What they saw down below from the height of that building was a very fierce fight: Axis was hitting and Tornik was getting hit. It was so embarrassing that it actually reached a point where Lucas couldn’t keep watching anymore and had to turn his eyes away from that nasty beating.

“I don’t understand. Why won’t Axis use this opportunity to kill those fools in the crowd? They are just idling by, like sitting ducks,” Lucas asked his partner, who was gazing down below with keen eyes. “Actually, never mind Axis, what are we doing here? It seems like an easy way to increase my kill count.”

Flavya actually turned her head when she heard his last sentence, with a reproachful look. “The moment you start to attack them, all eyes will be on you. Can you handle all of them on your own?”

As much as Lucas wanted to say that yes, he could, he honestly wasn’t very confident. There were at least six people down there that he could see, not counting the ones that might be hiding in the vicinity, who could strike at any time.

“Won’t you be covering for me?” Lucas countered, not willing to give up.

“Even if I am, what are we going to do if they somehow manage to get Axis involved? It’s too risky.”

Lucas sighed, unhappily. “What about going for Axis first? You could shoot him with a poison arrow from here, while I…”

“No,” she replied sharply. “As soon as Axis enters a disadvantageous position, there’ll be no end to the helpers he’ll get from that crowd.”

“How so? They aren’t helping him now, are they?”

“Does it seem like he needs help?” she said, gesturing to the scene that was still happening down below.

Glancing at the fight again, Lucas had to admit he had underestimated Tornik’s capacity for defense. Despite the violence and sheer power of the attacks he was receiving, he was still alive and on his feet. Looking back, it made him seriously doubt his ability to break that defense without some sort of trick.

However, despite the man’s best efforts, it was pretty clear to everyone around that he had no chance of turning the tides of this battle. Tornik’s plan to be on the sidelines until the very end of the Showdown had clearly failed. Somehow, he managed to attract the attention and become the target of the most dangerous contestant in the competition way too soon, and Lucas couldn’t imagine a scenario where he managed to leave that place alive.

“What I don’t understand is, what are those people doing there so close to the fight? Aren’t they afraid to get killed?”

“I know Axis enough to know this: he never backs out of a challenge. He probably sees Tornik’s defense as a good challenge for his saber. Don’t you see how he never tries any fancy movements?” She asked and then continued, “When it comes to the crowd, they can be there for a lot of reasons. Everyone has a particular goal in mind. Maybe they want to curry favor, just witness Axis fight, or take advantage and strike him when he’s tired.” She shrugged.

Lucas nodded after a moment. He had noticed Axis's peculiarly simple set of moves from the start but had assumed it was just his fighting style.

“Are you saying that he’s doing this just to see how long Tornik will last?” Lucas asked, perplexed. In the middle of a deadly contest, the man was actually spending energy on something so futile?

His response was a nod from the girl. A few moments of silence later, Lucas asked another question.

“What happens when he finally kills him?”

“He’ll either kill the rest of the crowd or leave due to a lack of stamina,” Flavya replied after a few seconds.

Lucas sighed with frustration. The equipment he had been looking for was right in front of his eyes, but he was powerless to take it for himself.

“We should leave,” Flavya said suddenly after a few more moments.

“Why?”

“This will take a while. Axis probably didn’t bother to get information about the other competitors beyond Halyk, but I did. Tornik’s defense is probably the best of our generation, not to mention his equipment that is all top-notch.”

Despite the confidence in her voice, Lucas wasn’t sure of her assessment looking at the two fighting. To him, it seemed like Tornik might succumb at any second.

“Are you sure about this?”

She smiled, taking her eyes off the fight. “You still don’t understand how these things work. The longer this battle lasts, the better it is for him. Not only because Axis might tire himself out, but also because his equipment as well as his legacy, are getting loftier by the second.”

Flavya was right when she said he still didn’t understand. This whole talk about legacy, fame, and honor was still very new to him. He had trouble even comprehending the concept. He was a very practical person after all. Could he eat fame and legacy? No, so why would he care?

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On the family side, it was much the same. Back on Earth, he had never been rich or had a reputation to maintain, and the only family he cared about was his mother. If she wasn’t already deceased, he would die to protect her if it ever came to that, the only reason he left her when the meteor came was because it was a hopeless situation.

But that wasn’t the situation here. These people were risking their lives for a few more coins and respect. It was all very crazy to his Earthling mind, and he thought it best not to comment much on the matter. There was still a lot he needed to learn about cultures throughout the multiverse.

“Won’t we be missing a precious opportunity to see Axis fight before actually having to face him?”

“I doubt he will show any of his big moves in that fight. Even if he does use them, it will be toward the end. We will be back by then, trust me.”

Lucas trusted her because, frankly, she knew way more about these people than he possibly could. Leaving the sorry figure of Tornik behind, they left the building to look for other targets. With many people already dead and others hidden, it proved to be a hard task this time around.

Flavya was apparently pretty experienced in the people-hunting business, though, and following her lead, they found a few traces of people on the edges of the town ten minutes later.

