Kinverse: Volume One

PATH OF THE EMERALD MAIDEN

A naive young monster's tale by Moros, aka KinverseWriter

Legal Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise herein mentioned. No copyright infringement is intended. All characters and events in this story are entirely fictional. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. This work of fiction contains disturbing content.

Reader discretion is advised.

Description:

A young woman from a pre-neolithic society is accidentally whisked away to another world entirely during a raid on a research lab run by alien invaders. Stranded with no friends, badly injured, and no idea where home even is, she's forced to live off the land and learn how to survive in this strange and hostile world.

There's only one slight problem, though.

She's not trapped in this world with them. They're trapped in this world with her.

Categories:

Adventure, Coming-of-Age, Isekai, Erotica.

Disclaimers:

This story contains sexual elements and disturbing themes. The contents aren't purely intended to be pornographic, but some scenes objectively are. This is about a giant monster that eats people, so reader discretion is advised. This story contains vorarephilic themes.

This story will have a very slow and intermittent pace to begin with. True stakes don't really show up until halfway through, though the build-up is always there in the background. This is ultimately not a story of grand adventure and defeating one's enemies to rise to the top, it is the tale of a lost and naive young woman growing as a person and learning new things. It is a personal one concerning her, and thus this story will be told in present-tense first-person.

Chapter 3: Hunter

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I spent the next few days afterwards in the valley to the south. I think I've gotten a bit more used to the air here and how my weight feels. Thinking back to my first elk and how I overshot my dodge, I've become convinced that I'm either stronger or... somehow weighing less. I can't see how spending time in that void and pulping my scythes would've made me stronger or smaller, though. I certainly don't feel any smaller! This is so confusing. Luckily, I am quite used to very noteworthy shifts in my weight, what with how my people feed.

Musings finished, I get up. I spent the night under a large fallen tree's stump, nice and hidden away from sight. A hiding place such as it wouldn't exactly cover up my scent, but I'm an apex predator and tall intruders have poor noses according to Mother! They could only smell my brothers and sisters when they were already on top of them! I wonder how they even hunt, if they do at all? Their air-movers can spot Kin through the thick canopies back home somehow, but I can't imagine they hunt in those.

Okay. No more distractions. I crawl up to the edge of the cleft in the ground, and scent the air. New smells. New things. Two faint, one closer, carried by the winds; the other, elk, but stronger, as if there are more.

Without a trail I cannot discern much about the unknown one, just that it is unlike the elk, very unlike the smaller critters I've previously feasted upon, and that it is large. How large, I do not yet know. Perhaps I'll investigate later. For now, breakfast. I finish climbing out of my root-filled hidey-hole and turn to track down the scent of the elk.

I need to know more about these creatures. I hunted another one soon after entering this valley, but it was noticeably different from the previous of its kind: whereas the first had antlers, the second lacked them and was injured, limping. It was barely a hunt at all; no chase, no brawl, just sneaking up on it and tackling it to the ground before feasting. It's either the opposing sex, or not yet matured.

Dimorphism. This concept is not new to me. The necks of seasoned females of my kind grow in length to accommodate other physical changes. Females also grow larger than males, who instead grow longer tails which they can use to better stand with, and their tail-blades become three-pointed glaives. The dimorphic differences become most noticeable as a Kin ages, but it's easy to tell even before due to slight differences in carapaces.

As for these elk, I do not yet know which are the males and which, the females. I will have to pay better attention. They are so weak! Though most creatures can bite, these elk would not be able to save themselves from me with their teeth, and only half of them even have a weapon, the antlers!

That thought stops me, and I think for a moment. Females of my kind are the hunters and providers, while settled males defend the nest and the broodlings. Their roles are usually interchangeable but that is generally how a family works. Perhaps something similar is the case here? Yet another thing to look out for. Slowly, I peel back the mysteries of this land.

An hour and one track-covered path discovered later, I find my quarry. Peering out from the safety of the undergrowth's darkness, I see a whole herd of elk in this clearing! There is one very large antlered one, like the first, a few smaller horned ones, and many without. There are even broodlings; children. Perhaps they are pack animals as well, just as we are? An alpha and their children.

However, there is only the one elk with very large antlers. I do not see any hornless ones which are noticeably different from the rest. A single matriarch and her absurd number of consorts, or a single patriarch and his harem? This isn't so different from back home; there are large-horned beasts much like these, although bigger, and they gather in a system like the latter of my guesses. Their females are weaker, the bulls strong, deadly, risky to fight for younger adults. It's always better to pick off from the harem, except for those who seek to prove themselves.

