“I am sorry my lord but we can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because…”

“Mom doesn't need to know, we can just wander around a bit and come back.”

“Believe me, my lord, she will find out.”

I sighed.

“Okay, can we at least go to the harbor? I want to see my father.”

“Yes, we can.”

After a small tour that lasted about half an hour and took us through many buildings that looked like apartments of this era, we came to a long harbor full of wooden ships. Like the entrance to the city, it was very crowded, but this time, instead of civilians walking around, there were tons of people with weapons like swords and daggers on their backs and belts. A lot of people greeted Nazir as we moved through the harbor. He was more popular than I thought.

And when we finally came to a huge ship, Nazir got off the horse and helped me. Suddenly 3 people came up to us and as they started to greet Nazir, I looked at the huge ship in front of me. A Galleon, if I remember correctly, that was the name of ships like this one. There were a lot of cannons on the sides and on the deck.

Does that mean there is gunpowder in this world? If there are cannons, shouldn't there be guns?

Among the ships lined up along the harbor, there were only 6 or 7 ships that were by far this big. It was just sitting there with its sails closed on its three masts. When we came close to ship, I saw a wooden ladder. And there were 7 people chatting in front of it. When they saw Nazir, he greeted and hugged them too and one of them turned to me.

“It's good to see you, but I have to ask, who is he?”

Nazir turned his eyes to me, "He is Lord Eliar's son, Lord Altevia," and when he said that, there was silence.

“Lord Eliar's son?” The man asked quietly, surprised, and Nazir nodded.

“The captain's son?”

Nazir nodded again.

Everyone started to look at me with surprised eyes and slowly people started to come towards the ship and look at me from a distance, as if they were looking at a strange animal in a zoo.

“Is that Altevia?” - “I think so.” - “Isn't he so cute?” - “He's Lord Eliar's child, of course he'll be cute.” - “He looks like his mother.”

“Lord Alt-, capta-, my lord?

I'm sorry, I don't know what to call you.

Come aboard, please, your father's here.”

People who had just been standing casually, chatting and joking amongst themselves, were now suddenly acting like professionals and being very careful about their moves. Were they afraid of something? They were perfectly normal.

After I got on ship, I examined the deck and when I saw the cannons, I couldn't resist and ran to one of them. Just then the man who brought us here shouted in surprise “Capta- my lord!” and I heard Nazir's voice, “Just say, ‘My lord.’”

The cannon on the deck didn’t have a rope to burn. Actually, I didn’t know if they normally had one; I just remembered that in the movies they burn a rope and then bam! But on the cannon, there were 2 runes, like scribbles—one brown and one red. Did this also work with runestones?

“My lord?”

I turned to Nazir when he came up to me and bent down on one knee, "How do I use this?"

Nazir sighed, "If I tell you, will you use it?"

If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“No.”

Even though I said no, Nazir looked at the ship next to us and checked to see if anyone was there.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

Nazir put my hand on the brown rune.

“This is an earth rune, when you transfer your mana here, a cannon ball will appear inside.” Then he took my hand to the red rune, “And this is a fire rune, but it also contains wind energy. When you transfer your mana here, you shoot the ball.”

“That's all?”

Nazir nodded.

“I want to-”

“If you want to use it you can fire one of the ones on the front cap…my lord.”

As I turned to the man whose voice I had heard with excitement, he paused, “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have interrupted you.”

“No problem, but won't that be a problem?”

“Maybe your father will allow it.”

Oh right, I came here to see my father.

As I was walking away from the cannon Nazir grabbed me by the shoulder and guided me to where my father was and when we got to the door I knocked twice.

“I’ll be here if you need me.” Nazir said.

When there was no answer, I slowly opened the door and as soon as I poked my head inside I saw my father sitting at a desk. Yunus was sitting in one of the chairs in front of the desk, wearing a blue shirt and white pants and in front of me there was a… Centaur?

He had short black hair, blue eyes, was wearing a green shirt and on the lower part of his body, well... Everyone had their own preferences…

As I looked at the centaur with curious eyes, he sighed and approached the door.

"Seriously, you let a child-"

“Altevia?”

As soon as centaur heard my father's voice, he fell silent and his eyes widened. When I heard the men giggling in the back, I ran to my father and he picked me up and sat me on his leg.

This was a large place. At the end of the room there was a wooden desk in the center with 3 chairs in front of it. On the right a bookcase against the wall filled with books and on the left there were small statuettes and decorations such as miniature ships. The desk was covered with papers.

While I was examining the room, Yunus looked at me with a smile, “If he is starting to come here already, he can be captain next year. Your retirement is not far away.”

My father chuckled and looked at Yunus, “I hope so,” and then he turned to me.

