Salaryman
Cold… unbearable cold on my face as I coughed up something from my lungs. That was the first thought and action I took as I woke up, confused by the frigid air. I opened my eyes and found that I was looking up through a shattered glass pane into the night sky. Not sure what was happening I moved and quickly found that I was in some kinda liquid soup, meant to help gestation while in the incubation pod. How I knew that was not readily available, and it didn't matter at this moment. Whatever mechanism that was meant to keep the liquid warm seemed to have failed, and with the outer glass damaged the cold was quickly transferring inside. I needed to get outside and find some way to warm myself or I would be frozen inside the pod.
Putting my hands against the edges of the pod, I gave it a shove but quickly found I didn't have the leverage to open it in one go. Taking a breath I moved my legs till they were touching the farther but firmer insides of the pods, this resulted in putting my head under the liquid soup but also gave me the leverage I needed. So, as I bared my teeth and held my breath, I gave a great shove. This time the pod door burst open, the metal panel flying free and landing who knows where. Carefully I pulled myself out of the soup and got a look around myself.
Snow, Rocks, lots of trees, and a bit of fire, that was the sight that greeted my eyes as I looked around. Pulling free of the wrecked pod I stumbled over to one of the fires that had been started by the impact of the pod into the side of the mountain I now stood on. Shivering a little I started to warm myself as best I could. This was not where I had last been aware, the last thing I remembered I was about to board the train home after a good day's work. Then something happened, what happened…
It was foggy, the last thing I remembered seemed jumbled and gave my mind a bit of a headache. Putting my hand to my head to massage my temples I eventually managed to remember something finally, a pair of hands, a shove, then fear as I felt myself flying toward the rails of a train station, that waste of potential I had fired staring at me as I fell, his eyes cold to my demise with his anger. I died, didn't I? I'd have given that waste of human potential every chance to turn his life around, everything the company had been willing to do, and the thanks I got was to be shoved to my death. What a comically terrible way to die. But there was something more, I could vaguely remember time slowing and laughter. Trying to pierce the fog on those memories seemed fruitless because all I could get was the bird-like laughter and a headache. Shaking my head I move to draw my hand back from my face to start to prepare for whatever this was, when I noticed something off about my hand. It was thinner than I remembered it, more… feminine.
Looking down at myself quickly put an end to that question. I was going to have to get used to this, not only had I been killed but apparently, I had been graced with a new body and gender for this life. Shaking My head I got up, moved over to the pod, and checked for any supplies. I was hoping that whatever force had made it had at least created a supply kit so a person could survive a deep winter. Unfortunately, no luck as I quickly realized this was not some kinda sci-fi escape pod. Whatever it was it had been ripped from a cement wall, judging by the debris around it. I would guess that it had been created for the strict purpose of making this body, what this body had been made for I wasn't sure.
Though looking at pieces of metal that were polished enough I was able to get a look at myself… The girl looked to be somewhere between late teens and early 20s, European descent, I guess northern countries. Five foot something I estimated, with matted and unkempt blond hair and blue eyes. Shaking my head at how unkempt I looked, I ripped a jagged piece of metal off the side of the pod. It took my brain a moment to realize that the shard came off a lot easier than it should have but once it did I came to a conclusion quickly; the body may look normal, but the muscles must be enhanced in some way.
If it had that would make surviving this frozen hellscape a bit easier. Hell, with increased strength I could probably knock over a tree and use it for wood, making this a real-life game of Minecraft as it were. Chuckling at the thought I used the metal I had ripped free, and cut free some wires from the pod. I then wandered over to a nearby group of trees and pulled off a branch. How I knew how to do this was questionable, I had trawled the internet enough in my last life and had come across survival manuals and the such but this didn't feel like this was coming from my last life. This felt instinctual, like I simply knew what needed to be done to survive.Considering the way I used the wires to tie the metal shard to the wooden branch, creating a crude spear, I was willing to listen to this instinct.
First things first though. Taking pieces of wood from a nearby tree to feed the fire, and using the debris from my pod and the rock scattered about I created a fire pit around one of the bigger fires then fed it some more of the wood. Until I could get some clothing to keep myself warm I would need to maintain this fire in order to warm myself between expeditions into the woods. I had three goals that needed to be accomplished for my survival. I needed to find shelter, somewhere I could get out of the snow and keep warm. I needed to find food and clothing, if I found an animal I could kill I could create something crude to wear which would allow for longer expeditions in the snow-covered forest and increase my survival chances. Finally I needed to find people, even if I got my base hierarchy of needs covered. If I didn't find someone to talk to mental degradation was likely, madness would not come quickly but it would come as humans were not meant to be completely without social connection.
