Primordial Sage: Plight of Immortality

Soon they got close enough to realize that there was no attack or anything so they were a little relieved. But the atmosphere was still tense as people with torches were discussing something. Many tribesmen started to arm themselves as the rage overwhelmed them. In the center of the camp close to the Totem, they saw many of the people lying on the ground with various injuries. They were getting treated by Kaoran and others but some had already cloth over their face while someone sobbed next to them.

Most of those were wearing hunting garments as they were out for the hunting including those of the same age as Stone and Urchin. They immediately took two and two and realized what happened.

As they got closer someone noticed them as he yelled and some people reached for their weapons until Stone and Urchin got to the light showing off their faces.

Once others realized they were one of their own they stopped and instead some of them ran to them to check out their state.

"Urchin, Stone! Are you guys alright? There were several ambushes of the teams hunting outside!" as they got closer they heard the voice of the closest person who got to them.

"Hey, Kamer. Yeah, those bastards almost got me! Fortunately Stone and I managed to take them down." Urchin complained as he held his side.

When Kamer went a few steps before them he stopped and looked at Urchin's hurt side and the disheveled Hunter. Then he saw the moose and sled completely covered with the arrows. His face immediately turned unsightly.

"Fortunately you had Stone with you. Others didn't have this luck and some passed away even after surviving the ambush. We need to..."
At that moment Stone who was quiet the entire time interrupted him.

"While I got him out of the worst he still needs the treatment. I didn't take the right equipment so I could do just basic treatment. Don't rush before discussing things with Grand Shaman and Chief. Treatment of others is the most important thing now."

After saying that he freed Hunter and took forcibly Urchin who was whining that he was fine even though he obviously wasn't. Hunter was obediently following his master and Kamer while still angry reigned his rage as Stone was right.

But before he and others could leave he heard Stone yelling from a distance.

"Process the game! We will probably need it more than ever! Also, it is contaminated with Green Dream so let Grand Shaman detoxify it later!"

........

The smell pervading the place was a mixture of blood, feces, urine, and medicine making even some hardened warriors nauseous avoiding the place. When it hit Stone right in the face he almost threw up but restrained himself. Kaoran taught him long ago how to rein his physiological responses during such situations.

After that Stone lost track of time as he helped other people learn in medicine. He could still be called only apprentice as he was under Kaoran less than three years but that was still better than most of the tribesmen here.

After those years the tribesmen found to admire this erudite young man who learned under Degres and yet still had the energy to learn with Kaoran. They found out that Stone wasn't the fragile man they expected from his appearance but the tough kid as his nickname indicated.

This made life here for Stone much better as he always was shunned by the others. While he wasn't trying to show off his gift after years most of them realized that something was different about him since the growth of hair and nails was a constant process. Furthermore, the fact that he never came back from hunting injured was weird even for the best warriors.

Only Urchin so far found out that he had the regeneration of a monster. After all, they hunted together all the time and could be said to be close friends. But the difference between this place and his home village was much bigger than he expected.

Instead of disgust, he saw the envy and amazement in Urchin's eyes when he first saw Stone's injuries quickly disappearing. In the tribe where strength was revered this was the real gift and not the curse as Stone sometimes perceived it. Urchin even said that once others know his popularity will see a deep rise in popularity!

Ever since that Stone really felt that he integrated into this tribe. Yeah, he still could not be said to be social since the only people he speaks to daily are Urchin, Kaoran, and Degres but still lot of the tribesmen were already his acquaintances. So seeing so many injured people whom he knew made him a little restless.

When he was treating all of these people he noticed that some of those injuries were unique. Some injuries were extremely mangled showing that the enemy used heavy blunt weapons. Other injuries had very ugly and deep jagged lacerations obviously done from some kind of saw weapon.

There were also many times of poisons and other things. From all of this Stone realized that the Uhera Tribe wasn't the only one. Thinking about this, his hypothesis was surely close to the truth.

But he stopped thinking as he instead helped to stop bleeding, sewed the injuries, etc. He even needed to amputate several of his limbs during that night. Unfortunately, the drug that worked as the anesthesia was used up soon since there were simply too many injured people.

So the only things that the physicians could do was to knock out the poor guys and then as quickly as possible sever the limb they needed to amputate.

Of course, because of the strong vitality of some of them, it was harder to knock them out and some were simply impossible to knock out without heavily injuring. That's why the screams reverberated throughout the camp bringing the somber atmosphere.

New hunting teams came once in a while showing new grotesque injuries that engraved into Stone's mind. At that time he saw that one team was coming from the darkness. Wolfs rode and pulled the sled on which two anxious boys stood. Lying down was one of their team members with her leg destroyed by mace. Once they got off sled Stone immediately ran to them as he took the equipment.

Stone, who saw the mangled leg of the girl as old as him, prepared to knock her down until she stopped him with tears in her eyes.

"N-no.. If y-you let Grand Shaman l-look at it, it will be fine! Please, I beseech you!"

Stone stiffened for a moment but then hardened his determination and tried to knock her down. Unfortunately, she fought back.

"Noooo! No, please, someone! Please!"

