As Alz disappeared into his hut, Kai began to stare at the hut with a mystified expression.

"I don't remember a hut being there?" Kai murmured softly with uncertainty in his voice, noticing the hut for the first time.

"Oh that? It's new, was just built three months ago." Maya's sharp ears picked up Kai's murmur, prompting answering his doubts.

Kai turned to Maya with an expression that held greater puzzlement than before. It was as though his face had turned into a large question mark, prompting Maya to chuckle and moved up to Kai.

"How are you so cute!" Maya sandwiched Kai's neck under one arm while drilling her fist onto Kai's head. Kai revealed a look of panic and desperately held onto his bandana, preventing it from dropping off.

"Alz lives here." after several seconds, Maya finally released Kai before speaking. Kai stared at her with a clear look of protest and hurriedly fixed his headwear's placement, but Maya's next words immediately caught his attention

"He lives here!?" Kai's looked at Maya with large round eyes surprise as he asked before giving a closer look to the hut. As someone familiar with this place, he naturally knew how inaccessible this place was, which only increased the shock he felt now.

It was a beautiful place, but there was literally nothing around except nature, and he could only imagine how inconvenient it was to live here. Yet, from Maya's words, he was doing just that, and had already been doing so for the past three months.

A wide smile slowly spread across his face as he looked at the hut, his eyes burning with anticipation towards the next visit.

As it was already getting late, the two elves only stayed for a short while longer before heading out of the forest together and heading off separately, returning back to their respective homes.

Silence dawned on the sunflower field once again, devoid of the lively chatter from before. Alz slowly pushed opened the door to his hut, looking at the direction where the pair headed off with a reminiscent look.

Memories of when the four of them used to play together surfaced in his mind, filling him with a deep nostalgia and strong sense of longing.

Repaying Maya was indeed a consideration he had earlier, the one that ended up tipping the scales, but it was ultimately just that, one of many factors that he considered.

He understood that doing this only increased the risk of everything that he was doing, but he still ended up agreeing to it. The real reason behind this was because they reminded him of the precious moments buried within the deepest reaches of his heart.

He was used to living alone, he could handle living alone and it was better for him to live alone. However, he realised today that there remained a part of him that craved the experiences, from the happier times he had in the past.

"I'm still a child after all."

Alz made a bitter smile and continued to stare in the distance for several moments before returning to his hut, truly heading for the bed this time.

In the following week, both elves turned up on the fourth day, marking the beginning of Alz's regular storytelling sessions. As expected, his stories were very well-received, and Maya was left at a loss for words by the end, after been brought through the roller-coaster of emotions.

There were stories available in elven literature in the capital as well, but the selection was limited, and they were few in quantity. Due to restrictions imposed by the mediums of storage, they were also usually much shorter and only very few elves actually wrote them, mostly as a hobby.

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Naturally, these stories did little to hold up against the classics from the flourishing arts of the mega civilisations in the past that outnumbered their entire race by a factor far beyond a thousand.

Over the following weeks, the pair had also tried many times to question him on the source of his stories, but he smoothly dodged the questions each time. One time when he finally couldn't stand it anymore, he resorted to using a method that stopped all future probes.

The method was simple but effective. He threatened to stop his story-telling sessions should they continue asking about the source, shutting them up nearly instantly as they looked at him with pleading expressions.

Time continued to flow by and the relationships between the three gradually improved with their frequent interactions, but Alz found that he couldn't think of them like his three friends from the past no matter how hard he tried to.

There seemed to be an invisible distance between them, preventing him from getting closer to them. When he started feeling this way, Alz let out a helpless sigh inwardly, realising that it was his problem.

The attacks back then had scarred him deeply, and not just regarding wolves. He didn't know if they would ever heal, but at least for this matter he was willing to try, to overcome this wound of the past.

As with the first three months, he didn't encounter any major problems in the next three as well. Alz's schedule remained the same for the most part, with the exception of the fourth days of each cycle which he designated as rest days when he held his story-telling sessions.

The crossbows he issued to the warriors were also becoming more well-known and everything was progressing in a good direction, an extremely positive sign for him.

Today, Alz had just completed a duty assigned to him with ease and was passing by the guardhouse back to the field. This time, Bart had taken extra care to make sure that there wasn't anything wrong with his duty, so he didn't run into any problems with it.

However, just as he was about to leave, he heard an angry shout coming from the bunks to his right. There was clear struggle in his eyes, but it quickly cleared away and turned his steps towards the direction of the noise.

He would have normally ignored it and steered as far away as he could, but he recognised the voice, it was Maya's voice. It was also then that he felt reality creeping in again, as had it been Polon who shouted, he knew that he wouldn't have hesitated for even a moment.

Having made his decision, Alz began to stealthily make his way towards the source of the disturbance, hoping to evaluate the situation from a closer proximity.

It didn't take long before he arrived before a room which he remembered to be one of the dorms assigned to the Hostia tribe. He crept up to the doorway and peeked into the room, observing the scene within.

The first image that entered his eyes was sufficient to tell the story. Maya held to the ground by two stout figures, with multiple pieces of wood laying before her. She was glaring menacingly at the figure ahead of her as warm tears rolled down her cheeks.

Upon closer inspection, it was clear that these pieces were previously part of a bow, except that it was heavily damaged and practically beyond repair in its current state.

Alz immediately recognised the bow, to be the one they saw with her on the first day. It was especially clear with the signs of repair along where it was broken before, allowing him to identify it at a glance.

One elf continued to stomp on the heavily damaged pieces of wood wearing a cold, thin smile on his lips, paired with a cruel look in his eyes. He was completely unfazed by Maya's glare as he continued crushing the wood beneath his feet, his smile growing wider the stronger her reaction was.

These three were none other than Cruz and his two followers, someone Alz never wanted to meet again for the rest of his stay. He didn't know then, but he had a good grasp of the situation now, probably better than most others with all the reading he had been doing.

"GO AWAY!" Maya screamed at the top of her lungs, her voice was filled with helplessness and despair.

She had been resting in the bunks after some archery practice when the three of them suddenly barged in. The two followers immediately held her to the ground as Cruz began to destroy her precious bow, leaving her powerless to do anything but watch by the side.

She had been screaming repeatedly, but it only served to fuel Cruz's motivation as he stomped harder each time she shouted, causing a deep pain to spread from her heart.

As he screams became more intense, Cruz suddenly stopped stomping and signalled his two followers with his eyes. The two of them released their pin on Maya and stood up, returning to his side.

"What? Angry? Come hit me, I'll even do this, so you won't miss." Cruz began to taunt Maya, spreading both his arms out by his side while smiling at Maya.

Maya tightly clenched her fists, her rage eating at her soul. She wanted so badly, to just go up and hit him. However, she slowly released her grip as she remembered the repeated warnings from the others, to never raise a finger towards him no matter what.