Respect

Roger watched where the beast had fled into the forest.

His mouth had dropped slightly open, and his forehead was tilted forward in disbelief. 

Unable to accept that his opponent had just run from him, he panned his eyes across the treeline to see if it would come back and attack once more.

'It had to, right? What kind of monster just attacks you and then leaves? That has to be some kind of foul!'

Roger caught himself before following that train of thought further.

'Wait, why should I ever care? It means less risk doesn't it? If the creature is gone, then I don't need to fight it anymore!'

He tried to focus on that, to convince himself that this was a good thing, but a strong emotion made it a difficult task.

Disappointment.

It was a strange feeling to have after fighting for his life, but one he experienced all the same. It was difficult to explain why the beast running away was so unsatisfactory, only that it left Roger wanting more.

Wanting finality in his duel.

It wasn't enough to just fight something, he had to defeat it. To bring it low before himself and have it know that he would grow stronger from its death. 

By running away, the creature had denied Roger that finality. Denied him his victory. It had taken that raw and beautiful sensation of fighting for dominance and ground it into nothing.

He gritted his teeth and balled his fists, his right hand squeezing around the pommel of the sword tightly. 

It was a new experience to be cheated out of combat, and one Roger found extremely disconcerting. Every other experience on Avar had always started and ended linearly.

The eel had bit him, so he smashed it.

The Spike-Tailed Tiger attacked him, so he crushed it.

The Mind Wraiths had invaded his dreams, so he cut them with his sword.

The large critter, however, had introduced itself as a brave and vicious enemy, only to turn tail and run at the last minute. 

There was an amount of deceit present in the action that felt like an insult to some kind of law, a universal one that bound all living things.

As the disappointment faded, a new feeling took its place, one far different and almost contradictory.

Roger felt respect for the critter.

He chuckled to himself in the clearing as he kneeled down on the grass and wiped the blood off his sword, leaving a long red stain on the forest floor.

He shook his head and smiled, muttering aloud to no one in particular.

"If it were me, I would've done the same. The gods can do away with their old laws, they don't matter anymore."

Although he had hated his opponent, more for the actions of its relatives than its own, Roger couldn't help but acknowledge how effective the strategy it employed was.

It attacked him when he wasn't expecting it, tried to quickly dispatch him, used its abilities when it started to struggle, and when it failed it escaped as quickly as it could. 

The eel, tiger, and Mind Wraiths had all stood their ground, and now all of them were dead because of it. The large critter, by comparison, fled at the first sign of trouble and now gets to live another day.

'If it survives for long. I cut the bastard pretty well, if I do say so myself. It'd be pretty nice to find its corpse in the forest one of these days.'

Standing back up, he flourished his sword with a twist of his wrist, rotating the blade around before flicking off the last few drops of blood. It was an instinctual action, one that just felt right to do. Roger then held his sheath with one hand and the sword with the other, smoothly guiding the tool into its resting place.

He patted it twice for good luck after, the gesture calming him after his hectic afternoon. For reasons unknown to himself, he had decided to do so instead of running his fingers through his hair, which was something he had done for a long time.

'Is this what the other inmates would call maturing? Patting a sword instead of your own head?'

He grinned at his own joke, faintly regretting Lila wasn't there to hear him say it.

Not that he would admit his thoughts to her. She was still far too mercurial for him to risk exposing his inner monologue, even if it would be nice to make someone else laugh for a change.

Roger walked over to where his axe had fallen and picked it up. Blood covered the once clean head, although he didn't really mind. 

'It was a good idea to use it in the fight. Limiting myself to only using a single weapon feels like it'd be foolish in the long wrong. I should try and get more practice in with dual-wielding.'

He slipped the handle into the loop on his belt before turning back to the wood he had recently chopped, resting his hands on his hips as he sighed.

'Back to it, Roger. We have to get this done before it gets dark.'

