"Come on, hurry up, hurry up," Demanded her father in front of her, his voice had a tone she never heard him use, it was full of worry, fear and confusion.but still, even with all that, hearing it still helped a lot considering what was happening around them.

Wherever she looked, and wherever she concentrated, she saw somethings her mind couldn't process or understand as what they were.

"Just keep on running, we have to reach the forest, that's our only hope," the soldier, Alber, said in a voice barely heard amidst all the chaos around them.

He and her dad, who was holding her little sister, were running in front of her, with her and her mom behind them.

Throwing a glance at her mom, Susan noticed that she was pale and sweating heavily, with wide fearful eyes. She instinctly knew that she probably wasn't any better.

She had no idea about what was happening, everything around her seemed foggy and her thoughts were a mess, all she knew was that they had to make it to the forest or something horrible was going to happen.

"Dad-"

Suddenly, a forbidden feeling came open her and her heart clenched as if she knew what was coming, she lifted her hand to her dad and the soldier as if to warn them, but before she could say anything, she saw several cut it's way through the darkness and hit the soldier, and soon after her dad.

"No!" She screamed.

Her body moved forward without her control, everything around her turned dark and silent, only her father's fallen body and her little sister in his arms remained.

With each step she took, the dread and worry grew stronger, Deep down, she knew what she was going to see, but even so, she had no control over herself and she soon was standing in front of her father's unmoving body.

With shaking hands, she turned her father's cold body and saw that the arrow had hit her sister, and that she too was unresponsive.

"Ahhh!" Seeing that, she fell down as she shouted as loud as she could, And as she did, she noticed that she was inside A forest with a stranger looking down at her.

"Susan, Susan, calm down, everything is alright, it's over now, everything is alright," Said Adam trying to calm her down.

Only after he said that for a few more times that she remembered what really happened, with that going through her mind, she covered her face under the cover and started to cry silently.

Looking at her while she was like this, Adam sighed in pity as he shook his head. He decided to leave her on her own to calm down because that's what she needed the most.

***

"Okay everyone, let's get moving," the semigin, Krusk, said as he took one last glance at the village behind him, beside him, the amaryn sighed as he too looked at the ruined village.

The other groups of soldiers who left the village the previous day were in a much worst state than Krusk's group. Many of them died and many others got injured during their journey through the forest. After returning and making their vodico send these results, they were asked to return and leave the village.

Travelling between villages in the Beasts' Forest was a dangerous thing, they would have to calculate their travelling time accurately so they don't get caught in the forest at night. They also had to travel on a specific protected path, and even with that, there was still a chance, no matter how small, of them meeting a beast or monster they won't be able to deal with.

There was a clear division between the soldiers, separating them into two groups, one under the leadership of Krusk, and this one had all the soldiers who were with Krusk when he met Adam and Susan, while the other group was led by Fiden, the encolian who was heading the reception ritual that Adam interrupted.

There was only one road leaving the village so they couldn't really separate, but there was still a clear repulsion between the two groups.

Fiden threw a glance at Krusk and the huge basket he was carrying as he frowned, he couldn't tell what was in that basket, a few basic runic glyphs were inscribed on it, he would have no real problem bypassing them if he wanted, but doing that would be too obvious and Krusk would respond with violence for sure, so he had no other choice but to ignore that for now and act as if he didn't care.

After all, what Krusk did this time was simply stupid, and he for sure would be removed from his position as a captain when they get back, and the person with the best chance to take his position was him. So he decided to start acting like one already with the soldiers following him.

"Let's get going," he said as he nodded to the soldiers around him.

After the two groups left, the town fell into a heavy silence with nothing indicating that it was an inhabited town just a couple of days ago.

The village had two major roads with the cross that they made being the exact centre of the village. Three hours or so after the two groups of soldiers left, the ground at the centre of that crossroad started cracking before the hard rock broke in a deep explosion, leaving a deep hole there.

A few seconds after that, a pale hand reached out from under the hole...

***

Adam and Susan continued their journey in silence after having a bit of an awkward breakfast.

Susan felt like shit, even without mentioning the wounds on her feet, though they were a bit better already. She was feeling tired, both mentally and physically, she hadn't gotten much rest or good sleep in two days and most of that time was spent walking through a forest.

