8 A Lesson

Everyone quickly backed away to give Xavier and Shade some space. The two stood a few feet away from one another with their weapons in hand. The duel was about to begin.

"This duel is a 1 versus 1 between Xavier and Shade," began Anwir. "To win, one player must either place their opponent into submission or reduce their health bar to the yellow zone. Please note that killing your opponent is absolutely forbidden! You may begin!"

Immediately, Shade charged in towards Xavier. Since Xavier was utilizing an axe, this meant he wouldn't be very swift. Instead, he would aim for powerful blows.

Shade dashed towards him with an upward swing from his sword. However, Xavier managed to block the attack with the haft of his axe. Nevertheless, Shade was not done.

With a skillful twirl, Shade landed a powerful spinning kick into Xavier's stomach. This forced Xavier to stagger backward but he was quite resilient. Refusing to flinch from the attack, Xavier came down with a powerful swing of his axe, smashing it into the ground.

Dirt and debris quickly shrouded the area before Shade. Xavier was using the debris as a type of smokescreen to buy himself some time to recover. Fortunately for him, it worked as Shade stalled for a short moment to properly analyze the situation.

Taking advantage of this, Xavier swung his axe violently through the debris at Shade. Shade's eyes widened with astonishment as this had caught him by surprise.

Shade, however, managed to get his sword before him just in time in hopes of blocking the attack. Sadly, it would not be so easy.

The reality of the situation was that Xavier had much better equipment than Shade. Due to this, Xavier's iron axe easily shattered Shade's bronze sword with a single blow.

On top of this, the attack had held so much power that it had sent Shade airborne for a few seconds, knocking him a few feet backwards. Thankfully, Shade managed to regain control of his body and landed safely on his feet.

"Tsk!" Hissed Shade at his broken sword. Even his health bar had been reduced by a small amount.

"Give up. Your weapon has been destroyed. You now have no chance of winning this!" Warned Xavier.

Shade didn't respond. Instead, he dived in towards Xavier once more. However, to everyone's surprise, Shade threw the remaining half of his sword dangerously towards Xavier.

This forced Xavier to block the sword to prevent himself from taking any damage. Little did he know that this was what Shade was aiming for. Since Xavier was forced to utilize his axe to block the attack, it would take a few more seconds before he could regain control of his swing to counter. He was right where Shade wanted him to be.

Not even a second had properly passed before Shade was directly in front of Xavier. Due to this, Xavier was unable to swing his axe properly.

Shade then launched his palm under the chin of Xavier causing him to flinch. Taking advantage of this, he then grabbed Xavier's arm before slamming his knee into his elbow.

Xavier groaned as the pain forced him to release his axe. He could hardly believe how skillful Shade was.

Finally, Shade quickly picked back up the other broken half of his sword and braced it against Xavier's throat, putting him into submission.

"That's it... You lose," proclaimed Shade victoriously.

"Urgh... Yes, I lost..." Admitted Xavier.

The others then quickly ran to their side to ensure they wouldn't take the fight any further. Following this, Anwir turned towards Shade with a slightly disappointing look in his eyes.

"So, since you won, that means you won't be joining us then. That's quite a letdown..." Muttered Anwir.

"Trust is much more important to me than simply finding a good team, Anwir. A team of good players can easily kill you when they decide that they have no more use for you. However, a team of people you can genuinely trust will never betray you."

"I see... Well then, since we lost, we'll hurry and take our leave then. But please keep in mind the conditions that came with this duel. You must join our team if we request it at a stage."

Anwir and his team then turned themselves around and disappeared into the thickness of the forest.

Tristan and Arora then quickly ran towards Shade's side. They were filled with relief, happy that they could keep Shade by their side.

"Man, what a day! I can't believe we all made it through that..!" Celebrated Tristan.

"Your proposal helped us out. Things would have ended a lot differently if it weren't for you," replied Shade.

"Hehe! I guess you're right! I really have something to ask you though, dude! Where the hell did you learn to fight like that?! The game doesn't assist you in fighting with skill so it's literally insane that you're able to fight that well on your own!"

Shade then took a short moment of silence before responding. Tristan's question had brought up one of his most painful memories.

"I was trained by a man called, Sung."

"Sung? That's so cool! Is he like your master or something?"

"He was. He died four years ago."

Tristan immediately stopped asking questions. Shade usually showed little to no emotion whenever he spoke. However, the topic at hand had surprisingly revealed a glint of pain and regret in his eyes. Due to this, Tristan hardly knew what to say.

"Oh... I'm sorry to hear..."

"It's fine. I don't need the sympathy."

Just then, Arora grabbed onto Shade's hand timidly. She was trembling as if she was suffering from an anxiety attack.

"Sh.. ade..." She began. "I-I know you didn't trust them but... wouldn't it be better for you if you had joined Tristan's team?"

"Maybe."

"Then why-"

"Because I have a bad feeling about them. Something about their team is off. Especially their team leader, Anwir. I always follow my gut in cases like these and my gut told me not to join them."

Arora almost wanted to cry. She was happy that Shade had managed to stay with them but she felt utterly useless. All she had done was kill a weakened monster which in turn had almost got everyone on her team killed. When the Wandering Fang field boss had attacked, all she could do was run away. She wanted to do more but she kept allowing herself to become petrified by fear.

"I don't get it... How can you be so fearless..? Since the game started, you have never shown a single hint of fear... You're so brave even in the most dangerous situations! On the other hand, I'm such a coward... I have so much fear in me and I don't know what I'm supposed to do! I'm so pathetic..!"

Shade then took a moment to analyze Arora's face. She looked lost and extremely displeased with herself. However, this was a face Shade had seen before. He had once seen this face on himself long ago.

"Arora," he began. "...you're wrong. Not one person exists in this world that doesn't have fear inside of them. Every living being is afraid of something one way or another. And that goes for me too."

"That has to be a lie..! If you're afraid then how can you act so calm?! How can you fight without even a second of hesitation?! How can you be so brave instead of acting like a coward just like me..?"

"Long ago, an old man gave me a bit of wisdom. He told me that being brave doesn't mean you're fearless. Being brave means that even though you're afraid of doing something, you do it anyway. It's about the resolution you have to confront your most fearful thoughts and keep them under control. One only becomes a coward when they allow that fear to control them instead."

Arora's eyes widened with clarity. Shade had seemed somewhat so inhumane to her before but now that he had given a proper explanation, she understood him just a little more.

She also began to understand the real difference between being a coward and being brave. Currently, she was a coward. However, to become brave didn't mean that she had to get rid of her fear as she had initially thought. Instead, she just had to learn how to control it.

She then looked up at Shade who had just opened his inventory. He then selected a few items before a stylishly long black and red coat appeared over him. A new black midnight sword also appeared across his back within a sheath.

"Where did you get that stuff..?" Asked Arora with a hint of impression.

"From the field boss."

"Ohh! That's right! Items are dropped for anyone who participated in slaying a monster! How could I forget?" Exclaimed Tristan.

Since Shade had injured the field boss, he was automatically awarded new items when it was slain. In Survival Zer0, drops were given to anyone who contributed to killing a monster, even if they did not provide the finishing blow. This was also the reason both Shade and Arora were given healing potions when they had killed their first monster.

"But I don't get it..." Continued Tristan. "If you had this stuff from the start then why didn't you use it against Xavier?"

"Because I don't need them knowing what drops I received. It's better to give them as little information on our group as possible."

Shade then signaled Tristan and Arora to start walking. They had to hurry if they wished to make it into the next town within the top one hundred players.

"Let's go. Our next stop is Stage 1."