As the sun rose, Damon headed towards the gates of the village. There Louis and Gerald were already waiting for Damon. This hunt would decide how his stay in the tribe would unfold. Plus, he could gain important information regarding them. If the wood elves couldn’t gain levels, then although their strength might be higher than Damon’s there shouldn’t be much difference. However, if they could, then unless he used magic, they’d see him as dead weight.

Damon followed the two brothers into the forest. Weirdly enough these elves walked on the ground and did not jump from tree to tree to avoid the giant salamanders, snakes, and crocodiles. Although at first, he walked with hesitant steps, half an hour later they had yet to encounter any beasts. But not long after the two brothers stopped for no reason.

“There’s a salamander,” said one of the brothers. Yet, Damon couldn’t see anything.

Louis pointed to the northeast. Although Damon still couldn’t see anything, he nodded anyways. Gerald told him to go to the right, and that he’d take the left. When they arrived at their designated positions, Louis threw a branch above the salamanders supposed hiding place. To Damon’s surprise, an amphibian emerged out of the leaves facing his direction. The salamander soon saw Damon and started a mad dash towards his legs. He jumped to the side and pierced the beast’s fleshy flank with his new spear. Gerald came into the fight as well and smashed his blub into the salamander’s back leg. Louis swung down his wooden bat onto the salamander’s head.

It stopped moving, Louis took Damon’s spear and thrust it into the salamander’s heart. In the meantime, Gerald snapped a sampling at its base, took out a rope from a small bag, and they tied the salamanders’ feet to the sampling’s trunk and started hauling it back to the village. While the two brothers pulled the salamander, Damon acted as a guard. Or more like a ceremonial one since he was rather useless without the ability to detect the presence of the amphibians. Thankfully, there wasn’t much water here, so crocodiles wouldn’t appear.

When a young wood elf which acted as the village’s guard saw them with the salamander. He opened the village gate and let them enter.

#

“Stay in your house for now, the chief wants you to be able to hunt a salamander alone before you are officially accepted into the village.”

Damon nodded; he wouldn’t go against the customs of the tribesmen for now. Although he might be able to forcefully seize his sword. He would most definitely need to kill a few elves, which he didn’t particularly wish for. It would be easier to just get into the good graces of the villagers before stealing back his sword and running away. Plus, there were a few things he could learn here. Anyhow, his hut, although it was outside the village proper it was inside it’s fortifications. He could at least sleep at ease knowing nothing might come and get him at night.

For the next two weeks, Damon went hunting with Louis and Gerald. He still couldn’t see where they hid, however, when they’d point out the salamander’s location. He noticed that the leaves seemed fresher and less compacted compared to its surroundings. However, the difference wasn’t large enough for him to notice it without a giant tip off.

The two brothers no longer came armed when they visited Damon. Since there wasn’t much to do in the village, they often stayed in Damon’s house for a few hours to teach him how to speak. Although Damon understood every word, he still couldn’t make a complex sentence without turning it in a mess of jumbled words.

He also figured out that these wood elves didn’t level up. Although he couldn’t match the two brothers in strength and endurance, he wasn’t far behind. He would be able to steal the sword without issue soon enough.

“Your food,” said Louis, “Today you have vegetables, the chief said good job, maybe soon you can become part of the village.” It really felt like I was using Google translate to understand what they said.

Damon thanked him and asked him to thank the chief as well. It seemed that the chief no longer felt threatened by his presence.

Three weeks later when Damon walked behind Louis, he saw a slight elevation in the distant piles of leaves. This wasn’t due to an excess number of leaves, but the springiness of the leaves.

Excited, Damon pointed to the salamander, “Prey. I can see now.” His speech also resembled Google translate as well.

Gerald patted Damon’s back. “Good job, now you kill it alone, you’ll be able to join the tribe, do you want to try.”

Damon readily accepted and left for the hill. When he threw a stick on the pile of leaves, the salamander launched itself towards Damon. Expecting this, he jumped to the side and stabbed his spear into the salamander’s right thigh.