Salaryman
Finding shelter turned out to be not as hard as I had feared, on the first day of searching I found what appeared to be a cave on the outskirts of a volcanically active area of the mountains. And as far as I could tell from what little experiences I had with survival, the caves were safe and kept warm by heat radiating from the Earth in this area. The nearby lake on the other hand I doubted was very safe, I had seen enough bones around it to convince me that something was up with it. Either it was the hunting ground of something or perhaps volcanic activity was releasing something that poisoned the water or the air. Either way, I kept my distance and simply used the heat in the cave as well as a fire to turn freshly fallen snow into something drinkable.
Food and clothing also were quickly solved. Well… Not so much solved, as I had a good lead. There were what could best be described as Elk, though their size seemed greater than I would have expected. I was familiar with the fact that elk were larger creatures than deer of course, but these monsters looked like they could gore an American humvee. If I managed to kill one I would have furs and meat for weeks at a minimum. The problem, of course, was how was I to kill one, the answer took a bit but it came to me in time. All it took was tracking its movements and traveling routes, the beast seemed to be the king of the winter forest so as long as I stayed out of its way it seemed to ignore me. Before long I had planned.
Which was why I was waiting in the cold, covered in mud to hide myself and my scent, as I held tightly onto a tree. In one hand I carried the spear, in the other the longest and toughest cables from the remnants of my pod. I had already prepared my trap, stringing the cables from one tree to the one I now held onto. All I needed was the beast, and I didn't have to wait long. Plenty of planning worked in my favor as soon the beast was slowly plodding along the route I knew it took while searching for food. Carefully I watched, waiting till the last moment before I pulled hard on the cable. Normally pulling cables on the tree would not amount to much, however I had two things going for me: an absurd amount of strength, and pre-planning by cutting halfway through said tree over the last day with a makeshift axe.
With a snap the tree fell heavily toward my position, leaning in such a way that it pinned and stunned the giant elk near the tree I had been hiding on. Once I was sure it was not going to get free quickly I jumped from my tree and landed on the one I had pulled down, then drove my spear into the spine of the elk. Unfortunately my calculations were a bit off and it did not in fact die from that, instead it attempted to kill me by whipping his antlers back. Luckily I was fast enough to dodge out of the way, only taking a slight cut on my arm from the razor-sharp bone. Leaning away from the beast's head I looked up, ready to dodge the next attack, but luck had returned to me it would seem. The antlers had bit deep into the thick trunk of the tree and gotten stuck, its neck muscles either not strong enough or too weakened by my still embedded spear to free himself.
Either way an elk lay in front of me, driven to its knees and head stuck in the tree behind it, there was nothing protecting its neck. Moving quickly to the supplies I left nearby I retrieved a sharpened shard of metal. Now armed I rushed over to the beast and drove my blade deep into the neck, cutting it open. I quickly became covered in the red blood of the beast, but I could see this as nothing but a win as I watched the beast get weaker and weaker till it stopped trying to free itself from the tree.
Taking a seat while looking up at the dead elk I simply smiled, enjoying the feeling of victory, and that I had secured my existence for another month at least. I was so happy I almost missed the cracking of the twig behind me, but enhanced hearing seemed to have also been on the menu for this body. Quickly I pulled myself up and turned around, preparing to defend myself and my kill. Then I saw the biggest damn wolf I had ever seen in my life. The beast was bigger than me and though I wasn't yet sure about all measurements I swore it was bigger than a horse. Carefully the beast sniffed the air, looking at me and then at the elk. And it was not hard to see what was going through its mind, though for some reason it felt smarter than I would expect of a wild dog. It was most likely trying to determine if fighting me for the elk was worth it.
Before me was a heavy fight and I didn't want it, too much of a chance of severe injury that could spell my end, I needed a plan and I needed it fast. Grabbing my knife I stepped back till I was closer to the giant elk then, looking over to it, I bit my lip. There was an option, but would the wolf let me go for it? Well, it was do or die so better to do. With no fear I turned my side to the wolf and began cutting pieces of meat from the elk, as large as I could make without causing too many damages to the hide, then carefully I ripped it free and turned to look the wolf in the eye as I walked towards it. Showing no fear I laid the meat down between us.
