“Yes, I know, Mum.” Damian sighed into the phone.

“I know you know,” A female voice rang out from the speakers. “Why do you think I’ve been drilling it into your head all these years? I just want to make sure you’re focusing on it this time. God knows you weren’t in your last semester, I didn’t raise you to be a B child, you know?”

He gritted his teeth. Why was he still sending his marks over to them anyway? He was well into university now, and it’s not like he was living in the same house; they couldn’t pester him about it 24/7 anymore.

“Yes, I got it. I have it under control now, you don’t have to worry.”

“You had better! What would the other ladies think if I kept showing them such abysmal progress?”

Damian rubbed the bridge of his nose, nursing a new headache. Of course she would be showing off his grades, the damn social climber.

Before he could comment, she continued. “Not to mention you’ll be busy with Sammy there. Are you sure you’re fine taking care of her for the month? You won’t forget to pick her up this afternoon, right?”

Damian smiled lightly. “No, mum, I won’t. And you know Sammy and I get along.”

That was true. His baby sister was probably the only member of his family he could stand, even if she could be a little weird sometimes. Early on he had tried to shield her from their parents’ ridiculous expectations, taking on the brunt of their attention to try to give her a bit more freedom. He hadn’t seen her since he left for uni, and hoped she wasn’t suffering too much under them.

“Listen, I have to go to class now.” Damian continued before she could respond. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Hmph. You always run off so fast! Don’t you want to talk to your poor old mother sometimes?”

Hardly.

“Bye mum.”

“Damian-!”

He hung up, cutting off whatever she was trying to say. 

A huge sigh tore out of his mouth. It was always a pain to deal with them, but, well, they were his parents. He felt a little guilty about hanging up like that, but he really did have to go to class.

Shrugging his bookbag over his shoulder, he began the short journey from the dorms to his calculus lecture hall. When he arrived, the place was still empty save for a few other enthusiasts, the lecture scheduled to start 20 minutes later. Damian always made a point to arrive early and go over the materials before the start of lecture; he had learned early on that the professors would leave you behind if you were unprepared. Of course, at this point he could probably teach the class himself, but that wasn’t the point.

For a blissful 15 minutes, he had an interrupted study period as the hall slowly filled up with students. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and the door slammed open, startling him out of his focus.

“Come oooooon! I thought you were a total smarty-pants, you can skip one lecture for me can’t you?”

The girl’s voice echoed throughout the hall, attracting annoyed looks her way. Damian sighed for what felt like the hundredth time that day. He already knew who had arrived.

He gave a cursory glance up to find Simon making a beeline to him with a tall black haired girl clinging to him. Simon gave her an apologetic look.

“Sorry! I really can’t. Administration told me that if I miss any more lectures they’ll really kick me out this time.”

She pouted at Simon, giving Damian a slightly interested look before extracting herself from his side and putting her hands on her hips.

“Fine. You better come to Sarah’s party tonight though or I’ll hunt you down!”

Simon gave her a winning smile “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

That seemed to cheer her up, and she gave him a flirty look before sashaying out, attracting glances.

The blond haired man gave Damian a cheeky smile before plopping down next to him.

Simon Lewinsky. General party-goer, chick magnet, hailed as the greatest math genius of their generation, and Damian’s self proclaimed best friend.

Entirely against his own will, of course. Damian generally tried to avoid such gifted people, since they only reminded him of his own shortcomings. Despite all his attempts at ignoring and avoiding the talented bastard, though, he always managed to find him, so Damian eventually stopped trying.

Both charismatic and academically gifted, Simon was everything Damian’s parents had tried to drive him to become, and more. Idly, he wondered what would happen if they switched places. Would his mother finally stop complaining?

“Girls. You know how they are.” Simon spoke to him, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Damian grunted back uncooperatively. He really didn’t know how they were; romance had always been too much of a distraction.

Simon smiled wryly at his response. “Unfriendly as ever, I see. Maybe if you come to Sarah’s place tonight you’ll finally break out of your shell.”

