The landscape changed for the third time as We traveled to the port.
While I say "traveled" It didn't take long to get here, we were in the same city after all.
Once we're at the port, we'll wait for the next day so the ship sets sail.
George told me that I could do as I wanted once we got there, so I planned to look around the port and probe for anything that could count as interesting.
Who knows what can be found...
I certainly don't, so I'll have to change that.
By the way, he told the same thing to my brother.
Yes, Jojo is coming with us, but he'll be doing anything else aside from interacting with the people I'll have to. For him, they'll be the kids of my father's friends.
It's rather unnerving to be with him, it's not like I don't like him or he doesn't like him. But our relationship is more of a "How are you?" "I'm fine, thanks".
In simpler words, there isn't too much commodity between him and me.
Well, I'm six years older than I am right now, and that makes me five years older than him. I don't feel too comfortable making friends with such a big age gap, and he doesn't feel comfortable making friends with me because, as I realized in the early days that I arrived at the Joestars...
Jojo is a child.
A brat if you want to be mean.
I'm not sure why I'm surprised, as he is just fourteen, the age when his friends and the validation that he gains from them is his whole world.
Sure, I guess he'll grow up and become the gentleman he was in part one.
But for now, he's a kid trying to match up to his father's standards.
Which haven't got any smaller since I got here.
Anyway, George will go and talk with the fathers of my future friends while I do tourism at the port.
I don't know what will Jojo be doing, but hopefully, he'll stay out of trouble.
...
..
...
The carriage came to a stop and we took our baggage by hand.
Normally a servant would do it, but it would be weird to have a servant accompany us all the way to another continent.
We could've made them come with us to the port, but that's a dick move.
As we made our way into the heart of the port, I took notice of the similarities and differences that it had compared with the urban city.
If I had to say the biggest one that I noted, it would be the buildings.
In the city, the buildings were long, wide, and tall. Here the buildings are long and wide, but not tall.
You can see some warehouses on basically every street of the port.
And they became more prominent once we got closer to the docks, with only one in five buildings being of actual use to the people.
In other words, shops, stalls, hotels, etc.
We walked through the street at the edge of the sea, the one connected to the multiple docks and one big pier.
And we finally got to a seemingly inconspicuous hotel.
I say ¨Seemingly¨ because first, there's no way George selected this place out of random, he's definitely friends with the owner of this place, or better, he's the owner.
Second, I feel this knock on the back of my neck when I look and examine this building.
I feel as if it was gazing back at me, while I lay completely defenseless, all my secrets in the open.
I'm exaggerating, of course.
But the feeling of being examined remains there.
I do my best to obscure it and try to not let it peer into me too much.
It works, but not completely.
So with the feeling of examination, comes the feeling of discomfort.
George and Jojo, seemingly unaware of my internal struggle, walk into the hotel and greet some people who are already there.
I delay my entrance for a moment, gathering my breath and squeezing the aristocratic knowledge in my head for all it's worth, and open the same door my family did.
*eeeeek*
The door opened with a screech and some people turned to turn around at me.
And dear god did it make sense.
The moment I stepped inside I felt the gazes of everyone on me.
I just said that only some people turned.
But the ones that didn't, still were gazing at me.
Scratch that, they were leering at me
Holy crap.
Out of the 9 unknown people in the room, five were normal people, three were examining me as if I was someone they'd kill.
The pressure emanating from them wasn't really all that, the big pressure came from the last person in the room.
Someone who wasn't interested in me, someone who was ignoring me completely, who was eating quietly in a corner of the room.
But I knew.
In our mind battlefield, I already died.
He killed me over a thousand times in ways that I couldn't even imagine.
I tried to defend myself.
I died.
Even when I empowered myself with Hamon.
I died.
He appeared surprised momentarily, but that didn't stop him.
I died and continued dying in the small ten seconds that I used to greet the people who were talking with my father and brother.
Including the four others, who had no idea about the person sitting peacefully.
I died.
One of George's friends talks to me.
I died.
Jojo was saying something about him and the one talking to me.
I died.
He had come to the house other times, he played with Jojo and such.
I died and continued dying over and over in the small moments that passed between the formalities.
We finally got to the table where we would eat our dinner.
I could finally focus on the fight.
Before I started focusing on the fight, I made a peace signal with my two hands.
His intent stopped briefly but remained in the room as if respecting my thoughts and giving me time to calm myself down.
Of course, it would have been better if instead of giving me this small rest, I didn't get attacked in the first place.
'Alright, slow breaths, slow breaths'
That's what my subconscious was telling me, but in the end, I couldn't resist the smile forming on my face.
'This is a Jackpot'
Not going to lie, maybe I got too carried on.
