*knock* *knock* "Lord Rallo."

*knock *knock* *knock* *knock "Lord Rallo..."

"What should we do? They want us to wake him, but he will probably have our heads for disturbing his rest. I swear these nobles-- Ma- Ma'am!!" Said one of the guards as he turned to face the teen who ignored his previous words as she walked toward the door.

"Move out of the way. You've gotta practically step on him to wake him up even in the middle of the forest. You think he's gonna wake up from a couple of knocks?"

"Yes- No-... Right away Ma'am!"

*the peace and tranquility of silence*

*step* *Step *STEP*

*CRASH!!*

"Get your ass up Rallo, we are gonna starve waiting on you!" Said Zoe as she kicked my door open as if she was a part of one of those three-letter organizations on a raid.

I obviously couldn't sleep through all the commotion so I rolled toward the edge of the bed before sitting up and placing my feet on the rug beneath the bed.

I rubbed one of my hands across the sheets of the bed in search of my phone to check the time, but I quickly remembered my situation and stopped my action. I then looked toward the three people standing in the doorway who watched my every move before speaking.

"I'm definitely up now, what is it?" I asked while standing up from the bed before rubbing a few bits of crust off of my eyes. I was about to ask about a shower or a bath for that matter, but once thinking it over I came to the conclusion that if such things did exist already in this world, then they most likely wouldn't appear in a border town such as this one I am currently in.

Zoe answered my question by throwing some clothes at me which she had taken from one of the knights beside her before pushing the other knight in who carried a wooden bucket with a small cloth on the rim of it. I noticed that she had on new clothing as well but my thoughts were pushed to the side once she spoke aloud for the second time in the short span that had passed.

"They will not let us eat until the lord of the castle is present so hurry and get changed. We are waiting in the great hall downstairs but the food is getting cold so be quick." She said with a bit of attitude. I understood her pain to a certain extent as I would be pissed as well if someone placed a meal in front of me but then told me I couldn't eat it until my cousin said I could. Therefore I simply nodded my head before waving the three people present out of my room.

I placed the clothes that were thrown at me on the bed beside me before taking off the leather clothing I had on previously. I then washed my full body as best as I could with the lukewarm water and the small cloth before changing into the new clothes that were provided to me, which were a grey doublet, black breeches that came down to my ankles, and a pair of wool socks that surprisingly fit pretty me pretty snuggly despite not having an elastic band inside them. After putting all of this on I saw a leather pair of turn shoes next to the door which were black in color as well, but they didn't look comfortable whatsoever so I wasn't sure if I wanted to wear them. I looked around the room for some other footwear to put on but I couldn't find anything else leaving me to put on the pair of leather turn shoes. I mean I could have put on the leather sandals that I had on previously but I refused to be the first person to wear sandals with pants in this world so I could only settle with the turn shoes. After settling my whole fashion debacle, I headed out my door which led to the corridor that held the rooms my cousins stayed in. I noticed that their doors were open and there seemed to be either a single woman or a pair of women in the rooms as they seemed to be straightening up the rooms that were left in a mess somehow after only one night of use.

I greeted the women as I fumbled with my dreads, twisting and tying the locs that had begun to come apart at the roots due to growth. I would usually use a particular brand of petroleum jelly when retwisting my hair during my daily morning routine but using pure friction should be enough to maintain them until I can find a suitable replacement.

The women all watched me with curious looks on their faces which honestly made me a bit embarrassed but I was never ugly by modern standards so I could say I was used to the staring. The problem lay in that I was genuinely awkward when it came to conversating with the fairer sex beyond talking about what one was doing currently, and their plans for the day. I doubt that I am any different now, except all the things I am interested in don't exist yet while all the things they may be interested in will only lead me back to thinking about the things I haven't introduced yet.

*sigh* Either way, I have more important things to worry about such as where in the hell is this great hall located.

After thinking this I spoke aloud to the group of women who had gone back to cleaning the rooms.

"erm excuse me, ladies? Can one of y'all take me to the great hall? I only know that it's downstairs somewhere." I asked while still twisting the hair on my head.

All of the women heard my question but it seemed that one of them was assigned the task by someone already as they left the woman she was cleaning with and walked over to my side before giving a small bow at her waist exactly as I said they should last night during the 'meeting' that took place during dinner. She spoke to me while bowing.

