The next three months after that drama with the forest were not fun. For three months I was not allowed to leave the house unsupervised. The only reason I am allowed now was because my parents were worried I hadn’t made a friend. I guess it’s a good thing I hadn’t tried to make friends, or I’d still be supervised when wandering around.

  It’s not that I don’t want any friends, I mean, who wants to be a loner their whole life? This is an instance of my previous memories interfering with making friends. I did try playing games with the other kids, but our experiences in life made it difficult for me to enjoy playing with them.

  For starters, the kids were very inexperienced holding fake weapons for their games. When I tried playing war, I was the best by far. Most people didn’t train with a sword or magic, and I did both. Even my lackluster sword skills were far beyond theirs.

  The biggest issue was having a conversation. It was hard not to talk down to them as they couldn’t understand what I was talking about a lot of the time, or they didn’t have the patience to have a legitimate discussion. Kids were like that and while my body made me act childlike sometimes, I liked having conversations that most kids couldn’t have.

  Oh well, at least I could wander the village to try and kill the boredom. The weather was nice today as summer was coming to an end. It was still hot, but not like the past couple of months. A neat trick I learned recently was casting wind but cooling it. Almost like a portable air-conditioning unit. It made summers a lot more bearable, even if I was constantly blasting wind in my face. Shame I couldn’t use it while sleeping.

  “Give us your money!”

  “You’ll regret it if you don’t!”

  That snapped me out of my thoughts. Those sounded like kids, trying to steal someone’s money? Here I was thinking this village didn’t have to worry about thugs. I headed toward the noise and hid behind a tree and peeked over at where I was hearing the talking.

  There were three kids. Two older ones that looked to be at least ten years old, maybe eleven, and the youngest looked younger, around eight or nine years old. The older ones were a boy and girl, they looked related with both having brown hair.

  The girl on the other hand could not have looked more different. She had long red hair and that was about all I could see as her back was toward me. This scene reminded me of the movies, where the main character would come and beat up the bullies while protecting the innocent kid getting bullied.

  I would be lying if I hadn’t dreamt of being the guy who saved someone from bullies. There was something satisfying about seeing bullies put in their place. My lips curled into a smile. I stepped out from behind the tree, ready to save this girl. Who knew I would get such a fun opportunity?

  As I raised my hand, there was a loud thwack. The older boy was lying on the ground, holding his face and crying, while the older girl looked mortified and ran over to her brother. The one who’d punched him? The girl with red hair. She went up to the older girl, grabbed her hair and threw her to the ground.

  “Now you two listen to me!” the red-haired girl said. The older boy had stopped crying and was staring at her with fear. His sister was rubbing her head and looked just as scared. “I will not give you money and the fact you tried to take mine should make you feel ashamed!”

  The boy tried to get up and was kicked back down. The red-haired girl put her foot on his back to keep him in place and continued. “Neither of you will leave here until you apologize. If you refuse to apologize for trying to take my money, then I’ll make your lives a living hell!”

  I almost laughed. This little girl was really letting those two have it. It kind of reminded me of my former wife in my old world. She’d been stubborn and I could have seen her doing something like this if she’d been in this situation.

  “What will it be?” The girl with red hair said.

  To my surprise, the siblings apologized. They both groveled, saying they would never do this again and to please forgive them. The younger girl took her foot off the boy and told them to scram. They didn’t need to be told twice; in fact, the siblings ran as fast as they could.

  I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed. It would have been nice to put a couple of bullies in their place, but alas, that’s how life can be. Today was turning out to be an interesting day.

  “What? You here to try and steal from me too?”

  “Huh?” I said, realizing I’d been staring at her and she’d noticed me. “No, of course not! I was about to help you when you took care of the situation yourself!” I couldn’t help myself blurting out as fast as I could. I’m not sure why, but I did not want to fight this little girl over a misunderstanding.

  “Oh yeah? How did you plan on helping me, you look weaker than I do.”

  She wasn’t wrong, I was six, and the siblings were almost twice my age. Still, I couldn’t let her think I was this weak little kid. “I would have done this,” and created a water ball. The water ball launched at her, hitting the ground next to her feet. The water wouldn’t have hurt the kids; they’d have felt a little sting but would have been fine.

  The girl’s attitude completely changed. Her eyes widened, with a large smile spread across her face. “Oh wow, I’ve never met a magic user before! I’ve heard about magic but never seen it before!” she exclaimed and rushed over to me, gawking at me as if I was a rare animal.

  My, how the tables have turned. I couldn’t help thinking and rubbed my head while laughing. Before I could say anything, the girl cut me off.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “I’m sorry, where are my manners? I’m Renna, Renna Melordia,” she said and stuck out her hand.

  I grabbed her hand and shook it. “My name is Thorian, Thorian Ashford.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Renna said and let go of my hand. “Would you show me some more magic?”

  “Sure, anything in particular you wanted to see?”

  “Can you do some sort of explosion with pretty colors?”

  “I can do something like that,” I raised my hand toward the sky and launched an explosive fireball. It didn’t have all the colors of something like fireworks, but it would have to suffice. The look on Renna’s face was priceless. She was grinning ear to ear and asked me to do it again, to which I happily obliged. It was kind of nice to show off my magic to someone else.

  “Thank you, I’m so jealous you can use magic!” Renna said once I was done.

  “Other than my family, you’re the first person I’ve shown magic to.”

  “Really? Well, how would you like to do a friendly duel?”

  A duel? That wasn’t what I was expecting. That’s when I noticed a wooden sword attached to her hip. Interesting, this Renna had more to her than I thought. She must have someone training her with a sword. Would it be a good idea to spar with her though?

  “Come on, please say yes,” Renna pressed. “I’m not a bad swordswoman. In fact, I think you’ll be impressed!”

