I watch intently as Rudeus' blade made contact with mine. He was swinging downward; I was blocking upward. The second his blade touches, I jerk my arm to the side, throwing Rudeus' sword to the side alongside mine. I then lower myself a little and charge in, shoulder first.

But that was a feint. Rudeus takes one of his feet off the ground and tries to knee me in the head. I pull my head and body back and kick that very foot. Sweeping him and his feet right off the ground.

I got him! As I bring my blade back for the finishing blow, Rudeus suddenly stabs his sword into the ground, halting his momentum, and then before I knew it, he grabs my head with his feet and ankles and slams me to the ground, trapping me under his legs.

"That's a new one." I comment, my face getting smeared against my mask.

"Thanks, I haven't needed to do that move in a while." Rudeus releases me and stands up, grabbing his wooden stick from out of the dirt.

"We're approaching that time where taking your mask off is going to make you feel sick right? Take it off and take a little break." Rudeus says before his undoing his long hair and taking a drink of water.

I follow suit and take off my mask, already used to that tiny wave of nausea. I started being more mindful of the length of time I kept the mask one once I heard Dundee's physical body died from keeping it on too long.

Four days have passed since the battle with Polly. Rudeus had immediately insisted that I learn how to use a sword right after that incident for some reason. Although I was fine with only using my fists, I complied and I've been learning how to use a sword ever since. Although, there were no spare swords available, so Rudeus and I had to find some sturdy sticks, smear a little blood on them to prevent them from breaking, and practice that way.

I was trying to imagine the sticks as swords though, treat them as if they were just as deadly. They were good enough to practice the motions, but due to how safe the sticks were, they were a surefire way to build bad habits. Play-fighting with sticks would not adequately prepare me for real battles.

I idly twirl the stick around my fingers. Today is the final day; Rudeus will soon tell me everything he knows about Dundee and this world, and then by tomorrow I'll be making my way to explore the rest of the world. Despite this Rudeus has yet to tell me anything about himself or the war.

Every day, my thoughts always drifted towards that; it annoyed me; Rudeus knows my motivations, yet I can't for the life of me figure out his. If I wants to manipulate and get a person to do what I want, the first thing I do is always, always, always, figuring out their motivations. So Rudeus knowing mine makes me feel like I'm being manipulated in some way, and I don't like that.

I feel a little vibration from the soles of my feet, but I quickly brush it off as my imagination.

I clean the dirt off my mask and stare at it. Despite that, I still learned quite a few things from Polly. I can take the anku of anyone I want to huh? Celestia enters my thoughts briefly, the strongest person in the world, and if I take her anku... She'll die as well. If I want to become someone like Dundee, I have to take a life for the first time. I hold my mask up to the sun and watch as the sunlight filters through one of the eyeholes. Surprisingly, I could stare directly at the sun without any discomfort to my eyes this way.

I spot Polly in the distance, sitting in a tree, watching me as usual. For the past four days her eyes have been laser focused on me, and me alone, silently judging every single one of my actions, determining if she feels like attacking me again or not. After our conversation, we never talked again. This was all that she did, I had become her singular focus, and I'm not sure if this was a good or bad thing.

"Hey, when I get out of here. You better not follow me!" I shout at her.

Of course, she doesn't respond and continues staring at me. I stick my tongue out at her and then put my mask back on. I extend my arm out and the stick comes flying towards my hand.

"You ready?" I ask Rudeus.

"Of course, let's start."

Rudeus and I sit down on the ground panting, the sticks lying around broken into four separate pieces. The sun had long passed over our heads and was now falling over horizon, signaling that the day was close to over. There was a slight, but comfortable breeze, the scenery was beautiful, houses beautifully constructed, livestock roamed the fields, various crops and herbs were being grown in the dirt to supply our food, everything about this place was just perfect.

"Hey Rudeus, who made this place? Or what made this place?" I ask.

"I don't know." Rudeus replies. "It was most likely another drifter that came to our world hundreds or thousands of years ago. Perhaps it's the same person who made the boundary between the Tetsudo and Ankudo." Rudeus said.

"What are you going to do after this week is over?"

"Probably leave and rejoin my position the army."

"What army?"

