This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

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The women appeared hard at work and seemed in a playful mood. I felt a bit guilty for observing them with such interest but it was more by fascination than lust. Truth was, my manly bit down there had apparently stopped working since coming to this world. Even as I watched all these naked women, my member still remained as flaccid as a sea cucumber. Maybe I truly had become impotent.

Maybe due to stress, unknown environment or bad diet, but my manhood seemed dead. I had talked about it with Robert and he had told me that it was the same for him, that it was a natural reaction and not to care too much about it. But as a man, how could I not worry about my manliness being taken away from me.

Among all these females, some appeared to be children, teenagers and adults but no elders. These people probably didn't live long enough to die of old age. After an hour of watching them hard at work, I then decided to change location and have a look around.

Not far from the women stood two serious looking men with long spears in hand, a bow behind their back and what looked like a stone axe tied to their waist. The men were wearing simple loincloths and handmade necklaces but nothing else.

They also had face-paint and the more I looked at the designs on their faces, the more it seemed like a way to identify their ranks or their 'jobs'. One of the men had two blue lines on his cheeks and his chin, and a black line in the middle of his chin and around his eyes, (Raccoon eyes) while the other man next to him had the exact same lines on his face plus some others. Added to the blue and black lines, the other man had yellow lines right next to the blue ones plus two yellow dots above his eyes.

By the look of it, these were something similar to the military rank badges worn by military officers on their shoulders. There seemed to be a lot more variety in the women's face paints, but I had only seen two males so far, compared to at least 30 females. Some had blue and white lines over their eyes, a red line under their eyes, or green and black. All of these intricately designed face paints seemed somehow important to their culture, but all I knew was that they all used 6 specific colours, black – red – blue – white – green – and yellow.

By the look of it, the women seemed to be the ones doing all the work, while the few men I had seen so far seemed to be used as their bodyguards. Looking at their behaviours and well determined roles, I couldn't help but compare them to army ants. Just like them, they had workers, and warriors.

The two men were holding their long spears and looking around with their big black eyes, as if danger could appear at any time while the women seemed to enjoy themselves. Clearly, the women were trusting these warriors enough to relax and find pleasure in what seemed like hard work.

Since these 'humans' had such big eyes, I assumed they had a very good vision. Because of that, I had kept a very large distance between me and them. There was also the fact that if I could sense their presence, maybe they could do the same, but so far they hadn't shown any sign of doing so.

The group of women spent around an hour at the beach before finally loading up big baskets with what looked like freshly peeled giant elongated potatoes, and one more basket filled with a bunch of small aquatic creatures that looked like sardines from far away.

The women then went to what looked like a bunch of flag poles. Each grabbed their own pole, took the pieces of cloth dangling at the top, and skillfully wrapped them around their waist, creating a perfect looking loincloths in the process.

These were not flagpoles, but spears which they had stuck into the ground and placed their 'underwear' on top of it before going into the water. They obviously didn't want their 'underwear' to get wet or dirty. Obviously, the women remained topless and didn't seem to have any reason to want to cover their breasts.

The women then used their spears as carrying poles and carried the heavy baskets as a group. They all headed deeper inland by following a large dirt path so well maintained that it could have been called a road. The entire time, the two males warrior closely shadowed the group of women while keeping their heads on a swivel.

Male and female, both carried spears but only the men had stone axes and bows. Also the fact that they weren't doing anything other than 'guarding', seemed to indicate that it was either the only thing they were good at, or were so good at it that the women were willing to work hard to feed them in exchange for their protection.

From the look of it, the males were probably the only ones I should have to worry about. Or maybe the reason for there to be so few males, was that the females didn't need their protection. Curious, I kept following them from a distance. Eventually, the little group reached a large area cleared of all vegetation. Seeing such a large area without trees was somehow refreshing. It was as if I could breathe better all of a sudden.

