Skill Creation in the Fantasy World

Graham walked over from the side and looked at the result of the boy's battle.

The Ogre had its head deformed and turned purple as it bled from many of its orifices.

While Felix, who was on the ground beside the Ogre's head, seemed to have gone unconscious with some small wounds on his body.

"He really killed a Rank 3 being at Rank 1...", Graham shook his head in amusement, as although he had helped the boy, it was an almost impossible accomplishment for someone as young as him.

"I wonder how strong you'll grow in the coming future."

He muttered while gently picking up the boy on his shoulder and using a simple technique of transferring small electric waves to relax the boy's sore muscles.

Graham then walked away from the place, searching for a spot for them to spend the night and have a campfire dinner.

*****

Felix twitched and opened his exhausted eyes when an aromatic smell tickled his nose.

He looked around in confusion, finding himself lying inside a tent, with a bonfire a few meters away, keeping him warm from the chilly night.

A man wearing a one-eyed patch was grilling a few pieces of meat on a strange tool with the use of a bonfire in front of him.

"I didn't expect you could cook, Sir Graham."

Felix walked out from the tent as he stretched and walked over to the man.

Graham looked up from the grill and replied wisely while adding some spices to the meat.

"Man always learns how to survive when he is not in comfort."

He smiled and gave Felix a plate with the cooked meat and some veggies.

"Eat up. We can't have you getting tired on the first day of hunting."

Felix sat down on the sitting made from a broken tree's trunk and feasted on the meal without wasting any time.

He had not eaten anything for the whole day except for breakfast, and from all the fighting and killing, he was starving to death.

The meal didn't satisfy his stomach, so he asked for more, to which Graham happily gave him more meat and vegetables as if he had an unlimited supply.

After what seemed like more than ten servings, he stopped and patted his full stomach in bliss.

"Fighting and eating are the only things that can never bore people like us huh...", Graham muttered as he too gobbled dozens of meat pieces and food.

As they sat under the moonlight in silence in the dark forest that was devoid of any light except for the bonfire, Felix thought of something as he asked.

"Umm Sir Graham, may I ask you the reason why you're always hunting for strong monsters in the forest?"

He thought it was a bit unnatural for Sir Graham to always be moving around in the lonely forests and fighting when he could live a comfortable life anywhere with his strength.

On the other hand, Felix himself had a perfect reason to do so because only by killing strong beings would he get the skill points to grow stronger.

"Hmm, that's a troublesome question....", Graham muttered as a bottle with strange coloured liquid appeared in his hands.

He closed his eyes and took a sip directly from the bottle, opening his eyes again in satisfaction.

"Hhaa...to answer your question, we'll have to look into my past. Do you want to hear about it?"

Felix sat straight as his eyes revealed curiosity.

"Yes, I'm willing to hear it."

Graham took another sip from the bottle as he started.

"I'll keep it brief. When I was younger, I had a dream of travelling around the world. Walking over the entire continent and even crossing the seas to the other parts of the world."

"After a lot of struggle, I created my own mercenary company and travelled the Trevol Continent with them. Making friends and foes everywhere,....and eventually found my soulmate."

Graham kept the bottle down as he deeply stared at the crackling twigs in the bonfire.

"We loved each other. So we got married, but there was a problem...she was an Elf."

He went quiet, finding himself lost in his memories.

Meanwhile, Felix was both amazed and confused in his head.

'He married an Elf! That's a fantasy race of beautiful creatures.....So what exactly was the problem?'

Although he didn't understand what the actual problem was, Felix didn't outright raise his question, cautious that he may sound out of place as he didn't yet know many things regarding this world.

"What happened then?", he asked in hopes of continuing the story.

Graham raised his bottle to take another big sip before narrating the next part.

"As Elves and other races were banned from living in this continent, my wife and her nomad group of elves who were travellers at that time were jailed for some months and sent to some other continent."

"I fought back when she was being detained and taken away, but I was too weak and couldn't protect my wife from the higher authorities."

Graham made an ugly face as he clenched his fists and broke the bottle in his hand, but his skin was too tough for it to be bleed.

"I was then labelled as a criminal for a small offence, and I still don't know which continent they sent my wife to. From then onwards, the only thing in my mind is to grow stronger and stronger, until I've reached the point when I can take revenge on those bastards."

Felix now understood the reality of the situation as to where the problem lay.

He didn't know that this continent banned people of other races, so now he came to know why he hadn't met one yet.

"Did you never go to find your wife? Even though you didn't know where she was...", Felix asked weirdly as Sir Graham didn't seem like a person who would give up on someone he liked.

At his question, Graham had a sad smile as he forced his reply.

"That.....I couldn't."

"But why?", Felix didn't like the answer.

Graham looked at Felix in the eyes as he responded with a lost expression.

"Because her last words to me were.....Forget about me, and live your life."

He turned his head to the dark sky littered with stars, and sighed.

"See? Women are strange, right? I was sure that she loved me, but I wonder why she said that."

Felix, on his opposite side, made a thoughtful expression, trying to understand why she would say something like that.

But his interaction with women was almost nill, so there was no hope for him to find an answer.

Silence took over the place, as both men sat under the moonlight, trying to comprehend the mysteries of the opposite gender.

After some time, Graham waved his hand and vanished all the cooking tools and spices around him as he stood up.

"Why don't we go to sleep? There's a lot of work we gotta do tomorrow."

Felix too stood up as he patted the dust off his butt and walked towards his tent while waving.

"Alright, good night then, Sir Graham. I'll be needing your help for hunting more monsters tomorrow."

Graham shook his head with a smile, enjoying the company of another person in his little adventure.

'Whatever your reasons may be, I'll help you when it comes to hunting...'

He decreased the light of the bonfire and walked toward another tent he had erected.

Both of them then fell asleep, with their stomach full and their mind still wondering.

*****

A few days later.

In a wide and lush grassland where one could see distant mountains and a running river below the clear sunny sky.

There could be seen a large group of enraged red colored Bulls towering 3 meters high in average, chasing behind two men who were busy arguing with each other.

"Felix! I told you not to attack their leader! Why the hell did you still do it?", Graham shouted as his one eye twiched.

Felix, who was falling behind a few steps and could only keep up using his Agility Bust skill, replied with regret.

"I'm sorry, Sir Graham. My body just moved on its own before I could even realise."

He completed the sentence quickly as he ran with all his might so that the hoard of hundreds and hundreds of Bulls chasing after them wouldn't stomp him to death.

The hoard had more than a hundred Rank 2 Bulls, with dozens at Rank 3 and three Rank 4 Bulls.

Graham, who was slowing himself to keep running alongside Felix, turned to look at the crowd behind them and smirked.

"Felix, you wanted to hunt a lot monsters, right? ", he asked while slowly levitating above the ground.

"Huh? Isn't that obvious. But why are you suddenly asking that now?", Felix let out tired breaths and questioned with a strange face.

Graham grinned as he patted Felix's shoulder and started flying into the sky.

"Because I'm giving you the great opportunity to face them all!"

His voice moved away as Felix looked up in disbelief, watching the man becoming smaller and smaller.

"W-Wait- you traitor! DON'T GOOO!!"