"We have to be a bit more careful from this point on, we will be entering the more dangerous parts of the forest now," Adam suddenly declared after they had walked for a while.

All Susan did was give a reluctant nod to that.

Adam shook his head and continued moving, he knew that the thing Susan needed the most right then was time, there wasn't much that he could do for her, yet he couldn't just let her be, falling a victim to her own thoughts.

Adam was more careful with his movement through the forest than he would have usually been because of Susan being with him.

Usually, even with how dangerous the Beasts' Forest was, there was no being strong enough to be much of a threat to him in this part of it, so he wouldn't be that worried, but there was a lot of things that can be the end of a human like Susan.

He saw a lot of people die due to some insignificant circumstances that would have been easily avoided with a bit of attention during his many travels, and he didn't want that to happen now.

So, trying to get Susan to get out of her self destroying thoughts, he started talking about the environment around them and some of the plants and trees.

It wasn't anything great, just which plants were edible, how to find them,  how to survive on her own if she found herself alone in the forest, and the like.

At first, Susan wasn't that interested, but as time passed, she started getting more and more interested and started asking some questions now and then, seeing that, Adam smiled and continued his lecture.

After Adam was done speaking about a certain edible mushroom and how to differentiate it from another similar but poisonous mushroom, Susan took her chance and asked a question that have been in her mind for a while now:

"What's that place you said we're heading to again? I don't really think that you've told me about it?"

"Hmm? Oh that, it's the ruins of what seems to be an ancient village," Adam was a bit confused at first, not expecting her to bring that up, but he answered in a bit and continued:

"You know? A long time ago, this part of the Beasts' Forest was way too dangerous, too dangerous in fact to the point that it was as dangerous as the centre of the forest right now, but, even with all that, there was still a village in a place like this, there are many theories and guesses about who used to live in that village, some say that it was the home of a long-extinct and forgotten race, other say that it was the headquarter of some secret cult... While a small group of them say that it was where the coneith lived back then."

"The coneith?" Susan asked in confusion, that was a name she had never heard before, her grandpa didn't tell her about a race like that.

"Yeah, the coneith, or as some people like to call them, the eleventh race," started Adam, it was clear that this was a subject that he was quite passionate about, he stopped moving, turned towards Susan before continuing:

"You know how the evil queen of the phas and her allies were on the verge of putting all the other races under their ruling, and that when everyone thought that none will be able to stop them, the alpha appeared and united the other nine races and led them to victory.

"Those ten races were, the livitus, the skugge, the semigin, the encolian, the amaryn, the ajahit, the minmos, the joroth, the ammonil and finally, the tenth which was the Alpha himself, I think you know that, right?"

"Yes, my grandpa told me about all of that," Susan nodded lightly as her interest piqued.

"As expected, but what you don't know is that a lot of people think- no not think, believe that there is another race among those, an eleventh race and that this race was the main reason for the losses that the phas kingdom faced," he said excitedly.

"Why would they be so sure?" Susan asked in hesitation and confusion.

"That's because of some of the records left by some of the participants in the last Great War, in those records, there are a lot of contradictions and a lot of the participants in this war referred to some individuals with weird and unique features, ones that were different from all the known races right now, and many people take that as a solid proof of the existence of some widely unknown race, a race that watches from the shadows and controls the world in silence."

"... And you're searching for clues about this race?" Susan was speechless, she felt that something like that was a bit absurd, but she didn't know much about the outside world except what her grandpa told her, so she had no right to deny him too.

"Yes, I've spent years searching for them and any similar clue and trail hidden in history, I've visited a lot of ruins and libraries looking for any bit of information about them, and believe me when I say that this race is somewhere out there, but the thing is it won't be easy to find a race that remained out of sight for all these years," Adam said confidentially.

"We will get there tomorrow, and we will see how things will go on there," he concluded with a smile.

"Why are you searching for them?" Asked Susan.

"My passion for history of course," he answered with a big smile on his face.

Susan rolled her eyes at him but she said nothing at the end.

"Come on, let's move, we will continue with this some other time if we ever get the chance," Adam added.

Susan just nodded and they resumed their journey with Adam continuing his 'lessons'.