If the door was destroyed, then there would be no second chance to return. 

Those words rang in my head, drowning out all the buzzing creatures in the forest. I didn’t have any time to question that voice, or whether anyone else had heard it. That ‘system announcement’... I couldn’t believe it. My mind was already giving out and I hadn’t even spent an hour in this strange place, so I thought.  Convincing myself that there was no clear answer my lip tightened. 

The sun pierced through the clouds and brightened the trees. The man and woman brought me along with them, walking through a clear dirt path. A natural ambiance filled my ears while the fresh sunrays stung my skin. Perspiring sweat dripped down my neck, and I gulped down my saliva. My hands jittered not in excitement. If what that voice said was true, then I needed to go back to that door. I shouldn’t be following these two people whom I never knew, even though they saved me. However, I hesitated to speak. 

After all, the man and woman, were speaking a different language.

I couldn’t understand anything of what they were talking about in front of me, as a trailed behind them slowly. They were the ones that extended a hand to me and brought me along, but I didn’t know what to do. Paranoid thoughts intruded my mind. What if they were going to sacrifice me? What were they going to do to me? At that point, I tightened my lip again and convinced myself everything would be okay. Just like my father would tell me. 

The man, or I should call him ‘Otoko’ for now, carried his slung around his back. He wore clothes akin to tribesmen, a red headband wrapped around his silver hair and a red scarf covering his upper torso. The woman, now I called ‘Onna’, seemed to argue with Otoko about something. Otoko’s face remained deadpan and continued walking. If only I could understand what they were saying… Where were my subtitles? 

Onna turned her head and we locked eyes. Her yellowish eyes transformed into a glare and I quickly glanced down. With only one expression I knew she didn’t take a liking to me. Maybe that they were discussing. She could kill me with her bow any second. 

Hesitation upon hesitation, my legs couldn’t bring me forward any more than a couple of strides. That voice told me, no, commanded me to guard the door. If that door was destroyed, then I wouldn’t be able to return back to the original world. My feet came to a stop, digging themselves into the ground. Otoko and Onna hadn't noticed how far behind I’d left them. This was my chance to turn back. And just like that, I ran. 

For some reason, I could feel where the location of that door was. Maybe it was instinct, or that voice simply guided me to it. I kept myself moving until a thought brought me to a stop. That ‘system announcement’, it couldn’t be what I was thinking about, right? I decided to try it out.

I took a deep breath, staring at my hands. “Properties.”

A few seconds later nothing happened. No profile, nothing. I looked around, checking for some sort of sheet to pop up in my peripheral or in front of me. I focused again and closed my eyes, calmly listening to the loud rustling of the bushes and plants around me. 

“Status.”

I hoped that some sort of stat sheet of myself would appear before me. If it really was what I predicted, then I could defend myself from those sankakujuu that possibly roamed the area. I wished for some power, some sort of specialty that I had been given when I entered this parallel world. Perhaps this was it. Maybe I would receive overwhelming amounts of magic or a broken ability from those light novels I used to read. My eyes gleefully opened with visible enthusiasm, more than I had ever been for the past few years. 

There was nothing. What was I expecting? Sighing, my feet resumed my run back to the door. 

“Abneh ya!” 

My body ended up kissing the rugged ground. A piercing ring echoed through my ears, as the sun blinded me. When my vision began to coöperate I recognized who tackled me to the ground. Onna dug her fist into my back as she glanced all around her and reached for her bow with her other hand. Otoko followed soon after, taking out his axe again. My head turned to the side. A couple of centimeters away from me was a spear stuck in the dirt. Onna had saved me from another attack again. 

“Zuhyo.” Onna took her hand off me and plucked two arrows from her quiver. A screen appeared before her, almost hologram-like as lists of sections and subsections arrayed in organized rows listed down before her. She lightly pressed items on the screen before loading one of her arrows. “Mierzo.”

Onna fired one arrow and another in quick succession. They flew into the trees, flying into the bark. I almost questioned why until a scream of pain reverberated. Two human silhouettes came stumbling from the sides as if their camouflage had been taken out. Their form fluctuated in and out, once being indistinguishable from the environment. After mere seconds the camouflage wore off. Two men in ragged armor. They both had arrows in their shoulder and chest respectively while they limped towards the path. 