  “Hmm, okay. It’ll be nice sparring with someone who isn’t my father.”

  “Great!” Renna took out her wooden sword. “I’ve always wanted to fight a magic user.”

  “How would you like to do this?” I asked. This poor girl wasn’t going to stand a chance. I sparred with my father, an intermediate sword user. I didn’t see a world in which this girl won.

  “Let’s do two matches. One up close and one at range. My father always told me that a mage is weak in close quarters. I don’t think it’d be fair for me to have the advantage and not give you the chance to show me what you’ve got at long range and close,” Renna said.

  “Sure, we can do that.”

  This girl knew more about magic users than I thought, considering she’d never seen magic until today. Her father must’ve been skilled, which made me wonder just how skilled. Not that it was my concern, maybe I was overthinking things.

  “I’ll let you start at a distance, after that we’ll start with close quarters,” Renna said.

  “Okay. Does twenty feet back sound good?”

  “Sure.”

  With that I stood back twenty feet. Now, I needed to be careful. I didn’t want to cast my stone bullet, that would likely kill her no matter where I hit her. The best way would be to use something like Elias’s drill attack, without the sharp edges. The attack would hurt but wouldn’t kill or do any serious damage. That seemed like the best approach.

  It didn’t take long for me to have a general idea of how to do this match. Once I was in place, I gave her the thumbs up, and she got into a combat stance. It looked to be Gylorian style. This would be interesting.

  Renna made her move. She was faster than I expected her to be, though she was significantly slower than Damon. I put my hand on the ground and launched rocks from the ground at her. I made sure the rocks weren’t sharp. She dodged the first couple, something I hadn’t expected, so I launched a small, flat rock at her leg.

  The rock connected with her leg as she was too focused on the rocks coming up from the ground. She let out a grunt and fell to the ground, clutching her left leg.

  Crap, I didn’t mean to hurt her that bad!

  I rushed over to her. At least Renna wasn’t crying, she was rubbing her leg and gasping with pain. “Sorry about that,” I said and placed my hand on her leg. Her grimace faded as she stared at her leg in awe, then looked up at me.

  “You can heal too?” she asked.

  “Yeah, at an intermediate level, so you shouldn’t have to worry about having any left-over injuries from this. Hope you can forgive me for hitting you so hard, that wasn’t my intention.”

  Renna waved her hand, “that isn’t a problem. This is a sparring match; I wasn’t expecting you to go easy on me.”

  “Do you still want to go again?”

  “Of course, it’s my turn to beat you,” she said.

  Awfully confident for someone who’d just been beaten so easily. I thought and grasped her hand to help her up. “All right, I’ll start ten feet away if that works.”

  “Sounds good,” Renna said. She watched me take ten steps back. She got into the same stance as before. This was going to be interesting as she was able to dodge my first few attacks.

  “Ready?” Renna asked.

  “Ready.”

  “Start!” Renna said, and she rushed forward.

  This time I had a different strategy in mind. I created a couple of small rocks and a fireball at the same time. There was no point in summoning earth from the ground, she’d be on me too quickly for it to matter.

  To my surprise, Renna not only dodged both the small rocks, but she was somehow able to bat away my fireball with a single swing from her wooden sword. Crap! I took a step back and launched icicles, without the sharp edges of course.

  Renna dodged the first two, knocked aside the third and then her wooden sword came flying at me. I could do nothing but gasp when a sharp pain erupted across my side. The air left my lungs. She swept my legs out from under me and pressed her wooden sword to my neck.

  “Looks like I win this one,” she said and removed her sword.

  I was stunned. I’d just lost a fight to a little girl. That was when I realized that I did have an ego, despite telling Elias I didn’t. Renna was far more skilled than I was expecting her to be, but she was able to beat me in close range.

  That led to another conclusion. Damon was right. It made me sick thinking about it, but I really was weak at close range if I was losing to a girl who was only two years older than me. I’d need to seriously reconsider how to fight up close.

  “I didn’t expect to meet any kid that could beat me,” Renna began after helping me up. “None of the kids here are trained. I’m happy to meet someone who can push me to become better.”

  “I’ll be honest, I didn’t think you would stand a chance,” I said, and we both laughed. Turns out we both thought the other didn’t stand a chance. Funny how life worked out that way. This was a serious wake-up call, one I was going to take to heart. “You’re quite skilled, who taught you how to fight?”

  “My father. He was a former adventurer. He’s been training me for the past three years.”

  “Oh, how old are you?”

  “Don’t you know it’s rude to ask a girl her age?” Renna looked serious before bursting into laughter. “Ah the look on your face. I’m eight, you?”

  “I’m six,” so I was right, she was a couple of years older than me. Not that, that made me feel any better. I wasn’t a gracious loser in my previous life, but to lose to another kid was even more embarrassing than usual.

  “What about you? Who taught you magic?”

  “I taught myself. My parents had a beginner’s magic book that I began reading, which led to me getting an instructor as well. My father teaches me the sword, but I’m not very good at it.”

  “You must be talented to learn magic by yourself. I’m glad to have met you, Thorian. I think we’re going to become good friends.”

  “I agree,” and I meant those words. There was something special about Renna. She didn’t have memories like I did, yet she still managed to beat me. She was going to be a strong sword user, assuming she planned on training once she learned everything her old man taught her. “We’ll have to keep sparring, I really enjoyed fighting someone close to my age.”

  “Yeah, we will,” Renna said. She looked behind her and then back at me. “I’ve got to get going. I need to buy some bread and get home before my parents think something happened to me. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Yeah, sounds good.”

  And that was how I met my first friend in this world. Not how I expected to make a friend. I stood there for a few minutes, pondering this new development in my life, before deciding it was time to go home. It was time to tell my parents I had finally made a friend.