The ground was entirely covered in sand, probably carried there to prevent the growth of vegetation which predators could use to sneak up on them. The area was as big as 4 football fields and a small village was built in the middle of it. The village itself was around 3 to 400 meters in diameter and was surrounded by a giant wooden palisade at least 5 meters tall.

The small houses built inside of it seemed to be of various sizes and designs. They seemed to be built using bark, grass, wood, dried mud, basically anything they could put their hands on. The size and design also seemed to change depending on what they intended the building to be used for.

In the area furthest away from the door, was the biggest house of all. Since the palisade was so high, I could only see the roof, but this building seemed surprisingly big and was probably the chief's house. I could be wrong about that though. It was not like I knew if they had a chief or anything like that but back on earth, most human societies had a leader.

With everybody now in the village, I counted around 70+ individuals, but once again, I had barely seen any males around. I had a few theories in mind for why that might be. First, maybe the men were gone hunting. A hunting expedition could take weeks before returning. Second theory, maybe they were at war with a neighbouring tribe.

If they were similar to indigenous tribes from earth, then the males were probably the ones going to war, so them being at war could explain why there were so few males around. Maybe I was overthinking this though. Maybe this was a tribe of women and the men were their bitches.

[WARNING]

[Body temperature: 38.9°C]

[Hydration: 20%]

Uh? So the nanites also kept track of my body temperature and hydration level? It even went as far as warning me in case of overheating? I had to admit that it was quite amazing. I apparently needed to urgently have a drink and remove some of my clothing before having a heatstroke.

Looking at the sky, the sun was already low on the horizon so I decided to call it a day and go back to my cave. On the way there, I gathered as many comestible fruits as I could and brought them back with me. Upon arriving at the cave, I noticed some paw prints on the ground near my extinguished camp-fire.

The creature I had stolen this cave from was seemingly still hanging around here and I probably would have to deal with it eventually. I had a quick drink, gathered some firewood for the night and managed to light the fire just in time for nighttime.

Exhausted, I sat next to the fire while eating jerky and fruits. Lost in thought, I wondered about what to do. How could I go back home? Should I make contact with the locals? If I did, would they be hostile? After turning the problem around many times, I then decided to take a few more days to observe these indigenous people before making a decision.

The next day, I sneaked up on the village early in the morning, but it seemed that everybody in the village was already awake. I could sense people walking everywhere in the forest as well as a small group moving toward the beach. This time again, I decided to follow the group heading to the beach.

Not because I wanted to see them naked, but mostly to analyze their food, how they captured and processed it. I was getting more and more curious about trying to fish myself but was worried about what I would end up pulling out of the water.

After finally catching up with the beach group, something instantly came to my attention. This time, there were no men. The two guards from yesterday seemed to have been replaced by one single woman who was wielding the famous trio, spear, bow and axe. This time though, the face paint was something completely different. She had a face paint using red – black – and yellow. Unlike the males warriors from yesterday, her face paint had no blue lines, and generally looked different.

There was also the question of why she was alone to defend the group. Did her being alone mean that she was stronger than the two males from yesterday combined? I was curiously observing these people, but I had absolutely no idea of what was going on and what everything I saw meant.

Then, out of nowhere, the woman's eyes turned toward me as if she knew I was there. Her eyes began to glow red as a frown appeared on her forehead. Crap crap, a dokari user. If she could use red mist (Aka dokari) like me then she could probably sense my presence.

Panicking, I quickly crawled back further into the forest while trying to stay as silent as possible. Eventually her glare turned away from me and she just went back to join the rest of the group. My heart was beating rapidly and I was getting sweaty from the stress.

Unsurprisingly, these people could use dokari as well, but maybe not all of them. Yesterday, none of them had noticed me after all. Was it the reason for her being alone as escort today? If she could use dokari, but not the men from yesterday, then she was definitely more powerful than the two of them combined even if she was a woman.

This explained why they had replaced the two normal warriors from yesterday with this woman doped on dokari. But I was surprised that she had suspected something to be there, but hadn't went to confirm it. Maybe her sensing abilities weren't that good after all.