"Yes, Lord Rallo. I will guide you to your destination if the lord permits it" she said as a bit of sweat began to build on her brow. I could empathize with her anxiousness as I was quite nervous myself since I wasn't used to being treated so highly by what were practically strangers. Nonetheless, I still replied with what probably seemed like confidence to her.

"Okay, lead the way then" I said as I waved one of my hands toward the stairs while still twisting away with the other.

The woman straightened her back before nodding and walking ahead of me to the stairs just a few feet ahead of us. I followed a few paces behind the woman as we begin the walk toward wherever this great hall was.

After we made it halfway down the stairs, I mustered up the courage to speak to the woman once again as I thought about how I was sinking back into my old ways back on Earth.

"umm, miss? What is your name?" I asked before chuckling a bit because I really didn't even know the woman's name yet.

"My name is Ellie, Lord..." She said but it seemed as if she was holding something back so I spoke to her once again as we continued down the stairs.

"What is it, Ellie? You can speak freely, or whatever it is they say." I said to her as I finished maintaining my hair.

"It's... I... I just wanted to ask the Lord if what Miss Sasha said about you was true. Will you actually treat all the people in our town fairly regardless of their status?" She asked as she slowed her steps almost causing me to run into her.

Since we were practically at the bottom of the stairwell, I stepped around Ellie before pushing open the door that separated the stairs from the corridor on the first floor. I then held the door open before looking toward the woman while gesturing for her to walk ahead of me once again. I did this in an attempt to prove my words with actions instead of just restating what she had already heard.

However once my eyes my Ellie's, I noticed that she was staring at me with a bewildered look on her face. I wanted to explain my actions but I guessed that it finally clicked within the woman's mind as she nodded her head before speaking to me once again.

"I see... You are truly different from the previous lords of the castle as the rumors say. I look forward to the changes your reign will bring." Ellie said as she bowed to me once again, but this time it was more like the kowtow that Leon and the other did when they gave their oaths last night.

I quickly stood the woman up before speaking to her once again.

"I appreciate the gesture, but I remember stipulating that all of that was unnecessary. We should continue to the great hall as I am sure the others are ready to send another group to fetch us by now."

Ellie looked me over once again as if she was studying some alien creature before bowing once again except it was according to 'regulations' this time. She then walked ahead of me once again, which made me sigh in relief as my arm had begun to buckle under the weight of the door which I had been holding open this entire time.

After walking through the door I was met with the various paintings that we had passed by so quickly the night before. Even now I still didn't get a chance to look at the images beyond a glance. This was not because of our walking speed though as was the case the night before, but because we were headed in the opposite direction of the paintings.

The direction we were walking in led us around a wall that encased the stairwell into another much shorter corridor that had a long grey rug covering the floor up to a tall set of round double doors. The doors had a pair of knights standing guard in front of them who seemed to be conversating about something until I came around the corner, to which they separated and stood at attention. Ellie took this chance to leave me be as she walked back toward the way we just came from I was sure of where I needed to go after seeing the knights stationed outside those doors. Seeing this, I took the chance to study the corridor itself which had no paintings on its wall as they were instead replaced by glass windows that revealed two separate dirt-covered outside areas, both containing training dummies and wooden targets. I assumed that these were used as training grounds as there were around thirty men in each of those areas training their aim or what seemed to be the basic sword techniques that they were taught to use.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

I watched their movement for a few seconds before looking away while sighing. This wasn't because I was looking down on the men or anything as I am pretty sure that literally any one of them could take me out as easy as breathing, but instead, because of all the blood, sweat, and tears they put into this style of warfare would soon be phased out and replaced with something way less romantic in my opinion. Many of them won't accept this change however I hope that I can get through to a few of them as I will need officers for the new army I plan on making.

But all of that had to be put on hold as I had to live in the present before I get to the future.

'Crawl before you walk.' I said to myself as I continued walking forward.

Once I made it close enough to the guards, they open both of the doors simultaneously allowing me to keep my pace while entering what I presumed to be the great hall given that there was no other door here besides the ones leading outside to the training areas. As I walked past the knights into the great hall, all the people who were waiting on me this entire time stood up from the table and almost all of them bowed at their waist toward me, except my cousins, who mostly just stared at me with irritated expressions on their faces.

