Apollo sat uncaringly on the fresh grass plains with his chin resting on his right palm as he stared into empty space. He looked like he was ruminating over some important matters but for which those matters were, Alfred did not know as he examined the monk-like master of his.

‘What could a 6-year old be seriously thinking about’ he wondered; ‘Perhaps he is hungry or thirsty, maybe both?' he concluded.

‘Ahem…’ Alfred cleared his throat in an effort to catch the boy’s attention, however, Apollo seemed despondent; in fact he even flashed a grin as if indicating something good had occurred.

“Y-Young master?” said Alfred aloud in a confused manner, fortunately this was enough for Apollo to snap out of his inner thoughts as he looked towards Alfred inquisitively.

Apollo wondered who the asshole was that had interrupted his special time with himself until he saw Alfred looking back at him with an equally puzzled stare, ‘Oh my bad’ he thought.

“Sorry about that Alfred, I was just thinking about some things regarding the Heimarch technique”, he lied. In fact, he was staring at his illusory Overview sheet admiring his rapid progress across every avenue over the last few days. He was especially ecstatic at the numerical values of his Mana points, the new ‘Body energy’ values as well as his recovery stat since they had increased faster than he had expected them to.

‘I’m one step closer to becoming superman’ he thought expectantly, Apollo had visions of flying through the skies at that very moment. He wanted all the power to save a damsel in distress from a corny villain and live happily ever after. Just the thought of it brought a big smile across his chubby face.

He had also looked at his progress on the Heimarch technique and was flabbergasted by his progress, ‘Just a couple hours of training has already made me encroach upon the second level of mastery’ “I must be a genius” he mused whilst simultaneously shaking his head.

“Anyways Alfred, there’s six days left until I am sent off right?” Apollo inquired as he stood up patting his backside off from dirt.

“That’s correct young sire, I’m afraid the carriage would be scheduled at dawn early in the morning” he replied as he handed a clean handkerchief to Apollo.

“That’s fine with me” the boy said uncaringly whilst accepting Alfreds kind gesture and thereafter wiping away the sweat from his meek forehead. “I wonder how many participants are joining me in that damned place” Apollo sighed in indignation of his cruel fate.

“I would estimate around one or two thousand young ones would openly ‘volunteer’” answered Alfred after a round of contemplation.

Apollo stood still in bewilderment whilst raising an eyebrow in utter disbelief, “That many?”

“Just why would that many kids join…..” Apollo murmured, he had thought there’d be barely fifty kids joining his father’s sick joke of a project ‘but a thousand or two?’. He couldn’t fathom where that many kids could rally from. ‘Not to mention the fact that this project was only news to him recently, lord knows how the others received such notice and consequently join just a week later’.

‘Unless it was a forced conscription?.....yes…’ he gave it some thought, ‘That may be plausible given fathers rank and authority’. Although, the thought of that many kids suffering alongside him actually took some pressure off his shoulders.

“Maybe this little ‘vacation’ is not that bad after all” he mumbled flashing a creepy smile.

Apollo and Alfred returned to the manor for a little snack under the grace of Oscar the chef who served the young boy a slice of apple pie and a glass of milk as per his request.

“Has…a..newsletter…been..delivered recently Alfred?” asked Apollo in between bites of his apple pie.

“There should be one, Ill get it for you sire” responded the patient butler as he ignored Apollo’s poor etiquette. He disappeared into the hallways of the manor from the dinner hall in a steady stride thereafter returning with haste, this time holding a bundle of parchments that seemed to be strewn all over with walls of paragraphs in the Eretrian writings; he handed it over to Apollo who lazily began scanning page upon pages of information about recent news around Greiss whilst taking bites off his afternoon snack.

He looked like a proper nine to five man lounging on the table in that very moment, the only thing missing was an ash tray and a choice between a cigar or a cigarette as he ruminated about the wonders of the world.