Rudeus pauses after hearing that question, takes a look around him to make sure that there was nobody else who could hear, then begins to speak. "The Lysterian army, west of Oliviand, I'm currently the captain of the guard defending the north capital." He says as he finally begins opening up about himself.

Polly whistles after hearing that. Both of us look up at her at the same time when she does that.

"Oh don't mind me, I was just surprised someone that important was wasting their time in this place. After all, that's where the last two people who have still royal blood in them are staying right?"

"What? How did you know!?" Rudeus exclaims.

"It's a little ability unique to me and me alone." Polly smiles at Rudeus. "It’s quite interesting, people say a lot of things when they’re about to kill you."

I grimace in response to that. I initially thought Polly couldn’t commit blatant attempts at suicide, but I knew later that because of Dundee, any action she takes that ends in her death would be reversed to the moment she dies. Which made me wonder how many times I might have killed her when I fought her for the first and second time.

On first glance it sounds like a blessing, but from Polly’s story this just sounded like a cruel joke.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Well, the only thing that I care about is that you don't tell anyone." Rudeus half-draws his sword menacingly.

"Of course, of course, none of this really matters to me anyways." Polly leans back on the tree branch and relaxes. Huh, I wonder if Polly just tried to fight Rudeus right there and lost, or if this was her first reaction.

"What's that about?" I ask Rudeus.

"Nothing that you need to know about." Rudeus growls under his breath.

"No, this was our deal. Tell me." I reasserted.

Rudeus looks at me and sighs. "I suppose it might become important for you later on. We're losing. The war started when Oliviand's leaders somehow coordinated a mass assassination under our watch. From city to city, all at once, people we thought were citizens of Lyster, slaughtered our leaders one by one. This included the one who was holding all of us together, King Mallefard. Who was in Kaldros at the time. You might know his killer, Toena." Rudeus said with a bitter smile.

"Hold on a second, then why were you two acting all buddy buddy when I first came here? She killed your king, you should be furious at her!"

"I hate to say it, but Toena is the only reason the whole country wasn't wiped out in one fell swoop. She wasn't alone when it happened, at least a dozen of some of the Oliviand's deadliest infiltrated the palace at the same time, Toena, hired as a Shesuan mercenary was included. She was simply the one who dealt the killing blow, and then I don't know what happened, but Toena then turned against the entire squadron and slaughtered four or five of the assassins unexpectedly. Because of that, Princess Yesenia and Prince Hanafin, and many other of the very important leadership were able to escape and flee. I didn't even know she was still alive until I met her again in this place." Rudeus pauses as he stares at the ground and frowns.

"Did you feel that?" Rudeus asked.

"Feel what?" I asked.

"The ground, it shook a little bit, I felt it earlier too." Rudeus said.

"I remember feeling something earlier, but I wasn't paying attention this time." I said.

Rudeus thinks for a little bit but then shrugs and continues on. "Anyways, that's how the war started. Two great countries, one of them attacks the other, one thing leads to another and we start fighting. I'm sure you're aware of this, but there's a third country that has been pretty adamant about staying neutral: Shesu and the desert people. Polly right there being one of them." Rudeus nods at Polly sitting in the tree, listening into our conversation. Light-brown skin, golden eyes, it seemed to be a characteristic that all Shesuans shared.

"What else... what else... Anything else you want me to talk about before we get to Dundee?" Rudeus finally says. However, there was one question just relentlessly pounding my head, that I wanted to get to before Dundee.

"Yea, you. Who are you. Why are you here instead of helping out the war effort. What are your motivations. Why haven't you spoken a single lick of all of this entire time, but fought someone like Celestia and wasted a week to train me, even though you know for a fact that I'm not going to get involved in the war fighting someone else's sake. Everything you've done, I can't figure out any of it." I lay everything I've been thinking about bare.

Rudeus stares at me for a couple of seconds after I say this, but he then sighs and slumps down. "If we're going to talk about me and my motivations, then we're going to get into Dundee. Are you sure there's nothing else that you want to know?" He said.