Then I took a step back. The wolf turned its head to its side as if thinking then walked over and grabbed the meat in its mouth, before trotting away. Now free of the beast I let out a sigh of relief, the wolves could be bribed, that was good to know. I had already figured out something by meeting the local fauna, there was no way I could take all of this meat back to my cave in one go. Though I was hoping the cold weather would help keep the meat for some time, I knew that it would also draw predators. My plan from the beginning had been to abandon the meat as soon as I was sure it would be too much trouble, but if I could bribe… no if I could give a tribute to the wolves to let me take what I needed. Perhaps then things would work out in my favor.
The real question was how far could I push the wild animals into doing what I wanted, dogs had originally been descendants of wolves though I doubted I would live long enough to see that. Perhaps more deals and contracts could be made with such creatures, if they were smart enough to understand the basic economics of paying a tax to hunt on their territory what opportunities presented themselves.
Smiling, I got to work harvesting the meat and hide from the dead Elk. I didn't know how long I had before the next wolf came into my area, so I better act fast.
Salaryman
Two weeks, two long weeks with no human contact. I don't think that happened to me even during some of my hardest study sessions in school. But now it had, and though I was getting used to being alone it was somewhat galling. Were there no humans other than myself on this planet? It felt like it sometimes, but if that was so why had I crashed here? There must be some purpose for that second chance at life. Being brought back from a near-death experience simply to wander about a frozen hellscape made no sense to me.
Was this just how death worked? Were cycles of reincarnation real? And if so, why did I remember my last life? Or was there more than one life... A few nights ago I had been hunting a bit further out, having clothing allowed such travels. I had traveled down the mountain, much further than ever before, and found the environment only getting colder and the odd thought popped into my head that it was colder than a Russy winter. What was Russy and why did I know what its winter was like? Something seemed sealed off behind foggy headaches whenever I tried to remember more of what happened after being pushed in front of a train, but something told me that whatever was there was important.
I found something of a schedule over the weeks, I start my days preparing and making tools and clothing. Turning hides into usable clothing was a bit far outside my skill set but I figured out how to make something to keep my limbs and body warm with wrappings tied to my body with strips of hide, and improving from there. I had a lot of hides to work with from that first kill, and by the second week, I got two more kills so I had plenty of hides to experiment with. I also found that the horns of those elks were incredibly sharp, they made my metal look like comparative jokes with how effective they were. I quickly replaced the tip of my spear and knives with elk blades and made myself a few more weapons. Now that I could tie them to my clothing, having multiple spares gave me better chances of survival.
And then, most days, I would go out hunting like I was now. I would simply salvage meat from my last kill as well but I would spend some time tracking the monstrous elks and other animals. For the most partI tried to avoid the beasts as they all seemed over-aggressive, goring anything that got too close, which is why I tended to use the ability to climb trees to my advantage. I suspected humans must exist on this planet somewhere at first, by their reaction to me, thinking that perhaps island tameness would have set into them if they had never seen a human before. But with how harsh this planet was perhaps there was just always a war for resources between the animals? With the size of the prey and predators, it was not impossible.
I also had more encounters with the massive wolf, gave it its tribute of my food, and found the original body had been pulled off to who knows where. At this point, I believed that it had to be the top predator in the area, with how it kept popping up I was willing to bet this entire region was its territory. So long as I showed it respect and gave it the first slice of meat from my kill, I believed I was safe from it. More to the point I was starting to think the wolf was a lot more sentient than some of the animals I had seen in this life and my last one. Something about its eyes was just too intelligent, I had seen dogs aplenty in my last life, even played with one in Norden, and they never seemed that… Norden?
I had been walking through woods, looking for anything useful, when that name popped into my mind. As soon as that name appeared in my head I stopped walking, stumped. Where had that name come from and why did I remember a dog, a real dog about my size, not the large monsters of this planet, running beside me. Pushing at the memories only got me a headache again, coughing I shook the thought away. Whatever had been lost to me seemed to be returning slowly, and in the woods while surrounded by creatures that could rip me apart if I dropped my guard was not the place to get lost in thought. That could wait till later today when I got back to my shelter.
Which had improved greatly. I had found a hot spring nearby, that wasn't poisonous as far as I could determine. It being on a hill with a shallow 7-foot cliff not too far away from it, it only took a few well placed logs and mud to form a trench and turn said cliff into a warm shower, something that was just a damn good feeling after getting covered in blood and mud from my hunts. I didn't trust the water for drinking, of course, but getting muck off me was useful, not to mention more hygienic.
