Edward Wright pointed at the person responsible for transporting food every day, who was leaning against a stone jar at the cave entrance, swinging his toes and picking his teeth absentmindedly.

Looking at the fierce children inside the cave fighting over food, Henry Clark really wanted to grab the person in charge of transportation and ask, “Delivery guy, are you freaking kidding me?!”

Chapter Six: Trouble

Including Henry Clark, there were a total of twenty-seven children living in the cave, all of them ferocious. How was Henry Clark supposed to manage them with his small arms and legs?

Many of the kids in the cave wanted to take Edward Wright’s place to get more food. With Henry Clark, who was obviously much younger, taking over management, it was clear the other children would be unhappy, and that unhappiness would inevitably lead to conflict.

Two words—big trouble.

The middle-aged man responsible for transporting food to the cave was called “Charles Lee.” He wasn’t as strong as Miller, and he had lost an arm during a hunting expedition. Now unable to hunt, he had retired from the hunting team and was in charge of delivering food every day.

Henry Clark had tried to ask him the reason before, but didn’t get any answers.

After the food was distributed, Charles Lee carried the empty stone jar away with one hand. Even though he was missing an arm, he was still strong enough to carry the jar single-handedly without any problem.

After Charles Lee left, Edward Wright entered the cave to announce the new decision and the person who would be taking over his job.

“Starting tomorrow, Henry will be in charge of distributing food!”

After eating, the atmosphere in the cave had calmed down, the earlier chaos from fighting over food had subsided, but with Edward Wright’s announcement, tension rose again. The children in the cave didn’t shout or complain—they didn’t know how to argue—but their expressions were all unpleasant.

Edward Wright didn’t stay any longer or offer any explanation. He quickly packed up his bedding and left. He was getting older, and unless something unexpected happened, after this winter he would awaken his totem power. In other words, with this step, he might never return to the cave.

Edward Wright left easily, but Henry Clark felt heavy-hearted.

Judging by the time of day, it was about three in the afternoon, with some time left before sunset.

Henry Clark took Julius Caesar and went to the rocky ground again, sitting down to think about what to do next.

He had originally planned to just live quietly for a couple of years, waiting until he was old enough to awaken his totem power. Even if his talent was poor and he awakened late, at worst he’d awaken at Edward Wright’s age, and then he could go out, build his own house, join a hunting team, and make a living. But now, it seemed that peaceful life was impossible. When he left the cave just now, several kids were eyeing him—and Julius Caesar beside him—with ill intent.

“Do you think they’ll get up in the middle of the night and eat you?” Henry Clark said to Julius Caesar, who was pacing around the rocky ground.

Before, with Edward Wright keeping order, those little brats didn’t dare do anything. Now that Edward Wright was gone, things were uncertain. The kids in the cave were much fiercer than those in the rest of the tribe. They didn’t think too much—if they got hungry enough, they might ignore the shaman’s token, band together, and roast Julius Caesar. Henry Clark alone couldn’t take on more than twenty kids in the cave.

Julius Caesar had no idea about the trouble looming ahead. When he couldn’t find any stone bugs on the rocky ground, he started heading toward the black marsh.

There were two forbidden areas near the mountain where the tribe was located. One was a vast black marsh, easy to get stuck in—once you fell in, you were as good as dead. The other was the wide river in front of the mountain, whose far bank couldn’t be seen. There were river beasts in the water, and it was said that in the early days, some of the tribe’s strongest warriors went in to fish and never came back. With so many unknown dangers, the tribe’s leaders eventually forbade anyone from entering the water.

So, except for the tribe’s women who occasionally went to the shallows to wash animal skins, no one went near the river. There was a small stream running down the mountain, and all the tribe’s drinking water came from there. Naturally, no one wanted to risk the unknown dangers of the river.

Both the black marsh and the riverbank were guarded by warriors on rotating shifts, to prevent tribe members from entering these dangerous places and to guard against unpredictable threats from those areas.

Fishing and hunting—without fishing, and with no domestication or farming, the tribe basically relied solely on hunting. That was the main reason why food was always so scarce.

Everything revolved around food. With Julius Caesar—such a big chunk of meat—hanging around the cave every night, it was no wonder the hungry kids in the cave were drooling over him.

“What should I do?” Henry Clark sighed again, inwardly complaining about the old shaman who had given him the token but never showed up again.

The tribe didn’t allow people to enter the black marsh or go into the river, especially children who hadn’t awakened their totem power. But they never said wolves couldn’t go near the black marsh. So, every now and then, when Julius Caesar came this way, he would wander along the edge of the black marsh looking for something to gnaw on, like some of the strange beetles that lived there. After a while, the warriors guarding the border just turned a blind eye.

Animals are very sensitive to danger, and Julius Caesar knew the black marsh was dangerous, so he only wandered around the edges.

Not sure what he’d found this time, Julius Caesar ran over with something in his mouth, dropped it, and flung a black lump in front of Henry Clark.