Chapter 3
Initially, I had a hard time learning the language. There was a fast array of differences in the language and the similarities to English ended up just confusing me more. But the frequency of its use and the necessity of it quickly compounded into an exponential motivation and drive to learn. In the end it took around a month to learn. That wasn’t the only thing that I was taught however.
Friezer pointed to a specific point on a world map, “we are here, in the lion kingdom.”
It was in the center of a massive continent. With a total of three continents, the planet from my understanding was enormous. The continent we were on spanned nearly from the South Pole to the North Pole, and unlike America, it was rather wide, even in the center, near the equator. There were several bottlenecks but for the most part it was in the shape of an ellipses. There was only one major geological formation that I could see on this map, about the continent which was a massive Inlet that formed a backwards C. The inlet was many miles from us, but considering the actual span and distance I thought it was actually a rather short distance. Friezer agreed with me.
“To the south, here, is the city of drachenstadt.” Friezer pointed to a different point, this time on the south side of the inlet.
“The lion kingdom is on friendly terms with them, I would personally advise against going there, as it’s an extremely dangerous place. Many large monsters make their home around or in the sea, and the goddess’s scythe is known to have flying monsters patrolling around it, such as wyverns. Dragons at one point were found dwelling there as well, as that’s where the name comes from. None have been spotted in centuries however.”
He then pointed to the western side of the continent.
“The elves primarily patrol the seas and are known for their piracy and are vicious merchants on the western side of the continent, in addition to their sellswords. I suggest trying their food.”
“The elves?” I asked, this was the first time they had been brought up.
“Ah yes, elves. We’ll have a hard time talking about their history and physiology without mentioning the dwarves. Elves are particularly vengeful and have a long history fighting against the dwarves. They are long limbed and often tall, in direct contrast to dwarves, who are short and stocky. Elves usually have long hair and no facial hair, as dwarves usually do have facial hair and often take pride in the length of a beard. They have so much pride and focus they go so far as to say a dwarf is only a man once he grows his beard to the first foot.”
“Some more differences that have caused discord is that elves are often focused on the land and what they call the cycle of mana, dwarves are usually found in caves and are notoriously industrious, at the expense of their environment. In addition, dwarves are too heavy to float in water and expend great effort just to swim, as where the elves are light and have an easier time swimming which is partly why they have such supremacy on the water, and why you’ll never see a dwarf on a boat.”
“Okay you said there was another major power on the continent, so far that was three.” I said.
“The fourth is a… I think they called themselves aliens? We call them the Ao dovvish. Friezer pointed to the north of the continent.
“They came from beyond our planet and have expressed an interest in our magic, as it’s not something they are capable of, and wish to understand us. Unfortunately, violence arose from elsewhere on the planet and caused a cascade effect where everyone one of their… colonies… have expressed their own hostilities and are now refusing to trade, or handle diplomatic affairs, war is expected to be declared.”
He tapped the map again, “this specific city is called colony 3, on their arrival they destroyed a previous city called aestra, displacing the demons that lived there, causing an additional rift in diplomacy between the lion kingdom and the demons, and colony 3. We specifically are having a hard time acclimating non humans to our kingdom and as it is already, we are having a hard time accepting refugees in the lion kingdom. We are currently in a food shortage due to our farms not producing enough, and the demon refugees are causing an additional strain on our farms and granaries.”
My face hardened at the topic of demons. Demons were evil creatures that came from hell. The confusion led me to ask about them nonetheless, I knew cultures were vastly different on earth alone, and I considered the possibility of the demons being just a similar name to what I knew.
“Demons, sometimes but more rarely called devils, are a red skinned race that have horns and wings, they are a menace to fight against due to their ability to fly, only our advanced wizards are capable of it. They are crucially important in the regulation of mana, as they do excellent jobs of cleaning the environment of mana based pollution, they use this as their own source of power and once expended, it returns to the world as mana. Their forms are especially not well liked in the lion kingdom as it is believed that they are the forms of monsters in human flesh, similar to the beast clans, although less so as the beast clans are more known for their animal qualities.” Friezer drank some water, no doubt parched from the lecture.
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My hands went to my ears. I already felt like a monster. I was still adjusting, the noise from just the servants or other people talking was distracting and disorientating. I did my best to stay out of sight, but I suppose that didn’t matter to the servants. I could still hear in my mind some of the comments they made.
A week ago I was still learning German but I could understand all of their words from outside my room while they walked by. “It’s like we have to take care of a dog!” A maid said.
“Shh what if someone hears!” Her coworker chided her.
