Φ Arising from my bed, I feel an intense presence right wo me, so out of plete instinct, I go to attack it, but as he is about to make tact, I see the presence is Orb.

  “Orb, what are you doing here,” I say, shocked

  “You told me, we start my training today, so I wa to begin the moment you awoke.”

  There is raw determination in those eyes. He must be excited to bee one of us. So full of drive. I say, “Sorry to keep you waiting, Orb. Let’s us go and begin your Training.”

  Φ Since yesterday I haven’t been able to get the taste out of my mind. How did I go my entire life without this? The fact that people eat this every day has filled me with nothing but jealousy, but now I will be able to learn how to hunt animals whenever I o.

  -Break-

  As Sequoia and I walk to the hunting grounds, I look around the town and take note of a few things first; everyos up early in this vilge. Even sitting beside the chief’s bed, I heard people w away outside. I also heard Maple scream, “I won’t give in,” since she is still tied up, won’t she eventually have to eat o to the toilet?

  Throughout my walk with the chief, something bothered me, so I asked him, “Why is everyo wearing fur clothes like you? They’re all in cotton clothes; won’t they freeze sinow is scattered all around the vilge.”

  “Well, that’s because we have some level of resistao the cold, so when we are in the vilge, we wear cotton clothes. Our bodies have adapted to Fimbulwinter eions. I was taught at first, when our town was founded, people really couldn’t hahe cold, and someone would end up frostbitten every day, but through their perseverahey were able to grow aced to it.

  This also applies to pnts and animals. At first, on this mountain, there were tless different pnts and animals, but most of them died when it froze over, and the ohat adapted to the sudden ge are what were able to survive.

  Maple told me you had seen the golden trees. They store lots of hot water in their leaves, allowing them to survive extreme colds. Things like this also make us less worried about the cold, because of all the different types of pnts we have found ways to deal with, evereme frostbite.

  The only issue we have is that all the pnts take a lot of time to grow back, and all the animals o eat them to survive, so our only choice to get food is to hunt sistently,” before I k, we were at the hunting grounds.

  To my knowledge, at the beginning of every week, the vilge’s warriather together to procure the food that will be eaten for the week.

  While begin lost in thought, I heard the vilge chief scream, “Let the spirits of our aors be with us as we go out. May today’s hunt be bountiful.” after the chief said that, he walked over to me and says, “Orb, sorry about this,” then I feel a substantial impa the back of our head.

  -Break-

  “He should be waking up about now,” is the first thing I hear when I open my eyes. Then after looking around, I realised the voice I heard was Sequoia.

  “Hey, what was that for.”

  “Sorry, Orb, I o get you out of the vilge without seeing the exit.”

  “You could of at least told me. Also, how did you know when I would wake up.”

  “I knock my daughter out whes rowdy, so I have gained a sense for when people wake up from that.”

  You know, the more he talks about his daughter, the more he sounds like an abusive parent, but I won’t ever say that to him.

  “Orb, the hunt is about to begin, so watd see what you have to achieve.”

  So, as I get up from the floor, I see the vilge warriors ast me. I see Aea and Alis. I stare and wave at them with a creepy smile whispering their names, but they freak out and walk faster away from me.

  One of the warriors walks into me and pushes me to the ground. When I look up to see who it is and it’s the stomach puncher himself Buloke. He gives me a murderous look, and walks away. Now I have two goals learn how to hunt and push Buloke off a cliff. Oh, I am just teeming with motivation.

  As I get up, I see something hiding in one of the bushes, but as I try to get a better look, it moves away. I have only seen him twice, so I am not a hundred per t sure, but I still tell the chief, “I think I see Willow hiding in that bush.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. He is always sneaking out to watch everyone hunt. We’re all aware of him hiding over there.”

  But as Sequoia was telling me, I heard someone shout, “They are ing,” and out of the forest, a group of tors running at full speed headed toward us, screaming.

  “Sequoia isn’t this bad. We didn’t have time to set up a trap, at this rate we will get overrun.”

  “Traps, you say. Well, I guess that is the safest way to go about hunting, but we prefer a more head-ohod.”

  “What are you talking about? That’s absurdly dangerous”, but as the words leave my mouth, I see a tor head fly over and ween Sequoia and me.

  I look over ahat the warriors have beheaded the tors despite their speed. As more tors run towards them, I see Aea and Alis instantly cut off their heads. I was making fun of these two. If they wahey could have killed me before I even noticed.

  Then I see Buloke fight in a mere sed. He cuts the heads off of four raptors. He is moving so fast that I barely follow him; these are inhuman movements. How are they doing this? It’s so amazing. All I do is sit there, shocked.

  “Using traps would be much safer, but it isn’t our way. Instead, we like to hunt the animals headfirst. It’s our way of respeg them. It makes hunting exceptionally dangerous, but all we have to do is get strong enough to pensate.” After Sequoia spoke these words, I saw the st of the tor fall to the ground, dead.

  “You guys are amazing.”

  “o ftter us, Orb. You will be doing this soon enough.”

  So as everyone is about to start colleg the bodies, a scream echoes throughout the forest. Then suddenly, trees begin to fall, and out of the woods es a spercera.

  I start panig as it runs toward us, but I hear Sequoia say, “This is quite fortunate you needed a spear, didn’t you Orb,” Sequoia then grabs Buloke’s spear out of his hand in an instant, and starts running towards the spercera as it charges at him.