I nodded at all the people in front of me while ignoring the looks that were coming from my cousin before walking to the head of the table which held the only empty chair in sight. As I looked around the room I noticed that many different furnishings that would probably cost me a limb if sold during my era back on Earth.

I was quite surprised by the multitude of colors inside the room given that the rest of the castle was filled with different shades of grey. For example, the table and my chair that I was walking toward currently were made of a type of wood that resembled that of the white oak that was found in abundance back on Earth. Even the burgundy rug, which covered most of the floor in the hall, seemed to be made of a higher grade of material than all the previous rugs I've seen within the castle being that it felt much fluffier than all of the ones I've come into contact with. I guess Leon or one of his forefathers had made the decision to stick with some luxuries at the expense of the other necessary functions within their 'organization'.

There was also a huge window behind my chair which let in a huge amount of natural light into the room adding to the extravagance of the scene ahead of me. Through that window, I could see a flat field of grass that looked to be at least the size of two football fields in width but only the size of one in length that was devoid of any structures besides the wall that encapsulated the whole compound.

After checking my appearance by using the window as a mirror, I sat down in my chair before looking toward the nine other people surrounding the table. All of my cousins except Zoe sat on my right-hand side, while Zoe, Sasha, Sam, and Joann sat on the left, while Leon was at the other end of the table with the back of his chair facing the door.

Once settled down, I noticed that everyone seemed to be staring at me as if they were waiting on me to say something, so I granted their wishes.

".. uh Goodmorning everyone, I hope y'all were able to get some rest last night cuz I know I didn't-- *yawn* " I said as I stretched my limbs and torso while using the chair as an anchor.

The twins, Ash and Bell both answered simultaneously as per usual, with what seemed to be a bit of excitement in their voices as they virtually yelled their responses toward me. Their reactions by themselves answered my question but I still listened to what they had to say since I was the one who prompted the response in the first place.

"We both slept like we were babies once again... I never knew a bed could get that soft. It felt like I was sleeping on a cloud." Ash said before Bell cut her off while putting in her two cents.

"It was pretty nice. I would say it was more like sleeping on a cloud with your annoying sister though..." She said while sticking her tongue out at her sister.

This started a petty argument between the two about who disturbed whom the most which lasted a few minutes and livened the atmosphere in the room for me at least. I was about to move on to my other cousins who had stopped mean-mugging me by now but both of the twins seemed to pause their 'argument' at this moment in order to speak to me once again. They whispered a couple of things between each other before seemingly deciding who would be the one speaking this time around, which seemed to be Ash.

Seeing this, I shifted my focus to the twin as she began talking.

"Alright, I will tell him but you better not go back on your word." Ash said while staring at her sister, Bell, who responded concisely with an 'I swear. After hearing this Ash nodded at her sister before turning her head towards me to speak once again.

"*sigh* Okay... Rallo, do you remember that time when Bell and I were having those dreams when you, Luca, Bell, and I started the last part of our schooling? About the man in black leading a swarm of people armed with sticks that blasted lighting, along with the many other strange wooden or metal beasts that seemed to support him in his conquests? Grandma had us share the story with the whole family in order to alleviate the fear we had from the dreams." Ash asked me as she leaned forward to cover her face with her hands while leaving her elbows on the table still.

I looked through my memories to see if this world's version of me had any recollection of the events she was describing as I, meaning me from Earth, had no clue what the hell she was going on about. Looking back, 'I' could remember that we did have an impromptu family meeting about the strange dreams the girls were having, but as she said, it was only to help the girls get over the recurring dream as most of our family chalked the dreams up to the girls having overactive imaginations. Once I remembered this, I answered Ash's question.

"Yeah, I remember. Grandma said it was because y'all had overactive imaginations and had all of our parents pray to the ancestors for them to cease. Why are y'all bringing this up though?" I asked while focusing on both of the twins equally.

As I said earlier, 'I' remember that both of them had the same dream about the 'man in black' with only the creatures in their respective dreams being different. But that didn't help me at all when it came to knowing why they were bringing this topic back up now.

Once the twins heard my question, they both looked at each other with varying expressions on their faces. Ash had a look that said she expected such a question from me but she still didn't want to answer it for some reason, while Bell looked as if she expected that Ash would become hesitant at the last second. They both stared at each other with their respective expressions for a few seconds before Ash finally gave in as I guess this was part of the little agreement they made earlier. She then began speaking toward me once again after collecting her thoughts.

