The Jungle People

They got ambushed and captured by the unknown enemies. They taking Arden's sister is enough to make him surrender.

Now, at the ship. They surrendered and dropped their weapons. The sound of metal hitting the wooden deck is enough to make the enemies drop their guard.

But they do not wish to take casualties, so they didn't do a surprise attack or some short. They just pressed their upper jaw and under jaw together while seeing what would happen to them.

They stare and stare while 5 of the enemies goes to the nearest tree and search for something…

Confused, seeing them searching for something. Once the 5 of the enemies found it, vine. Nonpoisonous one can be seen from the fact they touch it with their bare hand.

The vine is very long, almost as long as the length of the ship itself, but knowing it won't be enough. They gather more.

After they had done the gathering, they approached them and start to tie the vines. Arden and the others thought it won't stop them, so they tested it.

They tried to break the vines but weird enough, it won't break. He looked once at the vine and saw the thickness of it and the way they tied it.

They used a more effective technique and tie 2 people with each vine, after that tie the vine together making a long chain.

Not long after that, they left the ship and 2 people are left to guard it, while the rest would bring Arden and the other to wherever they would go.

They walked and walked, without any conversation at the way. They do not understand each other language so it's no use, anyway.

After several minutes of walking in the forest, they reached a village, the one like any other villages. Women doing their thing and children playing on the street and forest.

They are brought to a house, bigger than the others and strangely, there is a chimney. Built-in the middle of the village with some people guarding it.

'This must be the leader's house' Arden thought to himself and making a conclusion.

One of the people that brought them knocked at the door and waited for several seconds before an old-looking man opened the door.

The old man's goatee almost touched the floor he is standing on and his face full of wrinkles. He opened his eye and saw the person before letting them in.

Only the person that knocked on the door, Arden, Elise and Maverick were going in. The rest were brought to a different place, perhaps the prison?

Well, he is faced with the leader of the others and that made him that couldn't think about others anymore.

"…" The old man gestured to the couch with a glaring big eye and they quickly sat at the couch.

"Go out!" He said with the commanding loud voice in an unrecognizable language to Arden and gesture for the people that captures Arden's group to get out. Arden just made the conclusion based on body language.

Not a mere second. They rushed out the door with a respectful manner and closed the door to make sure the privacy of them.

"Well well well, since when did the last time I met the knight?" With Arden's language, he said.

They made a surprised face, a very surprised one. Arden asks him to get more information.

"Who are you?" Full of curiosity in his eye can be seen by the old man.

"Me? I'm just an old man, you could say I'm the person who got lost at these woods," He answered as best as he could while taking a seat for himself. Unfortunately, these brief answers made Arden more curious.

"Tell me more please!!" He begged for the old man to tell him more to fill his curiosity.

"Well, I was a young and excited squire named Anly under some knight, we are on the verge of losing a war and the knight told me and some of his troops to get into these woods. Here, I met with them, running from a beast they couldn't defeat. I made a plan with them and killed the bear, since them, I became their leader," He listened carefully about all of his stories.

"That couldn't have been all, you must have done a lot for these people," Turn out, he is right.

That person has been here for at least 80 years, doing many things to them.

"Yeah, there were many communities in this forest, most of them comprise 10-15 people. I wanted to unite them and used many things, from trade to promise. But…" He seemed to stop there and started showing a sign of sadness.

"Don't tell us if you don't want to" Arden seemed to understand his face there, the face of people that had seen many deaths, he often did the same thing but hide it as best as he could.

"It's okay… Basically, some communities form an alliance and declared war against mine. In the end, I came up victorious, but… 75% of my troops were basically gone and all my original comrades died too," He began making that sad face of him.

They talked about it while Arden tried comforting the old man. Suddenly, he remembered about his wife and Ansu passing through the same lands.

"Uhhh, is there any ship before me that uses the river?" Anly looks surprised before giving an answer.

"My men reported there is 1 ship that passes, I only told my men to capture the one with many people on board of it, that brings us to the next thing I want to discuss with you," He began making the face of a greedy merchant before talking more things.

"The reason of that is, I want to find a person that I want to find the person of nobility and make him help me," Arden raised one of his eyebrows and look at him right in the eyes.

"What is the thing you wanted, perhaps I could help you?" Anly thought of it for a second while rubbing down his goatee.

"Based on your armour, you looked like some kind of nobility. I could trust you… basically what I wanted is for these people here to see the rest of the world and not stay here completely. If you can't do that, perhaps we could make a trade deal or something," Arden's mind now is contemplating.

"I could do that, but… let us start with the latter request first, about the trade…" He turned his attention to Elise and Maverick and told them to go out and do something while they were talking.

"Elise, can you bring Maverick to go out?" They complied after some seconds of regaining their consciousness after hearing about all things.

"Now we could talk about more things" He turned back his attention to Anly.

"Indeed, we can without those people" Anly rubbed his goatee once more.

"So, what do you want and what are you giving?" Arden looks Anly straight at the eyes and waited for him to answer the question.

"I want metals, foods and cloth, as you can see, we lack those kinds of resources here. Also, I would give you woods for building materials and also other things," Arden looked at him with the "Are you kidding me," look.

"Woods? We have those" Anly cough a bit before answering.

"I know you have woods, but there are some problems, right? Also, you saw how strong the things the trees here produce," The sentence Anly just said made Arden thought to himself.

'Yea, he is right, the vines were so strong I couldn't even break it,' He opened his mouth and started to talk.

"You are not wrong but also not right. But yea, we could make a deal, but… one more thing. In case of my people need shelters from the enemy, you must give them someplace here," Anly accepted, and they discussed more things.

In the end, they settle at the deal of every 1 metal ore, 1 wood will be delivered and every 1 unit of food, 1 wood would be delivered. But… every 1 unit of cloth, 3 woods would be delivered.

They shook each other hands before Anly got out of his house and talk to them for 1 minutes or so. After that, the people that originally capture Arden and his group gesture respectfully and took him back to his ship.

His sister was there, complete with the rest of the crew and Maverick too. Some of them even try talking to the jungle people happily. Thus making him smile, seeing what's in front of him.

The people lived in the woods and survived with the minimum resources, thus making Arden naming them the "jungles people" at his mind.

The jungles people waved at them as they left the jungle using ships. All the crew waved back at the jungles people before seeing them entering the thick forest.

Today, they made another alliance, in case his people were in dangers, he could tell them to seek shelter to the jungles people.

As he was thinking about it once more while sitting at the deck. He realized the trees were becoming thinner and thinner.

Not long after, the sun lights can be seen going straight into the eyes of the crews and other. As he stands up from his sitting position of him.

He could see the green grassland around him and the forest behind the ship.

Almost 6 months since he left his own lands to search for his sibling, now that he had found one of the two. He would need to solve the problems he has left piling up before searching for the other one.