“Wake up.”

  I groggily opened my eyes. The cold night had given me a surprisingly deep sleep. As I came to, I noticed it was still dark, but the sky was starting to lighten near the horizon, signaling that dawn was near. Looking up, I was stunned to see two moons. One was red and the other blue, casting a strange magenta light that split my shadow in two, one shadow with a red hue and the other blue. It was an odd sight, unlike anything I was used to.

  Carrick then put his foot on top of me.

  “I’m getting up.” I caved in. “You do know it’s still night?”

  “You do still know that you fight like crap,” he said calmly.

  “Touché,” I replied.

  “What does that mean?” Carrick asked.

  “I don’t think there is a local translation of it,” Rabbit stated.

  “What does that mean? Do you know?” I quietly asked Rabbit.

  “Sure. It originally comes from fencing, used to acknowledge a well-executed strike by an opponent. These days, it's generally used to recognize any particularly effective action or clever remark,” Rabbit explained.

  I relayed his definition to Carrick, who responded, “I like that. Of course, everything I do is good, so that's no surprise.”

  I rolled my eyes. Yes, I literally rolled my eyes.

  “I do have a question before we start. Last night, I was called a baby murderer. Do you know why?”

  “The Grey Elves were exterminated because they were believed to be evil baby killers,” Carrick said, scratching his forehead. “I don’t know all the details or if it's true, but to most people, that’s the story. You, though? You don’t seem that bad to me.”

  I figured I had been dealt the worst hand imaginable. Being skillless was already a kick to the nuts, but finding out people would hate me for being part of a genocidal race made it even worse. I rechecked the description, hoping for more clues, and that was when I noticed my stats hadn’t budged.

  “Another question. We talked about levels yesterday, and it got me thinking. Why haven’t my stats gone up outside of leveling?”

  “What do you mean?” Carrick frowned, clearly not understanding.

  “Well. Let’s say I spent all my extra time lifting weights and getting big like you. Or let’s say you spend all your time getting beat up like me. Wouldn’t your Constitution or Strength go up?” I asked.

  “Ahh,” Carrick voiced, finally understanding. “No,” he said simply. “When you are a child, you don’t start with 1 in each of your stats. You start with 10. Your strength is higher because your body grows. The same is true with adults. Just because two people are level 10 doesn’t mean they have the same strength. Also, a level 12 could be weaker than a level 10 if that person has a great body like mine.”

  “But why?” I questioned.

  “You are just like a child,” Carrick exclaimed, but I didn’t mind. What I did mind was him putting up one hand as if it were a puppet asking questions. “The simple explanation is that your soul is separate from your body, but fundamentally alters it. All your stats and increases are from your soul. If we were to switch bodies right now, you’d become the most handsome man in the world. However, you wouldn’t be as strong as me, since I’d retain my levels, abilities, and skills. Those are tied to the soul, not the body.” Carrick paused, then asked, “Do you have stories from your homeland about people of great strength?”

  “Yeah, we have a ton of them,” I replied.

  “We have stories too. One tells of a person who gained great strength physically and through the soul. However, the secret to his success was his body. He trained it beyond any limit others could endure. If your body were twice as strong as an average person’s, you wouldn’t need to double their level. Anyway, you won’t get stronger without training, so today, we’re focusing on your stance. Yesterday, you spent most of your time on your back. Either that’s your favorite position…” he dragged out the next word, “or you ended up there because of your footwork.”

  I looked down at my legs and did not see any issues.

  “Stand. Prepare for a fight,” he yelled.

  If he wanted a fighting stance, I would give him the best in the universe, Bruce Lee style. I spread out my legs as far as I could, put one foot in front of the other, raised my hands, and flicked my nose with my thumb, looking like what I thought was totally badass.

  Carrick smiled at me, came closer, hooked his foot under my front leg, and brought it forward.

  “Ow, ow, ow. I don’t stretch like that.” The way he pulled me forward basically forced me into a forward split. Because I couldn’t do splits, it was excruciating and frightening.

  After I got up and rubbed my groin area a little bit, he said, “You are going to want to stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. That’s it, now put your right foot back a little. Good, now turn that foot a little bit.”

  I ended up with my right foot at a 45-degree angle. I started bouncing a little bit from one foot to another, like an old-school boxer. He took his hand and firmly shoved me over.

  “Don’t bounce around! What in the world are you doing? You seem like an idiot. Don’t you know, bouncing around makes you unstable? And why would you do such large splits?” Carrick barked.

