Resolve

That night, I tried my best not to fall asleep in fear of waking up from a nightmare again. Unfortunately, my fatigue gave in, and at one point or another, I drifted off the sleep. Luckily, this time I just woke up early without suffering another nightmare, only feeling tired.

I decided to immediately make my way back towards the main village to begin my climb to where Sam lived on the cliff. I took the same sanded path that led from the beach into the island.

This time, I didn't climb any of the ladders leading up towards the tree city. instead, I walked further into the forest towards the mountain side.

It was a rough terrain with sticks, logs, tall grass, and boulders, but I eventually reached the side of the mountain.

I looked up and saw the underside of the cliff with Sam's shack on its surface.

It looked to be about a hundred feet in the air. It could have been more or less. What matters is that it looks incredibly dangerous to climb.

Fortunately, the mountains structure forms up diagonally. So it has a lot of small and large protruding rock leading all the way up its side.

The problem is if I attempt to climb it, I could fall victim to a loose rock, an unstable rock, a slippery rock, or I could just run out of mountain to hold onto while climbing and get stuck.

'This is ridiculous,' I thought to myself.

'Any normal person would just turn back after seeing how high up a climb it is.

Unfortunately, though, I don't have that luxury.'

I thought back to the dragons and my world. How they mercilessly slaughtered everyone, including my family.

'I didn't die and come back just to stop here, I will become stronger, and that path will gradually become more dangerous than climbing a mountain.'

'These are my first steps.'

I assured myself and my resolve as I took out two of my strongest bone daggers and strapped them to my forearm.

'These will help me if become stuck or suddenly lose balance. Or at least I hope they will, sturdy bone against rock... let's just focus on not slipping.'

I walked along the bottom of the mountain, feeling the sides for a good place to start. After finding it, I looked up and aligned it with the corners of the cliff.

"Alright, let's go."

First, I grabbed onto two protruding rocks with my arms outstretched above my head. I pulled myself up like I was doing a pull-up and then pulled myself over the two rocks.

I placed my feet on them and then repeated this process of looking for the sturdiest and tallest rocks above me and pulling myself up onto them.

"Ten feet"

"Twenty feet"

"Thirty feet," Too late to turn back now.

"Forty feet."

"Fifty fee- 𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘭𝘦

One of the stones I grabbed above my head became loose, mini rocks cracked and fell on top of my head. It didn't hurt. It felt like if someone dumped a little bit of sand on your head.

I tugged on the rock until it became undone and quickly threw it off.

I grabbed one of my daggers, and in the place where the rock came undone, I stabbed with all my strength.

Nothing.

I kept trying but still got no results. I looked down, It was already too late to turn back, I don't even remember the rocks I used, and I would run the risk of slipping even more if I were to climb down.

I took a deep sigh and began studying the spot where I took out the rock.

"There!"

In the spot was a miniature hole that looked like it ran deeper into the mountain.

I put the tip of the dagger into the hole and stabbed further, carefully and slowly, until the dagger had a firm enough position enough for me to use it to very quickly pull myself up.

From there, each motion I made I made slowly and carefully. Due to that, it took what felt like two hours to climb up towards the cliff, but it was rewarding because I did not die.

I hauled myself over the cliff. Standing up, I looked around, a small wooden shack and towards the right, behind it, a cave.

**𝑺𝒂𝒎**

𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬!

I woke up to the door of my wooden shack being knocked on.

"Who is it?!"

Wait-who the hell. Nobody should be able to get up here. The Gilya don't practice magic? Maybe it's just the wind then..

Before dismissing it as a coincidence and deciding to go back to sleep, a voice shouted back.

"It's Cain! Remember what you told me to do yesterday!?"

I sat up immediately remembering the strange kid from yesterday that kept bothering me.

There's just no way. No way a little kid can make that climb! It's not possible!

Instead of sitting in my own thoughts and doubting, I decided to get up and open the door.

Looking down there, he was. A little boy with black hair, orange eyes, and wearing stripped beast skin for clothing. He was sweating and out of breath.

"You actually climbed the side of that mountain?" I asked, looking down at him confused.

The kid looked up at me with a disrupted look on his face.

"Would I be here if I didn't!?"

"No... I guess you must have really done it then." I responded.

Without asking, he pushed me aside and walked inside. He looked around before walking up to where my sword was resting near the side of my bed.

He grabbed it, and while walking back towards me and out of the shack, he said

"You remember your promise, don't you?"

**𝑪𝒂𝒊𝒏**

"Yes.. I remember, " Sam said with a confused look on his face. He was wearing a white linen shirt and light brown trousers.

He sighed as he shook his head.

"Follow me, and grab the other sword."

He said as he walked towards the cave.