“What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to see you.”

My father looked at me with a smile and patted my head, “You did good, but you might get bored-”

Yunus interrupted my father, “Let him stay for a while, he can leave if he gets bored.”

“If that's okay with you.”

The Centaur had been watching me silently while my father and Yunus talked and finally he decided to speak.

“It's my first time seeing him, but they really grow fast.”

“Oh, right.

Altevia, do you know who he is?”

“No, did you buy him from Anthinos?”

As soon as I asked my question, Yunus' eyes widened and I noticed that he was biting his lips. At that very moment the centaur turned to Yunus and as he was saying “Please don’t-”, he heard my father trying to hold back his laughter. Yunus made a few sounds through his nose like he was breathing heavily and finally he started laughing like a monkey.

Yunus raised his hands as he continued to laugh and just as he slowly stopped laughing, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry.", He looked at my father who was giggling quietly and they looked into each other's eyes for a while and then Yunus couldn't stand it and started laughing even louder.

I've never seen my father laugh like that.

“Anthinos… Heheheheehehehe, Anthinos… how do you know him?” Yunus asked, amidst laughter.

“While we were exploring the city, he saw Nazir and they chatted for a while.”

After father took a deep breath and calmed down, he kissed me on the head.

“Okay, okay... Enough.”

The centaur stood there, frowning. My father looked at him and grabbed my shoulder. “This is Solonius, another close friend of mine.”

Solonius sighed.

“Another close friend? Who was the first one you introduced?”

“Hao.”

“Hao? Sun Hao?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you say his surname?”

My father put his hand on his chin, “Hao is his name.”

“What?”

Yunus suddenly put one hand on his chair and looked at Solonius with a puzzled expression, and Solonius continued to speak.

“Wait a minute, now you're saying that their first name is their last name and the second is their given name?”

And Yunus answered his question.

“117…

Let’s say first 30 years of your life you never talked to a Xinshuan. We started working with you when you were like 40 if I remember correct. So, at least 60 years…

How many business have you done with the Xinshuans?”

Solonius raised his eyebrows and scratched his chin.

"Wait, wait… How do you know my age that certain? Even I’m not sure how old I am.”

“I have a notebook for that.”

“Really?” My father asked with a confused expression and Yunus answered, “Yeah, why did this make you two so confused?”

Then he turned to Solonius, “Go on, answer.”

“I don't know, I thought they always used similar names, you know... there are so many of them."

“You didn’t say that,” Yunus started laughing again.

“But, you were calling him Sun Hao, too?”

“Because it’s their culture! They just don’t care when Eliar does that.” Yunus raised one eyebrow.

Father facepalmed. “I can't believe…” and then he sighed.

“Why do you call him Hao?” I asked my father and he quickly replied, “I called him Hao once by mistake, and he said ‘Okay.’”

“Anyways,

Let's continue before I completely forget what we just talked about, what was it?”

Yunus cleared his throat and turned to my father then chuckled once before speaking.

“The peacocks have arrived, they're on the ship to Fyndell.”

“Good.” My father ticked one of the papers in front of him and handed it to Solonius.

“What about the restaurant?”

Yunus stroked his forehead “Eliar, we're talking about a place in the middle of the harbor, that's full every day, he's going to sell it, but the price he's asking is too much.”

“It's funny how you act as if we can't pay. If we don't have enough gold now, just borrow it.”

“Let's not incur another debt just for that, it's not worth it.

Alt, can you tell your father ‘no’?”

“Why? Debt that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

It was something I learned when I used to play strategy games.

“You've gotta be kidding me,” Yunus said as he looked at me.

“Altevia.”

As soon as I heard my father's voice I looked up at him and he kissed me on the forehead and then turned to Yunus.

“You heard him.”

Yunus chuckled, "You can put that on your wall now."

After Yunus' words, my father opened the desk drawer and took out a brown box. After he opened the box, I saw that there were 5 necklaces side by side with precious stones in different colors. My father took the necklace with the blue stones and handed it to Yunus.

“If they ask for a guarantee, give this.”

Yunus looked at the necklace briefly, then took it and nodded.

My father crossed out some writing on a piece of paper on the left side of the table and as he was pulling the piece of paper he had just ticked, he looked at me.

“But yes, Anthinos was supposed to come today. Where is he?”

As my father was saying this, someone knocked on the door and Anthinos poked his head inside.

“Speak of the devil,” Solonius said.

“Something happened?”

After another hour or two of business talk, I really started to get bored like my father said. I could even say I started to get sleepy. My father must have realized this and called Nazir and I offered no resistance as Nazir picked me up and carried me. I just remembered the good things about being a kid.

And the last thing I remembered about today was my mom laying me on my bed while I yawned.