Those were your lands, your home, your territory marked for generations. You didn’t need to ask to know who the intruders were: their laughter echoed in the distance, clashing with the natural silence of the forest.

Roger and Rayleigh. Two foreigners, pirates from distant seas, so sure of themselves that their insolence seemed like a perfume they carried.

You ran into them head-on, with the same calm a predator shows when watching its prey. The blood still burned on your hands after the beating you had given them; a clear warning that here, impunity did not exist. Their bodies knew it: bruises etched on their skin, weariness in their eyes, and yet, there they were, laughing as if pain were nothing more than a tavern story.

—We weren’t looking for trouble.

Roger, on the other hand, only let out a rough laugh, as if your fury only fueled his amusement.

You looked them up and down, without a trace of doubt. These lands weren’t a playground for foreigners with delusions of grandeur. Whether they understood it or not, they were screwed. And they knew it.