Chapter 75 Green Hill

That's how I met a new friend of mine—a stupid orc. I killed his friend, but the only complaint he had was 'War's like this: some friends die, some friends don't—why does it matter?' which wasn't even a complaint.

When he acted like this, as I wasn't so confident my commonsense was developed enough for me to brand this new friend crazy or stupid, I was simply confused. As it happened, I would kill him too anyway, so I aimed my sword at him, but then he was the one who was confused. I jumped at him with my sword, but he brushed the weapon away as if it were a child's play.

Then, he ran away. He was so fast I probably couldn't catch up to him using Quick Pace. Yeah, that definitely wasn't just your regular orc, there, right? That, or I wasn't as strong as I thought. At any rate, disappearing into the distance, the orc still moronically half-turned to me, waved a big hand and communicated that the Warchief would be happy to have me on the team from then on. Inwardly asking the orc to go easy on me with a scoff, I shook my head and decided to forget about him.

If an enemy ran, after all, though the outcome wasn't as good as a victory, I still kind of won. When the orc fully departed, the upper winds blew down past the path he took, rushing to my face and blowing my hair around. Gently squinting my eyes, I shivered into the wind for a second; when I opened my eyes, the System caught me with a notification.

❮ A new Voluntary Quest has been acquired. ❯

❮ Voluntary Quest — the System said — 'You passed da test!' — After I battled with two orcs, the System explained, I had passed some test they set up to acknowledge me or not. As for the reason why, well, it was because I was a monster. It was common sense then—All demi-humans, facing the evil humans' threat, must come together as one team, otherwise there's no defeating the human race.

The same logic could be applied to the other races which were discriminated against by the human race. Well, what about monsters, then? A monster was no use since it was no more intelligent than a senseless animal—but what about 'the' monster—what about 'that' kind of monster, eh?

❮ Voluntary Quest — The orcs may recognize the Player as an ally; will the Player, too? Follow your friend or not—fate will reunite the Player and the orc. Either follow the demi-human or wait for him to come to greet you. A dagger will be offered to you—a token of gratitude obtained from the demi-humans. What purpose will it serve? Let the Player discover it by proceeding forward with the quest. ❯ Leaving me a side note saying a voluntary quest was just how it was called, voluntary, it could as well be left untouched with no malus attributed to the Player's growth. Did that mean not doing a mandatory quest would affect me negatively? Hmm. Okay.

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The Quest then told me I should either follow the demi-human back to his settlement—which wasn't an option anymore as instead of the usual '0/1' quest indicator, it read 'unavailable'—or wait for the orc to come to me. Well. That was that.

Waving the System off, I got back to the matter at hand. What was the matter at hand already? "Where was I anyway? Yeah… Kinda like it better with a sword rather than claws." I remembered I wouldn't prioritize the 'Claw' Skill if I had a sword, or any other fighting tool, tied to my belt.

Giving my claws—that had now turned back to normal nails and fingers—a look mimicking a grossed-out expression (I wasn't grossed out but thought I should probably be in order to fit in), I sniffed the blood on my fingers. "Eww… Gross! I'm a normal person, by the way!" Washing my fingers with dirt, I got the blood off trading it for the soil of the earth. And that was it.

Around me were lying my prey. Not sparing them a last glance, I trod along my way, with my glance resting on the frontline of the battle, a mile or so away from up my elevated plateau. The fighters had fought well, and they kept at it.

Commending the people with a "Good job, guys," I observed the humans were winning. It must have been why people won't attack me. That was quite sad. Also, maybe it was why the crazy orc ran off at once. Maybe he saw that and decided against staying back for too long—it could be dangerous for him. Seeing how shy the earth was, today, I guess I understood the orc. Your own blood was precious, after all. You didn't want it to be spilled.

"...Anyway." I turned around, facing the other side of the horizon. I could take it easy and not focus too much on the battlefield. The only prey that was more or less near to me were humans. I now knew they'd most probably confuse me for one of their own if I kept my distance from their group. Crossing my arms and losing myself in the blue of the sky, I looked up and thought out loud.