Damian rolled his eyes. “And watch you and your harem go at it? I’d rather contract the flu, ebola, and malaria all at the same time.”

Simon chuckled shamelessly, not denying it. “Come on! I promise I’ll leave one for you.”

“Unlike a certain scholarship student, I actually have to study.”

“Bruh, your tuition is fully paid by scholarships too. Plus, you’re always studying! Take a break once in a while.”

Damian shot him a withering glare and Simon held his hands up in surrender.

Yes, his tuition was covered by scholarships, but his situation was a hell of a lot different from Simon’s. His parents had refused to pay for his post secondary education, stating it would teach him resourcefulness if he had to find a way to pay for it himself. Of course, he couldn’t just not go, that would go against everything they had worked for.

So Damian had slaved away for months, applying and interviewing for dozens of small grants from local businesses, painstakingly collecting money until he had enough for the first semester. Then he had to do it again for the second. And the third. 

Eventually, he would have to cave and get a loan once the workload got too much. Meanwhile, Simon had been scouted by the university itself and got a full ride scholarship with no effort. Annoyingly, he seemed to be entirely ignorant of how lucky he was, opting to party and socialize rather than make use of his admittedly incredible talent.

Mercifully, his nemesis fell silent, and the professor arrived, beginning his lecure soon after. For a few minutes, Damian thought he might be able to take notes in peace, but his hopes were quickly dashed.

Simon, seemingly bored with spinning his pen and playing on his phone, turned to him.

“Say, did you know your fan club got bigger after that incident? I guess they think they-”

A spear of embarrassment and genuine anger tore through him.

“Don’t joke about that.” He growled out, cutting him off.

Simon looked at him confused. “What joke? To me it looked like that Julie girl really-”

Damian’s pencil snapped in half in his grip and he got up abruptly, his chair screeched against the floor, drawing the room’s attention. Quickly, he gathered up his books and materials and marched down the line, picking a seat further away from Simon.

“Oy!” the boy called after him, sounding confused and a little concerned.

Damian dropped into his new spot and apologized to the professor, who continued the lecture a moment later. Inside, Damian was fuming.

What fan club?! Persistent bastards. He could never understand how people could consider such psychological torture to be fun. In the multitude of sports he had tried, in every academic subject, he was practically average. He barely had any friends. There was nothing to be a fan of.

Maybe Simon could finally sense the mood, because he didn’t try to bother him for the rest of the lecture. 

---------------------------------------------------------------

Damian sat in the grass in the campus courtyard, gazing up at the clouds. After the lecture ended, Damian had packed up his books in record time and managed to successfully dodge Simon on his way out. For the time being, he had an open block, so he decided to take a short break out in the fresh air to try to work out his frustration. Unfortunately, the idleness cleared his thoughts and only made the frustration bubble up harder.

Just what was he working so hard for?

For his future? For his parents? For bragging rights? He didn’t know.

A swarm of A’s and “Exceptional”’s seemed to swim in his vision. Certainly, his achievements would be seen as excellent to anyone else, but to Damian’s parents, to him… It wasn’t good enough. It would never be good enough.

He needed something bigger.

Something that would cement his name in history. That would make his life worth it.

Damian sighed heavily. At this rate he would break some kind of record.

The thought made him smile, and broke his mood out of the funk he had been in. Slowly, the clouds drifted across the sky. He just had to be like them. Keep moving forward, keep working, and he would get there.

With his existential crisis finished, he had been about to move to his next class, but something caught his attention.

The clouds had stopped moving.

Damian blinked in confusion and looked around.

The clouds had stopped moving. Everything had stopped moving.

Birds hung in the air, people were frozen mid step. Across the street, a hotdog lay suspended in mid-air, a small dog salivating in anticipation below it, but unmoving.

‘What.’ Damian thought stupidly. Had time… Stopped? 

