"…"
Liri's heart pounded against her chest.
Her skin felt hot. There was a book in front of her, sitting on a wooden desk, that had remained untouched for the last minute.
[How am I supposed to be able to focus when she said something like that!?]
Blushing, Liri gave a heavy sigh and leaned back in her chair. What Arisa said remained fresh in Liri's mind, her words dancing in Liri's ears.
[… Am I actually losing my virginity today? Wait, she's literally like seven feet tall. How is sex with her even going to work? My ehm... Five inches is pretty small, isn't it? Is she even going to feel it?]
Pushing those thoughts out of her mind, Liri tried her hardest to focus.
There were a few books on the wooden desk that Liri had retrieved from the drasen archives. Some of these were written by the drasen themselves, others were taken from humans and "elves". A type of people Liri had yet to encounter.
This was Liri's chance to learn about the world around her, but it was too difficult to keep her mind on the matter at hand.
Especially when just the thought of that woman was enough to make her pussy ache.
[… Seriously, do her boobs need to be *that* big? And, her muscles... It's like she's an Olympic runner or something.]
Biting her lip, Liri eventually mustered up the courage to push away all thoughts of her temporary partner, and instead focused on the book in front of her.
She opened it up and, finally, after several minutes of seemingly staring at nothing, began to read it.
The first few pages held a map.
A map of this region of the world, at least. Something she hadn't come across yet during her 18 years growing up in Elmira, and it was quite literally the first thing she saw in this book. The ven of her village had crude sketches drawn of their surroundings, distant ven villages and such, but nothing like this.
"YES!" She couldn't help but exclaim, throwing her fists into the air victoriously. "I can finally tell where I am!"
Immediately, she noticed a few curious drasen casting concerned looks her way from outside this small hut. Bringing her arms down, embarrassed, she cleared her throat and tried to focus again.
"So… We're all the way to the north, huh?"
After Elmira had fallen, Liri, along with the few ven who'd survived, went to the east. They searched for a few ven villages that the others knew the paths to by heart, finding all of them equally destroyed. A year later, Liri had left them behind in pursuit of revenge and knowledge. That search brought her further east.
In other words, if Liri was understanding this map right, Elmira was located at the very top-left edge of the land. At least, the land that was visible on this map.
"… If you have to walk for a whole year in one direction to come across a drasen tribe, then I guess it would make some sense why no one here has ever heard of the ven. There's no way both races have never run into each other at least once, though."
Unfortunately, the locations listed on this map, Tyl Isir, Ilyden, and a place elegantly titled the Wastes, were not described in any way. Liri had no way of knowing whether these were all drasen nations or whether they belonged to the elves or the humans.
To the north was the very tribe she was staying at currently. Just a ways to the south was a town of some sort, called Diosia.
As Liri finished scanning through the map, she flipped a few pages and found that the rest of the book was simply detailing the family lines of the relans who had ruled over this specific tribe.
That map was the only piece of information in this thing that didn't revolve entirely around the drasen.
[… No offense to Arisa, but I get the feeling I'm not gonna learn too much here. Once I'm done soaking up whatever info I can in this place, I should head down to Diosia… If it ends up being a human city or something, though, I'll probably get shot the moment anyone looks at me.]
As she finished up, she looked around behind her.
[I… I should probably just rip that map out and take it with me, right? I'm sure they've probably got a bunch of them lying around somewhere.]
Making that decision, Liri tore off the map and folded it.
With it on her person, tucked under the string that made up her loincloth, Liri walked out of the hut, intending to ask Arisa if there was anywhere she could specifically learn about the other races from.
[Come to think of it, I heard someone mention elves. Is Diosia an elven town? Are these elves like the ones I knew from books back on Earth? Well, they probably are, given how humans are basically the same here. Would they be sympathetic to my kind? Or, would they attack me the same way humans did? I need to find out why exactly those humans attacked us to begin with. A slaughter like that... it's not justified no matter what, but there has to be a reason for it.]
She did not find her temporary partner outside, though.
Instead, she heard a commotion off to the west. It sounded like a crowd cheering people on. Curious, Liri followed the sound until she found both Arisa and what had created the ruckus.
Two drasen tribesmen were fighting ahead, contained within a ring made of wood. From outside the ring, drasen yelled and cursed as they struck each other, all while Arisa watched from nearby with crossed arms and a slightly worried look on her face.
"Uhm… What's happening?" Liri asked.
"They're fighting," Arisa replied so helpfully.
"Yes, but for what reason?"
At that, Arisa turned toward her and gave her a wry smile.
"For you."