Chapter 1: Chest Tightness

Dim, flickering firelight covered several large wooden cages. These cages were damp and narrow, and inside were young women in tattered clothes. Despite being imprisoned, most of these women seemed to be in relatively good spirits.

Each cage contained a cylindrical wooden barrel split in half. One side was filled with clean water and the other with dried food, just enough to keep the women alive. Over a dozen patrolling men were around the cages. They were shirtless, wearing rough peacock-green stone chains around their necks and holding sharp, long-handled stone blades. These men occasionally kicked the cages forcefully to threaten the whispering women, warning them to stop any suspicious behavior.

The patrolmen counted the women with their eyes, ensuring that none were missing while their leader was away managing the territory’s borders.

Recently, there have been frequent skirmishes around the territory. The leader, Azuran, was dealing with the most troublesome central area, while these women had been captured two days ago by the tribe’s deputy from the west.

The deputy had clashed with a group of underground creatures, who liked to capture human women and bring them back to their lair. After the deputy and his men killed the creatures in the southern cave area, the women who the creatures had taken were temporarily brought back and imprisoned here. In other words, these women were essentially captured for the second time.

Among them was a girl who was still in a state of complete confusion. From the moment she woke up, she couldn’t understand what had happened.

Why was she surrounded by jungle? Why was she locked in a cage with these dirty and terrified women?

“It seems like this is really Azuran’s tribe. Maybe we can settle down here,” an older woman beside the girl whispered to her. “What do you think, Nagu?”

Was she talking to me? Nagu? Is that my name?

The girl was sure her name wasn’t Nagu, but she couldn’t remember her real name. The only thing she was sure of was that she didn’t belong here. At least, where she came from, they didn’t use stone blades as the most threatening weapon or wooden cages to imprison people.

They would at least use iron cages!

These wooden cages, with mushrooms growing on them, were ridiculously exaggerated.

“Nagu? Why aren’t you talking?” The woman gently pushed her. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“No, I’m just a bit dizzy,” Nagu shrugged. The sudden contact made her instinctively uneasy, especially in this strange environment. At this time, she should be touching a soft mattress.

The only light source now was the firelight, making it feel like a nightmare.

“Dizzy? Is it the spot you hit yesterday acting up again?” The woman seemed unwilling to give up talking to Nagu. “I remember it stopped bleeding yesterday.”

Hit? Nagu instinctively touched the back of her head and found a hard blood clot hidden in her hair. “…”

So, this body had hit its head before? Nagu sat dazed in the corner of the cage, feeling a buzzing noise in her head. But now wasn’t the time to be in a daze. They were locked in a cage, surrounded by armed barbarians shouting at them.

“Aren’t we… going to escape?” Nagu whispered to the woman next to her. “Isn’t this situation very dangerous?”

Being locked in a cage like this, they seemed like livestock waiting to be slaughtered or wild game.

“What are you talking about? This is Azuran’s tribe,” the woman whispered in Nagu’s ear. “They captured us because we are innocent human women. They want us to settle in their territory. Otherwise, they would have killed us along with those creatures.”

“So, don’t even think about escaping and getting us all in trouble,” the woman patted Nagu’s arm. “Got it?”

“But locking us up like this doesn’t seem like ‘they definitely won’t kill us,'” Nagu said. Although she didn’t understand what the woman meant by ‘creatures,’ she could piece together the current situation.

She mentioned ‘human women,’ ‘creatures,’ and someone important named ‘Azuran.’ Nagu tiredly thought about these fragmented words. It seemed like there had been a conflict between two forces.

Nagu and the others had been tormented in a place with creatures. Then, Azuran’s tribe defeated the creatures, and the human women were collected and imprisoned here, awaiting further decisions. Then, this ‘Nagu’ must have suffered a severe head injury during the previous conflict. After being locked in the wooden cage, she barely survived for a few days and finally died just now. Somehow, I ended up in her body, becoming the so-called new Nagu.

That’s probably the whole story. There might be some inaccuracies, but it should be mostly correct.

Nagu sniffled in resentment. Why did this happen? Her mouth was so dry, and she really wanted to drink lemon soda. Her body felt sticky and disgusting: “Although they gave us food and water, I still feel something is wrong…”

“No, Azuran would never order us to be killed,” the woman still disagreed with Nagu. She had suffered a lot under those creatures, and now that she was finally back in a human tribe, she wouldn’t risk her life to escape over a few doubts. “We’ll know when he returns.”

But wouldn’t it be too late by then? Nagu looked around the cage under the dim torchlight outside. Most of the women were resting, and only a few seemed a bit anxious, including herself. She didn’t know what kind of torment these women had suffered at the hands of the monsters to feel that being locked in a cage like this was a safe situation or if Azuran was really someone they could rely on.

Unable to judge, Nagu anxiously looked outside the cage. Her blatant action made the patrolling man knock on the wood several times to warn her, “Don’t think about escaping!”

“I was just looking around,” Nagu said, stepping back away from the wooden bars to avoid being hit by the man’s stick through the cage. She took this as an opportunity to probe further: “After all, this is Azuran’s territory…”

“Don’t casually mention the leader’s name!” The man knocked on the cage again.

