??? POV

|Alright! Get set! Go!| On these words, an entire line of children varying in age from 16 at the oldest to a mere 2 years of age at the youngest began running across a grassy field. The younger ones were holding decent size stones in their hands, while the oldest among them had yokes slung across their backs with buckets hung from them filled with stones. Only the very youngest, the one at 2 years of age, ran without a single stone on his person anywhere. They all ran a distance that was more or less arbitrary, but seemed to be somewhere just over 50 meters from their starting position. Slowed down by all the heavy stones, the youngest children quickly fell behind, and soon it was just the oldest boys and the completely unladen 2 year old out in front.

|Common Agron, common Neil! You’re gonna let Eridinil beat you already!| The teens looked to the toddler with an urgent look on their faces and redoubled their efforts in running, but their loads slowed them down. The larger of the two stumbled, causing him to have to loose a step and fall behind in order to avoid landing right on his face. The younger of the two, noticing his older cousin had fallen behind, ran with additional urgency in order to stay ahead of the 2 year old. By the end, he managed to just barely cross the finish line ahead of the youngest in the crowd.

|Alright! Neil won this round!| The man organizing the race, the uncle to all the runners here, announced. |We’re still going, prepare for the next round!|

The winner of the race promptly removed his yoke and placed it on the ground and searched for 2 stones of near similar size to place in each bucket. |Oh man, are we sure Eridinil is only two uncle? My buckets are only about half full, this is embarrassing! I could have my bucket almost full before Keren could win the race, and I was younger then.|

|Haha! Well, Keren is a girl and Eridinil is a boy, I guess he’s just more competitive! He knows he’s gonna grow up into a powerful warrior!| The uncle responds |You just gotta get stronger and run harder if you want to keep winning.|

|No way.| His older cousin Agron cut in. |This kid is crazy good at running for his age. Neil and I have both already awakened our second level bodies and he is still able to keep up with us even though he’s only two! It’s not even time for breakfast yet and already he’s about beaten us. I think we need to get Verda running to be our time breaker here soon.|

|Verda only just learned to walk, she can’t run yet.| The uncle rejected the idea, shaking his head and grinning. |You gotta all just get stronger, that’s all there is to it if you don’t wanna be embarrassed being beaten by a toddler.|

|But can’t we have him carry a rock before we call the race though?| Agron continued to protest |We can call it a sign of how powerful he is at his age, such a powerful warrior he even carried stones in his race even though he was the youngest!|

|Common Eridinil, you want to be a strong warrior, right!?| The younger Neil turned to his little cousin and gave the toddler a hearty thump on the back, hearty enough to make the toddler stumble forward and have to catch himself.

|Hey!| The 2 year old complained, glaring at his older cousin.

|No.| Their uncle quickly rejected the idea. |When the youngest runner wins the race, that is when the running ends. That has always been the tradition. How are we going to call the race if we start having Eridinil carry stones now? Yes, he’s strong. It just means we will go on to the other exercises sooner in the day. That’s all.|

|Alright, sure.| Neil said with a sigh as he lifted his yoke back to his shoulders. |Common Eridinil, let’s get back to the starting line and run again!|

The 2 year old Eridinil glared back at his older cousin as he sulked back to the starting line again. He was glad for his uncle rejecting his older cousin’s idea, he only ran so hard because he knew from experience that they would only let them stop running when he finally wins the race. He may not have to carry any stones like his older siblings and cousins, but having to just run this race over and over and over again gets brutal. They seemed to expect him not to be able to run very well when they first started forcing him to run with the rest, but when he tried to cry about being forced to run that was absolutely not acceptable. Soon he learned, running was the only thing that was acceptable, and the running only ceased when he finally won the race.

It had been quite the shock being born again as a baby after being killed in that car wreck, it was like something straight out of some stupid Anime. The more frustrating thing though was that he seemed to have been born into some kind of barbarian tribe of work-out fanatics. For now, his only thing had been that he has to run with his siblings and cousins, but the older kids seemed to go on to do more work-outs after that as well.

His body was always screaming at him by the time the repeated races were over, but he had to run anyway. He learned fast, the only way to make the pain stop is to win, and so as he wanted to get it to end quicker he started running more and more seriously. His siblings and cousins would become easier to beat as the races continued as they carried more and more rocks, but this did not change the fact that his own muscles would be screaming by the end of it if he didn’t end it quickly. So, he got more serious about running and this family he was born to seemed to take notice of that pretty quickly, praising him as strong and powerful for his age and how great he would be as he grew.