Something I frankly was looking forward to after tonight's hunt, it was damn cold today compared to the day before and I was a bit worried if it would get worse before it got better. If so I had to start planning for a hard winter. Right now I was having no trouble finding game, but I didn't know if that would last. Better to store up now than to be left to starve.
Shaking my head at the thought of what needed to be done I started walking in the direction of home when I heard a wolf's cry. A pained wolf cry, part of me told me I should ignore it and head home but then again, if something was attacking my landlord, I better see what was going on.
Gripping my spear tightly I quickly moved through the woods, running over rocks and areas of heavy snow, in order to not give away my approach. Following the sound of the wolf, I quickly came across a strange sight. In front of me was the wolf who I had been paying tribute to, looking hurt as it protected a hole on the side of the mountain. In front of said wolf and between us were three yeti, I was a bit stumped as to what to call them but that was really what they reminded me of: the giant snow monsters of Himalaya that the gullible believed were real. The 7-foot white-haired beast were wielding clubs made from tree limbs and were roaring something to each other as they surrounded the wolf. The wolf in question looked a bit banged up but overall not too badly wounded. I almost used that justification to pull out, and perhaps that it only mattered that I pay the tax but not who I paid it to… That was until I saw the human skulls tied to the yeti belts that looked a bit too much like human skin for my taste. This changed my calculations in a moment, the beasts were a threat to my life and they needed to be dealt with before they became a problem.
Hefting my spear up I took aim and let it fly, my aim was not as good as I would have liked but the elk blade buried deep in the back of the beast in front of me. I had expected a scream of pain or something, instead it toppled forward. Apparently I struck its heart? Good to know that it was on the right side of the upper body, instead of the center-left like a human.
The other two and the wolf looked at the fallen beast in shock, which gave me a chance to move quickly from where I had struck to another position by the beast to the left of the wolf. Taking a breath I drew my bladed knife and rushed out of the woods. The beast to the right of the wolf made some sound, most likely a warning, causing my target to whip around toward me but I closed the range quickly enough that I was able to smash into it with all my force and drive the blade deep into its right chest. The beast quickly tried to hit me but its forces, already greatly reduced by the damage it had received, could not be brought to bear properly against me becauseI was so close to it. The blood did more damage to me than its hits, as I felt it burning around my gloved hands and had to rip them off. The damn yeti had acid blood like a xenomorph, who saw that coming? Well, not me. I also didn't see the last living yeti that had closed range with me. One moment I was on top of a dead yeti, the next I was sent flying into a snow embankment while feeling several ribs had been broken and leaving my knife in the body of the downed yeti.
Coughing in pain, I looked up from where I lay to watch the yeti approaching me and raising its club to smash my head in! And got to watch the wolf rear up behind the yeti and bite down on its head and pull. One sickly pop later the yeti head rolled off to the side and the body, now spurting blood from the neck, toppled over like a felled tree. Even with the amount of pain I was in I could smile at that. Sure I was not going to be hunting for a while but I had a stockpile of food near my camp buried in an ice hole, I just needed to get home and rest.
That smile faded as the wolf walked over toward me till it was standing over me menacingly. I had just seen it rip a yeti's head off so I doubted it would have any trouble with mine. So I did fear for my life, and if I hadn't left my knife behind when I went flying I would have raised it to protect myself. In fact, I saw my short second life flash before my eyes as the wolf opened its jaws. Only stopping when it grabbed the back of the hide poncho I wore. My confusion only lasted a moment as it pulled me toward the cave it had been protecting. Once inside the wolf let go and let me roll deeper into the cave. I came to rest by two more wolves, smaller and by my guess younger. Possibly the wolf's pups. Before I got a chance to bemoan my luck tha I was about to be wolf chow, the mama wolf licked my face and laid down by my side.The other two wolves followed her example a moment later. Leaving me to wonder… What the hell was going on?
Chapter 2, The Alpha
Salaryman
If someone had asked me if I was a dog person, I would have told them that a pet's species does not matter; They're either there for your comfort or because they are useful to you. Those concepts are what matter, that was why humanity had domesticated animals for generations. So I suppose I should not be surprised that I ended up a pet to a pack of giant wolves. I had proved myself useful to them by giving them food and helping in defending their territory, so of course, they would want to keep me around.
