Roo is the son of the former ko-o commander.

Unlike his father, Roo did not advance to become a ko-o warrior, nor even a ko-o laborer like the females of his race usually become.

Instead, of the at max three choices available to a ko-o when they advance to the second stage,

ko-o warrior, ko-o laborer, and ko-o scholar,

he chose to become a ko-o scholar, the least favored choice among them.

In the entire town... No, now the town's been destroyed, and a new village, still unnamed, is being built in the nearby forest... so in the entire village, Roo is the only ko-o scholar.

Consequently, he is not muscular as other ko-o males.

On this day, he was walking back into the village after scavenging for food in the forest, having a book in one hand, and a basket full of fruits and herbs in the other, he was greeted by the working females of the village as he passed them by.

"Welcome back Roo, did you find anything good in the forest?"

"Hi Roo, how are you today?"

Some older ladies of the village greeted him, and he greeted them back.

"Margo, the frosh fruits are ripe this season. Would you like to have one?" Saying so, Roo gave an orange fruit to an old female ko-o.

His relationships with the females in the village can be said to be good, even though none of the young females want him as a mate.

His relationship with the males however, is worse.

They look at him derisively, whether they be the older ones or cousins of the same age.

"You brought back fruits again Roo? Ko-o men should be hunting meat!"

"Look at his scrawny body. Can't fight a faux kat even if he wanted to."

Some young male ko-os said.

Not like you guys can either. At least I was able to help fix the army warriors' wounds after they escaped back with their lives. Seeing how despite you guys are ko-o warriors, yet you have no wounds, you guys must have been among the first to run from the battlefield.

But Roo knew he'd be hit if he really said this aloud.

The faux kats had destroy his village. There were hundreds of townspeople, and only a few dozen faux kats invading, but their army was defeated, their town invaded. The faux kats were unstoppable. Everyone ran. During the first clash, they even killed his father.

Roo loved his father.

Although his father always said, "Don't grow stupid like me.", causing Roo to make the regrettable choice of advancing to a weak and despised ko-o scholar, his father always protected him and treated him well when he was alive.

Of course, Roo hates those deceptively cute, murderous little monsters, the faux kats, but there is someone he hates even more.

That is the cause behind the war.

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Roo arrived and looked at the center of the new village square.

There, ko-o prince Solo, is standing on a pedestal and spitting out a speech in front of a small crowd.

"The faux kats killed our warriors, ate their corpses, drove us out of our hometown ko-mark, and most importantly, humiliated Me, your Prince!"

"But we are still alive! Gather together and build an army, under Me! Follow Me! We will take the revenge we deserve on those treacherous faux kats!"

Roo scoffed.

Hasn't this prince forgotten to mention something, that the faux kats killed the king, his own father? As a son, shouldn't you care more about that?

And anyone else can clamor for revenge, except You, who offended the faux kats for us.

Luckily, although some ko-o are listening, the bigger half of the ko-os in the village are not taking him seriously.

Even though most of the strongest ko-o warriors have died fighting against the faux kats, a few of them are still left. The position of ko-o king is given to the strongest among us.

Although Solo is the strongest ko-o warrior in our younger generation, he is still not stronger than the remaining ko-o warriors of the older generation. Once those few older ko-o warriors recover from their wounds and battle it out, a new king will be decided, and Solo will lose his position as ko-o prince.

That, and he lost trust from a lot of ko-os because of his casual blunder causing disaster.

Not wanting to listen to this anymore, Roo went back toward his house.

His house is small, the ceiling barely above his head. He built it himself, with his non-brawny body.

His mother had already left him, having been taken in by one of his father's friends who survived the war with the faux kats. Being a grown up ko-o male, he naturally did not go with her.

Roo placed his basket down and his book on useful herbs in a small bookcase, containing only a handful of leather-bound books filled with brownish pages.

These books are his treasures, things he brought with him even when leaving behind all else during the escape. They were bought for him by his father from a passing by silot merchant. It was thanks to these books that he was able to raise the level of his reading skill and become a ko-o scholar.

After reading a light but healthy lunch, Roo picked out another book, walked outside, sat right by his little house, and started reading it under the sun.

It was a book on magic, the thinnest yet costliest book among all that he has, and also the key to his next preferred advancement, and his hope of finally gaining recognition from the rest of the ko-o.

Inside the book are less than a dozen magic circles of some simple magics, and long explanations on how to (and sometimes how not to) use them.

To cast magic in this world is simple. All you have to do is visualize a specific magic circle in the correct way, understand the phenomenon that's supposed to appear, and will it into reality. The second of which is the cause of the long text.

Roo had read the thin book many times already and memorized most of the text. But memorizing and understanding are two different things.

Even now, he only understood about half of the magics.

Though it's questionable whether the fault is in him or the author's bad explanations.

For example, opening his palm at the ground before him, visualized the magic circle on the page open before him.

The same magic circle, with something that looks like a serpent and waves within, but entirely blue in color, unlike the black ink in the book, faintly appeared on the ground.

Focusing as much as he could, till veins popped up on his furry head, Roo shouted,

"Puddle!"

And indeed, a small puddle of clear water appeared in front of Roo.

While he was feeling glad that he was able to summon it a little faster than last time, the small puddle was stomped over by a pair of laughing children running pass.

"Stupid brats!" Roo shouted angrily, waving his fist. He barely managed to protect his book but got his fur wet.

"The weak scholar Roo is angry." "Ooo oo ooo!" The children teased him with funny faces and then ran away.

Finding a safe place to read and practice, Roo did so until dinnertime.

He traded some fruits for a piece of meat and ate that with some herbs.

Once the sky went dark, he went to sleep on the bed of grass inside his house.

Next morning, he woke up, ate breakfast, and walked out, intending to go to the river for a wash.

He heard a commotion on the way. Turning in a certain direction, there's a pair of ko-o males arguing about something.

Roo walked to a nearby bystander who he recognized, someone who has the type of personality attracted to commotions, and asked, "Hey Too, what's going on over there?"

Too was eating a bayana with a smile, while looking that way. "The house they were building disappeared over the night. Nothing left cept the frame of logs and splinters. It's like the planks were torn out. Now they're arguing about who they think dun it."

"...Ooo?" Roo was confused.