Chapter 4 A Devious Encounter

Day 2……

Yesterday I slew the tasked game that my tribe elders assigned to me by surpassing my limits. I had broken through my bottleneck during that heated battle. Today I woke up with a peak level strength of 6-men. How awesome was that?

The injuries that I suffered from the deadly beast’s assault wasn’t by any means minimal. My right eye was damaged beyond repair and my spine was partially wounded from being affected by the Lure of Intimidation more than once. However, I was happy that my tasks objectives were all completed. The only thing that remained was to return the beast’s hide to my Aigoo tribe and get validated by the elders to be chosen as patriarch.

I was looking forward to returning to my tribe. If I managed to become patriarch I would be allowed an army at my beck and call, moreover, the freedom to expand my harem with the Aigoo tribe’s purest beauties. No longer would I be classed as a failure. Everyone who mocked me in the past would have to show their respects.

Oh, I felt so boisterous as I laid there on the summit of Mt Sakai’s grassland while basking in the warm sunlight, absorbing all of its nutritious properties. As a direct member of the Aigoo tribe, I was also a warrior with a special constitution. My body was able to convert the sun rays into medicinal properties to aid with my regeneration. By spending just 3 hours under direct sunlight was enough to properly heal my wounded body.

Finished tending to my injuries, I sat upright then took a gander at a blistering rock not too far from where I was sitting. Upon that solid surface laid the hide of the special beast whom I had bested yesterday. The skinning was done on the same day I took its life. I applied rare medicinal dust to the beast hide to escalate the drying process. By the end of the day, I would be able to don its indomitable will. I used this day to mostly recuperate and scout the summit of Mt Sakai with my beloved steed.

Day 3……

On the third day, I ate a roasted rabbit at daybreak. Afterwards, I packed up my belongings, donned the indomitable Wolverine-Bear hide before setting down the mountain whilst sitting astride my trusted steed.

[Gallop! Gallop!] The scenery I perceived while racing to the base of Mt Sakai was one of invigorating quality. Nature contained the breath of life which gave rise to new forms of breath-taking existence. Myriad of beautiful leaf particles fluttered all around me. It was as if nature itself was awarding me for descending the mountain after attaining great triumph over the mythic beast. I accepted this gift from nature wholeheartedly.

[Gallop! Gallop!] After riding my steed for almost an hour, the bottom of the mountain was finally coming into full view. “Look, Tagon we’ve almost made it to the bottom. Aren’t you excited to finally be heading home?” [Neighs! Neighs!] “Of course, you are! Soon you might be named the noble mount of this indomitable patriarch. Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

[Gallop! Gallop!] I chatted with my trusted steed who had been accompanying me on my dangerous ventures for almost a decade now. I was present for Tagon’s birth when his mother was in labour. During that time she was secretly attacked by a pack of wild coyotes after I had left to fetch some water. I was down by cooling stream when I heard the fortissimo howls and neighs. I tossed away the bucket of water and hurriedly made my way back to the stables.

When I got there a bloody scene awakened. The violent pack of coyotes were swarming Tagon’s mother with their razor-blade teeth exposed and wild intentions blatantly obtrusive. They occasional vaulted at her back and forth while sneakily abducting pieces of her pregnant flesh. At one instance, I realized the alpha coyote at the back of Tagon’s mother sinking its teeth into the colt’s leg that was still inside the mare. The alpha viciously tugged on the colt’s leg, desperately trying to rip it out of its mother.

“You filthy bastards!” I couldn’t bear to stand idly by any longer. With that being said, I dashed into the fray with nothing but my bare hands. Back then I had only the strength of 6-women which I made damn good use of. No prior plan was among my impulsive actions. I punched, I kicked and I ripped apart any beast that vaulted towards me. Who knew how long I was there in the stables defending the wounded mare, its colt along with myself. Eventually, the pack of coyotes gave up their savage pursuit after I had slaughtered their alpha by pulling out its vital organs from its chest.

The remaining coyotes finally vanished, leaving the stables in a bloody mess that I was in the centre of with my knees resting in vile viscera. Due to the extensive injuries that the mare suffered, Tagon’s mother perished later that night, but she didn’t leave this world without gifting it a newborn. The colt was successfully birthed, ever since then we became a duo of an iron bond.