Suddenly, there was the sound of breaking glass, and his vision blurred.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong! He tried to scream for help, but found he couldn’t even twitch his body. Then, without warning, his body was wrenched. It was a direction that he couldn’t make sense of with his three dimensional existence. It was like he moved inwards.

For a moment, there was an inexplicable feeling of pressure in that wrong direction, until he broke through something and was flying free. Immediately the world melted before his eyes, becoming distorted as his brain tried to process images it was never meant to see. Colours blended together, shapes warped and distended, and points of light appeared everywhere.

The movement didn’t stop. Instead it felt as if he was flying faster and faster, shooting along at an unimaginable speed. A searing headache built up, and Damian began to hallucinate.

A stoic younger Damian stood in his family’s dining hall, his father watching with a disappointed look while his mother shouted with his report card in hand. A line of A’s was shown, the point of their anger being the 90% shown for his social studies class. In the corner, eight year old Sammy watched with teary eyes.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

The class filed out of the room, chatting excitedly about their afternoon plans. Damian watched enviously, and for a moment, allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to hang out and relax with his classmates for once. Then, he turned back to his books, pushing the thought out of his head.

A hard shoulder drove into his chest, knocking him onto his back and driving the air out of his lungs. Before he had fully recovered, Damian was back on his feet, sprinting after the enemy that had stolen the ball from him. He caught up fast, and, with viscous glee, executed a barely legal move that dropped the kid on his butt and gave his team the ball back.

Random memories swirled around his brain, bringing up forgotten traumas and buried emotions. Damian clutched his head, vaguely realizing his movements had been freed. He couldn’t do anything about it, however, as he could barely think, the chaos in his mind building up slowly.

At some point, it reached a crescendo and just as he felt he would pass out from the stress, he broke through something. All at once, his stress and pain was washed away, and a soothing blue light seeped into his vision. His eyes opened slowly, revealing a sight that burned itself into his memory. A blue ocean. It was the closest he could come to describing it, but it more closely resembled visible air currents. It was… Energy, wasn’t it? Moving and flowing freely as it wished.

Damian held up a hand, and coils of blue force coiled and swirled around him, touching his skin lovingly and leaving behind a cool burning sensation. At that touch, all his worries seemed to melt away, and he became in awe at the beauty and underlying power of the energy before him.

He didn’t know how much time passed while he was in that state, but slowly he began to form an understanding of the power at an instinctual level. It seemed to have some kind of hold over him, as all his attention was focused on those pale blue wisps. Eventually, however, the mysterious pulling force returned, and he was yanked out of the space.

As soon as he left, a series of heavy impacts smashed into him as if he was crashing through walls, driving the breath out of him. There was a moment of peace, letting him recover for a moment, before he was squeezed down past his physical limits, like he was moving through a hole too small for his body, and then all at once he was through. Bright light flashed in his vision, and he felt one final impact against his back.

Gradually, his eyes adjusted to the light, and he began to make out new colours and identifiable shapes. Against his numb skin, he could vaguely make out the feeling of wind and grass.

Was it… Finally done?

With a herculean effort, Damian sat up, groaning at his sore muscles and creaking bones.

“What… The fu-eeeeEURGH” His complaint was cut off as his vision swam and he threw up all over the grass next to him. For a long moment, he sat hunched over as he recovered, breathing hard, and trying not to think too hard. Once he had recovered slightly, he opened his eyes fully, taking in his new surroundings.

It was an area totally unlike the university he had been in what felt like just moments ago. Surrounding him were trees. Past that, more trees. It was a dense jungle completely unlike any he had seen before.

Damian, as someone who had spent most of his life in the middle of America, was used to cities, plains, and light forests. He had never been in a rainforest in his life, in fact the closest one to his home was hundreds of miles away. Despite that, he was somewhat familiar with the looks of normal Earth jungles. This was completely unlike anything he had even heard of.

Everything about the plants, from the shapes of the leaves and structure of the branches, to the light red hue that pervaded the area was alarmingly alien.

