There was once a great war that lasted over 5,000 years. On one side was the Four Tribe Alliance, comprising humans, elves, dwarves and beastkin. On the other side was the Seven Race Federation, comprising demons, ogres, harpies, succubi, lizardmen, orcs and faeries. But eventually, people grew weary of all the fighting and dying, and a peace treaty was signed.
Among the many veterans from the war is Bash, the Orc Hero. As the strongest of all the orcs, he has everything he could possibly want: a big house, top-quality weapons and armour, an abundance of food, the respect of his entire race... and also something he doesn't want.
For Bash's deepest, darkest secret is that he's still a virgin. And due to a certain quirk of orcs, he'll no longer be able to hide this fact once he turns thirty. So one day, he sets out in search of a woman to be his wife.
This manga contains examples of:
- Accidental Hero: Bash's only real goal is to find a wife, yet this leads him around the world and causes him to solve many problems. Similarly Thunder Sonia also went out on a journey to get a husband, yet just like Bash she ends up solving problems her race causes to others.
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?:
- The elven hero Thunder Sonia (who's 1,200 years old) once fought Bash and lost. With the usual tendencies of orcs in this setting, everyone expected her to be raped, but Bash let her go (because he himself was too badly injured to even think about sex). This resulted in a rumour that Sonia smells so old, that even orcs won't touch her. Combined with her great status, it means almost no man dares to approach her.
- Beast princess Silvania's plan of revenge against Bash is to lure him into having sex with her and then give him a False Rape Accusation to kickstart a war against the orcs. The plan falls apart due to Bash choosing to follow the dating instructions of a magazine to take things slowly with her.
- Badass on Paper: Houston is known as an expert orc slayer, who killed many orcs and managed to survive encounters with Bash during the war. He is far from an unstoppable knight capable of inducing fear in every orc since he only had to learn about orc behavior to make strategies on the battlefield and he only managed to survive encounters with Bash by running away at sight of him—unlike Thunder Sonia, who fought against the Orc Hero head on and managed to tie.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Primera always wanted to participate in the God of War festival's tournament to prove everyone wrong that her gear is inferior to theirs. She gets her wish once Bash becomes her warrior and even managed to defeat her half-sister's warrior, but realizes during the tournament her half-sister is proven right about her inferior blacksmithing skills since the only reason Bash was able to progress through the tournament was due to his own strength and combat skills, which he used to prevent her brittle gear from breaking.
- Became Their Own Antithesis: The leader of the conspiracy to revive the demon king and wipe out humanity is a human. Specifically the missing human princess who supposedly died in the previous war. She was betrayed and left for dead by her fellow humans, leading her to develop a very low opinion of her own race. Even more ironically, she only survived because some demons mistook her for an ally and healed her.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted with a number of female elves who fought in the war, who have quite noticeable scars.
- Brains and Brawn: Orcs are known to not be the brightest amongst the races, but have tons of physical strength, which is why they work together with fairies, who are mischievous and intelligent enough to make plans for them.
- Break the Haughty: During the war, Bash in his early days once ignored orders out of arrogance, which caused the demon forces he allied with to be destroyed due to him prioritizing enemies in front of him instead of moving out to help them. This then caused a humiliating defeat for him, which caused him to become more humble and very faithful to the orders given to him.
- Breeding Slave: Orcs habitually took female prisoners as sex slaves during the war because they're a One-Gender Race that must reproduce using females of other species. One of the concessions of the peace treaty with the victorious human-led alliance is that the humans provide the orcs with female prison inmates to breed with so that their species doesn't die out.
- Charm Person: A power of succubi. It doesn't work on women but is very effective on men, with even someone as tough as Bash being vulnerable.
- Dare to Be Badass: Upon seeing how his former comrade Donzoi became a shell of himself after enduring years of slavery and tries to convince Bash to throw the fight. Bash instead gives him a speech to make him remember his pride and fight at full force against him.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: All races have a different set of cultures and customs, which Bash learns though his journey.
- Do You Want to Copulate?: Due to coming from a culture with no concept of romance, Bash's initial idea of proposing marriage is along the lines of "Do you want to bear my children?"
- The Dragonslayer: One of Bash's titles, due to him killing a dragon back during the war. He would face off against a dragon again in the land of demons and nearly managed to kill the dragon "Eyes", who was forced to flee to save herself.
