Marcus opened his eyes, then immediately brought his hand over his face; a sliver of sunlight had found it to be a comfortable resting spot. Still in a half-awake daze, he blinked a few times, before rubbing the sleep from his eyes. As he did so, the events of the previous night flooded his mind, driving any semblance of drowsiness from his body. He quickly turned his head and found Rei missing from where she’d been laying next to him. Without a moment’s hesitation, Marcus shot out of bed, intent on finding her. He all but flew out the door—and came to an equally sudden halt.

Rei was standing right outside the door, a bucket of water in hand and a quizzical look on her face.

  “Where are you going in such a rush?”

  “I- you… When I woke up…”

Having his sudden fear assuaged so abruptly, Marcus’s mind was scrambled, leaving him tongue-twisted. Hearing him try to sputter out a response, Rei arched her brow and smiled.

  “What, were you worried cause I was gone? I’ll have you know, I can handle myself.” As she spoke, Rei placed the bucket on the ground and patted her right arm. “A single swing from me would have sent that Aiz guy flying!”

Marcus stared at her silently for a few seconds, before letting out a hearty laugh.

  “How rude!” Rei said, crossing her arms and puffing her cheeks. “There’s nobody stronger than me!”

  “Sure, sure, you’re number one. C’mon, let’s go inside.”

Rei let out a hmph, but picked up the bucket and followed Marcus inside all the same.

‘She’s doing better than I expected, or, at least, she’s acting the part.’

Marcus sat down on a chair, and Rei sat on the other one after placing the bucket on the table between them.

  “So…”

Marcus started to speak, but realized he didn’t know what to talk about. There was so much he needed to tell her, but deciding where to start was difficult. Meanwhile, Rei had reached under the bed and grabbed an old shirt of his with a tear in it, now busy stitching it closed.

  “I stopped by Gren’s, but he’s still sleeping. I guess whatever was going on last night with those soldiers kept him up. Speaking of, you still haven’t told me what they wanted you for.”

  “Ah, yeah, that. They were just asking if I’d noticed anything strange in the forest. It seems like what Raul said about the villages down south is true, and Lord Talmond’s finally sent some men to check it out.”

  “Then there’s nothing left to worry about, right?”

  “...If Aiz is to be trusted, then yes… For now.”

  “I see…”

Rei kept her hands busy as they spoke, but Marcus could tell something was eating at her. It was like she was trying to distract herself by returning to normalcy as quickly as possible. An awkward silence hung over the room, the two of them at a loss for what to say next. This went on for several seconds until,

  “Marcus-”

  “Rei-”

Both of them spoke the other’s name at the same time. Again, the two of them fell silent, having cut eachother off, however, Marcus was starting to think that they both wanted the same thing.

  “I think we should talk about...last night. I don’t know if I can tell you everything just yet, but I want to start.”

Rei nodded.

  “I want to do that too, but there’s something else I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time. I know...now’s not the best time,” Rei said, her soft voice becoming louder, ”but I can’t keep waiting any longer!”

The resoluteness of her words caught Marcus off guard.

‘This must be the same thing she wanted to bring up last time.’

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Marcus scratched the back of his head, then stood up.

  “I guess we both have a lot to say. C’mon, I want to take you somewhere. We can talk there.”

  “Okay!”

Having regained her composure and prior boisterousness, Rei followed Marcus outside.

***

Gazing across the open field, Rei smiled as the wind whipped her hair. Marcus had led her through the forest and to a clearing from which, judging by the numerous stumps, Rei assumed he got all of the logs for Gren.

  “I’ve never been this far from the village; everyone always talks about the forest being dangerous.”

  “It can be if you’re not careful.”

  “Yeah… So…” Rei clasped her hands behind her back and took long, deliberate, steps as she spoke. “Why did you want to come all the way out here just to talk?”

  “You’ll see soon,” Marcus said with a sigh. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to explain all of this to you, and I’m still not exactly sure how to start…”

Marcus crossed his arms and rocked back and forth on his feet as he thought. Finally, he walked past Rei and sat down on one of the many stumps.

  “Rei, do you know what a Player is?”

‘Player?’ Rei stopped walking as she tried to recall anything about the word. However, her mind drew a blank.

  “No, but I think that man Aiz used that word.”

  “That he did… I guess...the easiest way to start this is to tell you that I’m one of them—a Player.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “A lot of things,” Marcus said with a dismal chuckle. “If I dumped every detail on you now, I honestly don’t think you’d be able to understand it all.”