It is much like our ways, but with that notable twist. Our culture is one of brawling and competition, with foreign males fighting other foreign males to gain the right to a mate and sister fighting sister to establish dominance and hierarchy. After that, remaining disputes are settled and mateships are decided. The way of the other pack animals back home is to fight over the females like a commodity! Pah!

Sickening. Weak. Only these males must fight each other for dominance, and through this establish that only the strongest pass on their strength, but this way of things has always marked me as alien, even back home. I want a strong mate, but more than that, I want to be worthy of a strong mate. I am not weak. I will not be weak. These females are food and food only; practically a chore to hunt.

I continue to lazily observe the herd for hours. The presumed-females mind their broodlings, all within the clearing grazing, only occasionally looking up. The maybe-patriarch has looked up and glanced in my direction a few times, but has not yet acted, and may not so long as I remain hidden.

Slowly, a new scent has arrived. The elk do not seem to have noticed it yet--it is not close enough and has not remained long enough to overpower the winds as mine has. It approaches from behind me along the trail, as downwind to me as we to the elk. Creeping further into the brush, I wait and watch.

I can smell it, but it is attempting stealth. Intelligence? A fellow predator on the hunt? It does not seem to have noticed me despite my being upwind to it. Perhaps it is as confused by me as all the other animals of this alien jungle?

BANG!

Loud! An explosion! I huddle down further, trying to stay hidden. A tall intruder! No wonder it did not react to my scent! It also has one of its burning-sticks with it, clearly a very large one somehow to have made such a loud noise!

Glancing back to the herd, they have begun to stampede away from the source of the boom. One of their number, a female, is stumbling and tripping at the edge of the clearing. I am too far to see what has occurred; when you get shot with a burning-stick you either live, or you die; there is no in-between like this.

Stepping into the clearing from the path comes one I mentally dub 'the hunter.'

It has a red-and-black covering draped over its torso, thick pants with many flaps on its legs, and a long burning-stick unlike the ones I have previously seen the tall intruders use. Atop its head is yet another covering, flush to their head but for a rigid flap out the front.

It does not smell like a tall intruder, and yet it clearly is one. Has it done something to change its scent? Why not just cover it up entirely, if so? Is it pretending to be a different animal?

Its back is to me and its whole body is covered. It does not appear to be wearing armor, which may mean that this land truly isn't as dangerous as my home. The tall intruders needed powerful burning-sticks, created-carapace, and walls to protect themselves. This one may have a strange burning-stick, but he is alone, with no created-carapace, no air-mover, and certainly no wall. I could kill him right now, but my curiosity keeps me still. I still know nothing of this new tool or why the tall intruder smells strange.

It approaches the dead or dying elk; I cannot tell which, but the amount of blood spurting from what must be a hole in its neck indicates that it shortly will not matter; death is inevitable despite its spasms and struggles.

The elk clears this particular mystery up as the hunter approaches into its wide field of view, one eye staring straight up. It attempts to lift its head, legs continually spasming, but it can do nothing. With one last struggle, it falls limp.

The hunter sets down a container from where it is secured to its back, opening the soft vessel and pulling out what looks like a claw. I have seen tall intruders with these before; they are tools, created-claws for cutting.

It gets to work on the elk, biting into it with its blade--slicing off the hide, extracting meat, I watch for a long period of time as the hunter expertly butchers its kill. Its weapon precisely hit the elk in an arterial vein, killing it quickly through exsanguination, and now it is taking what it will be able to carry back to its nest. I notice it leaves many of the organs, focusing on the thicker, denser slabs of meat. It is being efficient, it cannot carry much else with it.

So this is how the tall intruders hunt. They cannot smell, but clearly they know how to track since it followed the trail. They cannot pounce, claw, and subdue, so they have made their own tools. They have studied their prey, identifying how best to kill it quickly and efficiently with as little danger to themselves as possible.

I can't help but be impressed. One may call it a cowardly way to hunt, but I suppose there is something to the effort to ensure victory despite the odds.

I never did get my tall intruder. This one will do, though it is on the larger side. Grinning, I continue my observation.

Finishing its work, it seals the meat in flimsy containers that I can still see the meat through, before cleaning itself and packing up. With it turning around, I can finally see its face.

Flat? Two eyes. Short ears and nose. Small and thin mouth. This is not a tall intruder, it is something else! Even its skin is a different color than that of the tall intruders, being a slightly tanned pink, with little hair!

