When I awoke I found that I was still in much the same position that I had been when I fell asleep. My head was still resting on Velariah’s shoulder. The elf in question had her head resting against mine and was snoring softly. I carefully lifted my head up and rubbed the sleep crust out of my eyes with my free set of hands.

The steel gloves weren’t the perfect tool for it, but it was impossible to do with my other arms as they had the sheathed bladed gauntlets attached.

I yawned and noticed Draco and Nira positioned on the other end of the still-burning campfire. They had probably been awake for a few hours. Seralyn was nowhere to be seen, so I assumed she was sleeping in one of the two tents.

“Morning, Miss Elania,” Draco greeted me like the gentleman he was.

Seriously, if it wasn’t for the axes and the fact that he was a lizard, I’d think he was one of those British butlers from TV.

“Good morning. Nothing much happened, did it?”

Draco shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Good. I slept like a rock. I doubt you would have been able to wake me.”

Draco’s snout formed a slight smile. “Not to worry. I have my ways.”

“Sounds ominous…” I said with a smile of my own.

Velariah stirred and soon yawned while rubbing her eyes. “Is it morning already?” She asked.

“Afraid so,” I said.

“Good.”

Well, wasn’t she optimistic?

The white-haired elf took her hair in her hands and moved it behind her head. “Let’s eat something and be on our way then.”

Draco, in response, reached into his pack, which he’d placed next to him, and pulled out a canteen for Velariah. He also handed her one of the leaf-wrapped packages of meat jerky.

“Thanks,” She said, before opening the package to eat.

“Can I have one of those too?” Seralyn’s voice came from one of the tents.

Draco, without a word, reached into his bag again and held up a package behind his shoulder in a nonchalant manner. The brunette walked up to him and took it, thanking him in the process. It was interesting to see her act in a much more… normal manner compared to when I first met her.

“Seems everyone is in a hurry,” Draco spoke calmly. “It’s understandable, though.”

With those words, the lizardman stood up, walked to the tents, and started taking them down. Nira turned her head to him and when she saw what he was up to, she decided to help him.

“Hope you had a good night,” Seralyn said while eating. “You two are cute together, you know that?”

I let out a small chuckle at her comment. It didn’t affect me as much anymore as it had before.

“I certainly did,” Velariah spoke. “But I’d much rather sleep in my bed at home.”

“You mean your… hammock,” Seralyn corrected her.

“My… our hammock, yes.”

“Whose idea was that anyway?” The brunette asked.

I raised one of my hands. “Mine.”

I paused for a few seconds.

“You have no idea how hard it is to get comfortable when you drag a ton behind you.”

“You’re right. I don’t.”

The two elves continued eating in silence while I was thinking about how things would be back at home. I was curious to know the progress that Valtheril had made in a few days. I was even more curious to know how the coffee plants were doing. A bit of extra cash was never unwanted. And I doubted it would stay just a little. From what I’d seen so far, the dark brew had risen enough in popularity to ensure a good flow of money.

I then found my mind wandering off to Gray, and beyond that, Minia. She’d been unmoving for days and I was hoping the cause for that was what I thought it to be. It felt weird to admit, but I’d found a special place in my heart for her.

I shook my head. I couldn’t believe it.

“What’s up with you?” Velariah asked after she saw me shaking my head.

“I was just thinking about home, and how there is still plenty left to do for us before we can move on from it.”

I had always been proud of myself for coming up with the best of excuses. This time was no different.

“Yeah. You’ve been quite the surprise for many of us,” Velariah said. Through my right side eye, I saw she had a smile on her face.

“You know, when I first met you, all this was exactly what I wanted to avoid. Now that I’m in the middle of it, however, I don’t quite know how to feel about it.” I inhaled deeply and sighed. “On one hand, I still think that’s still true, a little bit. On the other hand, it was probably wishful thinking. There was no way I was going to stay hidden forever. In a way, I’m happy that things turned out this way.”

Velariah nodded. “I could not have said it better, myself. You’ve been a blessing for all of us in Dawnleaf, even if some people don’t recognize that.”

I shrugged. “I know it’s impossible to please everyone, but trying to kill me is a bit excessive, isn’t it? I’m just hoping we can get to the bottom of that. I’m glad that Valtheril can do what he can do.”

I looked at Velariah after that, hoping that she knew that I was hinting at his ability to detect the truth. “And that includes punishing people according to this world’s laws. I know there are many people in my old world that would probably not agree with them, but the way things work here is just so different in general. In my opinion, these people deserve what’s coming for them.”

Velariah nodded again.

“Well said,” Seralyn interjected. “I was looking forward to seeing those bastards hang, but the way you threatened that guy in the mansion… I have to admit, there’s a certain charm to that method of execution as well.”

