New writer here. Please feel free to do some constructive criticism, it helps me out.

______________________________________________________________________________________

In the plains of Phantasia, lies our village of Aglia. Our village is only consisted of about 50 people, it’s not a very sizable one, but we make do every day by hunting wildlife, gathering edible plants and farming.

Not very many people reside in the Continent of Phantasia, even though it’s the largest Continent in the World. This is because the whole continent is filled with very dangerous creatures which can wipe out a whole continent. Our ancestors must’ve went through great deals of troubles in order to establish villages in this continent.

Even with this Continent crawling with dangerous beasts, it’s still a major spot for hunting for food for the people in the other Continents. We even get nobles visiting us for a test of strength.

“Chris! Hurry we need to go! You’re the only one we’re waiting on!” My father, Amarty called out to me while on his horse and a bow on his back. My relationship with my dad isn’t really all that good, but we aren’t fighting or anything. It’s just we seldom speak to each other or even see each other. Only on occasions like this Hunting Expedition do we get to speak to each other. But even then, no father – son bonding ever occurs.

“Heading over now!” I replied with a shout. Today’s hunting expedition is consisted of 10 people, including me. There usually aren’t any female members when we go out hunting. That’s because they usually don’t have the same strength as men does, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be as strong as the average male. They can come if they wanted to, it’s just that they choose not to.

My girlfriend Karen is one of those females that are willing to go with us. When it comes to shooting a bow and arrow, no one comes close to her skill.

“Slow poke.” Karen greeted me with a smile as I reached my horse.

“Well, I was buying supplies and spares for traps.” I replied back with a smile as I get up on my horse.

“Let’s go!” My father commanded the expedition and led the way outside the village entrance.

From the village entrance, the forest where were going can be seen as a silhouette in the distance, it was a good thirty minutes by horse ride.

“So, how was my cooking?” Karen started a conversation with me as we rode to the forest.

“At least this time it’s edible… The last time, only one bite and I end up gagging…” I recalled how horrible her cooking was yesterday. It made me want to barf as I remember. ~Ugh, I thought women were supposed to be good at cooking?~

“Really?! YAY! That means I’m getting better!” Karen thrusted one hand to the air doing a kind of victory pose.

“Right… I don’t understand it though Karen… You’re just cooking simple stew, how the hell do you end up with something completely different and almost kills people?” I asked, trying to find out what can be done to help her out.

“That’s rude. Well… In yesterday’s I put in apple juice and grape juice.”

“…Apple juice…? Grape juice…? What…?” I was dumbfounded and can’t organize my thoughts.

“We’re here!” My father shouted, snapping me back to reality.

The forest before us was very dense with trees and plants, very little light passes through it.

“Alright. We proceed on foot. Tie your horses to the trees.” My father said to us and made everyone dismount. We tied the horses’ reigns on the trees so they won’t run away when we’re inside the forest.

We walked quite a few ways in the forest, making as little sound as possible. We took care so we don’t unintentionally scare off potential game.

My father then stopped and signaled us to stop. He studied the surroundings. Everyone was confused because they don’t see, hear or smell anything. I looked around and scanned the area. ~If only I can use a High Level Magic, I can enhance my eyes to where I can see whole continents away.~ I sighed heavily at my own incompetence.

“What’s wrong?” Karen patted my shoulder, her long blonde hair that reached to her shoulders were a bit untidy and was getting on her face. Her face is very cute, her nose just the right size and has a very appropriate roundness to it that matches her face. Her eyes as blue as the sky just staring right at mine was very tantalizing. She was wearing her leather jacket over her shirt and her pants fit to emphasize her curves.

I sighed another time, trying to compose myself so as to not lose control and take her right here. It made Karen stare at me more with a worried look on her face.

“Nothing, just feeling very incompetent about my Magic right now.”

“Hmm…?” Karen just gave me a confused look.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay…” Karen then walked to a different direction than I did. ~And she’s a very competent hunter! Damn it…~ Just realizing all these good points about her just makes me feel so lucky to be her partner.

I went back to scanning the forest and noticed an Elk standing still and looking deeper into the forest. I held out my hand pointing towards the Elk and started gathering my mana to cast Ice Magic. I started hearing wing beats from afar but ignored it.

I planned to use an Ice Spike to impale the Elk but my dad suddenly came from behind me and grabbed my hand pointing it away from the Elk.

Suddenly, the flapping sounds that I heard became louder and clearer, like gigantic wings flapping and it’s getting closer.

I looked at my dad and saw him make a terrified face. The kind of face one makes when they lost all hope.

We backed away slowly and back to the trail, until a powerful gust of wind coming from above hit us and heard an ear splitting roar. Everyone covered their ears and was stunned. I willed myself to look forward and saw movement from the trees.

