Tyulha was riding Thunder on my back with the same expression he could not shook off. Goblins and orcs were speaking in a language he could comprehend, and fluently enough for him to participate in their conversation.

“Chief, because goblins take turn logging and building, and thanks to orcs’ strength, we managed to build a living space. How is this new farming thing you introduced is going to help us with that?” asked one of the goblins as we were riding back to Harren. I was encouraging all citizens of Harren to talk freely to me, without hesitation or fear. After all, I did not want Harren to have a dictator – I was merely a chief.

“Agriculture is not going to help with building. Because we are getting more and more populated, it is also getting more difficult to procure enough food for everybody. Without enough food, we would start starving one by one. Agriculture means we will get the food from the earth in regular intervals without needing to hunt for everyone every day. So, in some indirect way, we will have more energy to build.”

“Oh… I see Chief. That is a great idea.”

“You are making farmers out of monsters?” asked Tyulha.

“Yes, why wouldn’t I?”

“…”

I felt that Tyulha was starting to accept the situation as is. For him, monsters were barbaric, did not know how to communicate, and certainly could not pursue more civilized practices like agriculture. Now, his beliefs set in hundreds of years of experience was challenged by a human stranger leading a group of monsters.

When we reached Harren, Tyulha widened his eyes to understand whether what he was seeing was real. Many houses, no matter how poorly built they were, were housing at least a thousand orcs and goblins. Monsters were known to live in small groups and attack the passerby humanoids. Calling this a town would be an understatement. Surely, it was not as prosperous or as big as a humanoid city, but it surely was something well beyond the capabilities of monsters and at no point in the history as Tyulha knew had monsters come together to build something like this.

“So far, we only have houses – because the number of orcs and goblins kept increasing, soon the problem of overpopulation got out of control, and we could almost only focus on building houses. Not a single facility here. The houses are also very poorly constructed since it is the first time most monsters have built something like these – but they give you a roof above your head, warmth against the cold when necessary, and protection against the dangers outside.”

“This is not I imagined when you said you have a town.”

“Does it not satisfy you expectations of a town?”

“No – it is above them.”

With houses looking like they could fall down from a single hit? Above his expectations? Dark elves must really think of monsters so lowly – or the monsters have not achieved something like this ever before.

I jump in to interfere with his thought process:

“We have food too, if you wish. We have hunting teams that gather food every day, prey as well as fruits and other edible plants. You and your people will be given the same amount any of Harren citizens are given. You will not be let starve. You can have some food now, if you wish.”

Tyulha as speechless, yet had a firm composure as expected of a strong leader.

“Thank you for the offer, but it is disdainful for me to eat here while my people cannot.”

He delved into deep thoughts as we kept wandering the village. Ghyurl bumped into us as we were turning from a corner.

“Hi Chief. Do we have a visitor?”

At this point, Tyulha has already familiarized himself with speaking monsters.

“Yes, I asked some dark elves to join us.”

“That is an amazing idea Chief! Nice to meet you dark elf, I am Ghyurl. Chief’s guests are welcome here.”

Tyulha was pretty shocked by how welcoming this orc was – a monster welcomed a dark elf to his group? What was wrong with this place?

“Thank you Ghyurl. I am Tyulha. Murder brought me to take a look at the village to decide whether my people should come live here – at least for a while.”

“You are all welcome – after all, the Chief made this all possible. If he wishes you to join, no one would object to it.”

“I see. Thank you.”

The two soon started having a friendly conversation – a conversation beyond the inherent barriers between dark elves and orcs.

“By the way,” I asked: “please excuse me for my ignorance, but what is the difference between elves and dark elves. You see, I have never seen an elf either.”

Tyulha did not even assess whether I was speaking the truth. Without a trace of suspicion, he gave me an answer:

“In our age ‘elves’ refer to sun elves – they have the biggest population among all elven races since they have not partaken in the war against the Terlium Kingdom three hundred years ago. All other elven races – moon elves, dark elves, rock elves, and wood elves joined the war. Each have their own culture and characteristics. Us dark elves specialize in knowledge and close combat – we rarely use bows like other elven races. We also do not use magic for distant combat. Sun elves are very much like most human kingdoms – they revolve their societies around nobility and aristocrats. They have classes – something the other elven races typically do not abide by.” He paused for a second. “I can tell you more about it, to meet my end of our deal.”

“So, you decided to tell your people to move here?”

“It is a decision I made for sake of people. Yet, dark elves living with monsters, let alone, any humanoid race living with them, is unheard of. So, I bear the risk with it.”

“I hope you will see with your own eyes that you are making the right decision for your people.”

“That is what I put my faith in, Murder. Or should I call you Chief?”