- Dramatic Irony: Everyone believes that Bash raped many women during the war, but in actuality, he is a virgin without any experience.
- The Dreaded: Anyone who saw Bash during the war or faced him feared him immensely due to his sheer strength and power in combat which is more described as a walking calamity.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After enduring years of unjust slavery, Donzoi managed to win the God of War festival's tournament and uses the wish to set all the slaves free, while also regaining his honor after Bash reminds him of his pride and the two face off in a duel.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Each volume has Bash encounter a woman he has some chemistry with, only for them to not get together for various reasons. If he ever did get married, the series would end.
- Foregone Conclusion: The Volume 1 epilogue states that Bash will survive his journey and somehow create true peace in the world, although it does not mention anything about his relationship status.
- Gave Up Too Soon: In some volumes, Bash actually does manage to attract a woman, but he leaves before they can confess to him due to them rejecting him earlier.
- Girl of the Week: Each volume has Bash trying (and failing) to woo a girl of a different race.
- Graceful Loser: Bash knows that the orcs have lost the war fair and square, which is why he holds no grudges against others and only prides himself in having done everything he could during the war.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Primera is a hybrid between a dwarf father and her human mother.
- Healing Potion: Fairies produce a powder with a healing effect. It's valuable enough that fairies are sometimes imprisoned to act as sources of healing.
- Humble Hero: Despite his many accomplishments, Bash remains humble and sees himself as just another soldier. However, his lack of boasting also comes from his desire to hide his virginity from others.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Zell loves Bash, but knows that as a fairy, romance is impossible between them, which is why she does everything to help Bash during his journey. Though she's not against taking a chance to make it possible after the defeated Human Sage tells them there's a way to make it happen.
- Interspecies Romance:
- This is Bash's goal in a nutshell, since female orcs don't exist and he must find a wife from another race.
- It's also actively encouraged by the elves, to replenish their population after the war. In particular, Acconitum, an elf army official, has an Arranged Marriage with one of the beastkin princesses to improve the alliance between their races.
- Irony: The demon race is known for its arrogance due to seeing itself as superior to other races. After the war ended, they were threatened by a dragon far more powerful than them, and only seeing them as no different than any other race they looked down upon.
- Kill All Humans: Due to the death of their friend "Bones", the dragon "Eyes" decides to avenge him by killing all races she perceives as human for causing "Bones"'s death. This causes her to terrorize the demon race for three years until Bash, who is also the one that killed "Bones", defeats her and makes her give up on her revenge by indirectly teaching her the concept of honor, which makes her realize that even in death "Bones"'s legacy still lives on as a proud warrior who fought till the end with Bash receiving honor by killing him.
- Literal Man Eater: Females of the Killer Bee race devour their males after mating.
- Living Legend: To members of the Seven Race Federation except for demons, Bash is one of them due to his military achievements and contributions during the war.
- Made a Slave: At the hands of the dwarves, orcs and other races of the Seven Race Federation became prisoners of war, but were made slaves after the war ended instead of being freed. Their leader Donzoi participates in the God of War festival tournament every year to regain their freedom. He kept failing until he managed to defeat Bash in a close fight.
- Master Race: Despite being allied to each other, the demons were considered the top dog amongst the Seven Race Federation due to their demon king being the leader of the army along with wielding powerful Black Magic till the point they even disrespected Bash due to believing that their race was mostly responsible for weakening the dragon Bash killed. They are knocked down a peg and forced to face reality when Bash managed to repel the dragon they were having trouble with since the war ended.
- Non-Human Undead: An army of orc zombies shows up in Volume 2.
- No Woman's Land:
- Orc territory, since for a long time the all-male orcs abducted women to rape and impregnate. While (law-abiding) orcs limit themselves to female criminals given to them by other races, it's still very unusual to find any women there willingly.
- Succubus territory could be considered the inversion of this, as (most of the time) the only men there are kept as food. It wasn't until recently that the succubi even gave their captives decent living conditions.
- Oblivious to Love: Justified with Bash since orcs only rape women they defeated in combat with him being forced to learn how to attract women during his journey. This makes unable to pick up Primera's words that she is actually considering his earlier proposal.