“Everyone! RUN!!” My dad shouted to everyone and started running, snapping everybody to action. Everyone started running to where we came from to get to the horses.

As I run, I looked back and saw the Elk now looking upwards to the sky and started running. A moment later, it was grabbed by a black claw that’s as big as a horse. I was terrified and looked away from the scene and focused on riding back to the village.

Some of us, me included looked above and saw a huge black dragon pass by, it is so huge that the whole village will be squashed if it ever decides to land on it.

“We can’t go to the village! It’ll kill everyone there!” I shouted to my dad.

“I know! We’ll lead it away once we get on the plains!” My dad told us to not directly to the village, everyone agreed on it, wanting to protect their families and friends.

Once we got on the plains, we could still hear its wings flapping. We immediately ran towards our horses, untied them and rode off in different directions. Only me, my dad and Karen.

The dragon landed in front of us. The shockwave blew us off our horses and the horses just ran away from the dragon when we fell off, leaving us behind.

I landed on my buttocks and just looked at the dragon, filled with fear. At this moment my dad ran to me, putting himself between me and the dragon, readied his bow and aimed at the huge adversary in front of us.

I was wide eyed looking at my father ~No! Stop! You can’t fight it! You’ll just die! There’s no point in doing this!~  was the only thing going through my mind while Karen ran up to me trying to help me get back up.

“Get up! We need to run!” She shouted, snapping me back to action.

“Dad! Let’s go!” I grabbed his shoulder trying to pull him to me.

But he only pushed me away. “Go! I’ll hold it back! Run!” He shouted to us. I wrapped my arms around him and tried to pull him away but to no avail. He easily tore me away from him and pushed me off again.

“There’s no way you can! You’ll just die!” I shouted and my vision gets blurry from the tears running down from my eyes.

My dad just stayed silent aiming his bow at the huge dragon.

Karen grabbed me and started dragging me away to safety. ~No! I won’t let him die! Damn it!!!~

I gathered up my mana to try to cast Air Magic, what I want is wind with enough power to blow my dad towards me, towards safety. I judged that the mana I gathered up was enough to pull it off so I released it.

Wind suddenly blew in front of my dad and he got pushed back. I poured more mana into the spell to keep it up until he’s with us.

But he planted his feet firmly and resisted the wind. I’m running out of mana and can’t keep up the spell. Eventually, the spell died down and my father didn’t even move for more than 5 meters.

~NO!! NO!! Damn it! Of all the times now is not the time to suck at Magic!~ I broke off from Karen’s grip but as soon as the dragon took a step, the ground trembled, knocking both of us off our feet.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“Go!!” Dad shot one of the arrows aimed for the dragon’s eye. Karen was doing all she can to drag me all the way to the forest when the dragon roared again, making my ears bleed and immobilizing me and Karen.

~No! Dad!~ Was the only thing I thought and I looked back towards him. I saw the dragon getting ready bite into my dad when an incredibly powerful gust hit the ground, strong enough to make my father fly to where I am and to stagger the dragon.

~A gust hitting the ground?! Another one?!~ I looked at the dragon and saw it look up at the cause of the gust. I followed its sight and noticed in my peripheral that my dad was doing the same.

What we saw was a small black dot falling to the ground. The dragon didn’t waste time to fire a Fire Breath at the black dot.

I gasped and told my dad and Karen to cover their ears. The dragon let out his Fire Breath and with it an ear splitting roar even with the ears covered.

I struggled to look up and I saw the Fire being absorbed and condensed into a ball and then the black spot disappeared and the next thing we felt was a shockwave coming from the dragon and a very loud ~BOOM~ followed by a pillar of Fire erupting from its head.

The shockwave was strong enough to blow us away a few meters from where we were standing.

The dragon’s head was smacked down to the ground by a man wearing black robes. Through the dust particles in the air, we saw the man stepping off the dragon’s head very casually.

“Waahh” I was amazed at what I am seeing; a dragon being suppressed by one man alone.

The dragon started getting up and shook its head, it groaned slightly and I saw a part of its head destroyed.

The man looked back at the dragon and faced It. He extended his hand to the dragon, and when it stopped, the dragon’s whole body was pressed to the ground by an invisible force.

My knowledge in Magic is very lacking so I’m not sure what kind of Magic it is I can only assume that it is a Magic that manipulates gravity. I can only assume that he is a very powerful Magician, probably the most powerful one out there.

In spite of this, the dragon was still alive and stirring. It was trying to get up but couldn’t due to the Gravity Magic weighing down on it, a moment later, the dragon’s body started convulsing, like something was trying to get out of its body. Then it’s body exploded from inside out, nothing was solid besides the scales, just pure blood. It covered around three kilometers of the area, that’s of course including me, my dad and Karen. it was very gruesome.