I cannot strike yet. It may spot me. Ducking back down, I watch as it heads back down the path. Once it is out of my sight, I creep out and investigate the dead elk opposite my hiding place. There is a small hole in its neck where the blood spurted out of, and a matching one on the other side. Curiously inserting my clawed finger into each hole, I can tell both are deep; perhaps connected, as if someone stabbed through all the way. The one on the other side is rather messy, coated in gore and viscera. I lick my finger clean.

The burning-sticks I have seen before do not stab, they burn, either where they hit or in a great conflagration. I eat the rest of the elk before turning and I start down the path after it, low to the ground and--once I've caught up--ensuring I do not approach too close.

A few times it gets suspicious and casts its gaze around, nearly spotting me a few times before I can duck back.

Finally, it stops, corners of its mouth drooping down. It grabs its burning-stick from where it hangs loose over its front, turns fully around, and stares back the way it has come, in my direction.

The wind has not changed, I am still upwind. Perhaps it can smell me? It seems to have a very expressive face, but I do not recognize what any of it means. Suspicion? Hostility? Anticipation? Fear? I shrink back further, only daring to peek after many long moments of silence finally interrupted by the sound of crunching needles.

It turns around and continues leaving. I increase my following distance, the hunter now disappearing from sight.

What a strange creature. It is not a tall intruder, and yet it is so very much like one. For now, until I know more about its kind, I can only know of this entity as the hunter.

The names of my kin are simple ones, based on relation, feelings, great actions, and appearance. To the brood, Mother is Mother and Father is Father. I am young; I have not yet earned a name but one day I shall.

This is the hunter. Despite its weakness, despite needing a tool, despite the relative docility of the prey in this land, it still hunts. I can respect that. It is strong; a provider. Is it a female, or perhaps a male? If it were a tall intruder I could tell, but without a very close and thorough look I cannot yet figure it out. But I will get my chance.

---

An hour later, having left the elk's path behind, the hunter has stopped up ahead. Creeping through the brush nearing my destination, within I find… things.

Seated in a clearing next to a river is the hunter's home: a soft red created-nest, with a square base curving up to a point in the middle and a sealed flap allowing entry for those with thumbs, like me and the hunter. Off to the side near another path intersecting this clearing sits a relatively small mover, with seating only for two of its kind upon its open back and with what appear to be containers attached to it. Opposite the created-nest, hung from a tree's branch by what looks to be a yellow vine is a blue case with a white lid, sealed shut with more of the vines. In the middle of the clearing not far from the created-nest is a strange red rectangle of sharp-stone seated on a smooth grey surface of yet more sharp-stone, itself supported upon thin legs.

Its back to me, the hunter is working on something at the base of the tree with the container. It is the end of the vine, coiled up and affixed to the trunk.

Untying the vine, it lowers the container down, removing the vines sealing it, before finally popping it open. I cannot tell what is inside, but it places the odd containers filled with the elk meat within. Storage--probably hung from the tree to prevent scavengers from getting at it and sealed to prevent birds and insects. However, the birds here that I have seen so far are quite small, perhaps they wouldn't even be able to open it anyway?

It could be protection against something larger; I can't be the only predator within this jungle if the antlers on that elk I saw earlier are any indication.

Sealing it once more and hoisting it back up, then tying the vine to the trunk again, the hunter moves on.

The tall intruders never did anything like this. Perhaps they could not hunt, or perhaps it was too dangerous in my home for them to do so. Mother certainly saw to the latter, but we never really were able to observe them in the jungles they controlled. Regardless of the truth back home, I am thoroughly intrigued. I must study this creature further before I act.

There's no way that I'm large enough to swallow him whole. I want to, I want this creature's strength all to myself! None for the birds, none for the insects, none for the world, mine and mine only.

My scythes are nearly healed and my carapace is still slightly damaged in places, but after about a week of food and rest I'm almost back in shape. We are very hard to kill--provided we escape and are able to feed to heal. After that, I can begin to grow. I do not trust my carapace to be able to resist the stab of that burning-stick. Well. If it stabs, it is not a burning-stick, it is a stabbing-stick. But… that is confusing, I have seen stabbing-sticks already: tools of the tall intruders used to keep us back, from pouncing and rending. The hunter's burning-stick was too short to be a stabstick, and it was too far from the elk!

Hm. I'll just think of it as a burning-stick then.

The hunter didn't seal all of its takings from the kill in the container; it has left out a single flimsy one. It has left it on yet another container near the strange device on the grey surface.