What do you mean? I hear you say.
Well, I have been getting too cocky lately.
I said something about me being one of the strongest in all of the United Kingdom just because of some hamon and beating a 50-year-old after ambushing him with my friend.
I'm still confident, but I became a bit arrogant.
This is a good wake-up call.
Plus, I could improve nicely with this mysterious person.
I don't want to be mean to Jack(Not that he is still at that level) but sparring against him isn't cutting it anymore.
It was more about honing the skills that I already had mastered to another level or getting more experience.
About completing my art and adapting to Jack's animalistic way of fighting.
That didn't go well, in most spars I had to limit my punches so that they didn't knock out Jack or cause him actual damage.
Perhaps that was a mistake...
The past aside, this is a nice way to improve.
'Alright, break over'
Have you ever read a manhwa or web novel where two martial expert characters use their intent to fight?
Well, you're about to look at one now.
I close my eyes and imagine my intent coming out of my body, materializing as a shadow with a Hamon-long sword in his hand.
Sparks come out of his body, dancing between the body and the blade.
While the blade might not be useful in real combat, it very much is if it's in imaginary combat.
My shadow faces his opponent.
Another shadow.
'That's weird'
My shadow has a slight resemblance to myself and while you wouldn't be able to recognize me from the sole appearance, you can find some aspects that define me.
The yellow eyes, the same hair, the size of my body...
Small things that make my shadow, well, my shadow.
But, the shadow that I will fight doesn't have any kind of recognizable characteristic.
It's just a body.
No hair, no significant body part, no features on its body...
The only thing that I know about this stranger is that is an adult, the shadow is at least fifteen centimeters more than mine.
It's almost creepy, you know, it looks like a shadow mannequin.
One that it's coming to kill me with its bare hands.
It lunges at me, doing a low kick.
I step back and quickly try to make space between us.
'I've already seen the way it killed me before'
Even with that information, my shadow couldn't react fast enough.
Using the momentum of its low kick, it spins quickly and jumps to me.
I said ¨Jump¨ but it was more of a diagonal dash.
It keeps spinning in the air.
I raise my hands just in time for the sword to protect me.
*click*
The impact made a weird sound, but I paid it no mind.
The blow numbed my hands, but their grip tightened in the sword.
It lands one foot after the other and pushes its weight on the edge of the sword.
I don't fight it, but I let it fall to my left side and I try to attack the shadow with my right hand.
My hand punches the air as it spins once again to evade the attack by a small centimeter.
Once against, it uses the spin to power the legs that go for my chin.
But I throw myself back and do some back jumps to gain some distance, although it might as well be useless against its speed.
'What the fuck is this?'
Remember what I said earlier? Something about me being in a power rush and being too arrogant?
Yeah, I still stand by that, but that didn't mean I thought less of my power.
I'm a strong person, I wouldn't say it out loud, but if I was to fight an adult then I could comfortably say that I'll win.
This doesn't apply here.
Of course, I came to this fight with the mentality to do as much damage before ultimately falling.
But this is not even funny.
What am I talking about? I hear you say.
Well, I'm talking about how in the whole exchange (and now that I think about it, in the many times it killed me), it didn't use either of its arms.
Like, not even changing its position or balancing its body.
It might as well not even have them.
It's awkward, annoying, and maddening.
I feel that I could throw up at the feeling of the shadow not taking this seriously.
"Are you even taking this seriously?" I say.
Well, my mouth doesn't open but my shadow's mouth does.
"I will if I need to" It answered.
'Whoa, this bitch?'
The worst part is that it's right, it doesn't need its arms.
Just its speed, power, and its spins.
That alone is enough to overwhelm me, even enough to defeat me maybe,
It makes me mad.
I know that there was a wall in levels between us, but the massive difference is annoying.
I've heard that people should despair against the wall, give up, retire, fall, get destroyed and so many other things.
I think I got to this wall.
And the only thing that I think about it.
Is...
Is...
Is maddening.
The fact that there's someone so strong challenging me and I can't do anything but give up.
Why?
Why should I?
I want to win.
I want to go even further beyond.
I want to go Plus Ultra.
I feel that I could die if I didn't
That if I just gave up and turned aside I would regret it until the end of my days.
So I'll fight.
I shall never surrender.
Shadow.
The shadow turns to look at me.
I look at it.
There's an unsaid statement between us.
We gaze upon each other eyes with the same thought and objective.
I want to win
We want to win.
The shadow takes deep breaths.
Lighting flares and dances wildly around its body.
I summon a dawn in my right hand.
The other shadow takes that as a challenge and lunges at me, doing small jumps across the room.
