A year.
It flew by before anyone even realized it.
With the Saintess' approval, Damien's trio was given permission to live in the village, however, it wasn't an unconditional thing.
The three of them were far too uncultured by the villagers' standards.
They didn't know any language, they didn't know how to properly hunt in the jungle, and they didn't know the customs of the world that everyone else knew.
The Saintess permitted their stay, but they weren't expected to stay for long.
She basically just freed them and allowed them to do what they wanted.
However, Damien chose to stay.
Since that was the case, he had to assimilate himself into the village.
That was the start of a new life.
If Damien's group wanted food and shelter, they needed to contribute to the tribe.
As for how to do so, the past year was really a learning experience to figure that out.
The three of them were split up, since each of them had their own specialties.
Tiamat was taken by the village's women.
She, of course, had several things to say about this, but she didn't really have a choice.
If they were going to stay here, they had to abide by the village's ways.
Luckily, though, this wasn't a tribe with a heavy patriarchy or matriarchy.
There were women in many varied roles, so Tiamat definitely could've become a guard or something of the sorts, but the tribal women thought differently.
When they took her away, Damien didn't see her again for the rest of the year they'd been here.
The only thing he knew was that she was fine.
After all, the tribe wasn't openly hostile to them.
A majority of them were curious about these people who'd appeared in their lands so mysteriously.
That group was the one with Tiamat, so Damien didn't worry about what she was doing.
Darius' role was more surprising.
Darius was a man who only thought about combat. He never thought of himself talented or suited for anything else, nor did he want to be.
The tribesmen didn't think the same.
They took him to their forges.
He became an apprentice there, where body language mattered more than language, and began learning from the blacksmiths.
They'd seen the flame inside him from the moment they set eyes on him. That flame was wild and untamed, but it was so beautiful that no blacksmith could resist it.
They didn't want to see such a flame go to waste, and for that reason, they decided to bring Darius in, both to satisfy their own interests and help him.
Darius and Tiamat didn't leave the village often.
They didn't need to for their roles, and while Tiamat's situation was still unsure, Darius didn't have the strength to enter the jungle as he pleased.
At first, the tribesmen thought none of them would.
However, they hadn't met Damien yet.
Damien attracted the most hostility out of anyone from their group, particularly from the men of the tribe.
He wondered why for a while, but the answer was sillier than he thought.
It wasn't because he did something disrespectful.
It wasn't because he was strong.
It wasn't because he'd become a hunter, one of the most prestigious roles within the tribe, and had gathered a great amount of praise from the Elders and his peers.
It wasn't even because the Saintess seemed to be protecting him.
No, rather, it was because of the woman who'd been sticking to his side ever since the first day.
The same woman he'd been learning the local language from.
And the same woman who'd captured him when he first arrived in this world.
She was something of a darling to the tribe.
The hostility shown to Damien wasn't some petty nonsense like misplaced love. Rather, it was the protectiveness of hundreds of men who all were like older brothers to her.
Her name was Thalia.
The tribe had a tradition where surnames were only given to those who were married based on a number of factors, so she didn't have one yet.
She'd shown an interest in Damien from the start.
He couldn't understand it at first, but as she taught him the language, he became more familiar with her reasoning and character.
She was a playful one.
She liked to explore the jungle and understand more about the world. She truly enjoyed hunting like no other, and when she was doing so, while she looked extremely serious, her enjoyment was beyond anything Damien had ever seen.
She was a loving person who viewed the entire tribe as her family, and she was also the successor of the Saintess.
Thalia took interest in Damien because she realized how he'd fooled her when she first captured him.
She wanted to see his strength, mysterious and esoteric compared to the tribe's methods, and she wanted to understand how he hunted.
They became friends fast.
And thanks to her, Damien had an easy year with the tribe where he learned more than he ever thought he would.
They were the Gehenna Tribe.
They had been living in this jungle for at least tens of generations, and they had such a unique culture that Damien was fascinated by something new every day.
The environment they lived in, this sacred jungle of theirs, was a diverse environment with rivers of clear water, mountains, and huge swatches of land filled with a mystical variety of creatures.
Learning to hunt them, learning to prepare and cook them, learning what they meant to the tribe…
Damien felt like a kid again, just recently introduced to the wide world.
Today was another regular day with the Gehenna Tribe.
Damien and Thalia had just returned from their hunt, bringing a massive panther-like alien beast carcass with them.
As always, they were greeted at the entrance by a large crowd of people, all of whom praised them for their kill.
Once again, Damien and Thalia managed to hunt something none of the other hunters were able to touch.
It was a meal that would feed the entire village on its own, which meant the rest of the meat could be stored for later use. How could the tribe not be happy?
Despite Damien being a "kurang-ha," the Gehenna Tribe's word for "foreigner," there were many people who already considered him a part of their tribe, a true member of their family.
It happened in just a year.
And Damien was enjoying himself far more than expected.
Life in the tribe was great.
It really was.
But in the back of his mind, Damien always remembered his original goal.
There were things he had to do.
Which meant this well-spent time would come to an end soon.
Damien sighed to himself as he thought about it. That moment would definitely be a sad one, but it was inevitable.
Though, it wasn't in the foreseeable future, so he allowed himself to enjoy the time he had without thinking about it.
Stray thoughts filled his head as he walked through the village, and only when he finally got rid of them did he hear the voice calling for him.
"...ter…Great Hunter!"
His eyes turned to the side, where a small woman had appeared at a time unknown.
She was calling him by a title given to him by the older women of the tribe, so he knew she was here for something more business than casual.
"Was there something?"
Damien's words were a little choppy, since he still wasn't used to the language, but he got his point across fine.
The small woman nodded, her eyes relatively serious.
"The Saintess has summoned you."
Damien's eyes widened.
The Saintess whom he hadn't seen since that day they were granted permission to live here.
What did she need from him?
