Historian(Dr. Stone)

00. The Hidden Village of Volkov

(1 am shit's been bugging my mind recently and the palm itches to publish le story. So may hand slipped on the publish button. 

Enjoy~)

Sharp fanged beast yawned with a purring growl lazily. The big ferocious head leaned down on its arms and continued a calm peaceful sleep. As it did, a fair hand rubbed the rough mane, smoothening it to one direction.

The place is inside a tent, a large room with a clean cemented flooring, there other people around too, that looked quite mascular. They were clothed with animal skins and there are different colored stones piercing one side of their ears.

The youth who sat on the very end with his body leaning on the soft clean cushion, tilted his head, the diamond earring shined under the orange torch light magnificently, emphasizing the delicate shape of his young and sickly face. He looks to be about fifteen to seventeen in age, with a soft looking temperament and clear amber eyes that dazzled like gold paired with curls of his short soft hair as dark as obsidian.

Only he had a diamond earrings in that room. Indicating his high status amongst the people in there.

There were people of all ages there too,  all of which had different accessories in their ears. Gold, silver, opal, pearls and more. The rarer, the higher the status there is.

The young man stared at them and smiled. "A passage for the seventh story in the hundred tales, deep in the wilderness, the wandering Momotaro met the ferocious alligator of the swamp. The dragon of the wild with elongated mouth and a strong jaw with sharp teeth that can pierce any animal it encounters. They have hard green leather skins, hard to be pierced by simple arrows. They are carnivorous animals, that supplements themselves with any kind of meat. They have tendencies to be cannibals too. They mostly hide in the green swamps of rainforests but when out of the water, they crawl out quietly waiting for its approaching prey." He said.

"Yes, it's the same with one of our brothers saw. There was a pair lurking under the marsh hidden well like molded woods floating in the surface of water. It's head would peek out disguised almost like a mossy log, it was almost hard to notice." A man with opal earring verified the story. His opal earring signifies his occupation as a hunter.

"Things like that are indeed dangerous. I'm glad you consulted me first before hunting." He sighed, rubbed the giant feline beside him with genteel, making the lion purr in comfort. "Up until now, we have never seen those alligators. But now that someone saw them in person, we should send the the old artist to have the creature be illustrated if it's safe to go." He said.

"Understood, lord priest Cosmos." The hunter responded before leaving.

"Ehh, the lord priest is not planning to tame the alligators?" One child with blonde hair and blue eyes asked. There were kids just sitting two meters across him, happened to be there to listen for the hundred tales.

Cosmos smiled. "We mustn't be too hasty. No matter how incredible it sounds to tame animals, amphibians are still harder to tame. It must have been luck that a snake was tamed."

The children in front of him looked at him with bright admiring eyes. Cosmos, the priest and chief heir to the Volkov village. Although it was in the norm for every family to assign the hundred tales to their daughters to become the priestess, Cosmos' father and mother(the former village priestess) had no other choice. They had an older daughter who is now in her twenties, but because she was physically weak, they didn't know if she can even pass the hundred tales with her condition, thus, giving the responsibility to the second child.

Cosmos have a special gift. He can tame animals within just a short time, as if captivating them to come to his warmth. And after learning the hundred tales, his knowledge broadened and became a respected little chief almost as high as they regard the current chief, who was known to be the hunting god in his prime, Cosmos' father.

The village is only in the scale of seventy more or less. Most are affiliated hunters, they do fish in the river, but most food came from the forest and so, foraging and hunting meals are their main means of supply.

With the winter coming closely, the hunters were dispatched again, made a great haul with the help of their partners, hunting dogs.

Hunting dogs had been popular in the village for generations. Almost every hunters have one to find other animals to eat easily. With the help of the dogs, it's easier to hunt and they never had any problems with regards to food shortage at all.

Just as he was about to tell more stories for the children, the tent opened again, entering a frantic man wearing a copper piercing, indicating his occupation as a village guard. "Lord priest, something's in the sky!" He announced.

Hearing this, the young man ran all the way outside, noticing the other villagers hiding under the trees in fear. Cosmos followed their sight and found something quite unreal.

"What is that?"

.

Still in search of oil, Senku and Ryusui stood at the basket of the hot air balloon, taking photos from left to right. Gen and Kohaku was assigned to search through the aerial photos back in the lab. And finally, Ukio and Chrome were assigned on ground search following the orders from Senku.

All of them are connected through phones.

"This looks like a bridge." Kohaku suddenly announced making Gen turn to her with curiosity.

"What did you find, Kohaku-chan?" He asked, peeking through the photo she had in hand.

"Here." Kohaku pointed at the conopies of trees, and on that small gap, there's a blurry image that could be recognize as bridge.

Gen's eyes squinted. Not only one bridge, but a lot. Slowly, his squinting eyes turned to shock. He immediately picked up the phone and rang Senku. "Aerial team, I don't think our problem is only going to be about searching for the eally-ray ad-bay precious Sagara Oil." He informed.

Senku, who was at the sky raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, mentalist?" He asked.

"Well, the aerial photo you took somewhere around Mt Fuji seems to be hiding a village underneath." He replied.

"Village?" Senku, who was just facing the volcano, turned his telescope to search.

"There seemed to be tree houses hidden in the canopies. But you'll be able to see the bridge through the gap." He explained.

Just when he thought that Gen was joking, his eyes caught sight of the bridges. All connected to different trees from high to low. A village indeed. He chuckled a smile. "Well, this is exhilarating." He said.

"A village for real? Haha! I want it!" Ryusui exclaimed with an ear to ear smile.

"Baaad! A village?!" As soon as Chrome received the call, he was excited. Doesn't that mean that these guys are the same descendants where Ishigami Village came from?

"Go back to Ishigami village for now. We need to have Gen in case we get into a predicament." He said.

Ryusui took the telescope and looked through the tree house village. The way it was built was quite aesthetic. Almost imitating the ground to hide away.

Perfect predators.

Before they could even go back, a big white bird suddenly flew pass them then drifted back around in the air, making a few circles as if assessing the balloon. Six rounds before landing on the side of the basket, staring up at the passengers with big wide eyes.

The white owl tilted his head full ninety degrees left, then after a few seconds, the head went full one eighty to the right. Slowly raising his left talon. In the small feet, there seemed to be something tied in there. A white cloth.

"This... A messenger bird?" Senku fascinatingly untangled the cloth and unwrapped it with anticipation. Upon opening the contents, his eyes widened and then his expression turned to a smirk. "Ahh... It seems that we won't be needing to brainstorm if our encounter are savages or not..." He chuckled, holding the cloth which held actual English words and letters in them.

It says in a brief one word: "WELCOME."

(Btw. Volkov is Shamil's last name.)