"Fine... We are bringing this up because we had the same dream last night and we saw... Well, we both saw you this time..." She said before trailing off while staring at me.

I creased my brow in confusion while looking at my other two cousins sitting beside the twins on my lefthand side, Luca and Kai for some kind of answer, but I could only get a shrug from the two of them. I guess they didn't really think too much about the situation given that they were only dreams after all, which was the rational reaction I suppose. Zoe watched all of us before speaking aloud for the first time since she kicked in my door earlier this morning.

"Was he among those who wielded the sticks?" She asked the twins but strangely never took her eyes off of me when asking, which probably was a good thing in her case given that she clearly saw me scoff at the question.

In my defense though, I just thought it would be insane that they would be able to spot my face in a swarm of people who were shooting literally lighting from sticks-- Wait a second...

'Shooting lighting from sticks', isn't that just a primitive way for describing a gun? And the wooden birds and metal beasts... Well, I guess those can represent planes and trains respectively... But that was worse than primitive when it came to a description. Hell, it was primordial...

Realizing this left me not really knowing what to think about the dreams now given that seemed to be premonitions of me as weird as it sounded. But what if these 'dreams' continued, what else would they see? I guess it helps that they were seeing the same scene over and over again, but I still couldn't stop myself from worrying about the situation. I mean my cousins having this 'ability' was one thing but what if some random out there in the world, or worse my undeclared enemies the nobility of this town?

I wasn't worried about them being able to reproduce the weapons or anything like that, but I didn't want to lose any element of surprise that we might have once any conflict does start. The reasonable part of my brain wanted to just treat the dreams as coincidences but how could go with reason alone knowing that things such as magic exist in this world? Unfortunately, reason was all I had...

"Rallooo... HEY!! Is anyone in there??"

A poke to my forehead snapped me out of my thoughts. I looked toward the source of the finger and saw my cousin Zoe staring at me along with all the other people sitting around the table. I quickly realized my mistake and spoke to the group of people who were focusing on me.

"my bad... I was thinking about something. It's not important though, What were we at?" I asked while waving away Zoe's finger which was still a few inches away from my face.

Zoe stared at me for a few more seconds before answering my question with a bit of sassiness in her tone as she spoke.

"Okay... The twins were explaining how they saw you in their dreams leading those strange creatures around and then they asked what you thought of it... What were you thinking just now?" She asked causing everyone in the room to look back at me once again as they were probably wondering the same thing.

"Well reason tells me that is it just a coincidence, so I think it is just that. So let's not think too much about it..." I said which made everyone except Ash, Bell, Zoe, and Sasha, who all shook their heads at my answer.

I expected this from Zoe and Sasha as they both had their reasons as to why they shouldn't believe my words, but the sudden stubbornness from the twins kinda surprised me. I guess they realized that they technically have the age advantage over me giving them a bit more confidence in interacting with me but this wasn't really a problem, so I just continued talking while hoping I could convince them to just drop it.

"More importantly though, where is this food that I was woken up for? I thought y'all were waiting on me to eat?"

I mentioned food hoping that hunger would stop them from asking me any more questions about the dreams, and I am proud to say that it worked flawlessly. My cousins all rubbed their stomachs, throwing the previous conversation out of the window while the adults all looked toward the two knights who stood near the door.

One of the knights nodded at the adults before opening one of the double doors which separated the great hall we were in from the corridor outside of it and said something to one of the knights who I assumed were still posted out in front of the doors.

The knight then nodded to the adults before returning to his position near the door.

I watched all of this in silence before speaking out to Leon who sat at the other end of the table.

"I guess that means the food is on its way?" Leon saw that I was looking directly at him while I was speaking so he knew I was talking to him. He answered my question with a nod which I returned before informing my cousins of the 'developments'.

They were relieved at the news and even started speculating on what they would be having. They mostly named the different types of meats of the animals that were eaten back in the village which made me chuckle a bit, but their excitement made me think about all the breakfast food I had to choose from back on Earth, which obviously took away from the joy I was feeling just a second before.

Luckily for me, I had the knowledge required to make anything I wanted from scratch.

The only thing left was for me to make it to the metaphorical 'scratch'.