“I don’t intend to eat humans,” I stated clearly. “And I’m pretty sure you know that.”

“I mean, I do, but still.”

“I’ll kill them if I have to, but only then, and I won’t eat them,” I elaborated so that there would be no confusion about anything.

“It’s hard,” Velariah said, before taking a few sips from the canteen, to then close it and hand it to Seralyn. “It’s hard to imagine what we would do in your… I would say shoes, but you can’t really wear shoes now, can you?”

I let out a chuckle at her comment.

“I mean,” Velariah continued. “I don’t think I would do it, unless there was perhaps a very specific scenario where I would starve if I didn’t. Then again, things had to get extreme before it got to that point. I hope you never have to make that decision.”

I nodded. “The one upside about this,” I pointed to my rear with a thumb, “Is that it indeed has to truly spiral out of control. Something about stocking up before we head out. I do think I’ll need to be a bit more careful with my silk, though.”

The elf nodded. “I do think you had accounted for it and did a proper risk-reward calculation beforehand, correct?”

I nodded. “Plenty of stuff to eat out here in the forest.”

Both elves finished their breakfast. Seralyn placed the canteen back in Draco’s bag before standing up to help our companions with the tents. Velariah placed her hand on one of my pedipalps and lightly tapped it.

“Let’s get this done and get home, alright?”

I nodded as we both stood up.

Moments later, we had the tents disassembled and stashed away in my saddlebags. It appeared Nira and Draco had already eaten, so we didn’t have to pause. Instead, we moved out as quickly as we could.

Nira was on my back once again while holding on to the scabbard. I held the weapon over my shoulder as we continued our way back to Dawnleaf. It wouldn’t take us too long to reach the village. We’d made great progress as it was the day before.

“So,” Velariah said as we walked, “How do you like your new weapon?”

“In all honesty?” I asked as I tilted my head to look at the blade on the pole. “This fits me far better than a spear, at least in open areas.”

“I noticed that, but… do you like it?”

“That’s an odd question,” I answered. “I don’t think I have quite the relationship with weapons that you have. It’s a lot more effective. In that regard, I guess you could say I like it.”

Velariah shrugged. “That’s a fair answer.”

She then chuckled, which caused me to turn my head. Velariah turned hers to look into my eyes, then chuckled louder.

What was up with her?

“And you’re only going to get better. Just wait until we get back to strength training. I’m going to completely wear you out when we get home. We have a bunch of catching up to do, after all.”

Seralyn grinned wildly after hearing Velariah’s words. It wasn’t hard to know that her mind held something entirely different than what Velariah actually meant. I shook my head at it.

“What? No comment on how I’m too strict when it comes to training?” Velariah said with a sly smile.

“What am I supposed to say?” I said. “Wasn’t strength training more or less my own idea? I’m going to have to do it whether I want to or not.”

“Spoken like a true soldier,” Velariah said with a smile.

“Thanks… I guess.”

We continued ever onward. I always kept all my eyes open, looking for any danger, but at some point, I came to a sudden halt. The others instantly stopped when they saw me standing still. Before they could ask anything, I had placed a finger on my lips so they wouldn’t try to speak and break my concentration.

I was focused on my legs. I could feel some vibrations run through the ground, and I was trying to figure out where the danger would come from. I closed my eyes while putting all my attention into this. The vibrations became stronger, but I couldn’t figure out where they were coming from. They kept growing in intensity and seemed to span an enormous area.

I was slightly panicked as I couldn’t pinpoint where the tremors were coming from. After half a minute or so, they weakened and then subsided completely.

“What’s wrong?” Velariah whispered. I opened my eyes to see a worried look on her face.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I could feel the ground shaking…Wait a second…”

Things suddenly started to make sense. The relative proximity to the mountain ridge with volcanoes should have given it away.

“Earthquake?” I asked softly. “Do you ever have earthquakes?”

The white-haired elf nodded. “We do. They are quite rare, and never impactful. They aren’t strong enough to cause any kind of damage. You felt one?”

I nodded. “I think I did. I should have known about this, your village being this close to a volcanic ridge. Something with tectonic plates and whatnot.”

“Tectonic whatnow? Plates? Is that another one of your otherworldly dishes?” Seralyn asked. I could clearly tell that she had no idea what I meant. I turned my head to Velariah, hoping that she knew what I was on about, but she shook her head, indicating that she too, didn’t know.

“Draco,” I addressed the lizardman. “We’re almost out of the forest, aren’t we?” I asked.

He nodded. “We are.”

“I’ll explain what I mean once we’re out of here.”

