Chapter 46: Early Problem

Under the night sky, inside the ocean of trees, two big boulders were leaning against each other. Between these 2 boulders was a cave, a dark cave with no light, even though the cave seemed lifeless, this cave was used as a shelter for a creature with long limbs and a hairy body.

The creature was sitting in the corner of the cave while peeling some kind of fruit, beside him was Gunnar lying on his back. His body was full of wounds and bruises, but all these injuries were covered with some kind of crushed leaves. it had been 3 days since the creature find him, and not once did he regain his consciousness.

After the creature finished peeling the fruit, it walked closer to Gunnar using its 4 long limbs. It open Gunnar’s mouth and crushed the fruit on top of it, so the juice within the fruit fell inside. The creature lies beside Gunnar and hugged him like he was its parent after feeding him.

Even though the Creature seemed large because of its long limbs, in truth, its body was only half the size of Gunnar.

On the next day, Gunnar’s eyes finally move, he looked like he was about to regain his consciousness. As expected, after a few seconds, Gunnar slowly open his eyes. He was confused because the first thing he saw was a stone ceiling, he tried to remember what happened to him, but the pain all over his body hinder him to do so.

Then finally he noticed that something seemed to be hugging him, when he moved his head to see what it was, he was dumbfounded. He saw a green monkey holding him, he tried to use his hand to attack the monkey. However, the hand that he wanted to raise didn’t move.

When he examined his hands, he saw that both of them were covered with some kind of big leaves, not only that he also noticed that his hands became so large that their size doubled. Then he remembered that he used them to block all the attacks of the Bald Man, it seems that both of his hand bone was broken.

While Gunnar was examining his injuries, the Green Monkey open its eyes. It instantly noticed that Gunnar was finally awake, it stood up and happily jump around Gunnar.

“Hey! Stop that! You making me dizzy!” Gunnar shouted annoyed by the monkey. In the beginning, he was worried that a monster took him, but when he saw his wounds were covered with green stuff that seemed like medical herbs. He remembered what Aponi said to him, that the monster could also think and act like a human.

The Green Monkey stopped jumping around and stared at Gunnar with puzzlement, it didn’t understand what Gunnar said, then it suddenly jumped happily again and ran outside. This time Gunnar became the confused one, he didn’t know if the Monkey understand him or not. Nonetheless, he was finally alone.

He assessed his surrounding by just moving his head, he discovered that he was in the cave. After knowing that there was no danger, he started to use the breathing technique to fasten his healing recovery.

After a few minutes, the Green Monkey returned holding a bunch of fruit in both of his hands. It thought that Gunnar was hungry and asking for food, that was why it joyfully ran outside to look for fruit. Gunnar stopped using the Breathing Technique when he heard the monkey return and seemed like doing something.

When he opened his eyes, he saw the monkey peeling a fruit. Gunnar swallow his saliva when he saw the fruits beside the monkey, his stomach rumbled telling him that he should eat, but he didn’t know if the monkey would understand him if he asked for food.

While he was thinking of something that he could do to make the monkey understand him, the Green Monkey walked closer to him and put the fruit inside his mouth without asking for permission. Gunnar was startled by this, he wanted to scream at the monkey to stop, but when he realized that the monkey was trying to feed him. He halted this thought and just let the monkey do what it was doing.

The Green Monkey was happy when it saw that Gunnar was eating the fruit that it put inside his mouth. After feeding Gunnar, it lies beside him and hugged him again.

“Oi! What are you doing sleeping and hugging me?” Gunnar annoyingly asked. “There was a lot of space, move a little you little monkey!”

The Green Monkey ignored him, it didn’t even try to understand him. Because Gunnar couldn’t move his body, he had no choice but to use his loud voice to make it move, but the monkey just kept ignoring him. Therefore, he also chose to just sleep.

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The Arrows were gathered outside the vicinity of the Guardian Tree, they were waiting for the other that part of the alliance. After a few days, the first that arrived was the Stone Hunters with 40 hunters. Dara instantly greeted Rag when they saw each other, they didn’t have much time to catch up with each other when Dara visit the Stone Tribe because they were in hurry.

Now that they had more time, they decided to tell each other what happen. After 2 more days, the Tree Hunters with 35 members arrived. Cora meet the other leader to greet them after that they started setting up their camp.

On the next day, The Axe Hunters arrive with 40 hunters. the hunter that gathered near the Phantom Tribe had now reached 100+ Hunters, even though they were not speaking loudly, the noise coming from these hundred hunters was so loud that anyone would think that they were having a feast.

The Hunters from 4 different tribes were only waiting for one more tribe to arrive. However, The last Tribe didn’t show up even though they have been waiting for a few days. The leader of every group meets to discuss if they should move because if they stay in one place any longer the rations they had would be gone before the fight even began.

Vir suggested that they should leave and just inform the Shadow Hunters that they already left. Vir would leave 5 Arrows to guard the tribe, they would inform the Shadow Tribe about the discussion and where they should go if they want to join the fight.

The other Leader agreed to this suggestion, and all of them didn’t want to waste any more time waiting. After preparing, all the 100+ Hunters left, leading them were the 4 leaders, Vir, Cora, Rag, and Bear. They eagerly march towards the place where they were going to wait for the army of the Blood Tribe, their numbers were too great to ambush. Therefore, they decided to fight head-on.

The alliance stopped when they reached a wide enough open area, they chose this place to camp, this place was the highest possibility of the pathway the Blood Tribe would take. They send scouts to the surrounding area to gather information and inform them if the army o the Blood Tribe had arrived.

After a few days of waiting, one of the scouts finally returned.

“The Blood Tribe is here!” The scout shouted in panic. This scout was from the Axe Tribe, that was why Bear frowned when he saw his hunter panicking.

“Why are you panicking?” Bear asked with a little annoyance. “We already know that the Blood Tribe is coming, what is the point of you panicking?”

“T – their N- numbers,” replied the scout. “Their numbers are more than we expect!”

All the leaders furrowed their eyebrows when they heard the report.

“How many are they?” Cora asked the scout.

“They have at least 200+ Hunters and leading them are the 4 rumored leaders of the Blood Hunters.”

“What is happening?” Cora mumbled. “They brought a lot of hunters and the 4 leaders just to attack a single tribe? Did their pride get bruised when they lost, and that is why they decided to attack with full force? Is the Blood Tribe that stupid?”

“We do not have time to think about this right now.” Said Vir. “We need to think about what we need to do, and decided if we want to fight here or fall back.”

“Fight them with their numbers?” Rag said. “Their size is almost double our number, our chance of winning here is very slim. We need to at least think of a plan if we want to win.”

“Why do we need something like that? We just need to kill more to win.” Bear said while holding his ax on his shoulder.

“No, we still had a chance to win,” Cora assured. “The Blood Hunters consist of a different hunter from a different tribe. Therefore, they do not cooperate with each other. They only fight for the Blood Tribe because of fear, if we can kill the 4 leaders the Blood Hunters will lose their will to fight us. So, this fight depends on us leaders. We need to kill the 4 Leaders of the Blood Tribe as fast as we can to minimize the casualty.”