And keep me around they did, keeping me from returning back to my camp and staying by my side while I was healing from my injuries. It was nice to have something that could watch over me in my sleep since this planet was teeming with monsters. At my old cave, I had just depended on the narrow entrance of my home to keep the horrors out. The security was almost worth the downsides… What were the downsides? Well living with massive wolves meant having to deal with some… species-related issues, namely that they were not a fan of fire… at all. The mother wolf, as I came to call the pack leader, had destroyed my attempts at creating fires. An unfortunate problem, since I preferred my food cooked, but understandable, as they were animals, and most likely their experiences with fire were not pleasant ones.
Consequently, the lack of fire and the five days I was out of commission meant that for the entire time, I was dependent on the wolves for food… and I just had to get used to something a bit too raw for my taste. Eventually, I was able to cajole them into letting me set a fire, though it took several weeks of hard work acclimating younger wolves to me building campfires at hunting sites to cook some food there, rather than in the wolf den while the mother wolf was out hunting.
Once that hurdle had been overcome I thought my situation could only improve, given the improvement in food, shelter, and some social interaction instead of solitude. Sure, they were wolves, and thus not very talkative, but they were far more intelligent than most beasts I had seen. There was an almost human level of intelligence in their action, which made them effective hunters. They displayed an impressive degree of coordination while hunting the megafauna of the world, as well as exhibiting a significant degree of foresight in rationing their supply of food.
Things became simpler to understand as time went on. Mother wolf would leave me to watch the two younger wolves, who, while both having darker fur coats, did have some differences in personality that I had noted while we were out hunting. The wolf with the darker coat I came to mentally label "Fierce" due to his ability to put on a damn good aggressive display that we would use to drive the prey where we wanted them to go. The other wolf I came to think of as "Cunning", due to their knack for finding ways to take down prey from unexpected angles. They were quite the effective pack hunters. The pair also seemed to have taken a liking to me, as they would stick close to me when I left camp to go on hikes, whether we were in need of food or not.
And with the free time I had managed to find between our team hunts and sibling scuffling, I was able to investigate the remains of the yetis, a rather hard task as the wolves had eaten them down to the bone… at least I hoped it was just the wolves, I hadn't exactly asked where the meat they had given me had come from. Even if I had, it wasn't really… cannibalism, so I suppose it doesn't matter. But more to the point, after looking over the remains, I was able to confirm that they were in fact human skulls and bones amongst their belongings, shaped into various tools. Most looked old and bleached, so it had most likely been quite a while since they had last seen a human, which I took to mean that I was somewhere far out from civilization on this planet, but the teeth marks on the bones were a rather worrying addition to the situation. The yetis were most likely man-eaters and a threat to the humans on this planet.
An unfortunate development, but one I could handle. I would need to make contact with whoever these humans were and find out more about this world, but there was a massive chance I would not speak the local human language. Not to mention that just because there were humans, that did not mean they were all that advanced. This was clearly not Earth, the megafauna may resemble animals from Earth but I didn't recognize any of the star constellations. It was theoretically possible that I landed on the winter version of North Sentinel, so talking to the local population may just end up giving me recipes for cannibalism. If that was the case, it would be preferable not to talk with them.
But besides my musing on what humanity was like on this world nothing major happened–Then I grew fangs… that had been an unforeseen development, my lower and upper canines had fallen out after months of living with the wolves, causing me some mild panic, thinking something they had fed me during the week I was denied fire had given me a disease. Fortunately, they were quickly replaced with sharper replacements, better suited to biting into the meat which was my staple of food at this point. Since nothing else happened after that, I came up with two possible theories, one I disliked terribly and one that was at least palatable. Worst case scenario, the reason these wolves were so intelligent and the reason I had yet to find any humans on this world even though I could confirm they existed, were related, and I would be soon walking on all four like my wolf friends. Another reason to find the humans of this world, hopefully, they had a cure if that was the case. Something I would heavily consider if this started progressing.
Since no other developments had happened, I was leaning more toward the second option, that my body, which had already shown great strength and resilience as well as healing abilities, was also able to adapt as needed. Humans should not be able to adapt to their environment within their lifetime to this degree, that was a firm tool of generational evolution which meant I was some sort of post-human experiment. What that meant for me, I was not sure. I had not been an avid sci-fi reader, preferring history and economics to futurism, though having a body that was able to adapt to its environment certainly was useful.
