A day after I walked away from the shores of the lake I washed up on, I realized I was in really deep trouble. Somehow I was washed up to the edge of the Northern Forests, an ancient woodland north of the Schwarzwald mountains, existing since before the Great Demon War. It was completely covered with miasma and swarming with monsters I’d never seen before.

Gigantic worms rumbled in the ground beneath me, creatures that were conglomerates of different animals wandered around, birds the size of dragons flew over me. No food, no shelter, fatigued and encountering monsters at every turn was starting to make me weary. Now I felt a bit silly remembering my big talk earlier about changing myself and getting stronger.

I kept wandering through, dispatching with monsters that tried to attack me until I encountered three… wyverns?!

Three of these two-legged winged creatures, with muscular hind lesgs and sharp claws, coordinated and surrounded me from all sides, eying me as if I were a peculiar morsel.

Looks like my journey to become stronger will be easier said than done. How shitty is my luck to encounter not one, not two, but three wyverns at once?

I planted my mother’s staff on the ground and unsheathed my sword with my right hand, while carefully noting how the three beasts slowly but surely approached me. The one with dark red scales made itself most eager to approach me.

Double casting:

“[Freeze]; [Blizzard]”

From the ground at my feet, tendrils of water extended towards the legs of each wyvern before freezing into solid ice, constraining the winged creatures to the ground. The calm forest was now at the mercy of an icy blizzard. I had realized why my mother called [Blizzard] her “best spell yet.” It not only obscured me, made it more difficult for the wyverns to fly away and brought down an icy storm controlled by one’s will, but it had another amazing perk.

It made the manipulation of ice so much easier.

I smoothly slid across the solid frozen ground, covering the bottom of my footwear with a layer of thin ice. As it melted from the friction of my sheer speed, a trail of water was left behind as I skated swiftly toward the dark red wyvern.

Spell fusion:

“[Water Column] + [Freeze] —> [Ice Pillar]”

A column of water launched upwards from the ground before freezing into a solid pillar of ice. Jumping upwards, I landed on the top of the platform face to face with the large snout of the wyvern. Panicked at my arrival, it opened its mouth, readying to unleash a breath of fire.

Not on my watch.

“[Aqua Cannon]”

Conjured from my hand was a continuous gush of high-velocity water, right into the wyvern’s mouth. Liquid water turned into hot gas, filling the insides of the wyvern with hot vaporized water, and the creature flinched, its eyes in obvious pain.

Okay, even I’m gonna feel bad for what I’m about to do.

Spell fusion:

“[Aqua Cannon] + [Freeze]”

The water I kept launching into the wyvern’s mouth expanded into large crystals of ice, impaling the creature from within. Some of the crystals jagged out from inside the long, narrow neck of the wyvern, covered in the blood of the monster. The wyvern instinctively flapped its wings before falling to the ground, its body mercilessly destroyed by ice.

Okay, two more to g—

I turned around to see two wyverns running towards me, roaring, and I quickly jumped off. The ice pillar melted as it was engulfed by a wyvern’s breath of fire, and I twisted in the air, dodging the other wyvern’s bite.

“[Fire Lance]”

From point blank, a projectile of flame hit the wyvern right in its face. I landed on the ground face to face with the two remaining wyverns, one still trashing about due to having its head burned.

Shit, I’m almost out of mana. I can take mana from the air and use demonic magic, but no way in hell I’ll do that by choice…

An instant later, a figure suddenly appeared in front of me and the wyverns were quickly beheaded in a flash.

Stopping the blizzard, I saw the one who had done it was… a single old man, with messy, shaggy gray hair and a scruffy beard, wearing simple robes. In his left hand was a long, single-edged sword. An eye-covering lay over his right eye. He seemed to be human. I stared, fascinated, various questions racing through my mind.

He turned his gaze at me as if pondering what to do with the boy before him.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Whoa, thanks for the help! How did you kill those wyverns?” I asked in Voralten.

“With my sword. How else could have I done it?” the old man said, responding likewise in the human tongue.

“Fair enough, just curious. Those cuts you made…” I looked at the clean cuts that severed the wyverns’ heads from their necks. He had done it so quickly and so quietly, such that I almost didn’t even notice. “You’re obviously quite skilled.”

