Chapter 4 –– Caninus Village

A few days later, my mama received another letter from the mailman.

“Noam, there’s a letter for you,” she said, shouting at me from downstairs.

I walked from my room to the living room to see who sent the letter to me. Right after I arrived at the living room, my mother had already opened the letter without my consent.

Of course she would do that. Why was I even surprised.

“Who sent it?” I asked them.

“It’s your suitor,” my mother said, handing me the letter to let me read it.

Oh. I wondered which one it was.

“Dear Noam Dabau from Hyaena Village,

On behalf of my family and my tribe as a whole, I humbly apologize for my misconduct the other day. I hope this will not disrupt our relationship as potential mates. I am convinced that it is something out of my control and I assure you that no such thing will ever happen again in the future.

Thus, in order to prove my sincerity, our family would like to welcome you in our home as our special guest for the upcoming Bluemoon Festival. We would like to accommodate you for a week long stay in our mansion including picking you up–– and dropping you off to your house afterwards–– by riding one of our badgermores.

Please need not to worry about things you need to bring as we will have all of them prepared here. Should you have any request regarding the accommodation or anything in particular, please do not hesitate to write to me. Our badgermores and guards will pick you up as soon as you tell us to.

I will be looking forward to hearing from you and I wish you good day.

-Dawoud Dzib, Caninus Village”

Well, that was overwhelmingly formal.

As expected from one of the two biggest villages in the realm, they were filthy rich. They lived in a mansion and had multiple badgermores, something only possible for very little people in the realm. I know we were both sons of the village Chieftains, but damn the difference was so big. I guess it kinda made sense as to why my mother was trying to sell me off to them, I’d be able to live lavishly without having to lift a finger if I ever became their son’s mate.

After reading the letter, my mother asked my opinion.

“So, what do you think?” she asked me directly.

That was rare of her. She didn’t usually ask for my opinions and just pushed hers into me.

Well, it was not like I had anything better to do anyway, so I guess spending a week in another village was nice too. I’d never been out of the village before, so this would be a good opportunity.

“I’ll write back to them as soon as possible.”

My mother and my mama nodded. I immediately went upstairs to my room to write a response to his letter.

A few days later, a group of people from Caninus tribe came to my house to pick me up. After having sent a reply to the son of the Chieftain, they decided to send some people to pick me up right in front of my house.

There were in total 5 guards who were escorting me. Four of them were riding downkeys, while one of them–– who looked like she had a superior position compared to the rest of them–– was riding a badgermore with a palanquin on its back. The downkey riders stood by around the badgermore, guarding it from every side.

“Right this way, my lord,” said the badgermore rider after she descended from the animal, telling me to get into the palanquin to start our travel.

My mothers saw me off right before I left. They gave me a big hug and a kiss on my forehead, telling me to take care of myself while I was there. They also told me to write to them once I arrived at the mansion. I nodded at them, telling them not to worry about me. I entered the palanquin and looked at them through the window as we started journeying to Caninus Village. I waved my hand at my mothers while smiling at them to give them reassurance.

To get to Caninus village from my village, we had to take a route through an underground tunnel. Because the tunnel was dangerous and didn’t have much lighting, we had to wear a helmet with a lighting stone on it to see our way in the dark. I also had to put on some gloves to grab onto the badgermore’s fur, despite being inside a palanquin. This was my first time riding a badgermore, and I would say it was very much more comfortable than a downkey. Sadly, there was no one else inside the palanquin, so I felt a little bit lonely.

Fun fact: in the past, when tribes lived separately without tunnels connecting our villages, badgermores were actually the native subterranean species before our arrival. After our ancestors settled underground, they attacked our villages many times in the past and stole most of our crops. At one point in history, a village started domesticating them and raised them as travel companions by offering them some of our crops. Because of their incredible digging ability, our ancestors trained them to help us us expand our villages by opening more underground space. Sometime then, we accidentally made a tunnel that connected to another village, leading to the first contact between fellow Werebeasts. We then made more tunnels that connect to all living Werebeast tribes.

During the first years after the tunnels were built, there were still a lot of earthquakes that caused landslides due to the poor structure of the tunnels. Because of the narrow space inside the tunnels compared to the space in a village, a lot of people died every time they were trapped in a landslide. Since then, the realm came together to create a solution to improve the safety of the structure of the tunnels, including installations of quake-absorbent materials to reduce landslide and adding luminescent stones for illumination. Badgermores were also helpful in recreating the most optimal design of a tunnel by using to their animal instincts. Nowadays, earthquakes still happen regularly but rarely were they life-threatening due to the improvement in the structure and design of the tunnels. Maintenance also happened regularly, by inspecting malfunctioned spots and repairing them using a badgermore.

Here, daytime and nighttime were differentiated by the colour of the illumination stones. The daystones illuminated white–yellow colour that shone brightly during the day, giving us the energy to be productive. The daystones also helped our crops and livestock to grow which would ensure our livelihood. Meanwhile, the nightstones illuminated magenta–indigo colour that glowed in the dark, giving us some lighting during the night to help us relax and get ready to rest. The stones changed colour at around 6 in the evening, from daystone to nightstone. At midnight, the stones completely stopped glowing, making the whole village go dark unless one held a personal illuminating stone or equipment. The illumination stones in the tunnels, however, never stopped glowing and were all nightstones, radiating dim magenta-indigo coloured light.

