To what extent does kindness extend? Until what point do we turn the other cheek to others?

It’s easy to fall for hate and anger, like part of me is going for right now, but there’s another part of me looking at Arminius with different eyes.

Who am I fighting? What’s this man’s story?

Am I missing something?

“What are you looking at, Worm? Have you forgotten how to wield a sword?”

This time, he came looking for me. He usually stared at me from the sidelines. It’s the first time he actually engaged like this. Why? Why now?

There was something off about his whole ruse. The way he called Truffles a retard and tried to provoke me with his taunts feels weird.

He clearly hates Humans, and that’s established as a fact. But he did not give me the impression of being stupid the last time around. In fact, I thought he was supposed to be an officer of some kind.

“Do you perhaps want your retarded friend to fight for you? Or would you like to fight me together? I think I can take a Worm and a broken kid at once. What do you say, Worm?”

The more hate he spouts, the more my anger subsides. His words are pouring water down on my fury’s fire.

“How do you want to do this? We just beat each other with swords? Do you have anything to teach?”

Arminius's eyes narrow as his eyebrows bunch up.

Well, I suppose he had taught someone in the past during some sparring sessions. Maybe he should have called it something else, huh?

“No? Nothing?” I shrug. “What do you want to do then, we wield these swords, and you beat a Human who can barely hold one? What’s next, bullying children on the streets to steal bread from them?”

“Joey! What are you doing?!” Someone shouts from behind me.

As I turn, I see Tiberius and Quintus coming for us.

“What the fuck is your problem, Arminius, you molded-brain idiot?”

Quintus snarls, and he takes out a dagger from his pocket.

“Yo, yo,” I say, putting my arm before Quintus and pushing him back. “He proposed some sparring, and I accepted. Chill. Put that away,” I add, pointing at the blade.

“You accepted?” Tiberius asked, looking suspiciously at Arminius. The ex-officer stays silent, simply looking at us.

“Yeah, sure. It’s a good opportunity to have a chat, you know?”

“A chat?!” Quintus looks on the verge of tearing his own hair out. “Why? What if he hurts you?!”

“I am not an animal,” Arminius suddenly growls. His voice sounds different from before. While there had been mockery and hate in it, now it sounds grave; it feels like he’s giving orders on a battlefield, speaking to his own men. “Humans might be filth, but permanently injuring someone in a spar is against all military codes.”

Tiberius and Quintus unconsciously stand straighter, looking surprised at the man.

I take a second look at the man as if I had never looked at him before.

Arminius stands tall. His now-shifted posture reveals a sense of authority that had been hidden before. The sunlight glints off his dark, matted hair, blacker than charcoal. He has deep wrinkles on his forehead and around his eyes, both the good one and the blind one. He doesn’t look old. The closed eye, though, marked by a long scar, gives him a dangerous look.

His face is chiseled, but the years and scars have left their mark.

The way he carries himself, with a certain grace and confidence, speaks of years of training and discipline.

“I still don’t like it,” Quintus mutters, his eyes still narrowed in suspicion.

“Relax,” I assure my friend. “I can handle this.”

Arminius grunts and turns his attention back to me. “Are you ready, Worm?”

The hate has come back, returning Arminius’s image to the crook I am familiar with.

“Always have been,” I say, looking at the sword and then at the man. “Do you mind if I go first?”

Arminius smirks contemptuously, his eyes scanning me up and down before giving a curt nod.

I take a deep breath, grip the sword tightly, and launch myself toward Arminius. The air around us is thick with tension. Tiberius and Quintus watch from the sidelines, their eyes locked on the action.

I start raining blows, but Arminius effortlessly deflects each of my strikes. As soon as I overextend just a bit too much, I feel all the air leaving my lung—he has struck me with the hilt of his sword.

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“Keep your guard up, Joey!” Tiberius screams from the side. In the meanwhile, I dry heave, bent over my knees.

That hurt, I think, raising my eyes to meet an unbothered Arminius.

This time, he doesn’t wait for me to attack and charge over. He raises his sword—thinking that an opening is there, I try to hack at his side.

The next second, my sight blacks out for a moment, and I open my eyes to the sight of the blue sky and the canopy of leaves of the Pratus’s trees.

“What happened?” I say, feeling some tenderness at the side of my head.

“It was a feint!” I hear Quintus shout.

“Feinted?” I look at Arminius.

“I might not be whole, but my skills still work,” he replies curtly. “Worm,” he adds after a beat, almost as if he had forgotten to hate me for a moment.

I use the sword as a propping stick for a second as I get up and take a few deep breaths.

“Tell me,” I say between labored breaths, "Why do you hate us so much, Arminius?"

“Why?” He says, slowly approaching me with the sword at his side. “ Raise your guard, Human, first, Second, why wouldn’t I? Do you have any idea what Humans did to this continent? To us?”

“You know who [Captain] Drusillus is?”

He suddenly stops.

“What?”

“[Captain] Drusillus. Of the Watch. Or do you have a problem with him, too?” I say, raising my sword at him. “Do you know him or not? It’s a simple question, really.”

“You could say I have heard of him,” he says with a frown.

“He questioned me, you know? I went through a special truth-stone thing. It should prove beyond reasonable doubt that I have nothing against Elves. Nothing, Arminius. If anything, I try and make myself useful. You know, I could help you.”