The trees were towering behemoths, with thick, low hanging branches that tangled in among the underbrush. Their leaves reminded him of a cross between pine and oak, with long, flat, needle-like blades. The odd shaped leaves had a reddish green colour to them, while the rough trunk was a more normal brown.

At the roots was a tangle of dozens of different types of bushes and vines, smushed together with barely enough room for a human like him to squeeze by. The variety of colours melded together with the soft sunlight filtering down from the canopy, giving the forest an almost ethereal atmosphere.

Additionally, despite classifying it as a rainforest in his head, the air was noticeably dry, as if the plant life has sucked all of the water out of the atmosphere. It went against everything he knew about jungles. Such a thick, varied ecosystem shouldn’t be able to survive in such a dry environment.

As he took this in, Damian felt a sense of panic slowly well up within him.

What the hell happened? Where was he? How would he get back?

It ran out of control for a moment before he forcibly reigned it in, utilizing techniques he had learned to calm himself down. For the time being, he decided to take stock of what he knew.

He was in an unknown area presumably a very large distance away from the university he was at before. He had no food or water, and only had the clothes on his back. He had recently been through a traumatic, possibly drug fuelled experience that had left him feeling weak and lost.

The phantom voice of his father rang through his head. Something’s knocked him down. Was he going to lay there and take it, or was he going to stand back up and keep going?

Damian gave a heavy sigh, before getting his shaky legs underneath him and pulling himself up using one of the trees as a support. He looked around again and checked the sky. It looked like he still had a good bit of daylight left.

He was in an unfamiliar forest with no map, no supplies, and nobody to help him. He doubted anyone back home even knew where he was. He was on his own.

To begin with, he needed to secure the obvious. Food, water, shelter. It was like a mantra repeated in every survival show or book he had seen. 

Food… Was difficult. He had no idea if any of the plant life around him was edible. For all he knew, it was deadly poisonous. Regardless, humans could survive for several days without food. Water was his more pressing concern.

He had just thrown up, meaning he was already on the brink of dehydration. He would have to find some source of water by the night or he would be in a lot of trouble the next day. Fortunately for that, he had an idea. He fundamentally refused the concept of a rainforest without rain. There had to be water somewhere.

He took a closer look at the bushes around him, and noticed something interesting. The leaves were abnormally thick. Of course, everything around him was slightly abnormal, but he decided to experiment anyway. He quickly snapped off a particularly large leaf and tore it in half. Immediately, the tear began leaking large amounts of liquid.

Damian grinned. How exciting! The plants were storing water in their leaves. Water storing plants were actually quite common on Earth, some prime examples being cactuses and the baobab tree. However, he had never heard of a mechanism quite like what he was seeing.

The question then, was if it was safe to drink. He thought it was pretty likely for the plants to have some kind of defence mechanism to stop animals from stealing their water, but if he couldn’t get his water from the plants, then where could he get it from? The air was dry and the sky empty of clouds. He couldn’t hear the telltale sounds of a river or creek nearby either, the only thing he could hear was the chirping of unfamiliar birds and a strange crashing sound.

Wait.

Damian turned in time to see a huge creature break through the brush into his clearing. As soon as it saw him, it froze, and they stared at each other. The creature looked to be some kind of giant lizard that came up to about his waist. It had a rounded head with a wide, split mouth and a gait like a dog. Huge claws dug into the ground, and slitted, front facing yellow eyes stared at him in suspicion.

‘Oh shit. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!’ Damian thought in a panic.

All of his earlier composure had been completely blown away. He hadn’t even thought of the possibility of dangerous animals.

Slowly the animal’s reptilian lips split to reveal two rows of sharp, uneven teeth. A deep growl rang out in the clearing.

Damian’s heart began to race, and his vision seemed to darken around the edges as he stared at that mouth full of unmistakably carnivorous teeth.

The creature lifted one leg, claws pulling out clumps of dirt, and hunched towards him.

Panic and fear lanced through Damian’s mind as he realized it was about to attack him, and he spun and sprinted into the forest.