  “I have seen people from my world fight like that,” I muttered.

  “What were they fighting about?” Carrick asked, actually interested.

  “Well, mostly, it was actors showing what they did in real fights,” I replied.

  “Ha.” He was cackling hard now. “Child, I was sarcastic about you and your thespians. I didn’t think it was true. Anything you learned from your actors, you can ignore.” He paused, then continued, “Actually, you can keep your lessons on your back. It might be a better profession than a fighter for you.”

  “I don’t want to work with your sister, so let’s continue,” I shot back.

  “Okay, your last lesson for the day: Do not cross your legs.” He moved one leg to the other while still walking forward. It looked like he was making a scissoring motion with his feet, where they never crossed over but only moved from one leg to the other. “Do you get it?”

  “Yes. But why is that the last lesson of the day? We just started,” I asked.

  Carrick smiled and said, “You’re right. There is one more lesson. Dodge.” At that, he smiled and winked at me, and then he threw a punch. I took a step to the side, and he immediately pushed me over.

  He put his hand on his head. “You know. I have been teaching this forever, and it never fails that the person crosses their legs right away when moving. I told you never to cross your legs. That makes it easier to knock you down. Get up, let’s go again.”

  I stood up, knowing he was going to attack me. He swung at me, and I dodged back. He did it again, and again, and I avoided the strikes. The third time it happened, he hit me directly in the face.

  “You’re focusing too much on your feet. You’re moving too slowly, and you're going to get hit. Trust me, getting hit is worse than tripping. Let's try again.”

  The day unfolded in the same repetitive cycle. I was knocked down, tripped up, and struck, seemingly countless times. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, I was healing quickly, which meant we could continue indefinitely. He was right, as it would take an entire day to drill those basic movements into me until they felt like an instinct as natural as breathing.

  By midday, I had managed to learn not to cross my feet without needing to focus intensely on every step. During our break, I took the opportunity to run one of my thoughts by Carrick.

  “I was thinking.”

  “Don't hurt yourself. Your brain might not be able to handle it,” Carrick replied, but I didn’t laugh. My face was covered in blood from broken noses.

  “Why don't people go out in the forest and grind?”

  “Grind?”

  “Like, go out and slaughter every animal around. Pushing your level up high. I mean, from our conversations, it doesn't seem like there is any penalty for killing enemies weaker than you. I would think that would be the case to stop someone from doing that.”

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  Carrick just stared at me with his mouth hanging open. I started to smile, when I continued, “Are you saying that no one has ever thought of that? I guess I am quite the genius.”

  He shook his head as if to clear it. “It's not that no one has thought of it, but more how stupid that sounds. To me, it sounds like a child said, ‘Why don't we just light the whole house on fire instead of just burning logs in the fireplace?’”

  “It can't be that bad? I don't see the problem with it,” I replied.

  He raised his eyebrow and continued, “Let's just say you go out there and start slaughtering day and night. There would be no way to eat all that food or process it. That means it would go to waste. There would be animals that scavenge it, but if you are strong enough to slaughter them because you are crazy, then you would kill them too. This goes on and on for a little bit until there are no animals left in the area, but there are diseased carcasses around. Then what? We live here. The whole village would have to move, and I guarantee you, your death would not be as fast as the animals that you slaughtered. You would be burning down your house to stay warm and catching your neighbor’s house on fire at the same time. Everyone would gang up and kill you.”

  I just stared at him. I guessed game logic didn't make much sense here. Mobs didn't just randomly spawn, and corpses didn't just disappear and give loot.

  “Could you really destroy a whole ecosystem?” I questioned.

  “You? Ha. I’m surprised you survived a day out there.” He gave me a look that seemed to size me up. “But yes, the dead zone is a good example. It was overhunted until nothing alive remains there to this day. Imagine if you went berserk and killed all the fish in the river. That’s a crucial part of our food supply. People would be furious. We harvest in moderation, not out of laziness, but because our resources are finite.”

  We sat in silence, each lost in thought, until Carrick broke the stillness again. “Can you do me a favor and run any crazy schemes by me before you set them in motion? I’m investing quite a bit of time in you and would hate to have to kill you because you acted with the foresight of a child.”

  “Yeah,” I replied solemnly. I would guess it was warranted. If I didn't make it to this village, I might have gone slaughter-crazy trying to increase my level. Then I would have been in worse trouble if I had ever been found. Luckily, I was as weak as a newborn kitten.