- One Dialogue, Two Conversations: A recurring part of the series. Bash is quite secretive about his goal (since it would be shameful to reveal he's a virgin), and when combined with him being a hero to orcs, it means other people keep thinking he's on some important mission.
- One-Gender Race:
- Orcs are all-male and must reproduce with females of other races. This is a recurring source of tension between orcs and most non-orcs, as orcs have traditionally abducted women as Breeding Slaves. One condition of the peace treaty is orcs receiving female criminals (those who've committed, particularly heinous crimes) from other races to reproduce.
- Succubi are all-female and can actually reproduce without needing males of other races. However, they need to feed on the energy of men to survive.
- One-Man Army: During the war, 90 percent of the humans and elves that faced Bash perished, while the remaining 10 percent remained traumatized for life.
- Sex Signals Death: The manga prologue shows two orcs being killed due to them trying to take the women they were raping with them, instead of immediately fleeing their killers.
- Single-Species Nations: All eleven species live in their own nations with the only reason other species visit their areas being for political reasons or pursuing Interspecies Romance.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Four Race Alliance has this trouble since even in peacetime the races have trouble getting along till a point their leaders outright know they won't become allies again if another war were to break out.
- Tournament Arc: The third volume has Bash participate in one of these, the Armament Festival. It's unusual in that each fighter is partnered with a blacksmith whose equipment they must use, and the equipment being broken results in a loss (as does a fighter being defeated normally).
- Tragic Bigot: Hatred of orcs is by no means unusual in the setting, but a notable example is Judith. This stems from when her beloved older sister was captured by an orc and forced to bear six of his children. By the time she was released, she was a physical and mental wreck from the ordeal, being terrified of any man including her and Judith's father. Consequently, Judith assumes when she encounters Bash that he's up to no good, and then quickly arrests him for a raid on a carriage when she learns he was present (he was actually trying to save the operators).
- Underestimating Badassery: Some people, who don't know who Bash is due to not participating in the war, just see him as a regular orc.
- Varying Competency Alibi: In volume 1, young knight Judith arrests orc warrior Bash on suspicion of attacking a carriage earlier. Her CO, Houston, an expert at fighting orcs who faced Bash several times in the Great Offscreen War, quickly clears him of the attack, in no small part because he's sure that if Bash had done it, there wouldn't have been any witnesses left to report it. Houston also notes that Bash came quietly when he could have easily killed Judith's entire squad if he'd had a reason to resist arrest. Indeed, Bash had simply happened on the carriage when it was being attacked by a pack of bugbears and scared them off, then scared the passengers off as well by mistake via an ill-conceived attempt at hitting on them.
- Virgin Power: An orc who turns 30 while remaining a virgin becomes an Orc Mage, gaining magical powers and also a visible crest on his forehead. However, if an orc who was originally a warrior goes through this, he's looked down on by other orcs. This is a problem for Bash, a 28-year-old orc warrior who wants to get rid of his virginity before it literally becomes visible to everyone. Weirdly enough this also happens if an orc were to lose their virginity to a succubus, which is why Bash needs to pursue members of other races to lose his virginity.
- Weredragon: Dragons have the ability to take on human form, but rarely do so. Other races are thus unaware of this ability, with Bash and Zell assuming that the transformed dragon they saw is a demon.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: All twelve races are sentient with their own kind of culture yet depending on race or individual, some of them are seen as just monsters, animals, or even commodities in the cases of fairies.
- World's Strongest Man: Each race has its own champion known as the strongest of their kind and made many great accomplishments during the war:
- The title of "Orc Hero" is gifted to the strongest orc, which in this case is the protagonist Bash with only a few people in the world capable of matching him in combat.
- Sonia is the "Elf Hero" and is considered the greatest magician in the world due to her great magic potential, which she cultivated by making herself immortal and fighting in the war for over a millennia.
- Wrecked Weapon: During the God of War festival's tournament, this happens many times due to the rules disqualifying participants whose weapons break during the matches.
- You Are a Credit to Your Race: Orcs have the reputation of being dumb brutes who only rape women. Bash is seen as the epitome of honor and loyalty to the races of the Four Tribe Alliance, with even those who despise orcs (like Judith) gaining much respect for him after he saves them from trouble, while also abiding by the restrictions of the peace treaty and customs of his race.
