"I am the King of this Forest and the Mountains!" Caspian roared, his chest puffing out with pride. "I provide better than any mangy fox!"

"You provide a headache," Raiden snickered. "Go back to your rocks and monitor the Boar Alpha. I’ve got the food covered." He snickered, openly provoking Caspian.

Hana seemed to be getting used to this. Well, what could she do if she doesn’t get used to it? She would get annoyed, blood would flow to her head, and she would faint.

So, best to adapt.

The both of them could never go a day without arguing. Not even a few hours of peace without their ranting back and forth.

So, she ignored them and got up from the rock she was sitting on, leaving them to bicker nonstop.

She walked over to a clear spot near the cave entrance and bent down to pile up some dry wood she’d gathered. Behind her, the argument was getting louder and stupider.

"I will burn that fur off your annoying tails!"

"Ah, you’re so jealous of my tails because Hana likes them." He grinned.

"What?!"

"But I’m not even scared. Try it! You’re so slow you’d miss a tree!"

Hana sighed, rubbing her temple. She stood up, walked over to the two of them, and reached up. She grabbed one of Caspian’s horns and yanked his massive head down toward the pile of wood.

Caspian froze. His golden eyes went wide with shock, his snout inches away from the sticks.

"Blow," Hana commanded.

Caspian didn’t even think about it. It was like his body moved on instinct. He opened his mouth and let out a small, controlled puff of flame.

Whoosh. The wood caught fire instantly.

"Good boy," Hana muttered, letting go of his horn as if she were releasing a pet.

She walked back to her fire and started skinning the squirrel. Caspian stood there for a second, looking dazed about what just happened, before he snapped his head back toward Raiden to finish the fight.

"As I was saying! I could hunt ten of those in the time it takes you to—"

The two went right back to it, bickering like children while Hana quietly roasted her dinner. Raiden was clearly winning now, bringing up how Hana liked his gift more than Caspian’s ’treasure pile’. Caspian was turning a deep, angry red, looking like he might actually explode.

"That’s enough!" Hana snapped.

They both went silent instantly.

"Raiden, stop poking the dragon. Caspian, sit down and stop smoking. If I hear one more word about who is a better provider, I’m eating this squirrel alone and sleeping in the Boar’s cave."

They both sat down on the dirt, looking like scolded pups. There was no way they would let her go to sleep in the Boar’s cave. Well, not like she meant that part.

What was the use of having the Boars scrub the doors if she was going to go sleep in some dirty den in the end?

Hana tore off a piece of the roasted meat. It was small, but it was a start. As she ate, she looked at the ’Scrub-Squad’ working inside the cave. One percent. Sigh. She had a lot of work to do.

Just then, she noticed a Boar laborer holding what looked like an old book. She narrowed her eyes. She wasn’t seeing things, was she?

Hana stood up, and a sharp pain shot through her back. Between the fighting and the sewing, her body felt stiff and sore. Ugh, I need to rest. She thought and looked over to the boar.

She walked over and spotted a crate next to the boar.

Inside the crate were books. Real books with leather covers and old, dark pages.

In a world where there were only beastmen and hardly any sign of humans or civilization, seeing a book was a huge shock. Her heart started to beat faster.

She looked at the Boar laborer who was holding one. He was tracing the lines on the page with his finger, his lips moving as if he were trying to speak.

"You," Hana said, pointing at him. "Can you read that?"

The Boar looked at her, his face turning pale with fear. He clutched the book to his chest.

"I... I don’t know what it is," he stuttered.

Hana narrowed her eyes. "Then why were you tracing the lines? You were moving your lips."

"I don’t know," the Boar whispered. "The shapes just look... exciting. When I touch them, my head feels strange. Like a dream. But I don’t know what ’reading’ means."

Hana snatched the book from his hands. The paper was yellow and smelled like dust. Of course, it has dust, since it had been discarded in Caspian’s den for who knows how long.

When she opened it, the pages were thin and brittle, covered in a strange, loopy script she didn’t recognize. It was a language she had never seen before, but it was definitely a real language, judging by the consistency of the characters.

She looked at the crate, then at the Boar Alpha, who was still scrubbing the floor nearby.

"Hey, boar head," she called, and he flinched. "These books. Where did this come from?" she demanded, and he flinched. "The Boar tribe brought this as a tribute for Caspian before, right? Where did you find a crate of books?"

The Alpha wiped sweat from his eyes. "We found it in a deep hole, Great Female. We were digging for roots near the edge of the forest and hit something hard. It was a box made of metal. Inside were these crates."

​"A metal box?" Hana asked.

​"Yes. It was buried deep in the dirt," the Alpha explained. "We couldn’t open the metal, but the dirt shifted, and these wooden crates spilled out. We thought the heavy things inside looked like treasure, so we brought them to the Fire King."

​Hana looked at the crate. This was a big mystery. How did a crate of books end up buried in the middle of a forest? And in an uncivilized world, too.

It looked like someone had tried to hide them a long time ago.

​Caspian walked over, his golden eyes looking at the book with boredom. "It is useless, Hana. You cannot eat it, and it does not keep you warm. My brother probably told them to bring it just to waste my space."

​Hana didn’t answer him. She ran her fingers over the strange letters.

​"You’re an idiot, Caspian," she muttered, and Raiden snickered.

​She looked at her system window again.