  “Now to teach you like I teach all the little kids.” This time, I didn’t take his comments so harshly. He was literally teaching me how to move my feet while I pestered him with questions on how to kill the whole village.

  Before the sun went down, I could move smoothly, and when Carrick tried to push me, I didn’t fall. Of course, if he chose to put some strength into it, I would be on the floor in an instant. As he was trying to teach me, he didn’t do anything of the sort. Although this training wasn’t what I expected, I acknowledged its value and importance. Someone in a fight who was missing the basics would be easy prey.

  At the end of the day, I asked Carrick, “Why wasn’t there a healer with us today? I can recover on my own, but it would have been quicker with a healer’s help.”

  “That is true. However, like most villages, we don’t have many healers. They are usually in big cities because they pay more. Since it’s rare, it becomes a sought-after resource. The fewer resources you take, the better it will be for you.”

  “That is reasonable enough. I don’t want Sophia to think I’m a drain on the village. I never thought about the healers moving to cities. Why don’t all of them move to cities, if they make more?” I asked.

  “Just like everyone,” Carrick said, shrugging. “Personal preference. Some people have others living here that they care about. Others have a soft heart and want to make sure everyone is safe. Some just hate war.”

  “War? Why war? Is there a war in cities?”

  Carrick looked at me like I was crazy. “This is a little more complex. Battles are basically skirmishes unless one side goes all out. A much larger force can consume smaller forces or defeat them, but often, battles are just a cycle of pain. Of course, some people always die, but it is mostly fighting and then healing and moving the lines of a battlefield for a few lives and a lot of effort. Ultimately, no one comes out a winner. Least of all, the healers who are under a lot of pressure with so few healing potions left on this continent. It’s like the tides of the ocean that move back and forth endlessly. My whole life had been this unending war.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I come from a world of relative peace. When there is war, it is confined to a region far away from where I live.”

  There was a minute of silence, and then Carrick stated, “That must be amazing. I wonder what it must be like. How many battles had you been in before coming here?”

  I laughed, even though the conversation was dark. “I have never been in a battle or a real fight. I’ve never even seen someone die in real life. I’ve seen dead people, but no one dying.”

  “That makes no sense. Are the monsters in your world weak? Someone would eventually die, at least in hunting,” he added, baffled.

  At this point, I felt like rolling around on the floor, but kept it to a chuckle. “We never hunt. Our society domesticated our animals. We had large farms that grew and killed all of our food for us. We purposely bred animals to be weak and compliant. I never went near them. I lived a peaceful life working as a programmer for the government.”

  “I wonder if that is why you were given such a weak race. Unless you were already this race before you came here?”

  “No, I was a Human, like you,” I said.

  “Interesting, I would not have guessed that. But maybe it makes sense with your weak society,” Carrick said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You do not know how to fight. Like at all. And for your age.” He paused, contemplating before opening his mouth again. “It’s kind of sad.”

  “Old? Twenties? How is that old?”

  “Figured you were older. Still, even a 14-year-old should be proficient in fighting. But maybe you were brought here at the same relative age you would have been in your world.”

  “How long do Elves live?”

  “Elves last a little over 1,000 years, but they don’t age like us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Take Sophia for example. She will look the same from about age 90 to 900. In their last 100 years, Elves start falling apart as we Humans do at the end. The rest is a normal progression and in line with how most Humans age. Some won’t start looking old until they are 1,200 if they are lucky. However, the last 100 years are like our later years in life. They usually stay strong enough with magic, levels, and skills. But when it’s too late for them, their bodies are far past expiring, and it’s a painful death. Most Elves perform Heaven’s Light before it gets too bad,” Carrick ended on a serious note.

  “Heaven’s Light?” I questioned, curious to know more.

  “It’s a warrior’s death. They stab themselves in the heart while a great warrior chops off their head to ensure a swift end. It is honorable,” he said with an admiring and respectful tone.

  It sounded somewhat crazy to me, but I would guess that different cultures viewed death differently. “Well, besides the end, it sounds nice. I mean, being young for 1,000 years sounds wonderful.”

  “It is balanced in the fact that Elves have to live past a Human’s lifetime before they can even have kids. By that time, most of them no longer want kids because they feel so old on the inside. It’s a sad reality for them as a race. Imagine the combination of low birth rates and your race dying out from being hunted. They used to be plentiful, but Elves in this region are rare. A great advantage has turned into a disadvantage for those who don’t have kids. Most stay on their own continent and typically don’t interact with other races. Sad, really. Sophia does so much for us, but we wish we could do something back for her,” Carrick mentioned.