Branches scraped against his skin and pulled his clothes as he ran blindly through the bush. Any notion of intelligent thought was gone from his mind, all he knew was that he had to escape. His heart, feeling as if it were about to burst, pumped adrenaline through his veins with all it had. Just behind him, he could hear the heavy thumps and crashing of the lizard beast as it chased him.

He sprinted through clearings, leaped over dips, and charged through shrubs, running faster than he ever had before, but he couldn’t seem to leave the lizard behind. Slowly, exhaustion seeped into his limbs as the adrenaline started to wear out, and he knew he needed to find an escape. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a particularly low hanging branch.

Damian snapped his foot out, chearning earth and changing his momentum as he made a beeline for the tree. With a huge leap, he caught hold of the branch and pulled himself up, and as soon as he got his feet up, leaped for a higher one. A loud clack sounded just under his feet as the creature leapt and snapped at him. Luckily, he managed to grab hold of the higher branch, and pulled himself up again before looking down.

The lizard looked severely disappointed it wasn’t able to catch him, growling in between breaths and scratching its front claws against the tree in frustration. For Damian, the exhaustion finally caught up to him and he sagged against the tree trunk, but managed to find the energy to flip the creature the middle finger as he sucked in oxygen.

When he caught his breath, he pulled himself up one level higher, and sat on the thick branch with his back against the tree, waiting for the shitty lizard to leave.

Now that he was somewhat safe, though, the exhaustion from the chase seemed to seep into his mind, wearing him down suddenly. His thoughts turned down a dark path. There was no way that lizard was an animal from Earth. Was he even on the same planet anymore?

There was no way he would be able to get back.

He would never see his family again. Sammy would be alone.

He would die here, in this shitty forest, eaten by shitty lizards.

Damian coughed out a sob, and a tear rolled down his cheek. Despair seemed to grab him in an ice cold grip as the severity of his situation set in.

He didn’t know how long he spent on that tree branch, wallowing in depression. The lizard stayed for a long time, prowling around under the tree, but eventually left. Damian didn’t care. What was the point of working towards survival anyway? Everything he had worked for was gone, left behind in another world.

By the time he had snapped part way out of his funk, the sun had just about set, casting orange rays into the forest. His dry tongue licked his dry lips. With a shaky hand, he snapped off a leaf from the tree and squeezed the liquid into his mouth. It might’ve been poisonous, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

The juice was bitter, but it quenched his thirst. He made to grab another, but stopped himself at the last moment. No matter how depressed he was, there was something deep down inside that made him want to survive. If the juice was poisonous, he should only have one in case it made him sick.

With his thirst only slightly quenched, and his stomach growling, he leaned back against the trunk of the tree and watched the clouds drift by through the gaps in the canopy. Before he realized, he had fallen asleep.

------------------------------------

Damian snapped awake. Something had startled him, but he didn’t know what. He took stock and found he was still safe and sound on his branch, though his mouth felt like sandpaper. Mentally, he was feeling much better after sleeping on his problems. He started rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, but stopped when he noticed a now familiar sound.

Snapping branches. Crunching leaves. The steady thumping of footsteps.

It wasn’t just one entity either. It sounded like a group of big animals moving towards him in the forest. Damian sat up quietly and peered down at the forest floor, curious. Soon, they came into view. He sucked in a surprised breath.

They were… Wolf men. Tall, bipedal creatures covered head to toe in dark fur, with a physique like a human but a head like a wolf. Their form wasn’t what surprised him, however. They were carrying weapons. Bows, stone spears, one even had a huge club. Clearly, they weren’t animals, but some kind of primitive society.

They passed just underneath him, and Damian couldn’t help muttering to himself.

“The fuck…”

At his words, one of the bow wielder’s ears perked up, and her (he thought it was female, her body shape was slimmer and more feminine) head shot up to stare at him. Damian stared back at her for a moment, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. Before he could say anything, she had snapped her bow up and fired an arrow at him.