The boys who were with her didn't know what to do. They already knew her leg was beyond redemption but they couldn't do it under her heavy begging. They used the excuse of not being professionals or not having the right equipment inside of their hearts but that alone almost cost her her life. This indecision made Stone disgusted but he didn't have time for this if he wanted the girl to survive.

The girl still struggled despite Stone trying to bring her into an unconscious state. At that moment Stone already gave up. There was no time as she already lost too much blood.

So he took the sickle and prepared to do the thing.

He could just chop her leg with his axe in one swing but would hurt her more if he did so. Normal weapons wouldn't make clean cut since she had body baptized by Cold Energy circulating her body for 3 years already. That would make just another ugly wound if he tried. On the other hand, the baptized weapon would hurt her even more since the Cold Energy from it would seep into her flesh bones, and bone marrow.

Just because she was baptized and had higher resistance to cold than others she was immune to it.

"W-what? What are you doing ?! NO!" the girl started to struggle even more as she realized her plea didn't reach the ears of the guy.

"Hey... Maybe we really should go to Gran-"

"Shut up and hold her tight. She will die soon if I don't do it," said Stone with a calm but forceful voice that made those two silent as they pinned her to the ground despite her screaming.

Stone then took a deep breath and circled the sickle right above the mangled flesh of the leg eliciting the cries of pain from the girl. He did it quickly and efficiently cutting the flesh all around the bones. He put the sickle aside and took the saw. When the girl and boys saw this they paled.

But Stone needed to do this as quickly as possible so he immediately did the deep. As he sawed through the bones the girl finally couldn't withstand the pain and terror she felt and fainted. On the other hand, the boys turned around and puked. These guys were really weakminded in Stone's opinion.

Once the leg finally fell off he did the treatment to stop the bleeding. Unfortunately in this case it was impossible to create any medicine as there were other patients. So he could only let her be after he stabilized her state.

He then turned to those two guys and gave them the herbs that could negate the Green Dream and showed them the people he noticed had the symptoms so he could not just stand there. Some physicians already sent some people to gather those herbs outside of the camp since this kind of herb was too common to normally collect delaying the treatment. But after treating Urchin, Stone took more. And he did right.

As time passed more and more hunting teams were returning injured and tired needing the treatment. But those were the lucky ones as more than half of the hunting teams never showed ever again...

In the end, the entire night passed with painful moans of the patients and stressed physicians.

When everything finally calmed down Stone sat down and fell asleep in the sitting position. His body was still full of energy but the mind accumulated the fatigue from the entire day and night. Not only he was on the hunt almost the entire day, but he also had gone through the same ambush as the others. But instead of rest he and Urchin took the damn moose and pushed it all the way to camp. Then Stone instead of letting others take care of him went to help with the patients completely draining his mental strength.

So at that moment, he went to sleep not caring that the smell of death was still around him...

........

A few hours later Stone woke up with flinch. The sounds of screaming people resounded in his head as the uncomfortable headache spread.

Stone was used to having nightmares so this was nothing new.

Just another event eternally engraved into his mind. This night many people died but the screams will remain forever.

The sun was already up and the morning wind blew around the camp. When he looked around he saw that most of the hurt people were still sleeping on the ground outside. Fortunately, the Totem's warm wind protected people inside its boundaries from the cold outside.

Furthermore, the ground was padded with furs so the patients are in warmth and don't lie on dirty and cold ground.

Okere, one of the physicians watching over the patients, saw him waking up and came to greet him. He was an old, balding man who had a grumpy temperament yet gentle nature. But the scar across his blind eye showed that he was still a warrior of the tribe who was as dangerous as any other fighter.

"Already awake kid, hmm? It was just two hours or so, you should get more sleep. We didn't want to wake you up so we left you here since this is close to Totem."

"Later. I need to talk with Grand Shaman." Stone who stretched himself and got on his feet, frowned seeing his hands and other things covered with blood.

"Yeah, if you want to see him then you will have to wait. He has a meeting in his tent with other elders of the tribe. No place for ya, kid."

"I see." Stone who heard this nodded.

It is not like there are no things to do. Before anything he went to his tent to take out new clothes and went to get rid of the blood and grime on himself. That itself took him an hour before he came back.

"Where is the equipment I used yesterday? I forgot to clean it before going to sleep."

Okere who was still sitting there with a vacant look laughed as he looked at Stone with the lazy look.

"Obviously, others did it. The equipment wasn't yours to begin with so after treating everyone it was retrieved and cleaned immediately.

After all dirty equipment is worse than no equipment for us physicians, isn't it ?" the sneer on his face widened.

"Hmm, right." Stone nodded since it made sense.

"Stone!" from a distance Urchin who was standing further from the injured looked like he just come from some place. As his injury was indeed much lighter than others he didn't need too much care. Stone already checked if he had injured organs but it was just superficial despite the deep cut.

With Stone's quick intervention, he could already move. Still, it will take him at least a month to fully recover making him sullen.

"Shut up, Urchin! There are others in a much worse state than you who need to rest!" Okera turned at that annoying brat and scolded him with black lines on his forehead.

Urchin who heard this rolled his eyes. You are yelling at me back without care so why do you care? But when he saw Stone looking at him as an idiot he swallowed what he wanted to say.

Stone who saw this nodded to Okera and went to the place where Urchin stood.