Eleven

An hour had passed, and the slayer was still sitting on the stone dressed in animal skin, looking at the strangers who had saved him. He had tried to thank them, but they said something he couldn't understand. It didn't take long for his wolf to figure out that they spoke a different language from theirs. Yes, the slayer had gotten his wolf back together with all his powers. In fact, it was his wolf who had pushed him to wake up, telling him that they were surrounded by people who spoke a different language. Thanks to those strangers, they healed him in time, and thus he got all her powers back, but how was she going to thank them?

"What kind of language are they speaking?" He asked his wolf.

"A language I know," he responded with a chuckle.

"If you can speak their language, then why don't you respond to their questions, you fool?" He yelled at him, causing those around him to look at her in confusion. He just smiled at them, and they smiled back at him, obviously thinking that maybe he was trying to talk to them. After he had given her wolf the chance to take over and speak on his behalf, that was when he introduced them.

"Hello, I'm Alexander Samthon. "Thanks for taking care of me," his wolf said, and he had to stretch his hand for a handshake. The men and women looked at him and smiled when they realized he could speak and understand their language. They all argued, fighting over who was to accept his handshake, but his wolf asked them to be patient because he would be shaking hands with all of them.

"You look like one of us," a  woman called Vivi said, pointing at their tan skins.

"I noticed that as well," he smiled when his wolf lied to them, hiding the fact that his skin was normally pale white and had changed because he had been sick for a long time. "How come you are all here?" "How did you get it?" The wolf asked again.

"Five years ago, the Blackened attacked our kingdom. "Our princess here," the man narrating pointed at a girl with red hair and brown eyes who smiled shyly at him, "was celebrating her twelfth birthday when we were attacked." "The barrier that Queen Sedzah had set up for our protection didn't last much longer, and our enemies managed to penetrate it." They came and killed thousands of our people. It was only the few of us who are responsible for Princess Hanress's welfare that survived because we escaped through a secret portal. Queen Sedzah also whispered something to us before she was killed by the monsters. "Using her magic, she sealed us into this underground cave, and she said that you'd come and save us."

"What?“ “How?" The wolf asked, and the slayer had to intercede and beg him to say whatever those people had said. When his wolf explained everything to him, he asked him to ask them how their queen knew of him. How did she know that he would one day be trapped in that cave and fall where her people were and help them?

"Here, you can read this," princess Hanress, who had been silent all that while, handed over an old black diary to him, scribbled with the words "600 BC" on top. The wolf hurriedly read everything written on it and explained everything to the slayer, who still hadn't processed everything he had heard. A certain page had said that he would leave behind his powerful kingdom, leave his mate and friends, and go there only to save them and get their kingdom back. Was that the reason why I found myself in the Majorii Mountains? Did I leave my home all by myself? "Didn't I die and reincarnate into another universe?" A thousand questions flowed down his memory lane, and he couldn't even find answers to them.

"I think it will be better if we train them, help them rebuild their army, and when we are all strong enough, you'll use your powers to get us out of here, as it is written." Out there, we will help them fight their enemies, and when they get redeemed, we will use their army to fight our own enemies, the stinky monsters who guide the way back to the eastern mountains, which will take us home. "What do you think?" His wolf asked.

"I think it's a good idea. Tell them the training will commence tomorrow morning. "It won't be good if we live them like this given that they were the ones who helped me get my life back," he whistled back to his wolf, who hummed in agreement.

"You can all do what you want tonight because tomorrow we will start thorough training to rebuild your energy." "To get out of here, we need more energy, and once we are out there, I will help you rebuild a strong army and get the kingdom back," the wolf announced, and they all clapped because their freedom was near.

"How long will the training take?" He was asked.

"It depends on you, pals." If you show determination and please tell me, we will be out of here before you know it. "If you are lazy and you all won't do what I ask you to do, we may even take a year or so to get out of here," his wolf threatened them, and he chuckled when he saw the disagreement in their eyes and faces.

"From today on, we shall all do what Alpha Alexander Samthon tells us." "Are we together?" Princess Hanress asked then, and they all hummed in agreement to she had said. That day, they slept really early, saving enough energy for the tough training the wolf would be giving them starting the following day. 

Early the next day, the slayer was startled out of his sleep by the sound of two heavy metal rods banging against each other. He woke up to find everyone else doing so. He looked around and stared at where the noise was coming from, and true, they were metal rods.

"What's that Elder?" His wolf asked a man, older than the rest in there with gray hairs, who was sleeping beside princess Hanress.

"It's the alarm I set a week later after we were sealed in here," he explained.

"Alarm?" "Alarms rang only when the morning hours arrived; how do those two rods know when morning arrives when there is no sun in here?" His wolf asked the smiling man.

"Every day at six p.m., a gushing whirlwind occurs at the top of the mountain, penetrates through the cracks, and shakes everything in here." So when the wind finally arrives, those rods hit against each other, and we wake up knowing it's another day.“ The old man explained to them.

"This oldie is very wise." "He must have been the queen's adviser before she was killed by the monsters," the slayer whispered back to his wolf after he told her what the old man had said.

"Yes, do you even know how close he is to Princess Hanress?" "He looks like she trusts only him," the wolf whistled back, watching them as they laughed happily while talking to each other. After the breakfast, they all took a rest and enjoyed themselves for the rest of the day. Since the slayer couldn't talk to them because of the language barrier and his lazy wolf had told them that they would start training by evening and that they should go and swim, they did as he had instructed, thinking it was him, Alpha Alexander, giving them orders, and yet it was his stupid, lazy wolf.

The slayer growled at his wolf's happy laughters, which made him block his ears before he shatters his poor earsdrums into tiny pieces when he forced him to jump into the small pool with green water to swim. When he reused saying he wasn't in the mood and that the water was cold, his wolf threatened to expose him to their helpers and tell them that it was a wolf conversing with them and not him. Because he didn't want to start scaring them, he had no choice but to follow his wolf's orders, but deep down he swore to avenge him when they get out of there. All the ladies were led to another pool, which was already warmed, beside a huge rock, where they swam while the men rested on the poolside near the table. It was so funny, and the slayer couldn't believe that he had lost a lot after he found herself in that freaking mountain.

Since the underground cave was divided into many tunnels, when he was tired of swimming, he escaped from his helpers and decided to explore. He realized that the place was not only an underground cave but that it was another Earth. He found trees when he took one of the tunnels that took him out of the cave; he found rivers with clean, burbling flowing waters; and he could breathe some fresh air again. The soil  there was so cool that he laid beside the river and played with them again like a little boy. He wasn't even aware of the fact that he had been smiling all that time, a smile that indeed reached his brown eyes, something he hadn't done since he found himself in that world, until a voice startled him from behind.

"You don't like staying with crowds?" "Why are you smiling so widely?" He was asked. He spun around and smiled when he realized it was Princess Hanress who had followed him over there.

"I am sorry if I am invading your privacy; it's just that I am so not a social butterfly and I also escape from them whenever they get lost in their own tales and come here," she explained herself, thinking that the slayer would be angry with the fact that he had followed him. The last thing they were all trying to do was piss him off because once they do, he may leave them there and they will have nothing to do but rot in that world.

"No, I am not angry, really," his wolf responded hurriedly when the slayer kept on stairing at the girl, wondering what she was saying. Stupid wolf, he had forgotten that his master doesn't know their helper's language and had his eyes fixed on a beautiful girl who was sitting not far from where they were eyeing the slayer, who hadn't seen her yet and was busy smiling at Princess Hanress.