  When the spercera is about to hit him, he dodges to its side while slig the horns that protect its face. The spercera then runs into a tree. Then almost instantly, Sequoia turns around and jumps onto a tree, then jumps again into the air and falls directly on top of the spercera, plunging his spear into its head, killing it instantly.

  I have been very casual with the chief, because he seems like the most normal person here, but he is a monster. Is he even human because if he is, he shouldn’t be able to do this?

  “Orb, remember everything you have seen today. Well, I expect you to be able to do all this eventually.”

  Dumbfounded by what I just saw, it took me a sed to uand his words, but after my miurned, I said, “Sir, yes sir.”

  “You sure are funny, but that’s Good to Hear,” Sequoia says as he approaches me.

  I didn’t think what I said was all that funny, but then I realised we had just finished. “Oh no”, is what I say before his hand strikes me unscious.

  -Break-

  “Five, four, three, two, one.”

  “Where am I,” I say as I jump from the floor.

  “Right on time, Orb.”

  Quickly looking around, I grasp the situation and say, “You know you just tell me if you want to knock me out.”

  “If I did that, you’d know to brace yourself for the impact, and then I would have to hit harder, it’s the policy of the vilge to do things in one shot to minimise suffering.”

  “Whatever then, so when do I start my training.”

  “We will start in a little bit, but here you go.” Sequoia then hands me fur clothing just like everyone else’s.

  “Orb yesterday, I asked someoo make this for you, I thought that if you stay here, you should look the part.”

  So, I put the clothes on a wool top, trousers, a half-open skirt, woolly boots and a bandana it’s primarily silver with a dark blue and gold pattern spread across it all.

  “Thank you, sequoia.”

  “No problem, but now we are going to begin your training. Are you ready”

  “Ready as I will ever be.”

  -Break-

  It has been one month since I started my training, and I have been primarily doing three things during that time.”

  First is strength training, every day is five hundred squats, lunges, ches, and pushes ups, and then we run around the entire vilge eighty times. My body aches intensely afterwards, to the point that the meat I eat at the end of the day, which should be my soce, ends up tasteless, this is too unfair.

  The sed is battle strategies, which I am taught in a css with some young children.

  “After years of research, we have found that the animals follow specific patterns when fighting them. An example would be the tor. After its initial bite, it will try to cut you with either its left ht wings. You tell which it will use to attack by how it moves its head, and if you dodge under his wings, when it turns around to face you, its head will be exposed, allowing you to cut it off.

  So, remember to uand all the patterns of the animals and look out fns of their subsequent movements, especially you, Orb.”

  “I will, Pine.”

  The ine is a former warrior who teaches us. She is one of the only people in the vilge who isn’t bothered by my existence, unlike everyone else who shows either extreme disdain like Buloke, fear like the Aea and Alis, or is intrigued like all the kids in the css, well all except the kid named willow, he sort of sits there with all his attention focused on the css.

  I also realised from the patterns on her clothes that she was the one who made me dresses, and due to me liking them, I like her as well though she does yell at me due to falling asleep in css due to exhaustion. I also learhat she is sidered old even though she is only forty-five.

  Now the final type of training I have been doing is bat training. I only started retly, and it has not been a fun experience because the warrior training me is the ultimate stomach puncher, Buloke.

  “You just quit if it is too hard for you.”

  This asshole was supposed to be training me, but he has just been using that as an excuse to hit me as hard as he wants.

  “Don’t you think you’re being too hard on him?” Aea says.

  Aea, you just got some favour in my book. I will stop pying harsh jokes on her and her brother for some time, I think as I start getting up.

  “Aea, he hasn’t been training since he was a kid like the rest of us, so I o be tough on him, or he will never grow stronger,” He says staring down at her.

  “He is right. The animals I have seen are much more dangerous, so I o get stronger quickly if I want to hunt them, and he should keep going with this level of iy, because I pn to pay it all ba his stupid face.”

  “Oh yeah, well, we will see about that”, Buloke says as he charges forward with his fist.

  Good, he is angry. I should be able to do it now. So, as he came forward, I moved my face out of him, then he went for a swipe with his arm, which I ducked. I must observe him. He is about to go for a knee, so I move back.

  He almost got me, but when he is agitated his moves aren’t as precise, so I dodge all his attacks. My body starts ag, but dodging feels so good I ’t stop. This tinues until he says, “Enough of this,” he then lunges forward at incredible speed as I see his fist about to hit me. Ohought goes through my head, I am about to die.

  Suddenly I hear, “BULOKE STOP YOU, IDIOT,” then the boy named willow es between us and blocks the punch with his arms, but the force of the impact sends him flying into me, and theh of us into the snow.

  “Willow, what is wrong with you? If I didn’t hold back, you would have almost died.”

  “What’s wrong with you? Ever sihis man has shown up, you’ve been ag like an idiot, so I came to make sure you weren’t doing something stupid.”

  As they argued, I heard some say, “Hello, Chief.”

  As the chief approached where the i just when down, he said, “Everyone go home for the day, and Buloke e with me, we o talk. Willow, you e as well, so we treat those bruises on your arm.”

  So as everyone follows the chief instru, I say to willow, “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “I didn’t do that for you, I did it to stop that idiot from making a mistake,” after he says that, he goes off with the chief with a big bruise on both of his arms.

  Log of animals

  Name: Spercera

  Height: 320cm

  Type: Predasaur

  Description: It’s a giant silver quadrupedal omnivore with e horn at the front with curved horns around its face that form a spiral armoured face cover. It is covered in fur and has skin as hard as iron.

  Fact: They ram into the hardest object they find to sharpen their horn.