It has been a couple of years since Kurt had last seen the black knight warrior lady.

When these two meet for the first time, he was but a small child that was still struggling on how to speak the language of this land.

It was her attempt at kidnapping him, as well as many other attempts at his life from mysterious assassins over the years, that led to Kurt's mother, the empress Sabiri, to teach him self-defense lessons and shelter him from the outside world.

Because of that, Kurt had developed quite the resentful feeling towards the strange knight. Not helped by the fact she almost sashed his mother's arm when the two of them fought.

But at the same time, he still wished to see her again, if only to find out the truth as to why she attacked him in the first place.

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After scaring him half-to death by suddenly appearing and shoving a giant sword in front of his face, the black knight grabbed the young dragon boy and dragged him far into the woods to make sure no one could disturb their reunion.

"Let me go!!!" Kurt shouted while struggling to fight free of her grasp, but the lady was wearing an armor made of a material much more powerful than he imagined.

"Stop crying..." she ordered.

Dorothy followed the two from above as the woman dashed through the bushes and trees at great speed while the sun continued to set.

'Kurt, I'm disappointed in you... You finally managed to get a girlfriend after god knows how long, and the first thing you do after she leaves is allow another lady to put your hands on you and drag you out in the middle of the night?' Dorothy commented while soaring through the sky and shaking her head, 'Shame on you...'

Kurt glared at her while several veins started to pulsated all over his face, [Are you mocking me??? Now!?? Of all things?? Quit wasting time and go call for help!!]

'I can't leave before finding out where you two are going...'

[Ugh...]

"Who are you talking to...?" the lady wondered while jumping over a large boulder.

"None of your business..."

"Well... Arent you a rude one..."

Kurt aimed his glare towards the lady, "Says the crazy psycho that orders her henchmen to kidnap a three-year-old..."

"Yeah... Good times..."

Kurt peeked from the corner of his eye and noticed that the two of them were approaching some sort of cave.

Him and the lady entered a tunnel while Dorothy lowered her flight height in order to keep following as well.

"Gotcha!!" the lady suddenly shouted as she turned around in the middle of a leap and launched her claymore at the entrance.

'What the!?'

Dorothy dodged out of the way in order to not get hit by the giant blade and observed as it collided with the walls of the tunnel and ended up making a series of rocks collapse, closing the entrance completely.

'Oh...' Dorothy mumbled, 'Oh... This is not good...'

The knight finally stopped running and began to walk back to retrieve her weapon.

"Cool! This way you won't be able to send miss birdy over here to call for help like last time!"

Kurt gazed in shock at how perfectly screwed they were, [Oh... She's good...]

"Why, thank you!" she mumbled while dropping the boy on the ground.

"Ouch!!" he cried as his back crashed into the rocky terrain, "Why... Do people... Like to hurt me... So muuuch!??"

The boy rushed to stand up and apply healing flames on himself and named his injuries before backing away into a corner.

The lady simply grabbed a large piece of rock and took it as her seat.

"You hungry?" she asked while revealing a sack with food that was being kept hidden behind one of the stones, "I have some water and meat in case you forgot to dinner..."

Kurt didn't move from his spot and simply kept glaring at her, "If you're trying to poison me, you're wasting our time..."

"If I wanted you dead, you would be dead..." she replied while putting the sack away, "I just want to talk..."

"Right..." he rolled his eyes, "Like I would trust you after what you did..."

"Funny you say that..." the lady laughed while picking up a few pieces of wood and starting a fire in order to light up the area, "I said the same thing when I met the emperor..."

"What? You meet my father??" Kurt gasped while jumping from his spot.

"Your father...? Ah... I see..."

"You..." Kurt started to shake his fist while intensifying his glare, "Wasn't enough to go after me and my mother, you even went after my father as well?? What do you want?? Who are you??"

The knight tilted her head while staring at him for a moment.

"What!?" he shouted.

