The rest of the trip concluded with me explaining why my shirt was ruined to my mother. She didn't mind as I didn't get hurt, but told me to be careful when I play rough with other kids.

It was during the ride back that Logan tried to explain to me the basics of our family's noble power dynamic. Despite playing rough sports, it's a supposed priority of ours to not appear weak in our performance. I understood the insinuation but there was the additive of a lower noble being more inclined to repay perceived slight.

I was right to assume Bertram and his sister had been the family of the current mayor of the city. My family, the Dreadtrees, were the noble house that oversees the entire duchy. 

It hadn't been explained to me by Father yet, and my mother wasn't very good at discussing the internal workings as she had only become a noble by being married to my father.

This was why I hadn't heard of any of this prior, that and my family believing I was still too young to understand.

Regardless, it was news to me that my father wasn't some baron that was stationed in a remote castle by a frightening forest and cliffside. My father was in fact the duke of the lands of our name sake. He answered directly to the emperor.

Once we got off the carriage, Logan put his hand on my shoulder and leaned in.

"Remember this Fred, if someone ever picks on you in the future, you let me or Kraimer know and we'll take care of it. Alright?"

"Alright, I promise."

"Good."

Logan's smile had ominous intent behind it after what he just said.

I was still more likely to resolve issues on my own despite Logan's request. Still, there was this feeling of brotherhood that I never experienced as I had no siblings of my own in my old life. It was nice.

It was afternoon after we arrived. Even after an exciting morning, there was still more work to be done. I nodded to myself.

I headed right to the dojo after a change of clothes, they were after all too messy to comfortably practice in.

An odd feeling came over me as if I was being watched while I headed to the dojo. I decided to wander around the castle for little longer before heading for the dojo. The strange thought of someone following me began to enter my mind.

Why would anyone care what I'm up to? I sprinted to a corner and on the turn I hid behind one of the many obscuring adornments.

I peered over the stand holding the vase to see if my stalker would show themselves. No one seemed to show up after a while. 

Must've been the wind. I thought. There was no point to wasting any more time so I headed back to the abandoned wing of the castle.

It was a casual stroll of descending the stairs from anywhere to the first floor before I walked down the smaller hall to the dojo.

It was never lost on me how decorative and regal everything in the preceding halls were compared to the dull and muted walls of the abandoned wing.

I entered past the wooden doors with the broken lock and proceeded to the dojo.

It felt routine now to just grab the same weighty wooden sword. In spite of its length and mass it never felt unwieldy and in fact made me more sure of my strikes.

The goal I had every day once I entered the dojo was initially to attempt a new technique. That didn't seem right to me anymore, the ideals of a man from even before my time in my old life taught this. 

There is little to be gained from practicing a variety of techniques when compared to a single technique practiced to its limits.

I chose to improve my usage of the first technique: Paranoia Panorama, and ended with the second technique: Coward's Fleeting Escape.

"Wow, you're incredible young master!"

The moment I heard the voice, I reflexively performed the second technique in the opposite direction from where it came from.

I looked up to see a younger maid applauding my execution of the technique.

"I've never seen such a limber child."

She giggled in delight. I hadn't seen her work around the castle before. The thought that she might actually be an assassin from a rivalling noble house came to mind.

"Eh? I'm very sorry young master, I didn't mean to startle you. And I'm very sorry I didn't properly introduced myself when I first met your presence."

"When you first met me?"

"Ah, I was told by Carmin to keep an eye on you. To make sure that young master Fred wasn't getting into anything mischievous."

"No, what did you mean, were you following me earlier?"

"That would be correct young master. I apologize, I thought to greet you once you had finished changing, but you left before I could speak. Then I had decided to do so when you arrived to where you wished to go. However, I became curious once you started purposely avoiding me. I thought you had seen me."

"Then you ended up tracking me all the way here?"

"That's right, although, tracking? No, no, I merely caught glimpses of your general direction and continued only when I believed you wouldn't notice me."

"That's pretty odd, even if you are a maid. It's the kind of thing I'd complain about to my mother."

