Early in the morning, Sila returned to her tribe, after saying goodbye to me and Ilis. Both girls had a hard time parting away since they began to like each other. It's good, I won't have problems about this in the future.

I already finished my training with father and started heading home, where I found mother and Ilis. I wonder what’s she doing here...

“Azarrar, you are already here!” My mother said.

“Hurry, hurry! Kharsuma is waiting for us”. As Ilis said this and clutched to my right arm, my mother imitated her, clutching to my left arm. They began to pull me toward Kharsuma's house. Dumbfounded by what just happened, I found myself already sitting on a chair. Really, that was quick. It made me smile. Ilis was still clutching to my right arm.

“You can release my arm”. In response, I heard a sweet voice which refused. After a hard training, it was like a balm on my heart. I will be having a hard time in the future. It's quite funny thinking that there won’t be problems between the girls, but between them and me. It made me laugh.

“Hehe”. Ilis only tilted her head, but immediately placed it back where it was, on my shoulder. Waiting for Kharsuma, Ilis began to get bored and started humming some kind of lullaby, which put me to sleep.

“Azar... Azrar... Azzarar~”. Ilis wake me up. She smiled when I opened my eyes. I returned her smile. I slightly smacked my cheeks and looked at Kharsuma. He unfolded a roll on the table. I approached it and with a first glance, I already knew what it was, a MAP!

It will be very helpful in the future.

“Cough, as you see, it's map of our region and the near areas. Ahem. Unfortunately, we don't have any more maps, since they were eaten away by the time. Cough, it's shame that we don't have a cartographer...”.

“Uncle, uncle, what is a cartographer?”.

“hur hur. It's somebody who creates maps and redraws them”.

It will be the easiest way for her to understand.

“I want to create one too!”

“It's very, very hard, Ilis. You must travel a lot! You must have a flair for it”.

“I will travel a lot with Azarrar, that's why you don't have to worry uncle!”

I blushed, as it made me smile.

“hur hur. Cough, you will, you will for sure. But now look at the map”.

Kharsuma turned the map in our direction. It's an old style map. Yep, I'm quite sure about it.

Map : (post-chapter author note)

“Cough. As you can see, the map has been corrected by some people. Cough... This is why you can see different styles of writing-”. He stopped for a while and pointed at some words. As he said, they were different. “Ahem. Today we will learn about this map, I will give you all my knowledge. Cough, Cough”.

“Uncle, why do these mountains have no name?” Ilis pointed at the mountains over our forest.

“Ahem, nobody knows what their real name is, every race call them differently. We call them The Blind Mountains.”

“Why?”

“Since fog is floating around there. Cough, you will never know when an enemy attack from the sky. Chances of survival here are close to zero”. Kharsuma made a sad face. The atmosphere became tense. I stopped Ilis as she wanted to ask another question, and quickly said something different.

“What about the Ownerless land?”.

“A-ah yes... So... The Ownerless land. Nobody wants to take it, because of the waste ground and the Nargzah Mountains, which are inhabited by the Narghs. Cough, they are small creatures covered in fur, similar to green goblins. They work in groups. They are weak, but their attitude and coordination can be troublesome. There are different monsters too, but they aren't as important as them now”.

He looked at us to check if we were still keeping.

“And what about our region?” I asked.

“Let’s start from times over 200 years ago, cough. Our village was without any stockades during those years, the reason we didn’t have any enemies. My grandfather, on his deathbed, told me that the invasion of Alligators, who is sub-species of Saurians, cough, ended after four years with a non-aggression pact. We agreed that we wouldn't trespass their territory and they as well ours. But because of that, we are cut off from the rest of the world, cough, and from kingdoms, since they took all of the South. Sometimes, we learn about wars, but that's it. No more information. We are clearly falling behind the rest of the world in many aspects, cough.”

“Humans?” Ilis asked.

“Humans are stupid race, but we mustn't abuse them, cough, even if they lead wars every year for petty reasons. They can easily adapt, we can be jealous of it, I’m jealous!... cough, cough. Also, they have a lot of prejudices against many species which don't look like them. That's why most of the species are discriminated, including us, cough, but due to our humanoid appearance, they won't attack us without a reason. They are on good terms with elves and dwarves, but any species that dare to attack them will be met with the force of their alliance, cough. The force of their alliance is powerful enough that even dragons don't dare to provoke that! cough.”

When Kharsuma ended talking, everyone fell silent, we didn’t have any more topics…

“I want to ask something!” Ilis surprised me while looking at Kharsuma.

“Go on.”

“My father was talking with my mother about the increasing number of the monster in the center of the North Forest. Why is that?”

“Good question! We started to produce salt, which is called the White Gold, cough. The place where we produce it is in the west of the North Forest. We set up the place so the water could disgorge in, cough, and when it reaches the distance of half a cubit, we stop the water and wait for around a week. Once the water evaporates, we collect the White Gold! cough.”

"But that's not what I asked!" Ilis puffed her cheeks.

"Hur hur, cough, right. It's because of the White Gold "damage" the ground for plants, cough, cough! We finished, cough, our lessons for today, cough."

I with Ilis went home, while holding hands.