[Gallop! Gallop!] My steed continued its stride downwards Mt Sakai. With the base coming into view, something alarming infiltrated my peripheral vision. “Huh, are those riders?” I looked towards my left flank afield and discerned a forming dust cloud coming around the bend of the mountain foot.

Leading the dust cloud was a lavish carriage headed by two powerful horses. Their reins were being controlled by an aged man who looked anxious. Standing beside the aged man was a stalwart bowman who was continually firing arrows at the horseback riders behind as they aided their escape. “Die! You filthy mountain bandits.” [Whoosh! Whoosh!]

My keen vision perceived 6 horsemen in the rear. 3 of them in the lead were also firing arrows from their long-bows back at the carriage. [Boom!] As I continued to watch this approaching spectacle without intervening, I noticed a precise arrow escaped the fingertips of a horseback rider. It flew directly into the face of the carriage’s bowman, poking through his eyeball then from the back of his head.

[Plap!] Seeing the bowman fell off the carriage, the horseback riders suffered no more resistance. They disarmed their bows and sped up their steeds to catch up with the fleeing carriage. [Gallop! Gallop! Gallop!]

“Don’t let that witch escape!” The horseback riders quickly caught up with the carriage. Two of their men positioned themselves to the lateral regions of the carriage’s horses with their swords held tightly in their grasp. [Slash! Slash!] They severed the heads of the horses, moreover, decapitated the aged man in control of their reins.

[Screech! Boom!] After the carriage lost all of its mobile functionalities, its wooden wheels rammed into a big stone which caused the carriage to keel over directly below where I was descending. The horsemen who rode ahead stopped their horses 50-stretch-of-men away from the wrecked carriage.

[Gallop! Gallop!] Tagon and I alighted on the rough terrain further behind the wrecked carriage. I was turning to leave on the opposite side of the road which would have taken me back to my Aigoo tribe’s location. However, my attention got drawn to the lithe crimson robed figure who had just crawled out the back of the tumbled carriage with a scorpion-shaped amulet dangling from the neck.

“Help me.” The person said while reaching out their arm aimed at me.

When I’ve finally gotten a better look at the figure clothed in red, my mind was intrigued and at the same time bewildered. “It’s a woman?” I have never laid eye on such a captivating beauty in my entire existence. Her supple skin pigment resembled that of snow, she was paler than the white sediment my steed stood on. A strange anomaly kept me fixedly staring with my mind fishing for answers.

In that instant of strange puzzlement, I remembered a tale that the elders in my tribe spoke about. “Far, far in the north of the vast lands of Bethlia, our Aigoo tribe’s ancient scribe recorded a veiled mystery. On his journey to the northern region of Bethlia, the scribe stumbled across a village of ineffectual people. It was recorded that their men and women alike could only wield the strength of 1-woman equivalent to a maiden from our tribe. Simply put, they were weak individuals.

To compensate for their lack of strength, they dabbled in the arts of pale sorcery. Whilst our scribe was amongst them, a peculiar incident took place which garnered the entire village’s attention. A woman who was well versed in the pale arts of sorcery was carrying the child of the village’s head in her bloated tummy. Around the time when she was about to give birth, the woman vomited a mature scorpion that was unscathed as it crawled onto her stomach. The scorpion then vanished from the sight of the onlookers, nowhere to be found. A bizarre pregnancy indeed.

The scribe stuck around until the baby crawled out of the pregnant woman’s moist area. What they all laid astounding eyes on was a snow-white child far paler than her own parents, moreover, there was a shocking birthmark in the form of a scorpion situated very close to little baby girl’s pubic region. The village head along with its habitants was rife with wonder. How could a child as white as snow be secreted from the moist union of an ebony couple? This was a mystery that no one dared to solve. From that day onward, all the other women in the village could only give birth to pale species. Our scribe concluded this mystery to be a rare disease brought about by the unknown dabbling in the pale arts of sorcery. He went ahead to further form a suitable title for the cursed village. Snow Scorpion Vale. He added at the end of his text: Beware of the scorpion’s curse. Danger lurks wherever it appears.”

[End of scribe’s tale]