The rest of the ambush surrounded us. Armed with spears and swords the vagrants grunted with a savage look. Onna and Otoko opposed them. I could only stare in awe at the events unfolding before me. A battle. 

Otoko swung his axe forward and planted it onto the ground. “Zuhyo.” 

Another array of tables appeared before him like Onna’s, his fingers sliding across the screen smooth with confidence. His red scarf played with the dangerous wind, standing back up weapon in hand. A green aura surrounded him as he dug one foot backward and the other forward. The vagrants exchanged a few words with Otoko. I couldn’t understand his response except that the men lunged at him. 

Otoko swung his axe with a mighty force. The breeze picked up around him as cool air radiated from the swing. One of the spearmen stepped back and Otoko walked into the opening. He slashed toward a torso and sent one flying. His feet rumbled on the ground where Otoko switched into a great stance. He blocked two swords coming at him as their metal bashed against his. The men shoved Otoko and he retreated. Sunlight caught the glint of two arrows as it impacted one head and the other in the back. I lifted my head to see Onna plucking her bow above as she held me on the floor. 

“Zuhyo…” I mimicked the sounds Onna and Otoko made that summoned a screen. But nothing happened. I guessed that I really wasn’t meant for this. I wanted to go back to the original world. 

I placed my hands on the jagged rocks below me. There was a higher chance of being killed down here than standing. My fight was their fight. They’d protected me from the sankakujuu, and I was in their debt. I couldn’t let myself be the burden. I grasped the spear next to me with a shaking hand. Fear honestly pinned me down, trying to convince myself otherwise. I’d been a burden my entire life with my mother. I’d let my older brother down with what I’d been doing with my life. My left hand pushed off the floor. 

Onna got off me fairly quick. I wheezed and reeled from her fist that dug into my back from before. My right hand gripped the spear that’d nearly killed me. Truth be told, I couldn’t deny how scared I was. Or how I felt when a man suddenly came my way. My arms extended outwards as my eyes shut almost instinctively. An unpleasant sound entered my ears. Before I knew it a human was stuck on the other side of the spear I held. My lungs gasped for breath.  

My precognition of what it would be like to be in a fight was shattered. I only watched as the spear’s splinters pierced through my hand’s skin. I didn’t even want to look at the man at the end of the pole. The pole slightly jerked in many directions. Fear came back to freeze me in place as I held him impaled. Soon enough the man freed himself from the edge. Otoko finished him off with the end of his axe. My eyes stayed glued to the ground. Whatever I could, I avoided that gushing red that flowed like a river on the floor. 

I no longer heard the sound of fighting. Panting alone drowned out the sounds I didn’t want to hear. I couldn’t believe it. 

The fight ended in a blink of an eye. Everything that had happened, from me being tackled to the ground to the end, only passed one minute. I stood there in shock, my right hand still holding the spear I had used to stab someone. Never again. Never again did I want to do something like this. But to my surprise, almost nobody died. Otoko simply tied the rest of the bandits up before shooing them off. I couldn’t think of a reason why the vagrants stopped fighting and gave up after being clearly beaten. 

“Oi, syin’nin. Daighob?”

I shifted my glance upwards to see Otoko and Onna standing before me. Otoko’s face reeked of worry while Onna carried a scowl. Quite the opposites. I bowed before them forty-five degrees. 

“Thank you for saving me… twice.”

Their expressions soon gave me a confused look. As if they’d never heard me speak before. Well, I’d never spoken once since meeting them. Otoko faced Onna and said some words, and she replied placing her hand on her hip. She then turned her back towards him and crossed her arms. Otoko sighed and turned back to me again. I cursed his good looks… so I thought until I noticed him extending his arm out towards me and returned a bow. 

He spoke again, gesturing with his hands. It was then when I put it together that Otoko was pointing in the direction I was heading; The way towards the door. Testing out my conclusion, I began walking. Sure enough, Otoko and Onna followed after me. 

Two complete strangers had decided to head with me back to the door. Let alone strangers with a language barrier, and no understanding of where I came from.