It wasn't my intention to say that out loud but she made it sound worse than just following me. 

Maybe she's nervous and that's why she explained it that way. I figured. Regardless, I maintained my suspicions but she seemed harmless if not simply weird.

"Please forgive me, master. I was recently hired and I'm new to the profession of being a maid."

"I forgive you."

"Bless you, young master. I was worried I h-"

"On one condition."

"Anything!"

"You don't tell anyone that I come here to train, or that this dojo exists."

"I'll hold on to this secret, you can count on me!"

"Also, don't be weird. If you have something to say, feel free to let me know or call out my name if you need to catch my attention."

"I'll do my best not to be."

"Ok then. I'm headed off to Father's lesson."

"Ah, but can I expect to see you practice that fancy swordsmanship? Carmin did tell me to keep an eye on you."

"Sure, you can accompany me when I come to train but don't stare too much."

Having someone else watch over me when I'm intentionally making myself paranoid, creeped me out even further.

"I could keep my eyes closed while I'm here then, I promise I won't fall asleep. You can ask for my help as a maid at any time."

"No, it's fine to keep your eyes open."

Her ecstatic nature once she stopped being timid made her come off as strange. Combined with her lack of experience, the effect garnered my sympathy. She wouldn't be a problem.

"Oh, you can call me Hilly."

After meeting Hilly and leaving the dojo, I headed back to the central library for Father's lesson. Instead of a heavy tome to read off of, Father held clean parchment in his hand.

He decided to have us practice our penmanship. The activity was quite simple, write out a paragraph explaining our like or dislike of anything we want. The part that mattered most was how cleanly we could transcribe our thoughts.

I didn't have much at stake due to my age, but I still attempted to surpass the kind of chicken scratch that might come from a five-year-old.

Ironically, my hand steadily wrote out my thoughts on my enjoyment of practicing magic. The strokes of my quill pen were much better than even the lackluster handwriting of my old self on a good day.

"Very good Fred. Please write the imperial date on the bottom."

"The imperial date?"

There were zero clues in my child mind of what he was talking about. It clicked that he meant the date like that from a calendar, but I had never learned to read a calendar from this world.

I was still at the stage in life where the mere idea of days of the week were a new construct for me to memorize.

I knew the Earth days well but this world simply numbered the days, and I never thought to look at the calendar in my bedroom.

"Fred? Have you not learned the days of a month, or at least the year-cycle?"

"I apologize Father, I have not."

"Hah, you don't have to be sorry about that. I neglected to account for what you have to learn still. You've been doing well to keep up and understand, so this much won't pose an issue for you. I promise."

"I know but still, I've had time to learn it and I didn't"

"Come now, you don't have to be hard on yourself. You're certainly learning at your own pace. We can take a moment to learn it together."

My father asked the maid in the hall to grab him a calendar. He took a seat next to me and started reading it out to me.

I almost cried at the gesture. I really should've had this down by now.

"Do you get it now?"

"Yes."

"Alright, write it now. On this spot."

"Ok"

"Could you tell me the date?"

"It's the sixteenth day of the ninth month of the Surprise Year. It's the Five Hundred-Seventieth Zen Year."

"Good job, see? You are more than capable my son. Don't get too worried about your shortcomings you'll make up for them faster than you think."

"I know."

My face must've had my father concerned. He gave me a hug.

"You say you have time to learn before our lessons. Why don't you read up on some history about why we call them the Zen Years? I'll have the maid bring some books up to your room for you in the morning."

"That sounds good."

Afterwards we went out into the courtyard again. My sole objective in the last two days has been to empty out my mana within a reasonable limit to encourage natural expansion of my mana pool. That's how my father explained it to me.

Dinner was uneventful, but I wondered about the many things a child of my age in this world should know. 

We're not exactly in a medieval period. I theorized. There were pipes for indoor plumbing and even a flushing toilet that functioned like the ones from my other childhood.

I was now too tired to continue the thought.

I had never had reoccurring dreams in my past life. That made this setting all the stranger.

