Meeting The Natives:

As I traveled back to the fireplace, I feared that the dead puma's pride would be coming after me, but I hadn't felt an eerie feeling yet, and I was already halfway to my destination, meaning that it was safe to say that they probably lost track of my scent at the river. And as I got closer to the fireplace, I began to slowly begin to calm down.

I knew that I had to cook the Puma's meat in order to avoid contracting most of the diseases it had, but I also knew that doing so would probably attract any predators nearby. So after some thinking, I decided that it would be best to set up a trap, have the fire cook the puma, but also be waiting on a tree on top of the fire with two hammers, that way if any animal came I would be able to knock them out easily.

After making two new hammers, I also grabbed 2 Y-shaped branches and used them to suppose the puma carcass over the fire, after that, I removed the spear from the puma's mouth and shoved it down its throat, and letting the spear come out the other side before placing both ends of the spear on the Y-shaped branches.

As I waited on top of the trees, I began to hear sounds coming from far away, getting closer, in the beginning, I thought that it was the dead puma's pride, and was getting ready to fight for my life, but as the sounds got closer they began to resemble grunts and nonsenses, it was then that it hit me.

'OTHER HUMANS?!'

I was shocked but ecstatic because although they were at their most primitive stage, just basic human interaction should be enough to help stabilize my sanity, plus, it also meant that I didn't have to survive in this hellhole alone anymore. Even better, if I managed to get them to my side, I would finally be able to stop worrying so much about encountering predators.

Once I got down the tree again and looked at them, they seemed to be a group of 6, with some of them holding rocks while the others had sharp-looking sticks, they weren't too tall, according to the system I am currently physically 16 so my estimations might be a little off, but they shouldn't be much older than 15-16 years old.

While I saw their arrival as a gift, they seemed to see me as an enemy, getting ready to attack in order to get to the cooked meat, before they could though, I simply grabbed the two ends of the now hot spear and threw the puma carcass to them before the heat could do any real damage to my hands, followed by putting my hands in the river water just in case.

This caused the nomads to suddenly stop in their tracks before grunting and signaling things to each other in confusion. I for one found it rather amusing but understood the reason for their reaction, after all, here in the jungle, food is the second most valuable thing one could possess, not to talk about the fact that it was the carcass of an entire predator.

Plus, this was probably also the first time in their entire lives that they had seen cooked meat and been able to enjoy the smell, still, after they were done communicating their confusion to each other, one of the nomads began to slowly approach the meat with his stone ready to attack me if I tried to take the meat away.

To my surprise though, unlike what I thought, the nomad actually began carrying the puma carcass over to the rest of the nomads instead of just eating the food himself. It was actually quite nice to see that even in the beginning, humans still felt a sense of comradery and were considerate enough to help each other.

Now that I began to think about it, I realized that they had probably been separated from their tribe recently, as nomadic tribes had around 20-30 people in them, plus, a group of just 6 wouldn't be able to survive out in the wild for long as shown by the fact that they were skinny and looked like they hadn't eaten much for a couple of days.

Once the carcass was finally on their side, they began eating it like their lives depended on it, which it probably actually did. They didn't seem to trust me yet though, as they would constantly look back at me while eating in order to make sure that I wouldn't try to take the meat away from them which made me sad as it showed just how hungry they were.

Although nomadic tribes were more civilized than most other animals, they were in the end still very similar to said animals, in the sense that there was still a power structure where the strong ruled the pack and basically decided how the food collected by the tribe is distributed. This is why I believed that they hadn't eaten much even when they were a part of their tribes, as they couldn't have lost that much weight in so little time.

Something I did notice while they were eating the puma carcass though, was that as time went on, they began to check on me less and less like they were slowly beginning to trust that I wouldn't take the meat away from them, which also allowed me to start moving around a little bit, as by this point I had been standing still for almost thirty minutes.

Thankfully it didn't take them too long to finish the food, after which I signaled for them to come over by using my hand, and although they did show hesitance, they decided that it would be a good idea to follow me, probably because they thought that I had tons of food to spare, and although they did look disappointed when we got to the fireplace, they didn't choose to leave.