As with always, darkness began to envelope the surroundings with the inevitable passage of time. Alz stared at the gentle flame flickering in front of him in a daze before letting out a heavy sigh as he blew out the stone lamp.

The stack of scrolls he picked out were no longer before him, returned to their shelves neatly just moments ago as he prepared to stop for the day, wanting to have some time to himself to sort out his thoughts.

Alz's gaze lightly swept across the library with a complicated expression on his face before he took hold of his crutches and rose from his chair, limping out of the library with slow, heavy steps.

With the hours that had gone by, the two guards by the entrance had long since rotated out of their shift with two other guards standing by the entrance.

When Alz left the library, the two of them immediately turned their heads over and eyes him curiously, but Alz paid no heed to them as he steadily made his way to the guardhouse.

Upon entering the guardhouse, Alz immediately began to head towards the right wing of the guardhouse.

Even though it had been several months since he last lived there, he was far from forgetting the location of the bunks the tribe were assigned, more so since he had still been visiting them whenever he had time to spare.

After all, while he was reluctant to rely on the tribe for too much, it made no sense for him to waste the time traveling back and forth from the field after he had decided to spend the following days at the military library, especially with his current injuries.

As such, he was planning on staying with his tribe over the next few days, a thought he that he had even before he set out from the field, with a part of him even looking forward to it.

Even with Alz's slow pace, the distance between the library and bunks was not far and the entrance to the bunks soon entered his eyes, unconsciously forming a small smile as he hastened his steps ever so slightly.

To his surprise, as he was heading over, a set of rapid footsteps rang loudly from the bunk as Kleiz suddenly appeared at the entrance looking towards his direction.

His eyes immediately lit up when he spotted Alz's figure in the corridor. Although a light of worry clouded over over his expression, there was a lack of surprise on him when he saw the numerous bandages covering Alz's body, clearly having been informed of it beforehand.

"Quickly, come in and rest." before Alz could refuse, Kleiz proceeded to his left side and helped to support him.

With a bitter smile, Alz inwardly let out a helpless sigh but decided to swallow his words and shifted part of his weight to Kleiz, allowing Kleiz to support him as they made their way towards the bunk.

Contrary to what Alz expected, there were at least thirty elves from the Calla tribe currently gathered in the room, all of them looking towards him with eyes brimming with concern.

In addition, Maya was also mixed in the group staring at him with reddened eyes, having rushed here as quickly as she could when she heard that he was wounded.

Alz was briefly overwhelmed by the sight that greeted his eyes, caught off guard by the large turnout in the room. Feeling the concern in their gazes, he felt a warm feeling enveloping his heart and wanted to reassure them that he was fine when a figure sudden ran to up.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry......" Maya embraced Alz tightly and buried her head in his chest, apologising profusely to him while sobbing continuously.

Maya's heart sank when she heard that Alz was attacked by Cruz, recalling the incident when he stood up for her months ago.

It didn't help that they weren't given any more details on the incident apart from the two elves involved, instantly filling her with guilt as she assumed that he ended up in this situation because of her.

Alz instinctively lifted his hand and tried to reach out for her head, but he suddenly stopped before it reached and retracted it, returning it back to his side.

"It's not your fault, don't worry about it. It's not because of that, he was coming for me." after a brief pause, Alz regained his senses and softly consoled her.

Of course, while his words were not false, they didn't speak of the entire truth either. The incident before had definitely played a part in Cruz's animosity towards him, but he didn't intend to blame her for anything when it was him who decided to help her in the first place.

Several other female elves he recognised from the expedition also followed Maya's lead and ran up to him, holding him gently in their embrace while flooding him with caring words while being careful to avoid placing pressure on his injuries.

Bart stepped out from the group and cleared his throat loudly, silencing the group surrounding him who slowly began to back off to Alz's relief.

"Alz, the captain dropped by earlier and told us what happened. Rest well and don't worry about anything else, just focus on recovering." Bart said.

"This is... the South."

"...Thank you." Alz bowed deeply and thanked them from the bottom of his heart, feeling some moisture began to gather in the corner of his eyes as the darkness he was feeling began to recede away.

Still, he wasn't in the mood to converse with anyone right now and promptly headed over to the empty bed he used in the initial weeks.

The others also didn't think too much of this as it was late, assuming that he was just tired and wanted some rest. Now that they had confirmed Alz's condition with their own eyes, they promptly began to disperse, not wanting to disturb his rest.

With the warriors around also being considerate to avoid making too much noise, peace and silence dawned upon the room as Alz silently rested on his bed.

Yet, how he currently felt was in direct contrast with the surroundings, his emotions still rattled from a discovery he had made in the military library, a discovery that left him at a loss.

After lying down on his bed, Alz began to think through the information he gathered today in his head, hoping that he could finally resolve them in a manner that he could consciously accept.

This trip to the military archives could have been said to be extremely fruitful, learning far more about the capital than he had expected. Above all, he also obtained the information he wanted the most, the information of the settlement closest to the forest.

He was very surprised when he first looked through the scroll, feeling slightly cheated when he first saw the location of the settlement, the City of Dwarves that lay beyond the forests in the south.

However, the excitement he felt was dampened by another discovery as he read further, leading to many mixed feelings forming within him, as he learned of a truth behind the forest that he had never considered before, a matter he would have rather remained oblivious to for his entire life.

Even though he didn't want to, he now understood, the reason why wolves were held in such high regard in the forest, even being known as guardian by the elves outside of the Southern tribes.

Found throughout the entire forests, the wolves used to coexist perfectly with the elves in the past, not directing any aggression towards the elves even in the Southern forests. While surprising, this finding didn't matter much to him and he quickly set it to the back of his mind.

The next discovery though, was something he couldn't neglect, the true reason the wolves were known as the guardians of the forest. The South in particular had the highest density of wolves in the forest, fending off numerous external invasions in the past.

Although these wolves had suddenly became aggressive a few centuries ago without a discernible cause, they had still been dutifully carrying out their roles as the protectors of the forests over this time, and of their race.

This had completely overturned the idea Alz held towards the wolves, as though denying the efforts their tribe had made in the past and leaving him feeling helpless and conflicted and about everything.

No matter how many times he mulled over this in his head, he couldn't arrive at an answer that would leave him satisfied, ultimately deciding not to think about it too deeply for now as he moved on to the other matters concerning himself.

Another matter he kept his eye out for when selecting the scrolls was the situation and relations between the North and the Capital, greatly increasing his understanding of how things currently stood in the forest.