Chapter 1: Sky Mountain Range (1)

Chapter 1 – Sky Mountain Range (1)

“You will become a great warrior, Urich.”

“Hah? Don’t speak nonsense, hag.”

“Kekeke. Urich, I saw a vision of you in a nightmare. I saw you becoming a warrior of light.”

“I don’t believe in shit like shamans or fortune telling. That bullshit comes out of your mouth because you’re drunk on medicine,” replied Urich, a warrior of the tribe.

He turned sixteen years old this year and had his coming-of-age ceremony two years ago. He was deemed the strongest amongst his age group and was even good at fighting.

“When are you going to give up your spot as the shaman, hag? If you’re old, you should just go and drop dead already.”

Urich talked while chewing on a piece of dried venison. His well-trained body was beautiful—like that of a panther’s.

“Tch. Even if you rush me, I don’t have much time left. You little punk.”

The shaman responded while whacking Urich on the butt with her staff.

“Ahh, this fucking hag!”

Urich raised his hands in a blaze of anger but couldn’t bring himself to hit the old woman. He finished eating his piece of meat and stood up from his seat.

“Where are you going, Urich?”

“Hunting. With my brothers.”

“There are a lot of young warriors your age following you. The chieftain’s son must be jealous.”

“I have no interest in becoming the chief. He’s misunderstanding it and getting upset by himself.”

“Even if you think like that, the others aren’t the same. Your name often comes up when discussing the next chief.”

“I already said that I don’t want to do it. Who’s going to make me? Anyways, take care of your body, hag.”

Urich ran out, leaving the shaman by herself.

“Punk.”

The shaman watched Urich’s back and clicked her tongue. She saw a faint light around Urich.

‘You will become a great warrior, Urich.’

The shaman mumbled to herself while drinking her medicinal juice.

* * *

The young warriors of the Stone Axe tribe gathered. There were five of them, including Urich.

“You’re late, Urich,” one of them lightly scolded.

“I came after visiting the hag.”

Urich scratched his chest hard and spat on the ground.

“Why are you so worried about her when she’s going to die soon?”

A different warrior laughed. If you aged, you died. Such was the law of nature.

“I won’t be able to sleep well if that withering hag dies alone. I have to check every once in a while to see whether she’s still alive or not,” Urich muttered to himself.

He looked at the warriors. They were all members of the gang that followed Urich.

“Are we really going to go up the Sky Mountain Range?”

The warriors looked at Urich with nervous eyes. Urich wrapped his arms around them and laughed.

“The chief’s son recently caught a wolf the size of a calf. We have to go up the mountain range if we want to catch bigger prey than that. We can’t let ourselves fall behind him.”

Urich gestured towards the faraway mountains as if it were obvious.

The Sky Mountain Range. To this day, no one had ever gone beyond it. People believed that there was a world of souls beyond that mountain range.

“But even so, the Sky Mountain Range is too much.”

“Even the adults would go up the base of the mountain range. We’re just going to hunt around there as well. If you don’t want to, just go back.”

If anyone stepped back here, rumors would spread of them being cowards. That would be a disgrace.

“Well, we’ll have to go to the Sky Mountain Range someday. I’m in.”

The warriors raised their hands one by one. The decision came to a sure conclusion.

“Then today, we’re going hunting there.”

Urich smiled ear to ear and hit his brothers’ shoulders. Members of the tribe in the same age group are all friends as well as brothers.

“Alright, let’s go. The last one there has to carry the carcass on the way back!”

The five young warriors started to run. They were adolescents that could be considered experts at running. They ran across the forest and headed towards the mountain range of rising white.

Climbing the Sky Mountain Range was taboo. The tribespeople believed souls lived beyond that mountain. The elders warned that you couldn’t come back once you had crossed the mountain.

‘Everyone goes to the base of the Mountain Range.’

It was only banned to climb it; it wasn’t taboo to approach it. In fact, the adults of the tribe hunted around the base of the mountain when they couldn’t find prey elsewhere.

“Urich, do you really have no thoughts about becoming the chieftain?”

“I already told you, I’m not interested in it at all.”

Urich was irritated.

“Then why are you competing with the chief’s son?”

“Because he keeps acting like he’s better than me! That bastard is nothing but keeps acting like he’s something special.”