“I don’t care, let them know I hate serving this mutt! Even if I am to be fired I think I’d prefer it.”
“That’s too much. I need this job to live, I can put up with it for a while longer…”
“See! Even you hate the mutt. He’s so…” the conversation faded along with their footsteps.
I remember being especially frustrated because not only were they outside my room, I’d even tried to cover my ears with a pillow, only for it to do nearly nothing at all. I didn’t cry but I sure wanted to. I missed being human. I missed not being able to smell every little thing wrong they did with my food. I missed not being different. In the end though, I continued to push myself forward, even if it was hard.
“And what was the name of the continents again?” We were talking about the dwarves this time, they controlled a smaller continent, about the size of Australia, far to the north and placed on the western side of the map.
“Once again, the continent we are standing on is called Gaela’arm, the smaller continent is Vailinrock and the final continent is Braelstorm. Back to the dwarves?”
“Back to the dwarves.” I nodded.
“The dwarves primarily control the continent of Vailinrock. They used to control the entire continent but the Ao dovvish Landed a colony, colony 5 I believe, on the northern side of the continent. Now the dwarves control the southern side.” After the geography we went back over some of the differences that caused a feud to appear between the elves and the dwarves. The catalyst between the centuries-long hatred wasn’t initially the differences Friezer explained, but a series of shipments the dwarves requested that had been intercepted and plundered by the elves.
The lessons got tougher as I became more and more fluent, but we had yet to truly go into the third continent or anything about the beast clans. Even now, I still had some questions since nearly the moment I got here. My patience was rewarded for the most part, as many of the smaller questions had been discussed or outright answered from the previous lessons, such as why a beast man like me was hated in the lion kingdom. It turned out I didn’t have much longer to wait.
“Today we’ll discuss the third continent, it is mostly known as the beast clan's home, as they predominantly control the land, but this continent is… special.”
“Beast clans? Special?” I could feel my ears perk up at attention. I suppressed a flinch. I needed to get used to this.
“First we’ll discuss the beast clans, I know it’s been on your mind.”
I nodded, “some of my questions about them have been answered but continue please.”
“The beast clans control most of the central part of the continent and the western coastline of Braelstorm, while the elves fight for control of the south western and southern parts of the continent. Orcs control the eastern part of the continent where the badlands are. This is where the hostilities of the Ai dovvish and us have initially started. There was a colony there, colony 7, that was believed to have been attacked by the orcs which sparked the hostilities. Unfortunately we don’t have clear information due to the distance, and none of our wizards care to travel so far just for news.”
“But why did that spark hostilities between your kingdom and them? Wouldn’t that just cause diplomatic issues between the orcs and the Ao dovvish?” I asked.
“That indeed is the question. And we have no answer to it. We have no idea why.”
I thought about it but I just couldn’t figure it out either. Friezer was frowning, thinking about it but similarly finding no quick solution. He tapped the map again, right where he said the beast clans were.
“The beast clans are known for their animalistic qualities. There is a known range between how severe this is, with the lightest of physical appearances being close to yours; ears and a tail. The most severe cases are those that appear humanoid but otherwise nearly identical to specific animals, to use you again as an example, a man may appear to have a wolf’s head or paws and may grow fur all over their body. These cases are rarer, but it’s not known why to us. The beast clans are known however, to benefit or suffer from their parent ancestors qualities. Wolf beast men often have a significantly improved sense of smell, and hearing, but are more prone to various degrees of color blindness.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn’t one of the ones who had color blindness. But I did think the improved sense of smell was more of a drawback than a benefit. Friezer continued to list off more examples from other beastman, but generally it followed a pattern of improved senses, or strength, at the cost of other senses, or niche aspects, one example was that the heavily furred beast clans generally had a much harder time cooling off and even didn’t sweat. I was also told of large differences in culture, but Friezer was mostly ignorant about the subject. The lesson was enlightening but it still filled me with a sense of loss.
Friezer began asking me questions about where I came from and what it was like, what I knew and what I could tell him about technology, unfortunately my knowledge was particularly acute, mostly focused in the archeology department, with a minor focus on geology and identifying rocks or how they came to be. The information wasn’t particularly useful to Friezer but he soldiered through my Amateure leactures taking notes as he did. I was starting to get used to the castle and life here, but fate had other plans
Friezer walked into the feux class room with a grim face. “This marks the final day in your lessons. After this we’ll sponsor your travels somewhere to live. Unfortunately, the knowledge you possess isn’t of interest to the king, and in truth that was the reason we were keeping you around.”
“Oh.”