“How interesting….a young genius cultivator emerged in the Zahid kingdom, a princess no less” mumbled Apollo

“And whats this?.... another young genius?...but this time a son of a duke in the Fang Kingdom” he added whilst flipping a page.

‘Just where are these supposed ‘geniuses’ sprouting from and why now of all times; are they here to steal my pure amazingness? My unparalleled existence? My godly appearance? My humungous dong? He thought sarcastically.

‘But yes this is good’ he speculated convincingly flashing his signature creepy smile that gave the nearby servants a slight shiver,

“Steal my shine? Go ahead! In fact, I will not care and instead, I will lurk in the shadows as the supreme ruler…..yes…hehehehe..I will be the puppet master!” ‘Muwahahahaha’ he laughed internally.

‘But do wait a minute, if I recall correctly; these two kingdoms are pretty close to the Eretrian kingdom…..hmmm’ he pondered seriously ‘Theres absolutely no way these two geniuses would somehow stumble across my path right?.....right?’ he asked internally as if there was a higher being capable of hearing and replying to his inner thoughts.

He could just imagine the sorts of tropes that would occur if that were to happen, after all he had his plenty share of Asian novels in the past. ‘They better not disturb my serene and peaceful life…..but wait…maybe I’m the puppet?’ he joked, that would take a toll on his psyche.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

‘No, that can’t be’ he concluded.

“Oh what’s this?” Apollo focused on a single paragraph at the top of the next page.

It read, “Suspicious activity along the borders of the Byzantine empire, observed an increase in deployed patrol guards all along the borders as well as the construction of several unique structures of unknown use. Reports also claim the presence of increased military personnel close to the borders”

“Huh, I wonder what that’s all about” Apollo thought aloud catching the attention of Alfred nearby.

“What’s the matter, young master?” asked Alfred.

Apollo simply showed him that piece of information instead of replying, “What do you think happened with that side?” inquired the young boy uncaringly.

Alfred looked at the information for a minute before giving some logical theories of what may have happened in the Byzantine borders, “Perhaps there’s been an influx of monsters close to their borders” he said.

Alfred explained that its reasonable for an exponential increase in monster appearances since they are known for their rapid proliferation of new spawn, which is one of the main reasons why Bloody festivals exist as to counter this problem. After all, for centuries, humans and all the other races have battled the flesh eating monsters in a never ending cycle.

It doesn’t help the fact that monster gates appear sporadically in Greiss he explained further. These gates although not exclusive to monsters can have anything from the other side cross to their intended locations. Monster gates, in particular usually contain a pocket dimension which houses a plethora of different monster breeds and bloodlines that have been dormant and thereafter released to the other side when a gate is opened and this will continue to occur until the gate itself is closed or if all the other lifeforms on either side is destroyed.

It is unknown as to why such gates exist but a general consensus states that it is implemented on Greiss as a cause of balance. For example, If the inhabitants of Greiss is too overbearing, monster gates would spawn more frequently as a way to essentially kill off the extra populace and if the opposite is true then monster gates would appear less and other gates would open such as those which contain treasures and mystical herbs; however, this theory alone is not proven to be true but past trends have supported this idea.

In fact, after all these years of constant battles with such hostile gates, most of the races on Greiss have actually implemented contingency plans on how to counter them thus its not a baseless theory to say that there’s an increase of monster activity in an area. Besides there are multiple ways to close the gates depending on the situation albeit it may usually cause mass casualties as a trade-off. But this does not stop anyone from entering such gates since there may be treasures to be found instead of monsters. Besides, its also rumoured that there may be inheritance grounds inside the gates themselves and this is very enticing to those seeking glory and power.

“Is that so….” Apollo seemed to agree but he read further on in the same page and found no information about the appearance of a monster gate or any gate at all thus he questioned Alfred once again about this theory of his.

“Indeed, that may reverse my theory” Alfred stated taking a step back from his supposed theory. After all, if there was no gate then where does the supposed influx of monsters come from? It can’t be because of a hidden cave housing a number of monsters since Bloody festivals and similar events of the same nature are not exclusive to Redania. Apollo was sure that the Byzantine empire had similar plans on how to limit or essentially eliminate monster presence from their domain.