It opens the flap of the created-nest and places its back-container within before moving towards the meat and weird objects.

Standing over the surface, the hunter pulls at the edge of the device, half of it pivoting up and away. With the device prepared, it grabs a flat almost-rock tool from beside the device and places it atop, before fiddling with something on this quite odd rectangle. The device is somewhat shiny, with light coming off of it in the midday sun. But, it is quite weathered like a rock left in the rain for years or a bone not expelled for a while.

Kin who have a bad habit of not expelling often enough--especially those who never do--often build up aches in their bellies that never go away with time and only get worse, with the only solution being to have a friend 'reach in' and dislodge whatever's in there, or for the larger of us, send a smaller Kin in. It's better to just practice proper hygiene than have to rely on there being a sister to lend a hand. While it's easiest for broodmothers and older settled males to get help due to being able to have one of their adolescents help, poor hygiene is also rarer among the seniors: it's a lesson that doesn't often need much to teach.

The problem is especially bad for those who have ingested the chitinous plates of defeated claimants or fallen Kin. To be large enough to do so in the first place is usually to be wise enough to know how to take care of yourself, at least.

While I was thinking, the hunter has since finished whatever it was doing, having attached a green cylindrical object to the side of the open rectangle. With that finished, it fiddles with a few bits sticking up, and… out erupts fire.

Fire.

It has controlled flame.

And with such apparent ease!

From great creations in the sky fighting a raging fire as far as the eye can see, to this small cylinder that lets this device sprout fire as if a ring of fungus deep in the jungle.

Perhaps Mother is right to be curious of the tall intruders' things. I know not what this device is for, but of the others I have seen, they could certainly make us stronger. I do not think we would ever use the burning-sticks except to return fire to the dreaded air-movers, but that ability alone would immediately win us our guerilla war.

Of course, I already knew that the tall intruders had harnessed fire for their own needs, having seen it for myself, but that was in battle and I didn't get to see it from so close. It looks so simple and easy and I can only wonder at what must be going on within this device to do this.

The hunter has taken the meat out of the flimsy container and placed it on the flat tool. Is it going to burn the meat?! I have tasted the flesh of those burnt by the burning-sticks, and it is horrible! Charred, falling apart, an acrid reminder of a death that is difficult to contest. In a brawl to the death, it is just that: a close-up fight to overpower, cut, and kill your opponent. When charging the tall intruders or fleeing an air-mover, all you can do is try and dodge their aim.

By now, I have crept far closer, peering around the edge of the created-nest, watching over the hunter's shoulder. The blood in the meat has boiled out, the edges searing. After a few minutes, the hunter goes to save the meat with yet another tool: a pair of connected shiny sticks, but rather than take it from the heat, it merely flips the slab.

The side that had faced down is now charred, but not too much. Controlled burning? Another few minutes, and it reaches down to touch the device again, ending the fire. It reaches over and opens the container next to it, retrieving another flat tool and some small objects. It places down the new flat tool--a slightly shiny grey sharp-rock as opposed to the dull black almost-rock, the sides of both slightly turning up around the edges--before taking the small objects and proceeding to shake them over the meat, then flipping it once more, shaking again, and finally saving the meat from the almost-rock surface.

It looks like it's done whatever it's doing. Time to hide again. As quietly as I can--aided greatly by the lack of leaves and twigs in the clearing--and with the created-nest to block line of sight, I return to the treeline. With a sigh, the hunter sits back with its perhaps-a-meal, but first once again retrieves more small objects: a small crafted-claw and an item reminiscent of my scythes if they ended in more blades than the one. One to cut the meat, and one to secure it while doing so? Nothing new to me. But why burn it as it has?

It brings the created-claw down and slices before impaling the loose piece with the other implement, before bringing the burnt flesh to its mouth. It is indeed eating.

Digging into it, the object of my fascination relaxes, finally ending its hunt in spirit. Every day I solve one mystery and land myself with two more. Creeping away, I turn and leave. I grin and lick my lips. I know its smell now. I will be back… but not yet. You will be mine. I will be the strongest hunter in this jungle, tools or not. I could easily ambush it in the night, but that is no hunt, that is merely the collection of food.

Better to have a bit of fun while getting it if it's worth it. Hehe.

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A/N:

In this chapter, you get to see a little bit more of the protagonist's personality, her people's culture, and their level of technology--which is respectively: not yet formed but cautious, respectively sophisticated but barbaric, and practically nonexistent.

Her home is being invaded by a vastly technologically superior foe in a war that they are slowly losing. But that's a story for another time.