Just how useful that ability would be was yet to be seen. For all I knew, my initial assumptions about the reason the teeth had grown in were correct and the original colonists had ended up like these wolves over time. Regardless, it would probably be best for me to continue attempting to improve my situation, specifically by making tools.
And that's exactly what I had been doing. I'd gathered more furs, hides, and pelts in hopes that keeping myself warm would prevent any potential trigger mechanisms from deciding that I needed fur. It wasn't long before I had a full fur cape to wear over my collection of hide I used for clothing and my makeshift leather armor. Too many animals had dangerous natural weapons at their disposal for me to risk going unarmored. To start with, I needed something to cover my chest and protect my vital organs, and maybe my upper thighs to reduce the chance of being crippled. I had thus endeavored to build myself a dou-like chest plate and a tough skirt that would hang off of it. The final result was less than pleasing, reminding me more of stormtrooper armor from Star Wars. Except that,instead of white and shiny, it was a mix of browns and reds. Which at least matched the terrain. If someone wasn't looking hard enough I could probably pass for a tree. Assuming that the animals in question weren't color blind.
I was also incrementally improving my weapons, shaping more daggers out of the elk antlers, as well as crafting a couple more spears (though my stock of wiring had finally run out and I had been forced to start using leather to secure the heads to the poles). I had tried to make a bow as having a ranged weapon would mitigate some of the risk of hunting our usual prey. Close-up, one misstep meant death. Unfortunately, I was unfamiliar with the mechanics of how to make a bow. I could string some leather between two ends of a wooden branch, but this didn't quite work. There was not enough tension and when I tried tying the leather more taut the branch would break. Perhaps, with time, I would figure it out but for now I focused on learning how to throw my spears with some accuracy.
With at least some weapons and armor secured, there did not seem to be much I could do in the current situation to improve my outlook. After 3 months of just hunting, surviving, and building clothing and weapons, I came to the conclusion there was not much else I could do until I found the humans of this world. This was probably close to the extent of what the wolves looked for in life(asides from mating, but I chose to ignore this for now).
Regardless, I set about improving my surroundings. The cave we were staying in was rather large for the pack mother and her two pups as well as myself, but it was well-heated thanks to geological activity and it wasn't hard to improve on that situation. I had plenty of fur lying around, skinned from our kills. Before long I had created a few blankets for myself and the others of this little pack I had been forcibly adopted into, though the ones I gave them were mainly my failed attempts but they did not seem to mind. Over time, I was also able to gather enough wood to create a workbench. Granted, said bench would only work well if you were on your knees and was held together by hopes, prayers, and leather but it was a flat surface and it allowed me to improve on my skills greatly. I was also able to build a tool from the wreckage of my pod to start marking basic 7-Day weeks into the wall to keep track of how long I had been out in the middle of nowhere.
Otherwise, I would have completely lost track of time, especially during the days when the sun never really set. That did tell me that I was near one of the planet's poles, but also meant that my day counter may not have been the most accurate.
Salaryman
It was about five months after I had been adopted into this little pack when the situation changed. One day when I woke up and stepped out of the cave we called a shared living space, I found that the number of wolves had drastically increased from 3 to somewhere North of 60. The mother wolf was standing some distance away, appearing to have some sort of communication with a large male wolf, with several more wolves loitering about and taking control of the area. If not for the two younger wolves acting like this was perfectly normal I may have put my hand on my spear, assuming we were under some sort of threat.
This situation was odd to me, from my understanding of wolf packs they tended to move in family units, and typically did not grow into large groups unless they were forced to live together, such as a zoo, which was where the famous alpha misconception had come from. For there to be this many wolves, it would imply either they did not use family units, which could perhaps mean that the alpha wolf misconception was a reality in this world. It would make some sense with so much megafauna and other likewise dangerous creatures as well as the hazardous environments, that some sort of wolf society based on a rudimentary class structure could take shape. And I had seen that these creatures were more intelligent than your average wolf, assuming they were as intelligent as primates or more so that theory had even more merit. After all, there was a thing such as an ape war where a tribe of apes would fight each other for resources.