Hearing that, Rei pouted and puffed out her cheeks.

  “Are you trying to say I’m too dumb?”

  “No! It’s not like that… Trust me, even though I want to, there's just no way to explain it all at once.”

  “Fine, I believe you.” Rei sat herself down on the stump, forcing Marcus to scoot over and make room for her. She leaned her head against his shoulder and hugged his arm tight, as if afraid to let him go. “For now, just tell me what you can.”

  “Rather than tell, it might just be easier to show you. “Come on,” Marcus said as he stood up, pulling Rei along with him.

He led her to the edge of the clearing, next to a large tree with a thick trunk. There, he turned around and faced her, his back to the tree.

  “Who are the strongest warriors you know of?”

Rei arched her brow, confused more by why she was being asked such a question rather than the question itself.

  “What do you mean…?”

  “Exactly what I said. Maybe a famous mercenary band, or an order of knights. As long as you’ve heard of them, who do you think’s the strongest?”

Rei pondered the question for a few more moments. When she was younger, Gren had certainly told her many stories about famous warriors and battles—there was little else he knew much about. On top of that, the years she spent working in a tavern in Talmond left her no stranger to the kinds of things drunk men loved to talk about: women and war. After all that time, there was one group she’d heard mentioned more than any other.

  “The Brightguard. They’re a mercenary guild in Talmond; even Gren used to tell me about them.”

  “Okay, that’s an easy comparison. Us Players are basically like mercenaries.”

  “So you and Aiz were in the same group?”

  “...Not exactly. Even among the Players there’s different guilds. Being a Player is like…it’s like being a different race.”

This only greatened Rei’s confusion. She knew of many races—their village, not to mention Talmond, were inhabited by a diverse assortment of species. Rei even knew of races she herself hadn’t met from stories whispered in hushed voices, stories about fearsome creatures, like demons, which lived further to the north. But, not once had she heard of the race known as Players.

  “Where are Players from? Certainly not from around Talmond.”

  “Most of them should still be in Enfel.”

  “Enfel?”

Marcus paused at her question, remembering how little she knew about the greater world. Her perspective was limited, after all, and knowledge of a continent that far away was hard to come by.

  “It’s a land far from here, across the sea to the east.”

‘We’re actually from a different world, but I don’t even know how to bring something like that up.’

He’d have to feed her bits of information slowly, he decided. It would be a slow process, but it was the best way to make sure she actually understood just what he was.

‘There’s still my old guild too…’

Marcus was sure that would be the worst part, having to tell Rei about the PK guild he was once a member of. She’d told him, brimming with confidence, about how she wanted to hear every little bit of his past, but he knew the truth would hurt her.

Caught in another one of his rounds of introspection, Marcus didn’t notice Rei speak. Finally, she waved her hand in front of his face, rousing him from his thoughts.

  “What?”

  “I was asking you why you travelled so far. It wasn’t just to meet me, was it?”

At that, Marcus smirked.

  “I wish that had been why. I’ll tell you one day, like I promised. I just need to do things in the right order.”

  “If you’re trying to win some points by acting all mysterious, it’s not working”—Rei smiled and winked—“much.”

As Marcus opened his mouth to continue speaking, Rei held up her hand to stop him.

  “You said you were going to show me something, but all you’ve been doing is yapping my ear off. I hope it’s worth the wait.”

  “Oh, yeah...” Marcus sheepishly scratched the back of his head. “Guess I got a little carried away with all that exposition. All right, let me show you what it means to be a Player.” Marcus took a step back and walked to the side of the tree. Rei watched him intently, curious as to what he was going to do. But Marcus didn’t move, and just as she was starting to wonder if he was messing with her, the tree exploded.

There was simply no other way to describe it. The trunk was snapped in two with such force that a good portion of it simply disintegrated. The bottom portion of the tree was nearly uprooted from the force, and what was left of the top fell to ground with both a leafy rustle and a thud.

Rei had closed her eyes and shielded her face as soon as she registered what was happening, but the sharp splinters of wood she had been waiting for never hit her. As she slowly opened her eyes, she found Marcus in front of her. Her mind was in a jumble as it worked to make sense of everything she had just witnessed in such a short span of time, but one thing she immediately realized was that Marcus had protected her. He had protected her from splinters of wood flying faster than an arrow from a bow, despite having been standing at least 10 paces away. As this fact dawned on her, she could do little more than look up at Marcus with a mixture of awe and bewilderment.

  “That,” Marcus said with a broad smile, “is the strength of a Player.”