“Shit!” he exclaimed.

The arrow whizzed by his head as he pulled back, taking a few strands of hair with it. Damian’s foot slipped against the uneven bark, and he tumbled off the side.

“Oof!” the air drove out of his lungs as he hit a branch on the way down, tumbling end over end until he landed on his back on the forest floor.

Cough, cough!

Damian wheezed and coughed as he tried to get his breath back. Fortunately, nothing seemed to be broken, but he wasn’t able to get up immediately. Before he could do anything, he was surrounded, spears pointed at his head. Slowly, he held his hands up in surrender and swallowed a nervous lump in his throat.

Now that they had a good look at him, the wolfmen seemed surprised and muttered among each other in growling voices. Damian thought he could catch recognizable words, but his ears were still ringing.

“Move!” A deep voice growled from outside the circle, and several of the wolfmen were pushed aside, revealing a huge male with a scar on his cheek. He looked at Damian, seeming confused.

“A human? Why is it here?” He asked aloud in a clear voice.

Damian blinked. That… Wasn’t english. How was he able to understand a language he had never heard before?

The big wolfman whacked him with the butt end of his spear. Damian winced, his muscles were still sore from his ordeal the day before.

“Oy, human. Can you speak, or are you stupid?” It asked him.

“... I can speak.” Damian answered him. His lips made familiar movements, so he wasn’t suddenly speaking a random language.

The wolfman grunted. “So you’re not stupid. But you must be a bit stupid to be in the forest on your own. Why are you here, stupid?”

Damian’s eyebrow twitched in annoyance. “I’m not stupid. I don’t know how I got here, I think I was teleported or something.”

If the wolf could understand his english, then he wasn’t an isolated case. Was it some kind of weird property of this world?

At his answer the wolfman snarled threateningly. “Liar!”

He flipped his spear around so the business end was pointed at Damian’s neck before continuing. 

“You can’t have come from Beyond, you’re human! I won’t be tricked; you’re here to steal from us like the others! I should kill you here and now where your kind can’t swarm us!”

“Stop, Rurn! That’s not your decision to make!” A female voice rang out. Damian turned his head and recognized her as the same wolf that shot at him earlier.

Rurn growled at her. “You may be the chief’s daughter, Yijeni, but I’m the hunt leader. This is my hunt, so I decide!”

Yijeni snarled back at him, surreptitiously knocking an arrow to her bow. “You want to bring the wrath of humans down on us, Rurn?! If you kill this one, Chief Korm will kill you himself!”

They stared at each other intensely for several moments.

“Tch!” Rurn made an irritated sound before spitting on the ground in derision and pulling his spear back.

“Grab him. We’re going back.” He ordered the group.

Several rough, furry hands grabbed onto Damian and pulled him to his feet. In no time at all, he found himself surrounded by feral muscle. With no other choice, he was pulled along with the hunting group.

It seemed he stumbled his way fairly deep into their territory, because it only took around twenty minutes of walking for them to reach their village. When they broke through the treeline, Damian was surprised.

Based on the primitive weaponry and clothing the wolfmen had, he was expecting their living conditions to be rough, but it wasn’t that way at all. Dozens of small houses built out of wood and hides were scattered through a large clearing. Winding around was a packed dirt pathway. Here and there groups of men and women worked away, processing hides, timber and meat, and making the things needed to survive in the forest.

Their way of life was tribal, but everything was relatively clean and well repaired, and the coats of the people were well groomed. If there was anything he could complain about, it was the fact that there was strangely few men in the village. Also, as soon as he was spotted, a somewhat hostile atmosphere arose as people stopped working and stared at him. Damian thought back to the previous conversation. Was it because he was human? Had his people done something terrible to them?

One of the men of the hunting group broke off and ran over to one of the houses in the middle of the village, ducking into a doorway covered by hide.

As they moved through the village, Damian realized that was their destination. They stopped in front of the doorway, and Rurn stepped forward.

“Requesting entrance with the human.” He called out.