But I still couldn't afford to take them lightly since some of them could potentially be very powerful dokari users just like me. Once at the beach, the women then stripped out of their loincloths, placed them on the tip of their spears and stuck them into the ground like flagpoles.

Seeing around 20 women getting naked all of a sudden might sound very nice to some people, but the fact was that many of them were definitely not pleasing to the eyes. Some of them had their things hanging low if you see what I mean. Some of them visibly have had many children, had weird body shapes, or rotten or missing teeth. Among them, 2 women were carrying babies on their backs,

Adding to all these unpleasant body features, was the fact that they belonged to a very different species. Their big eyes and weird general appearance was making it harder to find them attractive. I ended up spending hours watching them, trying to gauge the female warrior's sensing abilities by sneaking closer to them, then backing away when she noticed.

During one of the times when she intensely stared at me, I closely observed her face through my sniper scope and as I was wondering what her face-paint could mean, this appeared;

[Rank: Nolvak warrior]

The nanites in my body apparently had knowledge concerning the signification of these peculiar face-paints, and would most likely come in handy if I made contact with them one day. Thank to my new found ability, the rest of the day was then spent trying to identify all of the ranks I could. They apparently had face paints for parent of a newborn baby, something that was called 'spiritual openness', gatherer, fisherman, etc.

This routine continued for a few days but on the 4th day, something different happened. Early in the morning that day, the sound of something similar to a trumpet or a horn echoed through the land, to which the villagers responded by rushing out of the village and huddling together.

They all had their spears in hand but their behaviour didn't seemed hostile. Instead of hostility, what could be felt was something closer to excitement. After re-positioning myself to get a better view of what was going on, I noticed a group of people approaching by a road leading further inland.

Seemed like the males I had been wondering about where finally returning. Actually, the approaching group was not exclusively constituted of men but seemed to be evenly distributed between the sexes. By the look of it, there was a lot more women than men living in this village after all.

With that aside, the approaching group definitely had a different vibe to them. Most of them had face-paints I had never seen before, and all had what could only be described as battle hardened faces. The look in their eyes, their muscular bodies and the way they moved screamed warriors.

After a quick count, I estimated the group of warriors to be 50 people strong. The total village population was now confirmed at around 120 'humanoids'. Aiming my scope at the face-paints I had never seen before, finally allowed me to identify some of their hierarchy rankings.

This also allowed me to learn that the warriors ranking system was a lot more sophisticated than I had first anticipated. They had 'new warriors' – 'warriors' – 'seasoned warriors', but also something called 'new nolvak warriors' – 'nolvak warriors' – and 'superior nolvak warrior'. My current theory was that normal warriors couldn't use dokari, but nolvak warriors could.

Among all the people in the group, one definitely stood out from the rest. Unlike the others, he was the only one wearing something that looked like an ornate leather belt and Egyptian style skirt worn over his loincloth. He also had many feathers and colourful trinkets in his hair, which made him look like someone important.

The thing that gave him away the most was his unique face-paint. He was the first one I had seen with that much white in its design. Big white triangular patterns were drawn on his cheeks, with yellow and black pointy stripes under the eyes and over his chin.

Focusing on him and identifying his face-paint only confirmed my suspicions. This man was the tribe's chief. Shadowing him, was a scary looking old man which I had suspected to be the chief at first. He appeared to be the oldest person in the tribe, and also had a unique face-paint.

Upon identifying him, I learned that the mysterious old man was a shaman. He had red hand imprints on each cheeks and a weirdly drawn red symbol on his forehead. It was the first person I had seen with a face-paint containing exclusively red paint. For some reason, my instincts were telling me to stay away from that old man. Being a shaman in this world probably involved mastering dokari after all.

I remained at a safe distance and spent the rest of the day observing the village from the top of a tree. They lit a giant bonfire and seemed to be celebrating for some reason. The sound of what sounded like drums could be heard and even if I couldn't see, I could imagine them dancing around the fire to the sound of the drums.