***

Hours later Roger was sitting by the light of the fire with a book in his hands.

It was the Introduction to Farming, Vol 1, that he had started a few days prior. He had decided it would be smart to finish reading it before he reached Beta and could properly cultivate his plants.

It also helped him ignore the newfound realization that killing the furry creature could have been the push necessary to unlock that new rank.

When he had first come to that conclusion, he had to stop himself from storming back off into the forest to hunt it down.

'Calm thoughts, calm thoughts. Bright sunny days, the smell of fresh air, waking up on rest days back in prison. There is no point in getting worked up about forlorn possibilities.'

It helped that Avar readily supplied two of those three things, with the third arguably being his new normal as he did not have to adhere to any authority on this world.

'Except that bloody System. I hope whoever invented it has to listen to that thing torment them.'

While he was enjoying his literature, Lila was working to fix themselves dinner.

She had been crowing all evening about how she had found some plants that tasted like some spice back home.

Roger had not had any decent food in the past few years, so he decided to take her word for it and not ask too many questions.

'Just how good can these plants be? They are just plants! If they were so special, the government would not gotten rid of so many.'

It was a view very different from his initial surprise when seeing grass, and it seemed to stem from growing used to all the greenery. When everything was filled with plant life, it didn't appear as important.

Turning the page, Roger spared a moment to look up at Lila, who was using a stick to flip a thin piece of meat cooking on a stone slab. 

Her golden blonde hair looked radiant through the flames, almost as if they were a part of the fire. It contrasted nicely with her blue eyes and pale skin.

His cheeks turned a light red as he looked away.

'Calm thoughts, remember?'

It grew difficult to focus on the words in front of him, causing Roger to close the book with an audible snap and rise to his feet.

He paused for a moment to place the tome down and grab the two swords by his feet, taking them from their sheaths and holding one in each hand, before walking to another part of the clearing.

It was just bright enough to make out his movements, but far enough from the fire that he didn't feel self-conscious about Lila watching.

He admonished himself for caring about something as trivial as her judgment, but couldn't make it go away, so he chose to compromise and appease both sides.

Roger moved through various stances, trying to find which one felt the most natural. He doubted any of them were very effective, but he at least wanted a decent foundation to operate off of until he decided to give the Sword Fighting for Dummies, Vol 1, a read.

'The last thing I want right now is more of the Systems posturing.'

He had only tested a few before Lila's voice echoed through the glade.

"Come and get it before it gets cold!"

Feeling famished after all the work he had gone through, Roger eagerly obliged, running back to the fire and dropping his swords in a heap.

Lila watched him with an eyebrow cocked but still handed over a flat piece of wood carrying a nicely cooked slice of meat.

"It's squirrel meat, so expect it to be a little tough."

Roger nodded his thanks with a wide smile.

'So I guess those critters are called squirrels. Good to finally have a name to put to them.'

He took the offered dish and sat down by the roaring inferno, idly noting Lila choosing to sit down not as far from him as she had done the nights before he had lost consciousness.

'I'm feeling more and more that something had to have happened while I was asleep.'

Despite his curiosities, he chose to leave them for later. It wasn't the time to interrogate her on her oddities.

He tried to pick up the slab of meat with his fingers but quickly dropped it with a hiss, waving his burned hand in the air.

"Gods almighty that's hot!"

Lila laughed at his accident, shaking her head and lifting her own makeshift plate.

"Of course it is, they just came off the fire! Give it a bit to cool, it gives me a chance to talk to you before you are too focused to listen."

Roger found it hard to hear her while his fingers hummed in agony, but gave it his best shot. He flashed a wavering smile as he turned to face her, his eye twitching from the forced effort.

If Lila noticed she did not indicate caring.

"I have decided you and I need a larger goal to work towards instead of just sitting here."

Roger nodded his head to agree with her, hoping her next words involved a way to cure the burns on his hand.

"You and I will need to rank up, fast."