing me back in the granny's arms.

He just named me, didn't he? Raknar. Not a bad name for an orc.

My sleepiness grabbing hold of me again, I fell back asleep.