When it's five meters from me, it does a big jump with a vertical spinning kick and slams its leg on the ground.
Doing a small hole where I was just standing.
It dashes once again to me, but it limits itself to basic horizontal kicks.
I try to see for any point to exploit, any mistake that I can exploit.
There's none and it continues to overwhelm me with kicks.
I jump back several times.
And it keeps on kicking.
Wondering what was its aim with all of this, I turn to look back at the terrain for a moment.
And there's a wall.
It brought me to this corner.
'It's so over'
It brings its left kick up and back.
I can feel it's going for a diagonal kick.
So with my right hand, I thrust into its left torso.
It spins and its kick changes into a more horizontal one, the sole of its foot going for my head.
*swish*
The air gets cut and makes a whistle sound.
My head gets almost bashed in by the kick.
Almost.
Because I managed to imitate one of its spins.
"Agh!"
The damage is severe and I don't doubt I would have fallen at the moment if it connected.
But I use the force of the impact to spin in a clockwise manner and raise my hamon-concentrated leg to plant an impact in it.
It almost connects.
Once again, almost.
As it does connect, but some of the force is nullified by its spin.
The shadow spins counter-clockwise, and this time it bashes my head in with its fist.
"Hoh?"
"..."
I try to say something, but my head is bashed in, so it is futile.
"Not bad, bold and dumb, but not bad"
It continued.
"You knew that you were getting driven to the corner, so you let me hit you and did a sloppy imitation of my spin to be able to counter me"
What are you talking about? I just used up all of my luck.
"Come out in the night, let's chat a little"
And it banished.
Different from my shadow, as mine got fragmented and destroyed
The death animation of my shadow comes straight out of Sword Art Online, but slower and the particle shards are completely dark
And my consciousness completely went back to my body.
...
..
...
Who was comfortably eating, chatting with George, Jojo, and the others at the table.
By the way, those 4 weird guys are also here, but I still don't know what are they all about.
They aren't that skilled actually, maybe it's just because I just fought someone really strong now.
I don't know, I don't care.
I just want to eat my food in peace.
...
..
...
I fall to my bed, letting my Ultimate body process the food perfectly.
"Haah..."
What a day.
I thought I had nothing to do until I went to Egypt, but I was wrong.
It was a tough fight, one that I ultimately lost.
Well, I won't beat myself up too much.
At least it's better than being in school.
Wait, now that I think about it, what about school?
...
Meh, it really doesn't matter. George is rich and the teachers know it, so as long as we get the minimum assistance requirements we will pass the year.
I take a sip of water from the jar in my room.
Yes, there is a jar in my room.
There's one in everyone's room.
I would love to go to sleep right now, but there is someone really strong waiting for me in the dining hall.
"Yeah, yeah..."
Let's go.
It will only be a short second, not as if this mysterious person is going to follow me to Africa.
Right?
...
In the middle of the night, I sneaked out to the place where we had our fight before.
There it stood.
Someone whose all features were completely hidden by the cloak it uses.
To me, this person only looks like a shadow figure, one taller than me.
"Yo, long time no see" I say, prolonging the marked word a bit.
"Long time? Well, I suppose that being that little also makes you have little time perception"
"What do you want?"
"Me? What could I possibly want from you?"
"Are you going to answer only with questions?"
"Maybe?"
Ugh.
The shadow is saying this so that I think.
But what could she want?
It just attacked me out of nowhere.
Well, It attacked everyone else too, but they couldn't detect it.
Leaving aside the thought that it didn't want to be discovered, then I was able to fight back because it was interested in me. Or saw something in me?
"Did you want to have a nice fight? Or do you just test everyone that walks through that door?"
"A bit of both... Well, let's keep the games aside and start talking"
It removes her hood first and then its cloak.
I'm saying ¨Her¨ now because I've finally found the gender of this person
With the cloak on the ground, I see a woman standing in the middle of this room wearing a bikini top and shorts, with a cape attached to her shoulders. She has long hair and green eyes, giving her a mystical appearance.
Additionally, the woman exudes confidence and mystery as she gazes into the distance as if she's looking at something beyond me.
"Why are you wearing a cape and a cloak? Seems redundant"
"Don't worry about that"
She gets close to a table and brings two chairs.
"Let's sit down before we start"
"Sure..."
We sat down, facing each other.
Although I had to look up into her eyes while she had to look down at mine.
"Alright, so seeing as how I attacked you first, you have the first question" She said
"What is your name?"
"I could've told you that without you using your question..."
"Mine is Aroa so just say yours"
"Uh-huh, my name is Atelia"
"Nice to meet you Atelia"
"Yeah, yeah, nice to meet you too Aroa"
...
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...
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