“What if…..the Byzantine empire was preparing an attack?” Apollo deliberated as he gazed at Alfred’s ever-changing expressions upon hearing the boys precise speculation.

Alfred delayed for a couple of seconds, opening and closing his mouth as if to say something but couldn’t.

This hesitation, Apollo recognized it, it wasn’t long before he connected the dots. He wasn’t dense, there could only be one thing a nation such as Byzantine could be doing by essentially strengthening their borders and that is ‘War’ he thought inwardly; he didn’t say it out loud as not to scare the nearby servants even if its just a speculation that word is almost a taboo when it came to the context of the Byzantine empire.

After all, the Dracir empire and the Byzantine empire have been at odds with each other for the past few centuries, heck it had only been a decade since the last war which caused an outstanding amount of casualties on both sides where even his uncle had died in.

Apollo looked down in contemplation before reading onwards as if to say he had moved on from the topic but deep in his inner thoughts he was seriously contemplating about this piece of information. ‘That would precisely explain the misleading lies that I’ve been fed these last few days’. He recalled the time his mother almost had a slip in her words and in that context it would perfectly explain why his father would send him to a military camp, ‘to prepare for war’, he sneered, he was very convinced that this was the case.

‘But this seems like a terrible fate for me’ he inwardly shook. He had joked before that joining a youth military camp was similar to being in the shoes of a young person in 1933 under the reign of a certain someone on Earth but now that the realisation has emerged to be true; this seems extremely detrimental to my future survival. ‘I’m essentially being shipped to the frontlines…..’ he paused,

‘Holy shit…I am doomed’ he cried internally.

The sudden realisation that he may die in the near future caused a stream of unstable mental fluctuations in Apollo’s mind; it was like a having a premonition of your possible death without knowing if you can survive or not. After all, it wasn’t long before he was simply called Mateo Reiner, a 21 year old college kid from Colorado with aspirations to be a forensic investigator. Never in his wildest dream could he think that he would be transported into another world to fight a war he had no interest in. It meant killing a person to survive the storm and he wondered if he had the capability and mentality to do so.

Mateo was and is not programmed to kill wantonly however, this sudden realisation has made him realise the future actions he must take in order to remain alive and achieve his goals on his new lease on life.

Apollo felt his hands shake for the first time he was alive on Greiss, they began to sweat uncontrollably as he felt increasingly numb as the seconds pass by. He felt his heart beat faster with profound pounding. Alfred who had always been nearby noticed the sudden change in Apollo; he was wondering why the boy suddenly went quiet. With his acute senses he watched as sweat gathered on the pores of his face, some already trickling down his sharp contours, a visible black line appearing on the boy’s forehead an indication of uncomfort, ‘Wait….’

‘Does he need to take a shit?’ he pondered like looking back into past experiences with questionable foods, he also glanced at Oscar to look for a possibility but he shook his head ‘Impossible’ he stated.

‘No…no no no NOO!’ screamed Apollo internally

Before Alfred could ask what was wrong, Apollo slapped his face three times consecutively with his clammy hands in an effort to contain his resolve.

‘This is clearly a CONTRADICTION!’ he screamed once again internally away from the ears of everyone nearby. He was fighting a great mental battle with his inner self.

Apollo knew that it was inevitable that he was going to kill or at least injure someone in this life, for what reason does he practice the sword in the first place? It surely wasn’t for showing off that’s for sure. The boy knew deep down that this was something he would do anyways, the world wasn’t all sunshine and butterflies. He at least required some sense of grit if he wanted to go and explore Greiss since he knew someone would eventually find trouble for himself.

‘I need to calm down and think this through rationally’ he sighed mentally.

‘Yeah…..lets just take it one step at a time, deep breaths Apollo…deep fucking breaths!’