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“That’s why we’re saying that you should be the chief, Urich. If he becomes the next chief, do you think that you can listen to what he says?”

Urich closed his mouth. Now that he thought about it, it was true. When the chief’s son comes of age later on, he would have to follow his orders.

“I don’t like that.”

“If you don’t want to follow someone else’s orders, you have to become the chief, Urich. No?”

“Shut it. I can think about that later.”

Urich grabbed his blade and cut down the tall grass. He was even able to cut tough grass easily with one stroke.

‘No matter how much I think about it, Urich is the best candidate to be the next chief.’

All of the young warriors following Urich thought so.

Urich was already a warrior that even the adults couldn’t beat. He could freely use the tribe’s fighting techniques and brought great results multiple times when fighting against other tribes.

He fought so courageously, even the nearby tribes knew of his name.

If he went to a village, single girls would line up for the prospect of becoming his bride, wishing to receive a strong warrior’s seed.

‘And it’s something that the withering hag constantly says, but… Urich will become a great warrior.’

Even if the shaman didn’t say it, everyone already knew it. It was obvious that Urich would become a great warrior—that he would become the next chieftain.

‘Even if he doesn’t want to, he will become the chieftain. Because it’s the seat reserved for the most respected warrior.’

Urich, who was leading the group, raised his hand. The warriors immediately lowered their stances and held their breaths.

“It’s a bear’s footprint. It’s quite big. If it’s this big, it’s going to be worth bragging about in the village,” Urich said while observing the bear’s footprint.

“If we look at the direction of the footprints, it looks like the bear climbed up. If we go beyond this point, we’ll be at the midpoint of the Sky Mountain Range, Urich.”

“We’ll just quickly catch it and come back down. Why? Are you scared?”

Urich spoke sarcastically. The tribe’s warriors often experimented with their lives. If they stepped back because they worried about their lives, then they didn’t have the right to be a warrior.

“Scared? Don’t make me laugh. I was just worried that you were going to break the taboo.”

Urich furrowed his eyebrows after hearing that.

“Taboos are eventually broken. We can’t always listen to our elders’ words. I only believe in what I see with my own eyes.”

Urich’s eyes shifted towards the peak of the Sky Mountain Range. Its snow-capped peaks blinded him.

Thump, thump.

His heart was beating loudly. What was beyond that mountain range? Urich often thought about things like that.

“I’m going up. What about you guys?” Urich asked the warriors.

They looked at one another and nodded, affirming that they would follow. They behaved as if they were a pack of wolves, and their leader’s judgment was absolute.

Urich followed the bear’s footprints up the mountain range. Slowly, the leaves from the trees became noticeably lower, and the air got colder.

“Haah, haah. That bear has really great stamina.”

“You just don’t exercise enough normally.”

“Your face is red too.”

The warriors bickered amongst one another while following Urich. They all felt their stamina getting drained.

Urich was the only one who wasn’t short of breath.

‘Did he really grow up while eating the same things that we did?’

His stamina was otherworldly. Even warriors that ran and trained all day could only barely match Urich’s pace despite exerting 110% of their abilities.

Chomp.

Urich pulled out dried meat from his pocket and chewed on it. It looked like he still had an appetite.

“You should all eat something as well. You need to eat to have the strength to move.”

Urich laughed while looking at the warriors behind him.

“That only works on you,” the warriors grumbled while following him.

‘A stench.’

Urich sniffed and detected the stench of a beast. It was proof that they were getting close to the bear.

Creak.

The others also smelled it and began to nock arrows on their bows.

Beasts were naturally stronger and faster than humans. As such, humans had to hunt them at a certain range using spears as well as bows and arrows.

Slide.

Their footsteps were silent as they slowly moved, carefully avoiding any branches.

‘A bear…’

It was a difficult prey to catch. However, it was worth hunting to show it off.

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A hunted prey was one of the warriors’ contributions to their tribe. They would be able to make clothes out of its hide, fill their bellies with its meat, and use the oil from its melted fat. To be a good hunter was one of the greatest virtues of a warrior.

“It’s a grizzly bear, Urich.”

Their senses were cooled. Their tremblings stopped. Their eyes reflected their calmness.

—————

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