Considering these wolves were not fighting each other, I must assume that they are part of the same pack. The question then became why are they now showing up when I had not seen them for 5 months. Looking at my two wolf friends I quickly came to a possible hypothesis, the majority of the tribe must have gone somewhere with more game than there was to be found in this area, leaving the mother to fend for her two young pups. Most likely, this other hunting ground was also more dangerous and thus unsafe for the younger pups. If that was true, then that means their territory was rather wide. It could be that this group of wolves had complete control over the entire mountain I was on as well as some of the valleys and plains I'd seen in the distance.
If they needed to move around for resources, the tribe probably kept careful control of who joined or remained inside their pack. It was possible that they banished members of their pack that were not effective hunters or a drain on their society. Hopefully, the mother could figure a way to convince the alpha that I was worth keeping around.
Thankfully it would appear that this was the case, as besides the wolves giving me suspicious looks, the mother wolf seemed to have the situation well in hand, or paw in this case.
At least I thought she did, then the growling became a little more avid. Whatever communication was going on between the two had obviously taken a turn for the worse and suddenly, the male wolf bolted straight at me from where he had been standing. Realizing that that wolf was coming to kill me, my heart started pounding and I reached for my knives.
As the adrenaline pumped, time seemed to slow down, giving me a chance to grasp the situation before me. Though this pack leader seemed intent on killing me, the other new wolves were just sitting by passively, implying that this was normal. Most likely all new members of the pack had to pass whatever inspection the leader decided was necessary. And me, being human, had not passed.
As for my wolf companions, the mother seemed distraught, trotting mournfully behind him while the two brothers came to their feet growling, but none made any move to stop the alpha male. Most likely whatever decision the alpha made was law and if they attempted to stop it they could face being killed or banished.
I had two choices before me: throw myself at its feet and hope for its mercy (really that just seemed like an easy way to die, trusting a wolf not to snap your neck when it has the ability to bite your head off) or fight.
I think I would be going with the second option. Tightening my grip on my knife I waited for the last possible second before ducking low under its lunge and shoving the blade deep into the flesh of its left shoulder, letting the motion carry me past his left side.
I was quick; the beast was just as quick. Before I even fully turned around, a knife drawn in each hand, it had already spun itself about and was using its mouth to attempt to pull out the knife I left embedded in its side. Having no success, it growled and came at me again. That trick would not work twice, the wolves were not stupid, so there was not much I could do but trust my makeshift armor.
The wolf collided with me knocking me on my back, jaw snapping shut on my arm. I felt its fangs pierce my flesh, though the leather cuff kept the damage from being too severe. I shoved my free blade straight into its neck, not letting it have a chance to savage my arm. Unfortunately, that did not put it down but did force it to let go of my arm, allowing me to smash its fist into its face. The wolf stumbled back, pulling the knife free for my hand as it attempted to recover.
Pulling myself back to my feet I glanced around and saw that the other wolves were still not taking action. The fact they weren't coming to their leader's aid meant my assumptions could be very well right, Alpha wolf may be in charge of the pack but it would appear that if it attempted to exile someone from the pack that wolf, or in this case, person, had the chance to defend themselves.
So all I needed to do was make the alpha submit and I could end this situation favorably for the both of us. How I was going to do that, I had no idea, but I had one knife left and I was prepared to use it if nothing else worked. After all, if it was a choice between me or him I'm going to choose myself.
Reading my remaining knife out I took a stance and prepared for another assault, the alpha seemed to take a moment to steady itself before finally charging me, springing forward, jaw aimed at my head, this time I dodged to its right and hooked an arm around its neck, using the momentum to latch onto its back, arms locking in a chokehold. I'd hoped it would fall to the ground and submit due to lack of air, but unfortunately, it was a tough son of a b**** and once it realized he couldn't reach me with his mouth or claws, he instead bucked and ran about trying to toss me off. Really though I had no choice but to hold on tight, if I fell off it might get lucky and kill me, despite its injured state. If I stayed on it would eventually pass out and I would be the winner. Hopefully, that meant I would not have to fight any more wolves.
The damn thing stayed on its feet for a full 5 minutes even though I was pulling as tight as possible, but eventually, it fell forward, collapsing to the ground. I waited until I didn't feel it moving very much before letting go just in case it was playing dead.
Thankfully it stayed down and I was able to take a moment to get a breath of air as I sat on its back, the mother wolf came forward and licked my face before checking on the alpha as well. I sat there getting myself centered.
That brief moment of peace was shattered by the mother wolf pausing, then sitting on her hind legs and howling to the sky, a moment later all the other wolves started howling leaving me rather confused. I took a closer look at the wolf I was sitting on top of and realized it wasn't breathing at all.