This was becoming a problem. If he kept getting so positively evaluated, they might start making him participate in some of the other family exercises as well. He was no stranger to sports and athletics, but this family really took things overboard. Some of the younger teen members of his family were already talking about teaching him to swim. He already knew how to swim from his previous life, but that wasn’t the problem. He could only imagine what kind of insane workout routine this family would have for him the moment they found out he could keep himself afloat.

|Alright! Get set!| Their uncle cried as they had gotten back to the starting line, but then Agron suddenly held up his hand. Their uncle got a serious look on his face when he saw that. All the older teens were moving in a slow and controlled manner as they lowered all of their yokes to the ground and pulled out some of the rocks from the buckets. The younger kids dropped all but one of their rocks. Meanwhile, their uncle was slowly approaching with spear in hand.

One of the children, around five or six, ran over to Eridinil and passed him a stone just slightly bigger than his own hand, smiling brightly and pointing toward the nearby bushes. Eridinil meanwhile was smart enough to realize what was probably going on and thought this kid was crazy to actually be smiling and excited about this. Fortunately, one of his female siblings who was around ten seemed to be more sensible and grabbed both Eridinil and the five year old and pulled them back away from the bushes.

Agron pointed to a few locations in the bushes and held up four fingers. Their uncle stepped out in front of them and also pointed to a few of the bushes and then rose his spear. The rest of the cousins and siblings then raised their stones at the same time. Their uncle threw the spear, and that was the signal. All the siblings and cousins over the age of 8 began yelling loudly and throwing their stones into the bushes at the same time. There was a flurry of activity from the bushes, and some greenish shapes seemed to be trying to run away. Their uncle and the oldest among the siblings picked up some more stones and continued to pelt the bushes for several minutes before finally, armed with still more rocks, they began to approach.

They all eyed the bushes for a while, before finally their uncle looked to the older teens and nodded before he stepped in the direction of where he had thrown his spear. He pulled he retrieved his spear, now covered in blood, and then reached into the bush. He pulled out the crumpled form of what looked like a person, except their skin seemed to be completely green. Their face also seemed disfigured, but at this distance Eridinil couldn’t really tell whether this was from the pelting of rocks it had just received or if it was from before that.

Armed now with his spear, their uncle continued rooting around in the bushes further while Agron and Neil, fancying themselves some kind of secondary leaders among the kids or something, decided to follow their uncle into the bushes. Together, the three of them pulled out one more corpse. The group ultimately concluded that the rest must have fled, and their uncle liberally praised the group of children for defeating this enemy. One thing Eridinil was glad for is that this incident had their uncle calling this round of exercises over for the day as everyone was allowed to revel in and enjoy their glorious victory. Eridinil’s child cousins in the three to seven range simply complained that they were not allowed to join in with this group stoning of these enemies.

Agron and Neil hefted the two creatures onto their backs with a look of triumph, and then Eridinil was scooped up in one arm by his uncle before they were all taken back to the tribe’s campsite a short distance away. They were met by the sight of men riding on the back of an assortment of creatures one would think should not be tamable. The leader of the barbarian cavalry was on the back of a rhinoceros, and there were others riding on lions or saber tooth tigers as well. The guy on the rhino was riding double with a companion wielding a spear while he kept firm hold on the rhino’s reins.

This was a sight that Eridinil had gotten used to. This barbarian tribe was somehow able to tame all manner of wild man-eating animals that would have not hesitated to eat them all alive back on Earth, and some rode creatures that were extinct. It was a complete mystery to him how they all managed this.

The riders all stood down when they saw their family approaching and guided their mounts to make way. The leader on the rino though seemed to want to make some conversation. |Jeron!| He called to their uncle. |You were out training the children of our family without your mount at hand again? You know we are not near the queen’s land anymore, this area is more dangerous with the demons.|

|It’s fine!| Uncle Jeron said. |Agron and Neil are quite capable, they heard the orcs trying to sneak up on us long before they could even get into position. We were all in the middle of our running too, so everyone had plenty of stones on hand.|

|It’s still very irresponsible!| The leader argues. |What would you do if something happened to our sister’s amazing son there? He’s got a future ahead of him, he will be powerful enough to serve the queen’s army in his next life for certain.|

|Haha! Well, if things go bad, he can just run, can’t you Eridinil?| His uncle says, nuzzling Eridinil slightly with his bushy beard and laughing. |Ain’t no shame in that at his age, and he’s got strong legs too. He would definitely make it back in time to fetch you guys before anything bad could happen.|

|Ah, there’s just no getting through to you, is there?| The leader said with a shake of his head. |Well, which way did the orcs flee off to when you chased them off?|

|To the south west by about 200 degrees.| He responds without hesitation, giving the usual unnaturally precise directions everyone in this tribe gave as though they all had compass in their heads.