I was familiar with the warm fireplace, the shelves that seemed to stretch endlessly into the ceiling. The table and chair combination by the fireplace made it all come together as the pinnacle of a cozy reading place.

"Welcome back!"

The witch from my last dream, and or nightmare, greeted me.

She never called herself that, but the long brown dress and coat to match with a pointy big round hat, made her look that way.

"No nightmare this time?"

"If you want we can go back to that."

"Not tonight, please. So this really is a dream after all?"

"Well..."

"Right, this place is a bridge. Who are you anyway?"

"You're quite rude aren't you, and ugly looking."

"That's pretty mean, is it because of my red hair?"

I felt like teasing her for insulting me.

"What red hair? You're old man head is silver."

"What?"

"Here, you look like an imp."

The witch conjured up a mirror and handed it to me.

In the reflection of the mirror I saw my old face. It was unsettling and the addition of maintaining my younger body everywhere else gave, like the witch said, the visage of an imp.

If this is a dream, then subconsciously the avatar I must've developed combined the weak young body I have with the old mind I had regained.

I concentrated on a single idea for a moment: that I was Fred all along but the memories were implanted. I attempted to project this way of thinking into my dream avatar.

My face returned to what I wake up to see everyday. A ginger boy with freckles and green eyes.

"What kind of trick is that old man?"

"It's not a trick this is what I look like outside of here."

"You're still an old man."

"I'm really not, my circumstances are just as complicated as yours."

"I doubt it."

"Where were we? Oh, I was being rude. My mistake, I am Frederick Dreadtree, what do I call you ever-sleeping witch?"

"Don't call me a witch, rude boy. You may call me Teresa, Frederick."

"My apologies, Teresa. What exactly are you to me? You said the other night you were told by your father to frighten those that think like him."

"About that, maybe we should continue the nightmares after all."

"H-h-hold on, I'd like to know why you have to submit me to that kind of terror every night."

"So you never let fear take over in your life. Father said it would be a kindness to those seeking to follow his steps."

"How did this bridge between come about then? Is it merely from trying to learn the fear style?"

"I don't know, it's more like you let me in."

"This all started when I began reading from that book."

"Book? You have Father's book?"

"Is your father Garrett Dreadtree?"

The witch, Teresa, was in a state of shock. She clasped her hand on her face.

"His name, it's been so long. I'd started to forget it. I almost started to believe I had long forgotten it and let a false name take its place."

Teresa was crying. I walked closer to console her.

"If that's true then I think he's dreaming permanently too."

She wiped the tears off her face. 

"I know, he told me so, the last time he was here he left with a book he had written in this place."

"So, this was all part of the manual then."

I thought out loud. What kind of benefit could I stand to gain from getting scared half to death every night?

"Have you done this before?"

"What?"

"Have you gone into the dreams or met people on this bridge before?"

"I've given nightmares before, but meeting someone other Father, you're the first."

"Why am I the first?"

"You're the only one that kept moving so far, everyone else froze in a nightmare once and gave up."

"Overcoming fear was the key?"

"No. You're the first who moved in spite of it. It seems our time is running out. I'll offer you one last choice."

"If you're going to ask me if I no longer want to see you, the answer is no. Bridge, dream, it doesn't make a difference. This seems fun."

"It might not be so fun anymore. If you want to keep having these conversations with me, you'll have to keep going through terrible nightmares."

"Can you give me time to think about it?"

It would be psychotic of me to go out of my way to accept this borderline torture. 

Who knows when the next time I'll get to sleep soundly will come. I thought.

"You have until next time, I won't grant you another delay for your decision."

The eerie sensation of being pulled away returned from the other night.

I woke up. 

Just a single day to make up my mind. Huh. What a dreadful way to push someone away. I had it in my mind that Teresa being left alone for so long was a much more tragic fate than I could ever imagine. It was the only reason I had any interest in continuing these nightly adventures. 

No one deserves to be alone especially not the people who believe they deserved to be. I honestly held this ideal. 

However, the thought of more cruel fears to face also provided a worthy reason to end the madness. What good would constant trauma and disturbing dreams do for me?