"No, Dundee is the only thing I care about anymore. Tell me-" I'm interrupted by a third rumble, this time much too large to brush away as a fluke. Rudeus and I immediately stand up and look around, confused as to what's going on. I unconsciously grab my mask and hold it ready. I whirl my head around, looking at my surroundings in the tense couple of seconds that followed. Something is wrong, it's just a small shake of the ground but my instincts were shooting warning signs left and right. This is The Eye; it's supposed to be a bubble where all the conditions are absolutely perfect, a safe haven.

"Polly! What is this?" I shout at her.

Polly picks at her nails casually. "If you want my opinion, I'm guessing it's that kid who's always sitting on the grass alone in the meadow. You know, the one that came in after you arrived?"

The person I tried to steal the sandwich from? My memory flicks back to that incident. "What do you mean? How is it possible for him to cause the ground to shake like this?" I said.

"Hold on! Are you saying what I think you're saying!" Rudeus suddenly shouts in a panic,

"What do you think I'm saying? Give me your best guess." Polly says smugly to Rudeus.

"God- Fucking-!" Rudeus suddenly leaps away at full speed. Leaving me alone with Polly.

"Oi! Tell me what's happening!" I put my mask on, my senses on full alert looking around in a panic.

Polly smiles. "The fella I'm talking about? I learned something curious about him when he arrived about a week ago, don’t even think he’s particularly trying to hide it either, but that kid is a Tetsudo.”

A massive boom swept through the entire bubble. The ground begins shaking and rattling me to my very bones, I jump up to a rooftop nearby and watch in both awe and shock as a massive cloud of dust began spreading out through the area.

Tiny figures began to dart out of the dust cloud one of them was quickly approaching the location I stood.

"Who's that under the mask! Take it off right now!" A rough voice came from one of the figures. He was a somewhat grizzled man, but his muscles and posture showed that he was no small threat.

In response to that I simply stand there, my mind acting a little bit slower than it usually would. What are you doing… Rudeus was just about to…

"Take your mask off right now or I will strike you down regardless of who you are!" He reiterates, a sword flashing out of his scabbard.

I freeze up, unsure of what my choice of action is going to be. My mind knew that this would go by easier if I just complied and took off my mask, but my instincts were screaming at me to keep the mask on, you are utterly defenseless without it. I stand there frozen, my arms and feet twitching, just waiting to burst out into movement.

"I apologize in advance if you aren't related to any of this!" The man shouts at and charges me, effortlessly jumping onto the rooftop.

Overhead strike! I quickly sidestep and slip in right under his raised arm. I spot his other arm tensing up prepared to push me away, so at the same time, I grab his raised sword arm by the wrist with one hand, and I maneuver around his other arm avoiding the punch and pin that arm down as well, and when both his arms are unavailable to defend himself, I raise my leg up and viscously drive a knee straight into his stomach, then uncurl my knee and slam the flat of my foot straight into his face.

Alright that should be enough— My nose explodes in a mass of pain as the man smashes the hilt of his sword into my nose, no more than half a second after I drove my foot into his head.

I stagger then push him away clutching a bloody nose. We both take a second to flail around in pain, but I manage to recover faster and rush him down. He stabs towards me blindly as he sees me approaching from the corner of his eye, I jump and glide right over the flat of the blade, then thrust my leg out like a bullet delivering a ruthless kick to the forehead. For safe measures this time, I then grab his wrist and twist it in an awkward position forcing him to drop the blade. Punch, punch, punch, punch, I straddle him as he falls and keep punching until I see his eyes roll back up his head. I then pant in silence.

I wipe the blood off my nose and lips, only for a new stream of blood from my nose to instantly replace it, but I don’t pay any mind. I take the fallen sword and hold my head just above the sword, letting the blood from my nose drip onto it, I then twirl it around as I get used to the weight. I nod my head after the adrenaline clears, and then I sigh.

Alright. I shouldn’t have done that.

If I wasn’t involved in all of this before, I’m definitely involved now.

I suddenly lose my footing as the ground underneath me opens up in a massive sinkhole. On reaction, I throw the blood covered sword like a tomahawk, lodging it firmly into the side of the sinkhole, and using it as an anchor, I drag myself to safety. I hang off the side of the cliff with one hand, swinging around like a pendulum as I turn around and assess the threat before me.

We stare at each other in the eye.

Huh, Polly was right, that sandwich boy is a Tetsudo.