It didn't take me long to realize my mistake, I had held on too long and accidentally murdered the alpha, an unfortunate but expected result, my luck seemed to be going in that general direction since I had woken upon this world.
Now the question was, was I about to be murdered in revenge for that? Grasping my knife tightly I made no motions and waited to see what the other wolves would do. After a while, they finished their howls and the circle of wolves seemed to break up into two groups, a third of the group just wandered off, leaving the area, while the other 2/3 went down on their four paws and or lowered their heads in my general direction. Distinct signs of respect or submission. Oh, how I had messed this up.
Salaryman
As I had feared, I had messed this up completely. Rulership of the pack went to the strongest it would seem, and that meant I had to deal with figuring out how to keep the wolves happy and content and not considering me a problem that needed to be eaten.
This was above my pay grade, I was a simple human resources officer, not a wolf resources officer, but I really had no option to decline leadership of the tribe. Mainly because I didn't have any language that they could understand and was mainly having to learn their body language and wolf howls in order to communicate with them in any capacity.
But I learned what I could and did what I could, there was no other option but to become the wolf manager, it seems.
The wolves for the most part seem to know how to hunt their own territory, so trying to micromanage that seemed very foolish and unnecessary. Instead, I found that the wolves simply tended to eat more than what was necessary and said about trying to get them to not eat the entire population of the area down to nothing.
I was getting a firmer understanding of how nomadic the wolves had to be in order to keep up with their demands for food and I did not like that. Being a nomad would not allow me to improve my situation, instead, I would have to build up several different camps over the years and though I appeared fairly young I was not willing to waste time repeating the same process over and over again.
Instead, I went on hunts and tried to teach the wolves moderation, it almost failed, but they slowly got what I was trying to do. And I believe that was even slightly effective in keeping the population of elk and other animals surviving longer.
But over the first half month, it quickly became apparent that this was not going to work for a long-term solution.
Three issues had cropped up that needed to be handled in order for long-term survival in the region to be feasible and even then I may have to build up a few camps around the mountain in order for long-term survival.
Problem number one: the 30% that had left the tribe didn't care that I was trying to preserve the population for continuous living in the region and were hunting them down nonetheless.
Problem number two: there were other wolves in the region where these wolves had come from. I wasn't sure whether they had also been down in whatever valleys and plains the main group had gone to or word of the death of the alpha had somehow got out and these other tribes of wolves had smelled weakness.
Finally and this was probably the biggest issue, more of the yetis had come into the region. They had not attacked yet but they were setting up some sort of camp further up the mountains, hunting what animals they could.
If I was going to have any chance of stability in this mountain Kingdom I've been forced to take over, then I needed to remove these issues one by one. The question was how was I going to handle them in such a way that my life was not put at risk and not splinter the packs further. Pulling a similar maneuver on the other wolf packs would probably be less successful than the first pack I had taken over, at least for the first one I had some sort of reputation with mother and her two wolf pups to help sell me as a possible candidate for leadership.
If I understood how the wolves communicated completely I'd probably have the answer to this situation, as it was, I would simply have to go off assumptions, the biggest threat was probably the yeti. If they were allowed to stay, most likely more of their kind would enter the region which would embolden them against the wolves, not to mention they were confirmed maneaters, and I would not abide something that would eat me if given a chance living on the same mountain.
Of course, the wolves could always turn on me but so far they've shown remarkable loyalty and I was not willing to entertain those thoughts at the moment. I have also not seen any evidence of them eating humans. just the alpha showing distrust for them to the point it was willing to kill me.
That reaction would imply some contact with humanity at one point in their history, so the wolves were not only my best route to having a safe haven. With their understanding of the local terrain, they may one day be able to lead me to the rest of humanity on this planet.
Once the yetis were dealt with I could move against the 20 or so wolves that had left the tribe, perhaps negotiations could be opened for a division of territory that was equal or they may be brought back into the fold.
Whatever it is we need to come from a place of power and removing the yeti situation from the board would give me that place of power.
Once I had the domestic situation in hand I could turn towards the foreign wolves that were poking at the border. Hopefully they could be diplomatically dealt with, though I doubted that greatly if a fight between a newbie and an alpha was the outcome of my joining the tribe. It seems more likely that those situations would spawn an all-out battle for the mountain.
Something I would like to avoid, but Fate had not been kind to me on avoiding combat so far.