This made it impossible for the salamander to jump. The amphibian turned to face Damon and started to run with a limp towards him. Damon ran back a few metres and hid behind a tree. Since he had to fight it alone, he went back to his favourite tactic, climbing trees. When he reached the first branch, he jumped onto the salamanders’ head, driving the spears point into its head.

“I’ve done it.”

The two brothers gave a stoic clap. “Now you have to bring it back.”

Damon nodded and made a small sled out of fallen branches. This took him the most time and effort, however, with the string Gerald gave him he managed to pull the salamander to the village entrance. This time instead of opening the gates the young guard ran away. A few minutes later the doors to the village opened and the chief came to greet Damon.

“Young man, you’ve passed the test of the ancestors. From today on you are a part of the village. Kneel and remove your upper garments.”

Damon did as the chief said and removed his now brown and dirty tunic. He saw the tribe’s elves behind the chief looking at the dark elves with curiosity. Although these elves were tribal people and lived without any kind of medical treatment their clear skin, and toned body made them attractive. Especially the women who Damon had forgotten about due to the fact he was forbidden to leave his hut unless it was with Louis and Gerald. He looked at his own toned and muscular body and felt that he had a chance with them. They were lacking males after all and although elves had a lower libido than humans, he hadn’t been with a woman in more than two years now.

The chief took out a small metal blade. It didn’t belong to Damon’s sword, so he wondered how they managed to acquire it. Behind him, Louis had started a fire, he took the blade and placed it over it. While this was happening, each member of the village lined up and put their hands on Damon’s head. One by one they stated their names, and Damon did the same. In this little procession, he saw the woman who had shot the arrow. Her name was Fabienne.

Fifteen minutes later Damon saw the blade in the chief’s hand, and he realized what was about to happen. Although he didn’t like the idea, he couldn’t say that having more scars wouldn’t give him a strong aura. Well, that’s if he went around shirtless, which even these tribesmen didn’t do.

The chief placed the still warm blade over Damon’s left pectoral muscle and drew it down until it reached a few centimetres above his nipple. Damon gritted his teeth. Although he’d been injured multiple times, pain sensitivity wasn’t something you lost. The chief did this two times. Once on each pec, then applied an ointment over his wounds and gave him new clothes made of salamander leather. The crowd scattered and Gerald led him inside the village. Damon could now get a good look around the village center. There were around fifteen huts, a few more than necessary for the number of people in the village. Kids were playing a rock throwing game in the central area and the women made and repaired clothes. Others were preparing the salamander Damon had just killed for tonight’s meal. All the men seemed to be either guarding the walls or out on patrol missions.

Louis told Damon to follow him, and they stopped in front of an old and rather beat up hut, “your new house.”

The hut was still in the back of the village; however, it was much closer than his previous one. Perhaps it would take more than just killing a salamander to be truly accepted in this community.

Damon thanked Louis and went inside. He had a leaf bed and a small clay pot made to urinate and defecate. Other than that, there wasn’t anything different from his previous house.

Damon decided to find the woman who’d shot him in the chest with the bow. Not to kill her, but to learn from her. Would he ever be a true elf without knowing how to use one? But in truth it is because he didn’t have any strong long-ranged magic attacks. He needed something to supplement this vacuum in his fighting array.

In the central part of the village, where the kids played and the women cut the salamander, he found her. She had long brown hair which hid her ears, which for elves also meant hiding one’s age; however, her smooth skin indicated she wasn’t old. For elves with a lifespan of one hundred and fifty years, this meant she was probably in between twenty and forty.

“Hi, Fabienne.” He had remembered her name from the ceremony. “Do you need help with that?”

“No.”

Well, that was a rather curt response, but Damon wouldn’t give up right away. “Well, I was wondering if you could teach me archery?” asked Damon once again.

“No.”

Now he didn’t know whether this rejection was due to an innate dislike for his appearance, personality, or a result from his low charisma points. However, the blow was deep as it didn’t seem like she was playing hard to get. She was simply uninterested in him. However, it did take Louis and Gerald two months before they stopped carrying weapons near him. Worlds with systems were ruthless, your strength was entirely based on numbers. You may look stronger, work out harder, and be bigger. However, if you had a strength score of 1 you were weaker than a squirrel. And the same applied to beauty and charisma. The only thing which could change this was by showing absolute power or influence. Which would overcome one’s charismatic or strength deficiency; in any world at that.