  “What do you mean? She is your leader. Doesn’t she get whatever she wants?” I asked, confused.

  “Yeah, you are young,” Carrick said with a full-on grin on his face as though I was being an ignorant child who still believed I could walk on a rainbow. “Being a good leader means you don’t usually get what you want. You have to do what is good for everyone else. It’s like being the cook in the kitchen. You usually end up with the burnt food because you’re the one who cooked it, and you always take the worst piece.”

  We finally reached Carrick’s place. The stairs I had noticed upon arrival turned out to be houses cascading down the mountain’s slope. Carrick’s home was nestled into the side of the cliff. To reach his door, we had to walk to the edge, effectively standing on his neighbor’s roof. However, he didn’t invite me in. Instead, he just said ‘good night’ at his doorstep and left me there alone. Rather than retracing my steps through the housing area, I opted to walk along the cliff’s edge back to the meadow, reflecting on our conversations.

  It was true that Sophia seemed to be looking after everyone here. It must not be fun doing that for hundreds of years on end. I figured I would work for around 30 years and retire. The idea of laboring for hundreds, perhaps a thousand years without a foreseeable end was unimaginable. That kind of life didn't seem right for me.

  Perhaps living so long would change you. I knew older individuals back home who volunteered to help others after retirement. Possibly staying occupied was better than doing nothing at all. Or maybe I was overthinking it all. It might be that following life’s current was enough to manage whatever came your way. Looking over the cliff, I could feel the fear of falling and, at the same time, the beauty of being on a large cliff with a world to look out to.

  I spent some time there, contemplating the intersection of fear and beauty. While these weren't my immediate concerns, they felt relevant. Last night, confusion had overwhelmed me. This world was unfair, and I didn’t have the answers. But in the quiet of the cliff's edge, I considered that perhaps it was fear I was truly grappling with. Fear of death, of being helpless, vulnerable to the whims of anyone more powerful.

  Powerlessness. Yes, that was the core of my fear. That was why I found myself in this predicament. If I had more strength, I wouldn't feel so vulnerable. I could run from these people, but as Rabbit had pointed out, what then? Where would I go? How would I defend myself?

  From the start, Rabbit had warned me that people could be the most dangerous of all threats, a notion I initially dismissed based on the society I had come from. I chose to ignore his advice, and that led me here. Yet, I didn’t have anywhere better to be. I doubted my survival skills would suffice alone in the woods. Maybe I'd gain higher levels, or perhaps I'd die. The uncertainty was terrifying.

  That day, Carrick taught me the basics. It seemed simple at first. I spent the entire day avoiding crossing my feet, a skill unlikely to help against forest animals. However, I was beginning to realize that other people might be the biggest threat.

  This left me with two choices: take Rabbit’s suggested escape route or stay and learn from Carrick. Rabbit's way offered a brief escape from Human dangers, but eventually, I'd have to rejoin society, and it was doubtful I’d ever be the strongest. Maybe, in a small village like this, I could be a formidable figure in several hundred years, but I wasn’t prepared to live isolated in the forest until then.

  Then there was Carrick’s training. He wasn't directly increasing my levels, but he was offering something I couldn't have obtained on my own: knowledge. He answered my myriad questions, and more importantly, he was teaching me how to fight. This knowledge might prove more valuable than mere levels in the long run. Yes, in the short term, I needed levels because I was easily overpowered, but what if I genuinely had the gift of a long life? Shouldn’t I seize this opportunity to learn as much as I can? If things ever turned sour here, I could always escape later.

  Continuing from my reflections on fear, powerlessness, and the paths available to me, I walked back through the cool night. When I reached the meadow where I had been sleeping, the familiar discomfort of the hard, cold ground greeted me. Despite my Ability to heal, which spared me from waking with a body twisted in pain, the weariness of outdoor slumber weighed heavily on me. It was pointless to complain. Survival was my current victory, and I had made my choices about my future.

  I lay back and gazed up at the unfamiliar constellation of stars, pondering whether my home planet was hidden among them. The sky here was a tapestry of celestial wonders with multiple moons. The red and blue moons shone brightly, dominating the night, while others lingered on the horizon. Their presence made me feel even smaller, a mere speck in this vast, strange universe.