"Sh*t! Damn sh*t!"

Frederic quietly cursed while enduring the thumping pain in his shoulder.

After their initial encounter, Frederic had chosen to run aw-, retreat. But he soon realized that Januar was pursuing him while hopping from tree to tree.

So, now he couldn't just run aw-, retreat, he needed to make the other would lose sight of him as well, which was easier said than done.

Running around while swerving left and right, jumping through bushes and avoiding the occasional low-hanging branch, Fred finally reached his goal, the deep river that separated the rainforest in half.

He dived right in after a short look around. Elise had returned to her card pretty much from the start of the chase.

The water was cool and muddy as it flowed around Fred, occasional stray leaves stroked his face, leaving him with goosebumps.

Only after minutes of holding his breath underwater and clinging to a secure stone in the dark depths of the river, did Fred emerge and quietly gasp for air. He quickly swam over to a small hidden cave (if you could even call it that) which he had spotted right before he jumped into the water.

Frederic threw the halberd into the cave. But when he tried to support his weight with his left arm, he almost cried out from the sudden stabbing pain, still, only a grunt escaped his tightly closed lips. He grit his teeth and decided to power through the pain while lifting himself out of the water.

After crawling a few meters, Frederic slumped against the walls of the cave.

His face was pale and water (or sweat, he wasn't so sure himself) dripped from the tip of his nose.

With closed eyes, Frederic took out a card from his card pouch and summoned Elise.

While panting slightly he told her: "Watch the entrance."

Elise whined when she saw Fred's condition, but only rubbed his leg in comfort before obediently taking up her watch duty.

After catching his breath, Frederic took out the herbs with bleeding-stopping properties.

He hesitated for but a moment, but ultimately grabbed the arrow, slowly extracting it from his body.

The way he sucked in air through his gritted teeth sounded laborious and strained.

Elise couldn't help quietly whimpering on his behalf while folding back her ears.

Immediately after the tip of the arrow finally left his flesh, he threw the arrow aside.

Leaning his hot cheek against the cool wall behind him, he felt as if he had just completed three of their usual training sets in succession.

He cursed the realism of this space in recreating pain in his mind.

But there was no time to spare.

Frederic crushed a quarter of the herbs with his teeth and put the pulp on his mangled wound, finally bandaging the whole thing as good as he could with the remaining herbs.

He also took out one leaf of the antitoxin herbs and slowly chewed it, the bitter flavor slowly coating his mouth.

Sh*t!

It was the first time Frederic had been injured to this extent, having never even broken a bone before.

And it hurt so f*cking much.

This was extremely embarrassing, how could he be so careless!

He knew from the beginning that his opponent had already completed 3 'Realms', but he still lost himself in his sense of superiority and made light of the other.

His current predicament was entirely on him, if he had taken this duel seriously from the start, he wouldn't have been injured so badly at their very first confrontation.

The shield he had chosen also disappeared sometime in his escape earlier, which meant he couldn't even use it to deflect the other's attacks when he wanted to close in.

Frederic cursed once more.

Even the initiative had been taken from him. Now he was desperate to injure the other, else he would be the one to lose by default after the time ran out.

At this moment, Elise gently nudged Frederic with a sharp glint in her eyes.

Now he could hear it as well, leisurely steps not too far away from their hiding spot, but it didn't sound like the other had already detected them.

***

"Are you sure Frederic is here?", Januar complained with slight annoyance in his voice

No matter how carefully he observed his surroundings, he didn't find any traces of his opponent.

Constantine walked in front, leading the way.

Unfortunately, Januar had to descend from the safety of the trees and search by foot, because the river and riverbank were too broad for any branches to effectively reach across.

"Frederic should be around here somewhere. He wouldn't use the river current to get away, it's far too risky in his mind."

The card summon turned his head to smile at Januar brightly.

"Both of you were taught how to follow river currents and also how to use them to your biggest advantage. Frederic is probably trying to use the habits developed in school to buy himself some time..."

Constantine looked around for a moment, before noticing something.

"See, this really is the right spot. His shield is lying just over there."

Januar walked to the bushes Constantine pointed to and picked up the shield. He swung it a bit to get a feel for it.

Wouldn't this be perfect in case Frederic forced him into close combat?

With it, he at least had the hope of pulling some distance between the both of them before being impaled or slashed to death.

"But I don't get it, why would you pursue him, when you could simply win by hiding long enough. You could also make this duel into a Tower Defense game."

"Tower Defense game?"

Januar knew these words individually but didn't understand what they meant together.

"In this situation, it means choosing a tree you fancy and preventing Frederic from reaching you until the end of this duel. That's a Tower Defense game, it's a pre-apocalyptic game concept."

Januar felt incredulous hearing this explanation from Constantine but didn't show it on his face.

Still, he had to admit, it sounded kind of interesting. He really wanted to try something like that once. Most things that would be considered 'games' now were mostly realistic simulations, similar to what he and Frederic were doing at the moment or the car racing simulation he enjoyed in his childhood. Apparently, they were originally created for training, it was only by coincidence that they made it into almost every household.

"I don't want to be bullied for being a coward or two-faced, or whatever else they'll come up with. It's already bad enough that I was forced into this duel."

Januar finally answered Constantine's question.

The card summon raised his eyebrow slightly but didn't respond.

He didn't really care about what strangers thought of him. Let them curse all they want, they were no match for him anyway.

Well, there was one exception to this rule.

The feeling of being disliked and hated felt worse than he had expected, a wry smile appeared on Constantine's lips, but there was no one to notice it.

Januar and Constantine continued their search of the riverbank.

Not really worried about being backstabbed as there were still two pairs of backup eyes looking out silently.

Januar gradually came to a halt.

"Maybe he is hiding on the other side?"

Just as Constantine wanted to reply that the probability of that was even lower than him having swum down the river after all, as they would have already found traces of him if that were the case, Cast and Kay cried out almost in sync, trying to alert Januar.

Because of this Januar was barely able to deflect a stab attack aimed at his abdomen with his newly acquired shield, but there was no way for him to dodge the lunging maw that followed close behind.