That was the first time Lucas actually understood what that voice meant by not leaving the city’s premises when he saw a giant bluish force field surrounding the edge of the city. Initially, he had thought the premises mentioned were a broad concept and was actually afraid to cross the limit without realizing it, but there was no way to miss that. Despite being translucent, it was still possible to recognize something was there. Lucas vaguely wondered what would happen if he decided to cross it. Would he be struck down or something?

“Look,” Flavya pointed at a bloody handprint on a nearby wall. Moving closer, they spotted a few more traces of blood on the pavement, leading to a building at the end of the street. That seemed very odd to Lucas, but he decided to ask the girl first.

“Should we follow?”

“I’m not sure, there’s something off about this…”

“I agree,” Lucas nodded. “A bloody hand on the wall, and then these convenient droplets of blood leading us to a specific location seems too good to be true.”

Lucas looked at her sideways, and she nodded in agreement. When she was about to reply, however, he saw something moving in the corner of his eye and instinctively pushed her aside while also retreating.

Lucas barely acknowledged the noise the thing made; his attention was almost completely focused on the blood spurting from his partner. Immediately after the first attack, he ran with her to a nearby wall, followed by a confusion of blasts, until they finally managed to take cover.

“What was that?” asked Flavya, disheveled, after arriving in safety.

Lucas took a few moments to reply, not because he didn’t know what had attacked them, but because he did know, and it was partially his fault.

“It was that guy with the gun,” he replied after a while. Flavya looked a little annoyed at him but didn’t say a word about it. Her wound had fortunately been superficial, and even though it was bleeding quite a lot, it wasn’t so serious, and the bleeding stopped once she applied some mysterious paste on top of it.

“I guess that theory of him not attacking me to return the favor is gone now,” Lucas mentioned after some time of silence.

“I was the one getting shot, not you,” Flavya replied, having calmed down a little. Although Lucas could still sense a little anger in her tone, he didn’t mind; she had nearly died, after all.

“I’m not so sure. After we ran, he seemed to be shooting all over the place,” Lucas countered.

Flavya shook her head. “We weren’t running that fast. He could’ve hit you if he wanted to.”

“Then why didn’t he keep shooting at you?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Your body was covering me,” she replied, and after a while: “… thank you, by the way.”

It was Lucas’s turn to shake his head. “It was my fault. I should’ve killed him when I had the chance.”

They stood silent for a while, waiting for their opponent’s next steps, but after five minutes, nothing else happened.

“It seems he doesn’t want to give up his advantage from a distance,” Lucas broke the silence.

“Uh-huh.”

A few more moments of silence went on between them before Lucas spoke again.

“I think I should take the lead on this one. Maybe I can reach his spot without being noticed.” Flavya had a doubtful look on her face, but he went on. “If it really is as you say and he doesn’t want to kill me, then I have nothing to worry about, and it will be even easier.”

Flavya stared at his face for a while in complete silence, probing him.

“Will you be able to kill someone who refuses to fight back?”

Lucas took a few moments to reply to her question. He hadn’t really thought about the matter all that much, partially because he didn’t entirely believe the guy was purposefully avoiding killing him and partially because he didn’t want to consider the issue. But when he really thought about it, there was only one answer.

“Of course, I will.” He would do what he needed to do.

After a brief discussion, they decided that Lucas would go ahead and try to catch the shooter off guard while Flavya looked for a favorable position from where she could shoot her arrows.

Before he left, however, Lucas saw her drawing a really long roll from her ring from a material that looked a lot like papyrus. With a brush, she started to draw a few symbols on it before cutting the paper and tying it in front of her eyes. A couple of seconds later, it glowed and then disappeared from her face. The whole process didn’t take longer than a minute; the girl’s every move was made with extreme precision and familiarity.

“What?” She asked, annoyed, seeing he was still there.

“What the hell was that?” Lucas asked simply.

She frowned and was about to say something but stopped mid-way, closing her mouth. A few seconds later, she opened it again and spoke.

“I always forget about the amnesia thing. It’s a magic seal; it enhances my eyesight,” she explained casually and then pointed at a building about 600 feet away. “There’s a tall building there that I want to go to. There’s a higher chance of hitting him if he’s on top of one of those buildings.”

Lucas nodded, still awestruck with that information. He had no idea mages could do that sort of thing. But then again, she wasn’t a regular mage, was she? Was a Witch perhaps a different type of mage? Before all those questions, though, Lucas just had to ask:

“Can I have one?”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Why do you need better eyesight?”

“Because… it seems fun?” Lucas tried, and she rolled her eyes.

“These things are not free; I have a skill for it and they require mana to activate—a witches’ mana,” she said. The last part was added after realizing Lucas was about to say something. “Also, they have a time limit that’s being wasted with this conversation.”

“Alright, alright, chill,” Lucas said bitterly, raising his hands. He was definitely going to ask more about it after they dealt with the shooter. “I’m off. Make sure to cover for me if that guy proves to be not so against me dying.”

She nodded sternly, and with those last words, Lucas turned and began to move.