“Woof! Woof!”

The little fenrir had already woken up. And was prancing on me trying to wake me up too.

His loud voice, combined with the reverberation in the cave, was more than enough to wake me.

“Why’re you so excited this early in the morning?”

“Woof! Woof!”

I checked outside, the blizzard hadn’t calmed yet. It’ll probably be the same weather as we move ahead, or even worse.

There was nothing much to prepare before leaving. I wore on my cloak and called upon the little fenrir who had gone to the end of the cave after waking me up. Dark flame had already settled when the woodsticks finished so it saved me time of disposing them.

“Woof! Woof!” The fenrir’s voice echoed as he barked from deep within the cave. “Ooooooooooowhooo!!”

“Hey, don’t start howling. This is a small cave and your voice is too loud.” I shouted as I rushed towards the fenrir, wondering why he did that.

“Now, what was that for.” I asked the fenrir who was wagging his tail standing against the end of the cave. “I already checked the cave for anything strange in there. There’s nothing to look. Let’s goo!” I called him from a distance but he didn’t bulge an inch.

I saw something written at the bottom, when I tried grabbing the fenrir from behind. A stone tablet was installed there, and something written on it in an unknown script.

I don’t know what’s written there but…

The text, I couldn’t read it. It was the first time I had seen those characters. But it felt like the stone tablet was pulling me to it. I put my hand over it, and despite seeing it for the first time, I could somehow decipher the text.

‘I don’t think and have no human sensation, yet I know the route to your destination’.

It’d be a lie if I said that I could read what was written on there, but the translation was clear to me.

“Hey, little fen, can you read this?”

“Arf!” He replied in affirmation.

How can you…? Amazed at the fenrir’s ability to read, I remembered he was no ordinary beast. But the question still remained for myself.

Now, leaving that aside, another question that stemmed forward was the phrase inscribed on the stone tablet.

“No sensation… route to my destination… is it riddle? …But why… poetic?”

“Who the hell wrote that, and on a stone tablet no less?”

I wondered what was the motive behind this while carefully examining the stone tablet.

Was it really a riddle? Or did I comprehend it wrong? While asking myself such questions, I was also trying to find the answer to the stupid riddle that was asked on the stone.

I sat down there contemplating the possible answers and time just went by. It wasn’t much of an enigma; thinking about it, the answer was most simple of all.

I put my hand on the stone tablet and let mana flow through. “Map”

The word that perfectly fits the bill. It doesn’t think but has the route to my destination. There was no other answer I’d deem correct.

The script started glowing and slowly the stone too. Followed by a blinding light in the dark cave, the stone exploded leaving nothing but one item behind.

I was right. There wasn’t much enthusiasm from my side. Meanwhile, I checked to see if the fenrir was okay.

Jumping up and down, bewildered by the scene, and looking intensely at the object left behind.

I picked both of them up and put one in my pocket.

“It’s a map.”

I didn’t know if it knew what a map was, but I still continued my narration.

“This thing, cloth, has the location to somewhere. We’ll check it out on the way to our location.”

The fenrir had calmed down, and he didn’t make much noise while I surveyed the map at the cave exit.