Kahlia woke up and found herself lying on her bed.
"What happened?" her head felt like being pricked by needles but eased a little now and is already bearable.
"Are you alright my dear child?"
Kahlia found her mother sitting on the side.
"Mother!" She immediately embraced her mother.
"I thought you were gone." She began to cry. It seems no matter how mature she is, there are some things she doesn't need to hold back.
"I'm fine. Your father is safe too."
What happened? I thought we lost the border?" Kahlia asked.
"Yes, we indeed lost some land, but strangely the Belkans stopped their pursuit on the impassable mountains. Your father was able to fortify our end of the Narrow Serpent Pass. They can still hold on for several months or more." explained her mother.
Kahlia became silent and looked at her mother's face for a while. Seeing The queen's daughter look at her with a face seemingly lost, she sighed.
"Forgive me my daughter. I shouldn't have given that burden to you. I thought things would turn out for the worst so I was ready to sacrifice my life force just to save your father and the people of this country, so I hurriedly imparted to you everything I know through a technique called direct transfer. It's the fastest way to teach you but it's also the most dangerous. You may have lost your mind if things went bad."
"Mother, it's alright. I can handle it. What will happen now?"
Before the queen said anything, she looked around first then waved her hand and a huge bubble gradually formed around them.
She observed her daughter while she was making a soundproof bubble shield. Her daughter didn't show even a hint of surprise on her face.
"You seem to be taking it well." The queen exclaimed.
"I can still manage. But it is still surprising. Mother, how did you do it?" Kahlia asked.
"Hhhhmmmnn where do I start?"
.
Princess Kahlia's room was silent and nobody bothered them for a long time. Everyone in the castle knew that the queen was inside taking care of the princess. Who would bother the quality time between mother and daughter? With that, her mother told her everything. The queen was someone not native to this planet. She used to live in a realm where people cultivate and the chosen ones can even acquire god-like powers while the less fortunate ones can only crumble hard stone into fine dust. Even though she didn't have any noble bloodline, she was fortunate be one of the few chosen people who acquired god-like powers. Without any responsibilities and commitments to tie her down, she roamed far and wide, explored several realms until she came to this realm and to this planet in particular. This was her first time seeing a very big planet that supports life. The other huge planets she's been to were either full of poisonous gases or the surface is not stable and full of flowing magma. Her curiosity led her to land on this planet. But once she entered the atmosphere, she was immediately sucked in by the immense gravity that exists on the planet.
"Immense gravity? But everything seems to be normal?" Kahlia abruptly interrupted her mother's story telling.
"Silly child. You were born here so you naturally adapt. Everything here from the soil, water, plants and animals, and even air, seems to have been through a massive compression. It will take a long time to explain everything. Just imagine that once you are in some way or another gets transported out of this planet and landed on, let's say, the realm where I came from, even if you don't use life force, you can flatten an entire mountain using physical prowess alone."
"Whoa! Really? Can I really do that?" Princess Kahlia fixed her sitting posture out of excitement.
"No. At least not at the moment." The queen immediately doused her excitement.
"You have to either construct a flying craft that has the ability to travel in space and support life for a long term, or cultivate life force and refine your body until you are able to fly and no longer be dependent on breathing air and eating food in order to survive."
"Mother, why is it that everything you say seem strange and yet so familiar. It's like I've experienced it already." Our little princess certainly is full of curiosity.
"That's due to your memories being mixed with the knowledge I've given you." The queen replied.
"Does that mean I can now cultivate life force and refine my body?"
"Yes… and no." the queen stopped for a moment and thought of something. She waved her hand and the princess' study table slid towards them. She picked up a quill and draw a circle as big as a soccer ball on a piece of paper. Then she dropped a dot of ink near the bottom part of the circle.
"This is the entire planet." She pointed to the circle.
"And this is the entire human civilization." She pointed to the ink dot. "Everywhere else is unexplored territory."
"Our little country, Jamna, is not even comparable to a speck of dust." The queen said.
"Mother, why is our country named after a goat?" The princess doubtfully asked.
"What goat? It is our mount, Jamnapari. Exclusive only to Jamnians. No other countries have it." Her mother proudly stated.
"And stop interrupting me." then she continued…
With this, the princess learned a lot. This is the first time she learned something about her country and the planet because there was no school on their country. The children are only taught how to cultivate the land, rear domesticated animals, and wield the sword.
On this dot is where Jamna is located. South of Jamna is the hostile country of Belka and the passively neutral merchant country of Dorr. The princess knew that already because they are always at war with Belka, while Dorr refuses to help even when they send envoys to give gifts and request for alliance. What she didn't know is that there are still three countries south of Belka and Dorr. But the princess didn't even care. She didn't think that she will need to travel there in her entire life.
On the contrary, the princess was more interested in the land above their country. What her mother called the 'unexplored territory'.
"Why is Belka always attacking us? If they want more land, why can't they go directly to the unexplored territories?" Princess Kahlia wondered.
"Before they can go to the unexplored territories, they have to pass through the impassable mountains and our country." The queen then continued.
The oldest country in the entire history of the planet is one of the three countries that the princess didn't care about. And its name is Fandir. It sounds like elvish. But that's because of story from the legends. It says that Fandir was originally a city of the elves thousands of years ago. But that's only a rumor so it may not be true. To make it short, the elves left and the barbarians occupied it, learned the ways of the elves, and become more civilized. But that's just what the legend says. There was no proof otherwise… nor the need to prove it.
"I don't really know what people call them. I just call them 'elves' because they have similar features of the elves from my realm."
"Look here." The queen draws a tear-shaped on another piece of paper and divided it horizontally into two. Then she divided the bottom part vertically into three. "This middle part is Fandir and the two other countries beside it. Then the people continued occupying the land upwards until they established the merchant city Dorim, which became an independent city and later established the country of Dorr." Her mother drew a small section on the upper part of the tear. "But it wasn't all smooth sailing. Dorr was constantly attacked by beasts from beyond the impassable mountains. So, the three countries started an alliance together with Dorr and formed an army to raze the wilderness." She pointed at the rest of the top part of the drawing.
"Later, the alliance won and drove the beasts back beyond the impassable mountains and that's where the golden age of civilization occurred. Dorr became a rich country largely because of a mine built nearby. Trades boomed and the three countries also flourished. But that also came to an end. All because of some battle-hungry generals and soldiers of the alliance. Your grandfather was a part of it." Her mother told her.
"Grandpa? Mother, please tell me more about him." urged our princess.
"There's not much to tell other than his love for hunting beasts. He was also the strongest of the three generals. Roughly two hundred years ago, they banded together and left the three countries to occupy the wilderness. They fortified the safest area of the wilderness and they named it Rimo, now the capital city of Belka." Then the queen paused for a breath. "Oh, I forgot… Rimo is also the name of your grandpa. Naming the fortified encampment as Rimo is one the reasons for his falling out with the other generals because much later he also named our city as Neo Rimo. Their disagreement got worse when your grandpa left and took his most trusted soldiers to hunt for beasts beyond the impassable mountain." She pointed at an area several centimeters above the topmost part of the tear. "They later settled here and never came back to Rimo. And the rest is history." The queen ended her story even though her daughter is still wide-eyed and kept on staring at her waiting for another story.
"It's obvious that it was also grandpa who named our city as Neo Rimo. He must really love himself." The princess mused.