Nagu shrank back, now, at least, accidentally confirming that this was indeed Azuran’s territory.

“Don’t have any strange thoughts. We are safe now,” the woman beside Nagu pushed her. “You’re just uneasy because you’re injured. Go to sleep, and you’ll feel better.”

I’m uneasy because the civilization around me has regressed by at least a few thousand years, Nagu felt extremely suffocated. She just wanted to grab something and scream for fifty minutes to vent, “I’m not sleepy. You go ahead and sleep.”

“You won’t try to escape again, will you?”

“No, I won’t.”

Honestly, Nagu didn’t even know where she could go if she escaped. She didn’t belong to this place or time, and the idea of escaping was just to avoid being killed. If Azuran really wouldn’t kill them, staying in the tribe temporarily to sort out her thoughts wasn’t a bad choice.

The crackling sound of the fire burning the wood, the faint chirping of strange birds in the forest, and the gentle breeze carrying a light scent of trees made the night drowsy.

Nagu patted her face, trying to stay awake because she didn’t know if the leader would return at night. She was only wearing tattered clothes, and if something happened, she wouldn’t even have anything to defend herself with. She needed something hard, easy to hold, and easy to hide. That would make her feel much safer. The patrolling men had small stone blades at their waists, but it was obvious that these small blades were like the moon in the water. Nagu checked the muddy ground outside the cage under the dim firelight, hoping to find some stones sticking out of the mud.

Sure enough, not far away, there was what Nagu was looking for. She carefully watched the patrolling men outside the cage, and when they created a blind spot after three or four rounds, she quickly reached out to try and hook the stone.

“…”

She couldn’t reach it, just a finger’s length away. After a brief attempt, Nagu retracted her hand just as the patrolman turned around.

For the rest of the night, Nagu kept maneuvering between the stones and the countless patrols. Finally, at dawn, she managed to get five stones, which was barely a big harvest. Nagu hid the stones under her clothes, still wondering why she was doing all this.

“What are you doing?”

Hearing someone speak, Nagu was startled. After the initial shock, she realized it was the woman who had talked to her before. She was already awake.

“I hid a few stones,” Nagu took out a stone and handed it to her. “You should hide one too.”

“Stones? You still…” The woman widened her eyes and whispered, “I told you not to cause trouble.”

“It’s not causing trouble, just in case,” Nagu stuffed the stone under the woman’s thigh. “Use it when necessary, and throw it away when not. It’s just a few stones.”

The woman hesitated for a while but eventually listened to Nagu and hid the stone. Then she helped Nagu distribute the remaining stones to the other women, “But I don’t think we’ll need these.”

“Hopefully, we won’t,” Nagu rubbed her tired eyes. As the sky grew brighter, Nagu finally saw the full view of the place.

It was an execution ground. Although primitive, it was indeed an execution ground. About tens of meters outside the cage stood many stone frames with many half-bodied corpses hanging on them. The ground was littered with dried heads and limbs, and yellowed bones could be seen faintly in the mud.

In addition, there were many large stone platforms. The greenish-gray stone platforms were stained with an indescribable disgusting color by blood. Around the platforms were stone bowls, seemingly used to catch…

Nagu didn’t want to think further about the purpose of those stone bowls.

Maybe because she hadn’t slept all night, the extremely tired Nagu didn’t have the energy to feel fear when she saw the shocking scene in front of her. She just thought, so this is what that woman meant by ‘we can settle down.’ To Nagu, this was no different from being pushed onto the guillotine. She glanced somewhat speechlessly at the woman sitting beside her, but Nagu had no position to blame these women who monsters had tormented. They might have truly pinned their hopes on Azuran’s decision.

Nagu’s hand covered the stones tied to her waist. During the night, she had torn her skirt to make a crude belt to tie the stones to her body. If she needed to use them, she could just reach into the torn hole in her clothes at her waist and pull out the stones. She maintained this position, fighting off sleepiness until the sun finally rose to its peak. A slight commotion came from the distance of this crude execution ground.

“There’s movement.”

The women in the cage looked up towards the direction of the commotion. A bearded man riding a tall, long-haired animal was running towards them. The patrolling men immediately bent down strangely to greet the bearded man.

All the women stared intently at the bearded man as if he were their savior, but reality did not align with their wishes.

“Kill them all,” the bearded man said, his words bringing despair. “None can be left alive, by the leader’s order.”

The piercing wails almost instantly filled Nagu’s ears. She was pushed to the corner of the cage by the desperate women, who screamed and begged the bearded man to spare them, chaotically recounting the suffering they had endured at the hands of the monsters.

“Please understand, fellow humans, who should be praying with us,” the bearded man sighed and shook his head. “The leader cannot trust those who have lived with monsters. We have our own difficulties; we need to protect our people.”

“Then please let us go. We won’t come back to your territory again!” It was unclear which woman shouted this, but Nagu thought that if they were going to let them go, they would have done so already, instead of keeping them locked up for so many days and then finally saying, ‘Kill them all.’