Half a day later, I arrived at the mansion. I didn’t realise how long the travel took because I was sleeping the whole time. Lol. The moment they woke me up saying that we’d arrived to our destination, it was already nighttime.

“Oh, it’s so nice to see you again, son of Chieftain Nura!”

The moment I opened the door of the palanquin, the mother of my suitor–– wife of the Caninus Tribe Chieftain–– greeted me in front of their mansion gate. Behind her, there were servants lining up to welcome my arrival.

“It’s a pleasure to meet once more, Lady Rochlin,” I said to her.

“Please, follow me.”

The moment I stepped down from the palanquin, my shoes stomped on a carpet rolled from the gate of the mansion right towards the entrance door. I followed Lady Rochlin right behind her, leading me to the mansion.

“Welcome to the Chieftain’s mansion, Lord Noam from Hyaena Tribe.”

The servants on both of my sides greeted me in unison and bowed their heads at me. To be rank, that was kind of creepy. I felt like I was on red carpet or something.

The servants were all wearing butler and maid costumes. They were all from Caninus Tribe. Unlike our village which only had 4 clans, it seemed like there were many clans within Caninus Tribe. They all looked so diverse.

The mansion area was so wide. They had a spacious front yard, a fountain, and even a small area of berry bushes. For your information, berries were a super rare commodity within the realm. Only the rich could try them, let alone cultivate them. I never even tried it myself. I heard that it was a very difficult type of plant to thrive underground, so cultivating it until it bore fruit was something extraordinary.

“Welcome to our mansion, son of Chieftain Nura.”

Chieftain of Caninus Tribe, Lord Hamza, greeted me in front of the door. His daughter and son were standing behind him, waiting for my entry.

“Thank you for having me, Lord Hamza,” I bowed to him, showing my respect.

“My son will lead you to your room. Worry not, his snore won’t probably reach your room,” Lord Hamza jokingly said.

“I don’t snore!!” their son said, denying his false accusation.

His father and mother chuckled seeing his reaction. Dawoud then showed me the way around the mansion before going to my room.

The mansion had 3 floors. The first floor contained a kitchen, a shared bathroom, a living room, entertainment room, and other rooms for utility purposes. It only had one bedroom, which was the master bedroom where the Chieftain and his wife slept. The second floor contained the rest of the bedrooms, which were supposedly more than ten. Apparently, the Chieftain’s relatives including siblings, in-laws and nephews-nieces also lived here in this mansion. This floor also had rooms for guests and two designated rooms for their daughter and son each. The third floor was the housing for all the servants and staff of the mansion, which included security guards, butlers, maids, chauffeurs, gardeners, cooks, and so many more.

While we were having a tour around the mansion, I noticed someone was following me.

“Oh, hey there, little one. Wanna come with me?” I asked her in a gentle voice.

It was Lord Hamza’s daughter, Fatima. She’d been following us ever since her brother told me to follow him.

“Fatima, go back to your room. You’re bothering the guest,” he said, telling her to leave.

“No, no. It’s okay. She’s not bothering me,” I told him.

She reached for my hand shyly. I smiled at her and held her hand, walking with her side by side. She seemed happy to be coming along with me. We then continued the tour together, the three of us.

After taking a look around the mansion–– including showing me where the bathroom was–– we finally reached the guest room where I would be sleeping in.

“Here you go. If you ever need anything, just ask me. I’m right next door.”

I set my bag aside to take a look around the room. Wow. Even the guest room had its own bathroom in it? Damn, this family was even richer than I expected. I wonder if Felixia Tribe was also as rich as they were, since you know, they’re rivals.

Right before the son of Lord Hamza left the room, his sister came into my room and hugged me out of the blue.

I was so surprised that I didn’t know what to do. I ended up hugging her back and pat her on the head.

“Fatima, come on. The guest needs to rest,” he told her.

“I want more time with him!” she yelled, sulking.

She sounded like she didn’t play with people often in this house. She must not have had that many friends to play with.

“We’ll play some more later, okay?” I told her while smiling at her.

“Promise?” she reached out her pinky finger, asking for a promise.

“Promise!” I interlocked my pinky finger with hers.

We made a pinky promise which satisfied her.

I took a glance at her brother and saw that he kinda smiled a little after looking at my interaction with his little sister. I don’t know what made him smile, but I think he found our interaction to be funny or something. Fatima then went to her brother after he called her to come.

“We’ll be having dinner in an hour. You’d be welcome to join us. If you’re feeling too tired from the travel, we’ll have one of our servants to deliver the dinner to your room,” he said, being courteous and formal.

This family really had a tendency to be all formal, huh. I wasn't sure if that was something they did between family members or just to a guest, but I was really not used to this. I guess I needed to adapt quickly if I wanted the process of becoming mates to go smoothly.

Since I spent half a day locked up in a palanquin, I decided to take a bath first before dinner. I felt so dusty and dry, so a bath would probably make me feel refreshed. After having taken my clothes off, I entered the bathroom for a nice warm bath.

The moment I stepped out of the bathroom after taking a bath, someone appeared right in front of me, inside my bedroom.

“Good day, my lord.”

What the actual fuck.