I step forward as he, angered by my proposition, attacks.

“He’s using [Charge]! Don’t parry!” Tiberius shouts.

But for all I have good reflexes, when our swords cross, he uses the momentum of the skill to throw me to the ground.

This time, though, I get up almost immediately.

It’s time to take this seriously.

[Deep Focus]

I take a deep breath and wield the sword with two hands, closing my eyes for a moment.

Arminius swings his sword at me, aiming at my dominant arm. I let the blunted blade get close to me before raising an elbow and spinning on myself.

But I am no Jon Jones, it seems.

My elbow hits the air instead of the man’s chin.

“All these years on a battlefield, and you think you can catch me with that?” He lets out a surprising laugh before hitting me with the sword between my scapulae.

“Shit,” I swear as I fall forward.

This is going to bruise pretty bad.

Also, how is he so good if he’s missing an eye and several fingers? How’s this possible?

But as this fight draws on, I suddenly land a lucky hit on his stomach, having him grunt in pain.

“Disgusting Worm,” he snarls, retaliating immediately with a flurry of strikes.

I manage to parry a few of them before he hits my body. Unlike every other hit that landed on me, this one completely paralyzed my body.

“What the—”

I fall like a broomstick.

“Joey!” Quintus shouts, running at us and putting himself between Arminius and me. “What’s your fucking problem, Arminius?”

“It’s just a [Disabling Strike],” he says, looking at me with an eyebrow raised. “Is this all you got, Human?”

My body slowly regains its senses, and Quintus helps me get up.

“Joey, stop feeding into his idiocy,” Tiberius says, walking up to us.

I look at the two boys with a smile.

“I love you both,” I say to them, “but Arminius clearly wants to demonstrate something, and I’m curious to find out what that something is.”

“Joey, he’s too good for you. Let’s stop before you get hurt, you stupid Human,” Quintus says with a concerned face.”

He’s too good for me, isn’t he?

I look at the square-jawed Elf who doesn’t seem to care about salvation. Not his, at least. Maybe it’s too arrogant of me to think that I need to save him, that I need to do anything, really. But I am arrogant, aren’t I? At least when it comes down to baking, I know I’m good. I know I’m… the best. But then, what about when I’m not baking?

I look at Arminius again before looking at my own dirtied clothes—the muddied ground is about to enter almost every orifice of mine, if you will believe it. While not glamorous, it is a reminder of the fact that… he’s too good at fighting.

I will never win against someone with so many levels… or will I?

I bite my lower lip and gesture for Quintus to step back.

“That was a nice skill,” I say with a nod to the officer. “Even though I’m surprised someone who hates Humans so much would have such a kind skill.”

Arminius looks right into my eyes when, for a second, he closes them and exhales. He looks tired. Not of Humans, in particular, no. He looks like someone who needs a vacation from, well, pretty much everything.

“Humans—Worms,” he says half-heartedly. “You like your words so very much. Almost as much as you like slaves and killing.”

“Never had a slave. Never killed anyone,” I shoot back.

“So did many Humans before they started and got a taste for it. I ran an operation that dismantled a slave den,” he says with the earnest tone I’ve heard from him so far, “there were red classes not just for the [Slavers], but for their [Slaves], too. Do you know, Human, what a red class is?”

I shake my head.

“A red class,” he says, putting his sword up and approaching me, “is a class that tells you that you are a monster. It’s reality telling all those disgusting Worms that even the cruel nature of the world recognizes them as vile. It’s for those who kill not for money, not for defense, not to eat; it’s for those who kill for pleasure, those who enjoy the most disgusting of acts that anyone is capable of.”

I look at Arminius with a somber expression before licking my lips.

“I have lived somewhere where my great grandparents fought because a particular breed of Humans were being exterminated by the millions, driven to death. To save bu—munitions, they would tie people together, put a hole through one person, and throw them in the waters. That way, you could drown two people by just shooting at one. Humans to Humans.”

Arminius stops walking.

“I have not seen those monsters with my own eyes, Arminius,” I say, “but I know they exist. Or that they existed. Unlike you, I don’t make it about my race. If I saw Humans do those things to Elves, I would fight. My dead mother would curse me if I didn’t. Kindness for friends and people who are suffering; death for those who want to dish death unto others, it doesn’t matter which form.”

Arminius starts laughing at me.

“You? And how could you fight? You can barely hold a sword. Is there any weapon you can even use, Human? Is there anything you can do?” He looks at me condescendingly. “Or are you just a Worm who thinks he knows better? Come here, show me what a little, disgusting Worm like you think he can do in the world of monsters I know. Or go wherever your filthy family of Humans is. This is not the place for you. All your leaves will get burnt if you go down this road. “

“Joey, stop! You’ll get hurt!” This time, it’s Truffles’s voice.

I look at the scared blondie and then at Arminius.

Well.

I invert my hold on the sword and slam it into the ground. It’s standing still, thankfully.

I don’t like the idea of having things fall just like that.

“You give up, Worm?”

“Oh hell no,” I tell Arminius. “I think you’ve got the wrong idea.”

[Deep Focus]

[Advanced Mana Sense]

I extend my right arm in front of me, making a finger gun with my hand.

“In a world of monsters, Arminius, I can only bring some [Light].”