She thought that either Azuran was a sadist who enjoyed torturing people or there was initial disagreement within the women’s tribe on how to deal with them. Now that Azuran had returned, everyone was following his orders.

After receiving the bearded man’s orders, the men in charge of patrolling walked to the wooden cages in batches, opened the cage doors, and dragged the women out towards the stone platform. The women were no match for the men’s brute strength, so the first few women were helplessly pinned to the stone platform and had their throats cut with stones. Their blood flowed down the stone platform into the stone bowls placed below.

“Father God…” The woman kneeling beside Nagu trembled. Their cage was the second in line, and only three women were left in the first cage, which meant it would soon be their turn. “Nagu, do you think this stone is for knocking myself out? I don’t think I can fight them.”

Nagu was too scared to answer her question. She felt her head swelling, and her nasal cavity was filled with the nauseating smell of blood. If this was a nightmare, she wished she could wake up now, just at this moment.

Nagu tightly gripped the stone that looked pale in front of the blood and corpses. The delayed fear even made her have the same thought as the woman. Maybe knocking herself out with this stone would feel much better. But her strong will to survive still outweighed her fear. Behind the execution ground was a dense forest, and their hands and feet were not bound, so if there was a moment of opportunity, she could use all her strength to escape into the forest. Since the execution targets were all physically weaker women, the men each grabbed one.

Once pinned to the stone platform, there would be no chance to escape. When the door was opened to grab them, there was no chance either because a group of men blocked the door. It seemed the only possibility was on the way to the stone platform. At that moment, it was one-on-one, and she might have a chance.

While Nagu was thinking, all the women in the cage in front of her had already been taken out. She took a deep breath, trying to keep her legs from weakening at the crucial moment. On the way to the stone platform, on the way to the stone platform. There was only one chance, and if she messed it up, she would lose her life.

Finally, when the cage door opened for the sixth time, Nagu was grabbed by the shoulder and pulled out. Her face was stiff as she stumbled a few steps, her arms now twisted behind her back. But if she could struggle to free one arm, she could…

“She’s trying to escape!! Catch her!”

Nagu hadn’t had time to execute her plan when suddenly there was a commotion behind her. The man holding her was distracted for a moment and turned to see what was happening.

Although she didn’t know which woman had finally decided to resist, there was no time to figure it out now. Taking advantage of the loosened grip on her wrist, Nagu twisted her body and freed her wrist with a forceful shoulder movement.

“You…!”

Grabbing a stone was too slow, and now the man had come to his senses and was reaching to grab her. Nagu thought that the weak points of men probably hadn’t changed over the millennia, so she kicked hard.

Indeed, nothing had changed.

In the next moment of opportunity, Nagu dashed towards the forest with all her might. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw two or three other women also running toward the forest. Nagu was immensely grateful to whoever had caused the commotion, but now was not the time to be happy. Once she entered the forest, Nagu realized the difference between herself and the others. The women who escaped with her moved like animals, using all four limbs to navigate through the branches, the huge roots protruding from the ground, the spider-web-like vines hanging from the canopy, and the various dense plants several meters high without any obstacles. Within a few minutes, their figures were completely swallowed by the forest’s lush green while Nagu was still clumsily pushing aside the vines.

What should she do? She could hear the sounds of pursuit getting closer. If she couldn’t escape far enough, she at least needed to find a place to hide, maybe a tree hollow or an animal’s burrow.

Nagu, struggling to run forward, encountered another problem. Her path was blocked by a tree that had fallen across it. There was no time to go around, so she could only lie down and crawl into the gap between the fallen tree and the ground, trying to crawl through.

Nagu’s crawling stopped because, at the exit of the gap, an unfamiliar man was squatting, staring straight at her under the tree trunk.

With the light behind him, Nagu couldn’t see the man’s face clearly, but she could see his eerie golden pupils very clearly. The image of a stone bowl filled with bright red blood appeared in Nagu’s mind.

How many bowls… how many bowls of my blood would it take to fill?

Terrified, Nagu finally lost her mind. While lying under the tree root, she kept thinking about the stone bowl, staring at the man with golden pupils for four or five seconds. Just when the staring contest lasted long enough for Nagu to wonder if the man might just be a golden-eyed monkey or something else, the sound of chaotic talking and footsteps came from behind her.

They were catching up!

Nagu hadn’t expected her luck to end before it even began. As she was about to pull out the stone from her waist to knock herself out, the golden-eyed man squatting in front of the tree gap suddenly moved. He stood up and jumped onto the fallen tree trunk.

“This way is clear. I’ve been guarding here,” a slightly hoarse male voice sounded from behind Nagu. The man had already jumped down from the tree trunk, using his body to block the gap at Nagu’s feet, preventing the pursuers from seeing her lying below. “They must have run in one of these two directions.”

Nagu lay in the mud, not daring to breathe.

What was happening? Was her luck not over yet??

Author’s Note:

New story, please comment and bookmark! Love you all! This story will mainly be updated and is expected to be completed before the summer vacation. It’s a sweet romance!

(By the way, Azuran is not the male lead.)