“Come in.” A deep voice came from within.

A rough hand slammed into Damian’s back, sending him stumbling through the doorway. He blinked a few times to get used to the low light, and found himself in a room with the largest wolfman he had seen yet.

The giant was at least a head taller than Rurn, and had multiple scars criss crossing his body. His fur was turning gray in spots, so Damian guessed he was quite old. With a start, he realized that was another thing that had bothered him. All of the wolfmen he had seen so far had appeared young.

“Sit.” The old wolf commanded, indicating a pile of furs on the ground.

Damian aquissed, taking a seat cross legged in the surprisingly comfortable seat. Behind him, Rurn and Yijeni both came in, Rurn taking a position behind him and Yijeni moving over to presumably her father’s side.

“My name is Korm, the people of this village call me Chief.” Korm spoke, looking at him expectantly.

Damian cleared his dry throat and spoke with a scratchy voice, “Before that, is there some water I could have?”

Rurn growled behind him. “Know your place, human!”

Korm held up his hand, and Rurn obediently fell silent. After a moment of thought, Korm tossed him a leather bag. Finding it was a water skin, Damian unstoppered it and took several deep drinks of it, the warm water soothing his throat.

He cleared his throat again. “Thank you. My name is Damian. This might sound crazy, but I don’t know how I got here. One moment I was in my homeland, the next I was… Flying through somewhere, and ended up here.”

There was the sound of creaking wood behind him, and Damian glanced back to find Rurn holding his spear in a death grip. Korm, however, only looked at him thoughtfully.

“You swear this to be true?” He asked.

“Chief, you can’t-!” Rurn cut in, but was stopped by a raised hand again.

“Look at his clothes.”

Damian looked down at himself. He was still wearing the black slacks and white button up he had been wearing before he was teleported. Certainly, it would look strange to these people who were used to hide and furs.

Rurn snorted. “Why should I pay attention to what humans wear?”

“Do I need to send you back to cub training? You must see the trees or you’ll miss the forest. His clothing is clearly different from those of the Empire.”

Damian’s ears perked up. So there was a human empire that clearly had bad relations with these forest dwellers. He was somewhat relieved. If a human society was big enough to be an empire, they had to be at least Roman level technologically, right?

“I promise you I’m telling the truth. I don’t even know this Empire’s name.” Damian spoke up.

“Hmmm.” Korm rubbed his chin thoughtfully. He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by another wolfman rushing in unannounced.

“They’re here early!” He spoke, giving Damian a meaningful glance.

“What?! They shouldn’t be here for another cycle at least!” Yijeni exclaimed in surprise.

“Che, why do you think they’re here?” Rurn asked sarcastically, kicking out at Damian. “This one obviously called them.”

“Quiet.” Korm ordered. He stared at Damian for a few moments, clearly thinking something over.

He grunted and stood up, making a decision. “You will stay here. Don’t come out no matter what.” He told Damian.

Damian nodded.

The sound of a horn rang out in the air, and Damian heard the stomping of many feet approaching them. Silently, the wolves in the room filed out, Rurn giving him a derisive glance as he left. Curious, Damian shuffled over and peeked through a gap in the hide door.

Korm stood in front of the doorway regally, flanked on either side by Yijeni and Rurn. As he watched, more and more villagers arrived to watch the commotion. Damian shifted over and caught sight of the source of all the noise.

Marching in a tight formation was a group of human soldiers. Each of them was dressed in white lamellar armour, with a red crest painted in the center of their chests. A feathered helmet waved in the wind, and they slammed the butt of their spears on the ground as they walked, creating an intimidating thumping sound.

When they reached an adequate distance away, the soldiers stopped suddenly, and slammed their spears on the ground thrice before parting down the middle.

As if he owned the place, a large man strolled out from the middle of the formation, his gut straining out from a flowing white robe tied with a cloth belt. He stopped a few meters from Korm’s group and smirked arrogantly.

“So.” He started.

“What are you dogs hiding?”