Anyhow, although he found her attractive, he wasn’t gunning for her. If he could just learn a bit of archery that would be good enough.

If only, he had ten extra points in charisma, he might have been able to enter the village on first contact with the brothers. Perhaps they would have said something along the line of “Oh, a visitor, we’ve never had one, and a dark elf at that, please make yourself at home honoured guest.” But instead, he got thrown to the outskirts of the village. He could only imagine what kind of treatment Pythias enjoyed. Knowing him his charisma was probably well above fifty by now.

Damon would need to level up a few times before he could have a decent conversation with anyone.

Later that night the whole tribe including Damon ate around a campfire a stew filled with meat, vegetables and what looked to be local spices. These were made in the other corner of the village. Inside the mud walls of the village, the tribe kept a garden where they grew vegetables and spices.

There wasn’t a lot of it; however, it was better than nothing. He guessed that women went out to gather more of these during the day. Even though they lived in swamps filled with deadly amphibians and crocodiles, it didn’t mean that plants didn’t grow.

For the next month, Damon got used to the customs and rules of the village. Every two days he’d go out to hunt with Louis and Gerald. He noticed that the women would leave with other men towards the east of the village, the other side from Damon and his hunting group to collect vegetables and spices. In total the tribe counted fifty-eight people. This could be subdivided further to ten kids, counting six boys and four girls, twenty-nine women, nine of which were no longer of childbearing age, and nineteen men, from which six couldn’t fight anymore.

He also learned that in this village men used close combat weapons and women used long ranged weapons. This might also explain why Fabienne refused to teach him archery, however, the cold attitude he received wasn't just from her, but everyone in the village. Now he couldn’t blame anything other than his charisma points.

In the month or so as a tribesman, he’d killed a fair number of beasts as well and this was Damon’s status screen:

Damon Asmodeus LVL. 15 (110/5620)

Charisma

Intelligence

Perception

Agility

Endurance

Strength

Mana

19 (+2)

43

32 (+2)

28

17

18

129

All humanoid language acquisitions Arithmetic’s Lvl.6/7 Black magic Lvl.3/10 Dark magic Lvl.3/10 Dark spirit communication Lvl.3/10 Detect diseases and viruses through smell Lvl.3/5 Earth magic Lvl.3/5 Improved memory Lvl.3/5 Medium disease tolerance Night vision Telepathy Lvl.3/10

When Damon noticed the amount of time it took him to gain a level, he wanted to faint and never wake up. Going south into the swaps wasn’t his brightest idea, the monsters were too hard to locate and were rare. But it was too late now. What were a few months to an elf?

But that meant it was time for him to leave. Even if he had to kill one or two elves, he didn’t care. The treatment he received from them didn’t inspire compassion. No, it inspired disdain and hate even though he managed to get to know a few people in the village. He could even have a casual conversation with Fabienne now. However, this wouldn’t be enough to justify his stay. For now, he had to locate his bag and retrieve a little vial. When the night set, he used his shadow meld, and lessen reflection at the maximum effectiveness.

The tribesmen went to sleep at ten at night and woke up at five in the morning. However, some men stayed up at night as guards, but since they stayed on the walls and didn’t inspect nor expect anything from within the village, they shouldn’t notice him.

However, the fact remained that Damon’s greatest advantage was the fact the wood elves couldn't to level up. Thanks to that they shouldn’t notice him when he used dark magic.

When Damon reached the chief’s house at two in the morning, he couldn’t hear any noise. He looked around to see if there were any other small huts where he might have stored his bag; however, it couldn’t be seen. This must mean he kept his valuables inside his hut.

Even with all his dark magic activated Damon didn’t dare break in and enter. If his goal was to kill everyone in the tribe and run away, it might be doable; however, he didn’t have enough hate in his heart to commit such a heinous act.

Damon decided to head back to his house, however, before he could reach it he heard a loud yell, “Hey stop right there!”