Chapter 01: Danger!

Under the night sky, in a dark forest where the only sources of light were the stars and the moon, all that could be heard were the howling of the wind and the rustling of the tree leaves. In the middle of this ocean of trees, a young man was lying on the ground.

This young man’s name was Alfred. On top of Alfred, there was a big animal, this animal was as big as a dog, because of the weight of this animal, Alfred started to regain his consciousness, he slowly opened his eyes unaware of his situation. The first thing he saw was a mouth filled with sharped teeth.

Alfred’s nose twitched because of the rotten smell coming from it, he stared at this mouth not knowing what it was, then he perceived that it was slowly getting closer to his face. Out of instinct, Alfred closed his eyes, moved his head to the side, and hit it with his fist at the same time.

The unknown animal thought that Alfred was a corpse, that was why when Alfred suddenly moved and hit it, the unknown animal was startled. It back off for a few meters, vigilant of Alfred’s next move. When Alfred felt the weight on top of him was gone, he opened his eyes and got up to look at what kind of animal was trying to eat him, he was surprised at the unbelievable thing he saw.

“Is that a rat? What the hell did this rat eat to become this big?”

Alfred observed his surroundings looking for an escape route. However, he found out that he was in an unfamiliar place. The only things he could see were trees, grasses, small rocks, and the Big Rat, it was too dark to see more, but he was sure of one thing.

“A forest? Why am I in the forest? Did someone kidnap me and bring me here? But why?”

While Alfred was focused on his surroundings, he heard a growl, then he remembered a Big Rat was trying to make him its meal. Alfred became vigilant, he tried to look for something that can be used as a weapon, then he noticed a knife made of stone on the side of his waist.

He has no time to think about why he has a stone knife on his waist, he pulled the knife out. Alfred tried to threaten the Big Rat to back off by swinging his knife in the air. Regardless of how much Alfred swung his knife, the Big Rat didn’t step back even for a bit.

Instead, the Big Rat became irritated, it started clanking its teeth showing aggressiveness toward Alfred. Soon after, the Big Rat finally lost its patience and rushed at Alfred. Although Alfred has a knife, he was too scared to use it, after seeing the Big Rat rushing at him his face turned pale.

He didn’t even think of fighting the Big Rat, instead, he turned around and started running.

“Why the hell am I in this situation? How am I supposed to kill that thing? I don’t even know how to fight!”

Alfred ran as fast as he can, but the Big Rat started closing the distance between them.

“HELP! SOMEBODY, PLEASE HELP ME!” Alfred screamed in panic.

Alfred was running too fast, he completely ignored his surroundings, and the only thing in his mind was escaping. Because of this, he got tripped by a tree root, fell, and rolled multiple times before stopping.

“Ahhhhh! I sprained my foot! Why the heck is my luck so bad today!”

While Alfred was screaming, the Big Rat finally caught up to him. Alfred slowly crawled away from the Big Rat hoping to escape. The Big Rat seemed to notice that Alfred was injured, so, it slowly walked closer to Alfred.

‘Am I going to die here?’ Alfred thought to himself.

The Big rat finally pounced at Alfred, then bit his right foot.

“AHHHHH!”

Alfred screamed in pain, out of desperation he used the stone knife to stab the Big Rat repeatedly to force it to let go of his right foot, but it kept biting his right foot no matter how much he stabbed it.

After a while, Alfred was getting dizzy, his sight becoming blurry, he didn’t know if he was losing too much blood, or he was just terrified of the idea of dying. Suddenly out of nowhere, an arrow pierced the eye of the Big Rat, it squeaked in pain, but before it can respond another 4 arrows hit it on its body simultaneously.

The Big Rat howled for the last time before it died. Alfred didn’t know what was happening, the dizziness was too much for him to handle, he only saw the blurry image of multiple people looking at him before it went dark.

After a long time, Alfred regained a little bit of his consciousness, he heard some murmuring beside him, he didn’t know what it was, he tried to open his eyes to catch a sight of what it was, but his head was aching so much. Therefore, he stopped trying and fell unconscious again.

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In the middle of the day, inside the forest, there was a big open area, in the middle of this open area was a Giant Tree. There were multiple tents surrounding the Giant Tree, the tents had different sizes, but they had one thing in common, they were all made from some kind of animal skin sewed together to form a shelter for the people.

There was one tent that was standing out because of its size, it was the biggest tent out of all tents, this tent was located near the center of the tribe. Inside this tent, there were a group of people discussing something.

Suddenly a middle-aged man with a bald head, a stern face, and a muscular body with tattoos, wearing only a loincloth spoke up.

“Chief are we going to keep that person here? We do not even know what tribe he came from, what if he is from those tribes?”

An old man with long white hair, a wrinkly face, and a scrawny body full of scars looked at the middle-aged man.

“Yes Vir, we do not know where he came from, or what he was even doing in the forest alone. That is why we need to keep him and asked him for information.”

But the middle-aged man called Vir immediately opposed.

“But Father! we do not need to put our tribesmen at risk, we can question him even if he is in prison. Therefore, he cannot pose a threat to our tribe.”