"Nothing... I'm just... Trying to think of the best way to approach this..."

"The heck are you mumbling about?? Just tell us what you want!!"

"What I want..." she repeated, "What I want feels like such a far-off dream by this point... Kinda makes me wonder if I even still believe in it..."

Kurt exchanged looks with Dorothy, who just shrugged with a 'I have no idea...' face.

[Oh, we're in trouble... She's one of those...]

[You do know I can understand you even if you speak in your native language, right?] she commented.

[Wait, what? You speak my language!!?]

[Yeap!]

[H- How!??]

[What do you mean how? I'm a guest, like you.]

Kurt just stared at her in silence for a couple of seconds wondering if what she said was supposed to mean anything.

[You have no idea what a guest is, do you?] she assumed.

[Is someone that gets invited to parties?]

The knight leaned on her seat and began to rub her helmet, [Ah... F*******ck... I wasn't expecting this...]

Kurt looked behind him and wondered if he could get away by running deeper into the cave, but it was so dark that he could probably end up getting lost if he did so.

"Okay, kid... Just answer me a couple of things..." she asked, "You don't know what a guest is, do you?"

"I don't think so?"

"Do you know what a ruler is?"

"You mean that thing that people at school use to check how tall something is?"

"Oh, Lord..." she mumbled, "Do you know about the faction game? Like... At all??"

"I don't really have any friends so I never asked my mother to buy me any games... Why, is it fun?"

The armor went into silence as if her soul had left her body.

"Uuhh... Are you okay...?" Kurt asked while waving his hand.

"I'm fine... Just reacting to the high levels of obliviousness and wondering if I should lose all hope in humanity..."

"Riiight... Well... Good luck with that..." the boy commented while slowly walking towards the entrance and wondering if he could punch his wait out by breaking the rocks.

The lady moved her hand and stopped him before he could get too far though.

"Were not done yet..."

"Ugh..." the boy groaned while returning to his place, "Just say what you want to say..."

"Oh! I wish I could! Trust me, I have a lot that I want to say right now..." she commented while standing up and beginning to circle the place with slow steps and keeping her hands behind her back.

"Seriously, why can't you just get this over with and let me go?"

"Let you go? Why? So you can return to a world of lies and fake relationships?"

"What do you mean?"

She turned her head and stared at the boy, "You are being lied to."

"What...? By who??"

"Probably everyone."

"Oh, please..."

"I'm serious! You're, what, fifteen?"

"I will be in next year... I turn fourteen in two months."

"And yet you still don't know about the game, about the rules, or about the true meaning of this owl on your shoulder! How in the world have you been raised??"

Kurt gazed at Dorothy for a second and wondered what the lady meant by that.

"Did you never ask any questions about how this world works? Its history? Its connection with the other empires? Or why a person from another world just happened to end up in here? You're a kid!! Kids should question everything all the time!!"

The boy flinched for a moment upon hearing her say she knew he was from another world.

"Okay, seriously... Who the hell are you??"

"I am a guest in this world! Just like you! And that sword on the ground of the size of a fridge is my ruler, just like your owl."

There was that word again. Guest. The same word Trevor used to describe him when he visited his house.

"What... Is... A guest, exactly??"

"We are!" she claimed while pointing at him and her, "Guests are people brought into this world by rulers so they can help out in the faction game! They are the trump cards of every faction!"

Dorothy began to tremble on his shoulder for some reason, making Kurt become even more curious. If his owl was reacting like that, it meant this lady was speaking the truth.

And if she was telling the truth...

That meant someone else was trying to fool him.

The question now was... Who?

"Could you please start from the beginning?" he asked, "What exactly is this faction game?"

The knight went quiet for a moment and noticed the expression of resolve on his face. He was finally ready to listen.

"It's a competition to decide the fate of those who will live and those who will die among the many empires of this world..."

"What...?"

"And you, my boy... You might be the key to deciding the outcome of this game!"