|Alright, bring your trophies to the matron, we’ll handle the rest.| The leader said and then nodded to the rest of the gathered crowd before shouting a firm “hayah!” at his mount as the entire crowd left, circling around their family, before running full speed at the area they had just left from.

|The matron, is it?| Uncle Jeron grumbles. |You could just say mother, you know? Hahh! Alright! Let’s get back!|

He leads them back to the encampment which is roughly arranged into several small clusters of tents. Each tent cluster represents a different family, with one tent for all the brothers of the family, and then each of the other tents belonging to a mother and her children, with one single tent that is for one woman only, the mother or grandmother to all people living within that tent cluster. This family’s tent cluster was the one at the honored position at the high-ground of the encampment, his grandmother holding the honored position of matron and leader of this entire camp, with her oldest son, their uncle Idelon, as the leader of the riders while out on a hunt. Their uncle Jeron was one of the younger brothers, and had been given the duty of training the kids of the family.

Of course, this only added to the weight of the expectations placed on young Eridinil

Eridinil was handed off to one of the girls of the family, his eldest sister. This family was close knit enough that about his only ability to tell the difference between a brother or sister and a cousin was whether or not they slept in the same tent as him during the night. Meanwhile, Uncle Jeron lead Agron and Neil into his grandmother’s tent. While his sister brought him around to find their mother, Erdinil strained his ears to hear what Uncle Jeron was saying.

|Honored mother.| He greeted her. |While out training with the children, Agron and Neil noticed some orcs in the bushes. We did battle and slayed two, the rest ran away and are currently being pursued by Idelon has lead the rest of the men in pursuit.|

|Is that the case? Agron, Neil, you two have done well to protect our family. However, it is too hopeful to think this to be uninvolved with a larger orc encampment. Idelon is wise, he is certain to think the same. However, we must instruct those at camp to prepare to move in case he cannot find the camp or finds their numbers are too large to eliminate it.|

Erdinil met his sister’s eyes as he heard what his grandmother had just said. She had clearly been listening in as well, and had a concerned expression. But, it turned to a smile quickly. |Well then, I suppose we had best find mother quickly and pass word to her.| She said, smiling down at him.

He looked up to her ear. It had a small golden clip at the upper tip of it, and a chain attached to her hair in a way that made it seem as though it was trying to stretch her ear up and backward. He had noticed this fashion trend among the women of this tribe’s younger girls. The older women did not wear such accessories, but that seemed to be because the stretching was already done. This artificial stretching of the upper ears produced pointed ears by the time they had grown into women, making them almost look like elves. He couldn’t help but wonder, he seemed to be in some sort of fantasy world where creatures like orcs existed. Is it possible that his family’s weird custom of stretching their ears means they are the elves of this world? Or, maybe they just admire the elves and are trying to imitate them. He did hear them talking about the fairy queen a lot, so the latter seemed most likely.

What a strange new life. Being in such a backwards place, he couldn’t help but wonder how his little sister from his previous life was doing. He really hoped Karie survived that car crash, but a part of him hoped that he might find his buddy Josh in this new world. He wanted to have the chance at finding his new incarnation and giving him a good punch in the face for getting them killed in the first place.

(no comments this chapter)

Alright, that was Eridinil of the Hedan nomadic beast-rider warriors. Some of you may recall I made mention in an announcement a few chapters back that I was going to be making a commission for a freelancer in order to have them give me a good starting basis for fleshing out the human nations. Well, xshedevilx, the freelancer I hired off of fiverr, seriously delivered and when I was reading over the material the Hedan warriors really spoke to me. I just had to feature them in a side story in order to explore their culture a little more.

I hope everyone enjoyed that, and I will be posting the entire write-up xshedevilx provided as the next release for anyone who is interested to read it.