The man then started waving around his hand rotating it, and along with it, all the blood started circulating and forming a ball floating on his palm, even the blood that splattered on me and my dad. Then the ball of blood just slowly dematerializes like it never existed.

Me and my dad just sat there stupefied and saw the man walking towards us. I didn’t know what he was going to do, I’m almost out of Mana, I still have a little but it’s certainly not enough to protect us from this man.

He then stopped in front of us, he was wearing a black robe with a hood that had silver embroideries on it, it had pentagrams on its sleeve and at the bottom where his ankles are, he took off his hood that covered his face. His face looks young, somewhere around 25 years old, clean and shaven face, black hair that was long enough to be tied to a ponytail and eyes that looks sleepy, no rather than sleepy maybe tired? He asked, “Where’s the closest village?”

I opened my mouth to answer but before I could utter a sound, right behind the man was a patch of light just floating around there and then a person appeared out of nowhere from that light. Spatial magic? I didn’t know for sure but I remember someone saying that’s how you teleport.

Suddenly the man who was standing in front of us jumped to the side and fired a Fireball at the person who appeared.

The Fireball was stopped and returned to nothingness by the woman who appeared. She had long blonde hair that reached down to her buttocks. She was slender, and she was a little shorter than the man. She wore white robes in contrast to the man with golden embroideries in the shape of a star on her sleeves, on the place where her heart should lie and on the bottom covering her ankles.

She looked at the man with her sky blue eyes that looked like they were glowing and emitting mana. “Are you planning to kill them too?” She asked the man while walking towards me and my dad.

She put herself between us and the man. Fired a Gale at the man.

The man negated it with his own Gale. “Of course not! I just wanted a place to rest!” The man shouted at the woman with a voice hinted with annoyance.

“Yeah right! You’re planning on using these people as bait for your hunting are you?!” The woman replied with another question, which made me and my father perk up when we heard it.

~You don’t mean he was hunting the dragon?!~ I was getting anxious. Just thinking that our lives were used as mere bait for a hunt!

“NO! My target isn’t even here!” The man was now getting even more annoyed and shot a glare at the woman.

“Then how do explain that big hole on the ground huh?!” The woman pointed at where the dragon stood and died.

“Oh come on! Look around you! There’s dragon scales all around! There was a dragon attacking the people, so I killed it.” The man explained the situation and made it seem like it was such a trivial thing. ~We almost died!~  I shouted in my head.

“Hmph! I’m still onto you.” The woman declared she’s not giving up. Crossing her arms to her chest.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve been onto me for a century now. Frankly, it’s getting annoying. I keep telling you that I never used humans as bait.” The man shrugged his shoulders stating his annoyance towards the woman.

“Then how do you explain what happened fifty years ago?! Where the Magus almost raped those women and you suddenly saving the day?!”

“Pure coincidence! You know how I am; I would never use humans!” The man defended himself from the woman’s onslaught of words.

“Hmph, nowadays I don’t even know anymore…” The woman gave up with a shrug.

The man looked at us and walked over to us who didn’t know what to do facing these powerful beings. In the corner of my vision, I see the woman about ready to rush in at him until he asked his question.

“So? Where’s the closest village so I can sleep?” The man asked us his original question.

“Uh… We’ll lead the way.” My dad started walking past the man and towards the village.

“Okay” The man followed behind my dad and me followed by Karen followed after them.

The woman started walking towards us and caught up to us. “I’m not leaving him alone; he might just kill everyone in your village.” She stated her statement to me but was not addressed to me.

The man just put his hands on his waist and sighed. “Do what you want.”

I just didn’t care anymore, I just wanted to go back to the village, take a bath to forget about this whole ordeal.

We walked in silence for about two hours until we reached the village. My father talked to the guards about sending out scouts to try to find the people in the expedition group who ran away.

We then walked to my house, it’s not a very grand house, although it is a bit bigger than all the other houses in the village but that’s just how it is when your dad is the village chief.

There we parted ways, Karen waved us goodbye and went back to her house. I offered to take her home but she insisted for both of us to go and rest immediately. My dad served as a guide to the two powerful Magicians around the village.

I immediately went to the bath and cleansed myself. I practiced my Water Magic by controlling the water to take form of whatever I imagine. I always do this whenever I’m bathing. I believe this practice makes me cast Magic a lot faster. Although I see improvement it’s very slow and very little. Trying to be the strongest Magician is looking bleak right now.

I started feeling incredibly tired because of the training that I was doing, not to mention that whole ordeal with the dragon, so I decided to head off to bed. I walked into our bedroom without even bothering to put on anything and just laid down on the bed made of wood and a mattress stuffed with hay.

I thought back to the two powerful Magicians and wondered what they were doing right now. I envied at how powerful they are and resolved myself to be a better Magician. After finding new inspiration to get stronger, it didn’t take long till my body resigned to sleep.