“I understand your cautiousness, but we need him to see us in goodwill, so, he can trust us more easily. I need his honest answer, and putting him in jail is not going to help.”

The Chief took out a parchment made of animal skin.

“I want to know why he has this parchment on him and if he can read what is written on it.”

Vir was still not convinced.

“But Fath-“

But before he can finish his sentence, The Chief yelled.

“My decision is final! are you disobeying your Chieftain!?”

Vir immediately closed his mouth.

After the 2 were finally done talking, an Old woman with messy white hair, a wrinkly face, a sickly body dressed with clothes made from animal skin, and wearing a lot of ornament made of different kinds of animal bones on her body finally spoke.

“Chief Viren, do you believe that young man knew how to read this Parchment? Even I the Shaman of this tribe cannot understand even a little bit of this ancient language?”

Chief Viren shifted his looked at the Old Shaman.

“Shaman Catori, I do not know if he can read this or not, but we need to at least try, we are not losing anything if he cannot read this. Also, the situation of our tribe is worsening, we need to try everything we can, and maybe… just maybe, this is the solution that we have been looking for.”

“The Chieftain is right, we will not lose anything even if we try, maybe the young man might surprise us.

The other old man with messy white hair, a kind face, and a muscular body with moderate scars agreed with Chief Viren.

While they were discussing, a tribesman entered the tent, and all the people inside shifted their attention to this tribesman, he became nervous when he saw all the gaze toward him, but soon, he composed himself.

“Greetings elders and Head Arrow Vir, I apologize for the interruption, but the guest is awake, we need your orders.”

Chief Viren stood up when he heard the report.

“Let us end this meeting and meet our guest.”

All the people left the tent to meet Alfred.

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When Alfred regained his consciousness again, he slowly opened his eyes, this time the dizziness he felt drastically lessened, the only thing that bothered him was a little headache. Alfred immediately tried to get up, but when he did, the feeling of soreness in every part of his body stopped him from moving.

However, he tried to ignore the pain to force himself to get up. Then suddenly someone stopped him from moving and he heard a voice of a lady.

“Do not move yet! your injury is still fresh.”

Alfred looked in the direction of where the voice came from, when he did, he saw a young lady with long black hair, a pretty face, and a tan color body wearing clothes made from some kind of animal skin. Alfred immediately became cautious.

“Who are you?”

The young lady smiled at him.

“My name is Aponi, you do not need to worry I am not going to hurt you. May I ask your name?”

when Alfred saw Aponi seemed friendly. Alfred relaxed a little.

“My name is Alfred.” Alfred replied without thinking.

Aponi tilted her head with confusion.

“Alfred? your name is kind of weird, what is the meaning of your name? The meaning of my name is Butterfly.”

Then suddenly Aponi’s words struck Alfred, then he realized that something was not right, the language Aponi used was different.

‘Wait a minute what kind of language is this, I don’t think there’s a language like this in this world, and why the hell am I able to understand her? I don’t think I learned any different language before? And if I did, I’m sure I will remember it.’ Alfred thought to himself.

Aponi became worried when she saw Alfred didn’t answer, she thought that she said something that offended him.

“Are you ok? Did I say something wrong?”

Alfred became anxious, he ignored Aponi’s question.

“Can you tell me where is this place?”

Aponi became even more worried when she saw Alfred seem agitated.

” This is our tribe the Pha-. “

Before Aponi finished her sentence, someone interrupted her.

“Aponi!” Vir yelled.

Aponi looked at the entrance of the tent, then she saw the Elders and Vir.

“Greetings Elders and Brother Vir.”

Chief Viren spoke to Aponi with a gentle voice.

“Aponi can you give us the room, we need to talk to our guest.”

Aponi bowed to the Chieftain.

“Of course, Father.”

After Aponi left the tent, all the Elders sat down beside Alfred except Vir, he remained standing.

“Hello, young friend, may I know your name?” Chief Viren asked.

Alfred didn’t reply, instead, he became vigilant, he didn’t know these people. So, he didn’t want to give them his name, but because of that Vir yelled.

“The Chieftain asked your name!”

Alfred got startled by Vir’s sudden shout, he looked at Vir with fear in his eyes. Chief Viren seemed to notice that Alfred was scared.

“Vir! Let me do the talking, if you cannot control yourself go and wait outside.”

Vir immediately bowed to chief Viren.

“I am sorry Father I will not talk anymore.”

Chief Viren looked at Alfred and asked again with a friendly tone.

“You do not need to worry young friend, we are not going to harm you, we just have some simple questions that I hope you answer honestly.”

Alfred felt the friendliness of chief Viren. Therefore, he nodded his head a little as a sign of approval. Chief Viren smiled, then started to introduce himself and the others in the tent.

” I am Viren the chieftain of this tribe, this is my son Vir, and the other two are Shaman Catori and elder Ahote. Now that we introduced ourselves can you tell us your name?”

Alfred reluctantly answered the question.

“My name is Alfred.”

Just like Aponi’s reaction, all of them looked at him like he has the weirdest name in the world.