"The old man said I should get a better grasp on these skills. My skills. They're a means for me to survive… and win my every battle, I know. The old man's right: I have to work on them better. …Just take Mana Perception, for example, if I'm to master it for real, I can probably beat anyone even if I'm blind. That means I can peek at the sun however long I want… and who cares if my irises burn or not. Well, the same could be applied to other skills, probably. If I'm efficient, I'm a boss. So I do need to try. That's just another practical example, but that crazy orc, if I'd sensed he would go running before he did, well," I clenched my hand, "he wouldn't be so funny right now. Probably."

Behind my back, a forest was laid out. Running from East to West, parallel to the stretching battlefield, with its deep green and rustling leaves, it covered a wide part of the horizon. It was Benelloan's Forest. The elves' Forest.

Their precious homeland, which was still pretty much at war, too. Squinting my eyes to the thinnest slit, I tried to find something in the sea of trees. A tree stood out and my eyes quickly darted to it. Scanning for some old man, I did find the old uncle rapidly enough. "Oh. Spot you, old man." There, high in the canopy of dancing branches, he rested on top of one thick branch that came out of the forest a little, curiously peeking out at the battlefield in my back.

The old man didn't move to another tree. From his position, he was watching me from a distance—like he had been the one to propose, I needed to be assessed, according to him, and so he still assessed my abilities. I waved a hand at him. It did take a long time, but he waved back at me. "Still doing his assessment?"

Skills. They proved useful, and they will continue to be so in the future. Without skills, well, I wasn't so sure I could fight or not. I needed them to fight. And thus would a large quantity of skill lead me to victory… and a good life. That's what I figured. And so, that's what I thought: To battle, skills are everything. If one is unfortunate enough to lack powerful skills, then one would also be unfortunate enough and kindly lose in battle.

And that was it. My inexperienced mind came up with that solution… and I wasn't half-wrong about it. That was to say I wasn't totally right either. Though I didn't know it, for now, there was much more to the Art of Battling. I won't dive too deep into that for now, but that was how it was: I was so inexperienced I might as well have been clueless about it all. I still didn't know about the broad science of Mana Control. I didn't know anything about magic elementals, about weaponry and equipment, about runes, enchantment, alchemy, about fairies… and so much more. All of which were other tools to victory. Due to my inexperience, even though I might have been oh-so-powerful and overpowered, I certainly couldn't take on an army of a hundred goblins.

For now, I didn't know any of that. (Author's note: The reader can ignore that and go to the next paragraph if they want. If it isn't clear, even though I made our MC naturally overpowered, as he is still very young and inexperienced, he'll first have to learn about Mana bit by bit before he truly becomes a King and doesn't let his overpowered powers and potential be wasted on himself. I like to make it clear so that you know, overall, what to expect. Even though he has the potential to, our MC won't be totally OP right from the beginning and have the whole world crushed under his might. I should prefer it that way, otherwise there will be no growth to witness. At any rate, even in terms of raw power, though he is already a lot powerful as of now, our MC still has a long way to go. By all means, please let me know if this note disturbs your good reading experience.)

But in any case, skills were everything I had, at the moment. So I just did as my old consultant asked and tested my skills. That was about the present situation. The old attendant sure proved useful as my partner. If I wasn't even familiar with my abilities, what was the point of having them? I needed to get to know them, and myself, while I was at it, better. I'm someone who wants to live, after all. By now, the assessment might have been done. The old man must have been satisfied with that much.

From the green hill, I waved frantically at the old man. Yelling "Old man!" to the top of my lungs, my voice carried to him. A calm and passive hand, in the image of his demeanor, waved back at me. And then, his free hand went back to stroking his thinly bearded chin. A cup of tea. He had none, at the moment. I didn't feel bad for taking this old man out with me on a journey; he was very happy to follow.

When he had no tea to drink, his right hand almost only fiddled with his thin gray beard. From such a distance, I couldn't really see that with my eyes, but… as I was sure he'd do that, I could faintly see him do so. From that long distance, I couldn't really make great use of Mana Perception. On that tree, if I spotted him rather easily was thanks to his large, clear tunic of a wealthy merchant. The old man watched over myself from his distant tree, and I yelled some other words to him. "Yooou! Saaaw! Meeeee?!"