Perhaps the one person that seemed most interested in what I had to say, was Nira. As soon as I’d mentioned that I knew a thing or two about earthquakes, she’d cocked her head and stopped looking around her. She remained fixated on me. I could see the feathers behind her ears twitch for the rest of the time we were in the forest. Was that an indication of anticipation?

Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long. We soon reached the edge of the forest. I did notice that our speed had increased a bit to get out of it faster. Knowing that my companions were eager about what I had to say about this subject put a large smile on my face.

“Soooo…” Velariah started, as soon as we’d passed the edge of the forest on our way towards Dawnleaf’s eastern road. “About those tutorialic plates…”

“Tectonic plates,” I corrected her. “It’s the foundation of mountain ridges, volcanoes, and earthquakes… quite literally actually.”

“How does that work?” Nira asked, full of bewilderment.

“So, I can only speak from experience from my old world, but I am going to assume that much of it is the same here. You see, our planet, and likely this one too, isn’t entirely solid. Most of it is a hot ball of molten lava, with a crust of solid material. That is the surface on which everything lives. This crust basically floats around on top of the lava.”

I left out the part where lava would be called magma as long as it hadn’t reached the surface. That would just unnecessarily complicate things.

“Interesting…” Draco commented.

The others, well, I could literally see them process this info. I reckoned it helped that they tended to believe what I said. If I were to tell this to anyone else, I doubted whether they’d believe me as easily.

“That’s the basics. Does everyone follow so far?”

I looked around to see slight nods from the elves and the harpy after a few seconds. I then extended my bladed gauntlets forward. “Okay, so here is the part about how mountains form. You see, this floating crust isn’t one piece. Think of these scabbards as separate floating islands on this lava.”

I paused a few seconds more before I started slowly moving the scabbards against each other. “This would be so much easier if I could draw this, but I think you can get the general idea from this. You see, these islands move and that causes things to happen...”

I tilted the scabbards so that they would form an upside-down V-shape. “This is what can happen when plates crash against each other.”

“Mountains,” Draco said. He had already figured it out.

I nodded. “Keep in mind, this process is incredibly slow. It takes millions of years for mountains to form. Hey Draco, can you figure out from this how volcanoes form?”

I was curious if he’d figured that out too.

He shook his head. I had no doubt he’d be able to figure it out given time, but it seemed that this was a bit too fast.

“Look again.” I decided to give them that extra bit of time and I moved the scabbards in the same manner.

“Lava goes up through the gap,” Nira said.

I nodded. “Areas, where these plates meet, are generally riddles with mountains, often volcanic in nature, because the lava doesn’t have much of a hindrance flowing up. I am confident this mountain ridge is a result of plates moving like this.”

I smiled and shook my head. I never expected to share high school knowledge with adults who would then be as shocked as my companions were. It didn’t make me feel superior to them. I could imagine certain people feel that way. Rather, I was happy to see that they were so interested in stuff like this. I was happy to share.

“So what about earthquakes?” Seralyn asked, referring back to the thing that had started this all.

“In all honesty? I don’t believe I can provide you with the full answer to that. If I recall correctly, these plates slowly moving will sometimes build up pressure which can then suddenly be released all at once, causing the surroundings to shake. That’s the earthquake. Those happen much more often where these plates meet, which is why I am so very surprised that this was the first one I actually felt. They can occur thousands of times in a single day, but you won’t feel or see any of that as they are just too weak.”

“Thousands of earthquakes in one day?” Velariah said with a gasp.

“As I said, they are too weak to even notice. What I do know is that earthquakes can also be a precursor to volcanic eruptions… which is exactly what happened after we met Ember.”

“What interesting knowledge,” Draco said with a smile. “I never would have figured that out.”

“What surprises me,” Velariah said. “Is that this information sounds all so unbelievable, but when you look into it, somehow, for some reason, everything makes sense in the end.”

“That’s what science does,” I said. “This knowledge is a result of many years of research and experimentation. This is just how things work. I can’t help it.”

“What other secrets are in that head of yours?” Seralyn asked. “Are any of them dangerous?”

She seemed to be deadly serious when she asked it.

“Yes,” I confirmed. “I believe it all makes even more sense now, doesn’t it?”

She nodded.

“But yeah,” I continued. “I don’t believe this information is dangerous. If anything, it’s just the foundation for this specific field of science.” I shrugged. “These foundations have led us to create instruments that I believe, I’m not quite sure here, can to some degree predict when a volcano is about to erupt. Now, it’s not much of an issue in this world as it appears people don’t live close to them, but in my old world, it would be valuable.”

“Because of its fertile ground,” Velariah put one and one together.

I nodded.

The white-haired elf shook her head. “Truly unbelievable how everything falls in place.”

“Told you,” I said with a smile as I saw Dawnleaf nearing. “I hope everything going on will fall in place just as nicely.”