I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my body. I had felt something like this before, actually many times before. It was a feeling quite familiar to me.

All of my concentration was focused on the aggressor's movements.

Suddenly, I noticed that he was lowering his staff towards me, instinctively, I moved my head to the side. The front of his staff flashed white before crystal formed and was shot out from his staff piercing the trees behind me.

"Ah!"

The girl screamed as several trees collapsed after being smashed by the crystal.

That was close.

The entire area suddenly was encapsulated in a greenish tint, like some sort of radar. Without a moment of hesitation he pointed his staff again at me, this time, it flashed red. The crystal forming at the tip of his staff was much larger with an explosive aura around it.

There was no dodging this one.

I was dead unless I could somehow block this.

There was a defensive technique written in the book that I read before.

No time to think.

"Third form, Vengeful tide!"

I managed to cut off the start of the chant out of pure desperation.

I desperately swung my sword, forming a deep blue tidal wave, extruded from the blade. It formed a wall in from of me like a blanket. The red crystal crashed into the wave of water splashing it all over me. I could taste the saltiness of the water in my mouth.

It was enough to dull the attack but the shockwave still sent me flying backwards into some trees behind me. As the dust and water subsided, I noticed that the attacker was also on the ground. The remaining water froze into little shards of ice and fell to the ground.

Crap, my arm felt incredibly heavy, I wasn't going to be able to hold the sword any longer. My entire body felt numb.

The attacker had already got back up and raised his staff.

"Why are you attacking this girl?" I still had no idea of the attacker's intentions. He showed no signs of wanting to answer my question.

I needed to do something, and fast, if I wanted to live.

He seemed to be keeping his distance from me. I decided that he might struggle if I managed to close the distance on him.

I was bound to get shot if I charged at him, however.

I guess I have no other choice though.

Pushing through the weakness in my legs from all the sword use, I stood up, picking up the sword with my left hand.

There was no way for me to unleash another technique at this point, any more and my entire body might've been destroyed by the aftereffects.

I charged directly at him, kicking up dust and mud as I tried to decipher his movement.

Why did this feel so familiar?

Watching the movement of his elbows, I managed to figure out when he was going to attack. The moment before he unleashed his crystal, I dived to the side, rolling in the dirt. The bright red crystal crashed into the trees behind me, exploding and bringing down several trees, leaving the smell of burning leaves to cover the area.

The little girl covered her head and crouched down into a little ball as she tried to protect herself from the trees that collapsed around her.

The recoil of the attack seemed to be pretty significant as he was struggling to regain his grip on the staff and point it at me.

I tried to pull myself up off the ground but my entire body felt heavy and immovable. Just trying to stand up was a huge pain and I almost stumbled over.

With all my strength I heaved myself towards his and swung my sword with my left arm. My feet struggled to dig into the loose dirt. He blocked his face with his arms. The sword sliced through his sleeves, drawing a little blood from his arms.

This sword is so blunt...

He swung his staff at me to try to make some distance. I had already guessed he'd do something like this so I quickly ducked, avoiding his swing.

Crap, my legs felt so heavy that I could hardly stand back up.

Suddenly I felt a small shock of pain upon my back.

He had launched a crystal as his staff passed above my head which exploded just behind me.

Ow...

With the last bit of energy I had, I planted the sword into the ground and lifted myself up forcing my head against his nose. With everything I had left I smashed his nose with a headbutt before both of us fell to the ground. Blood flowed out of his nose in a steady stream and it seemed that he had lost consciousness. The contact was pretty intense, even my head ached after that.

Ugh... I felt like I had lost all energy in my entire body, my heart was still beating, I was just barely still breathing, but every other part of my body was completely still. I couldn't move anything, it was like I was being pushed down by a bear.

I was going through all this just because of some useless goddess...

I was just lying on the ground, unable to move. The attacker's lifeless body was also just lying there, close enough to me that I felt uncomfortable.

After a little while, the little girl carefully walked up to me, avoiding the shards of ice, branches and other debris on the ground.

"Hey... are you okay?"

Not really... but there was no point in telling her that.

"I guess so."

"That's good."

The little girl just stood there for a little while. I eventually gathered enough energy to roll myself onto my back so I could at least face her, resting my head on a slightly elevated patch of dirt. The pain began returning to me now that the adrenaline had worn off.

I decided to ask her a few questions since she was from this world.

"So who are you?"

"I'm Celestia Regas... thank you for saving me."

I guess she had already forgotten the part where I tried to run away.

"Uh, nice to meet you, I'm Ritsu Takamiya."

"That's an odd name."

That's what I should be saying. I guess everyone here was named like that.

"Anyways, do you know of a princess named Lucia by any chance?"

"Lucia? You mean Lucia Ourania?"

"I suppose so?"

The useless goddess didn't tell me her last name so I wouldn't know.

"She's the heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Gavaria."

I was finally getting somewhere.

"Do you know how I can get there?"

"You don't know? We are basically at the border between this kingdom and Gavaria."

Hmm, so it wasn't that far away, at least.

I pulled myself up into a seated position, my entire body still ached with every movement, but at least I could move. I didn't want to bombard her with too many questions about this world, she looked like a pretty naive young child anyways.

"Well, do you know why that person was chasing you?"

"I'm not sure, but my father has been targeted by lots of bad people his entire life."

"Hm."

I didn't really have anything to say to that.

I sat there for a little longer, enjoying the little bit of peace after that rapid development of conflict and fighting. My body was still extremely fatigued and feeling in my right arm hadn't returned since I used the technique.

"Ritsu."

"Yeah?"

"You seem to be new here, where are you from?"

That was a pretty difficult question to answer at that time.

"I guess, I'm from a faraway place."

"That's cool!"

What an innocent little child.

She took a seat next to me, patting the dirt off of her dress and shoulders.

"So what do you like to do in your free time?" She asked me.

What I liked to do... I couldn't really remember. Some time in my old world I think I liked to play sports or something.

"I think I liked playing sports..."

"Sports? Which one?"

Uhhh, I couldn't seem to remember no matter how hard I tried... Which sport was it that I liked again?

"My favourite sports are horse riding and stoolball."

What was stoolball...? I guess the sports they had here were not the same as in my old world.

For some reason, whenever I tried to remember things from my old world, my old life, I could never remember the details. It was like a section of me that I had lost since being sent to this new world.

I was beginning to get tired. I probably should've gone to find the princess as soon as possible, but in this condition, I wasn't going to get anything done. My eyes were tired. I leaned back onto my back and slowly closed my eyes.

"Hey, Ritsu, why are you sleeping here?"

"I'm a bit sore so I just wanted to get some rest."

Some rays of light shined near my face from the opening in the trees created by all the fighting. Gradually, I drifted off to sleep.