I did as he said and followed him in. As we entered the cave, nothing appeared to be out of the ordinary. We kept walking until I saw glowing stones in the dark that lit up the cave blue, and they formed a path that went deeper into the cave.

We followed the path down, which led us into a borehole that was colorlessly lit up by a massive rock lying against the rock wall.

"What is that?" I asked, pointing towards the massive glowing rock.

"That is a scale that belonged to an Onyx Dragon."

He said as he took one of the two swords from my hand.

"An Onyx Dragon? Are those the black ones?"

"Yes, the strongest of all the dragon clans." He responded.

I thought for a second before asking,

"What about the white ones?"

Sam turned to look at me with a half surprised, half confused look on his face.

"How do you even know about the Lumindra? You're only a child."

"Some old drunk was babbling about it in the village one night."

I said, averting his thoughts away from suspicion.

Although I don't exactly know what he could suspect, unless this world had something like reincarnation happening regularly.

"Okay, I want you to show me how you think you should hold the sword." He said, pointing the tip of his sword at mine.

I grabbed the grip of the sword with both hands and fondled around with it until I settled on what I felt was the right way to hold it.

"That's actually not bad, except you should put your thumb on the hilt and move that hand up a bit more." He said while showing me how he was holding it.

"Hold it up, firm, and try striking at me in whatever way you think is correct."

I pivoted with my left foot as I strided forward to strike at him. At first, while I was holding it, it felt like I could do anything, but moving and swinging heavy steel with the body of a six year old was another story.

𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨!

I let the sword swing down on his. But since it was so heavy, it took me longer to retract.

𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨! 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨! 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨!

I heaved the sword using all the power my little muscles could produce.

Sam had an unchanging look. He parried each of my strikes with ease as he gripped his sword with one hand.

I swung to the left as my sword hit the side of his blade. But it was unchanging. My swing had no effect. Each of my swings didn't make his sword sway at all.

Then Sam quickly and effortlessly retracted his sword by twisting it with his wrist and then began swinging down heavy strikes relentlessly as I helplessly tried to parry.

𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒈!

𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒈!

𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒈!

I could feel the weight of each of his swings as it reverberated through my arms. His expression remained unchanging as he effortlessly pushed me back until I was against the rock wall.

Attempting to use every ounce of strength I could produce to at least get one powerful swing in, I pushed myself off the wall, and using the weight of my body I swung to the side while falling.

𝑪𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒉!

Our swords collided one last time as I fell on my side to the ground.

"That last swing was surprisingly a smart move. It was able to sway my sword a little bit. An improvement considering your previous strikes but your form is still that of a complete novice and you lack raw strength." He added.

I stood up as I was huffing for air. I was about to say something, but he continued.

"I have never met a child like you, where I come from families sometimes wish to produce militant children at an early age. However, almost all of them fall short in the beginning while first learning the sword. But you.. It seems like you have an innate talent for sword fighting, even if to you it appears bad, compared to most six year olds this is not normal. I should tell you how to maintain a balance or teach you any footwork. The only true problem however is your lack of strength, but that's excusable since you're only a child.

"I honestly wasn't planning on actually teaching you, I was going to give you a beating then tell you to leave. But even as I was pushing you back, you didn't let the weight of my swings knock your sword out of your hand. Hmph, it would be interesting to see how far you can go if I started teaching you at this young age."

"So then you will be my teacher?!" Excitement grew in me as I blurted out.

He looked at me and scoffed,

"Yeah, yeah, but becoming your teacher means I am also to become your master. I will have to teach you things other than just sword fighting."

"Like what?" I asked, confused.

He thought for a second before responding.

"The Gilya tribe that inhabit these islands have a fairly outdated and lack of current knowledge of the world. You wouldn't know since this is all you've known since birth, but the world is much, much bigger and filled with concepts that you have yet to understand."

"That's fair," I quickly added.

He looked at me with an amused look,

"However, before I become your master, tell me Cain, why do you want to learn the sword?"

I gave him an unchanging and stern look.

"To kill dragons."

He looked at me with a surprised expression and then began laughing.

"Well, you and I might have a bit more in common than I'd initially thought."

"What do you mean?"

"I also fight and kill dragons, I am from the other continent, the Sothen Kingdom."

"Oh, I was told that the Aesion continent was at peace with dragons, so that means you are from that other continent that was always at war with them."

He laughed before adding,

"The Aesion continent, huh? You don't even know the names of the three kingdoms? Well, that's to be expected. I have a lot to teach you."

Confused, I asked,

"Wait, then what are you doing on this island?"

"That's a long story, and besides, it's none of your business."

He said as he leaned down to grab my sword and toss it over to me.

"Again."