A males fate in the beast world

A poisonous view

The beast world. As its name suggests, it's a cruel world where 'survival of the fittest' rules. To better their chance of survival, males can transform into beasts. There are many different kinds of beastmen, such as leopards, tigers, bears, snakes, and so on, that live in this world.

As different as they seem at first glimpse, all of them share a common goal. Which is to be part of a family with a good, fertile female. But females in this world are sacred. The ratio between males and females lay somewhere around 15 to 1. So only the strongest and most handsome beastmen are chosen to be a female's mate.

While females can have multiple mates, a male can only have one mate for a lifetime. To show their bond, the female will have a tattoo of her mate on her body after mating, as long as he lives.

As sacred beings, females are used to getting their way and are more than picky about their mates. For example, a male with even the smallest scar on his face is labeled as 'damaged' because of his decreased handsomeness, and with that, is deemed not fit as a mate.

As mentioned, the second important point about a male, after his looks, is his strength. This is expressed by the number of stripes the male has. At birth, each male has no stripes. Over their lifetime the average male can acquire stripes one at a time and get up to four stripes. To gain stripes, the male must overcome many near-death experiences.

Therefore, being born a male guarantees a path of trial and tribulation, while being born as a female means a life in abundance.

In this harsh world, the story of our male protagonist begins in the 'Deadly Forest'.

Inside a lush green ancient forest was a tiger running, as if being chased by a group of behemoths. He was lost in his thoughts but still managed to navigate swiftly around the massive skyscraper-high trees. Even boulders as big as trucks didn't seem to be an obstacle for him. He leaped over them, as if they were just pebbles, finding his way on the nearly black forest floor with ease.

The last rays of the afternoon sun shone through the dense green canopy, trying to bring a whiff of light to the ground. The few rays that made it to the forest floor gave the tiger's pelt a silvery appearance.

One may say this forest sounds like a nice place to go on a walk and enjoy the fresh, oxygen-rich air during a hot summer, but they couldn't be more wrong.

Where the light doesn't reach, is where bloodthirsty creatures lurk, always ready to capture their next prey. From the many who have tried to use this forest as a shortcut, only a handful was able to survive.

Today would be the day another survivor left this forest. No one dared to attack the silver tiger, who let out his beastly pressure while rushing to his destination.

With his head still wrapped in his thoughts, the tiger nearly missed a faint, fragrant scent coming from deeper within the darkening forest. When he noticed, the tiger turned toward the direction of the scent and sniffed the air inquiringly. He didn't have a clue what creature could cause such a scent, but he felt immediately attracted by it.

After following the scent, which seemed to be getting stronger, for about 20 minutes, the tiger noticed that the forest had cleared and the trees had vanished completely. Abruptly stopping at the edge of the forest clearing, narrowly managing to avoid a waist-high meadow full of colorful, poisonous plants.

In the middle of the clearing was a small hut surrounded by what looked like a garden. This seemed to be the origin of the scent the tiger was hunting, and thus his new destination.

While looking for a non-poisonous way to the hut, he noticed the presence of other beasts around the clearing. Certainly they were here for the same reason as him. With such a tempting scent, it was rather surprising to not see more beasts roaming around the clearing.

For a moment the tiger played with the idea of trying to leap over the large meadow. He started to pace along the meadow. While trying to calculate the strength needed to compensate for the short distance available for sprinting, his sharp tiger-eyes caught the sign of corpses strewn within the poisonous plants, seemingly resulting from the same leaping attempt he had pondered. The idea was consequently discarded. Although he had some poison resistance, the plants seemed to be more poisonous than expected, and more than he could handle. There must be another way to the hut.

Wings sure would be practical now. Unfortunately, they aren't something a normal tiger has in its repertoire. Another option could be to burn the irritating meadow. But it would also give other males an entrance, not to mention there being a high chance for the fire to spread to the surrounding trees...and he still doesn't have wings for the escape. So that idea was also discarded.

Maybe he should hunt the other beasts around and build a bridge out of corpses. They are weaker than him, but even so, if they group up against him, it would get bloody nonetheless. Furthermore, this could take quite some time...

An immediate solution was necessary. The tiger does not know why, but with every minute passing, he started to feel more and more desperate to reach the hut.

He needed to think harder. There must be something he missed. How is it possible for the inhabitants to come to the hut in the middle of the poisonous meadow...

The tiger sat on its rump and stared at the hut. Without even realizing it, he cocked his head slightly and the tip of his tail began to flick back and forth. This whole scenario would have looked quite adorable, if not for the breathtakingly tense atmosphere around him.

A new idea was to cut down one of the large trees. The fallen tree would then considerably shorten the distance for his jump. But the tree bridge would be available for all... Maybe it was possible to bind small tree pieces on his legs and walk above the meadow. The bumpy ground and corps would make it more difficult, but not impossible.

All of a sudden the door of the hut flew open and a small figure came out, trying to carry, but more dragging a larger figure outside. The significantly stronger scent robbed the beasts of their sanity. Not caring for the poison any longer, they began to run through the meadow.

The tiger tried to keep a cool head and decided to kick a tree down with his strong hind legs. The fallen tree covered a quarter of the meadow and created the additional sprint distance he needed. Without hesitation, a silver tiger jumped and just like that, landed behind the meadow. Not even stopping for a second in his tracks, he sprinted toward the hut. On the way to his destination, he killed some of the other beasts, so that he would be the only beast reaching the tantalizing scent.

Edited by Mei Zhou