“You wouldn’t know. More importantly, what is a little boy like you doing here? And you’re a demon aren’t you? How do you know how to speak Voralten?”

“That’s a bit of a long story, honestly…” I said while scratching the back of my neck. In the middle of saying so, my stomach grumbled. It had been probably a while since I last ate.

Maybe I could scavenge the meat of the wyverns.

“Okay boy, questions later then. Come with me.” The old man gestured for me to tag along with him.

“Wait! First, can I have a bit of time to take some wyvern meat?”

The old man looked at me exasperated.

***

“A half-demon, huh? And that story about your village. I’m sorry for your loss.” The old man struggled with his words, taking in the information I had told him. I kept it mostly to me being a half-demon and to the fact that humans had invaded and burned down my village. His rough face truly looked apologetic. “But, why did you trust me with this? I might have unsavory intentions.”

“Simple. You helped me out when you could’ve just left me on my own,” I said easily. “And if you do have these so-called unsavory intentions, at least I won’t go down without a tough fight.” I met his dark expression with resolute eyes.

“Hmph. A boy your age shouldn’t have such eyes. But what now? While I’m sorry for your situation, I don’t intend to adopt random orphaned brats from the forest. Don’t tell me you want me to accompany you to one of the demons’ cities.”

What a bitter old man… not too different from me!

I looked around his cozy home, which was decorated with all sorts of weapons. Swords of various shapes and sizes, spears, glaives, halberds, twinswords, as well as some I couldn’t even begin to describe. The wear on some of these weapons told of extensive use by their wielder.

“Actually, may I ask what you do around here first?”

“I’m just an old hermit who’s satisfied living in the Northern Forests, surviving off the land. Though I do venture into the miasma-infested inner forests to slay monsters.”

“I see.”

So he’s someone with a secret, then. And insanely strong, as well. If I was having a hard time in the outer forests, then who knew what kind of monstrosities he faces in the inner forests?

“In that case,” I continued, “Would you mind if I stayed here to train with you? Even better, could I learn swordsmanship from you?”

“Excuse me?”

“I swear I’ll help around here with chores!” I pleaded. “And I’ll help hunt for food as well!”

“…Why does someone like you need training in swordsmanship? Those spells you used earlier served enough well. Ice magic alone is extremely powerful.”

Memories flashed through my head. My inability to fight during the night the Holy Knights invaded, my body and ability to use magic limited by divine magic. While I had learned from Ersham and practiced with Tavarius, I would be remiss to claim that I was an expert in swordsmanship. I had mostly foregone body conditioning and pure physical training, opting to rely on magical strengthening and offensive spells. Magic was my crutch.

Not unlike my previous life. Back then, I relied carelessly on demonic magic as well as pure power to defeat my enemies.

I remembered as well an intense battle against a certain Paladin from the past. The Paladin Arnulf, a human who had not only fought against me but almost beat me by himself. Not through the use of powerful blessed artifacts or divine magic or pure power. He wielded a simple yet well-crafted blade and used no magic aside from body enhancement — and almost won by his sheer skill and by my hubris.

While the old me — Malachi — scoffed at it, I couldn’t help but hold a new appreciation for that way of fighting. Not relying on pure strength, but applying the minimum power required in conjunction with skilled technique to achieve victory. Maybe if that was the philosophy I had, the philosophy that demons had, then maybe the lands we live in now wouldn’t be so ruined by miasma.

This old man, while I had only seen a glimpse of his abilities, was the real deal. This was a new life, a chance to live differently, and learning from him would be undoubtedly fruitful.

“Well, before I can leave this place, I need to take time to build up my strength. But beyond that, I… just want to better myself,” I said while closing my right hand into a fist. “Sometimes, magic isn’t enough and many other times, magic is too much. And I don’t want to solely rely on it.”

The old man sat silently, with his one visible eye closed.

“And why me as your teacher?”

“I think you can answer that question yourself, mister.”

“…What a puzzling boy you are. Asking an old man you just met and whose name you don’t even know to take you as a pupil,” he said with a long sigh. “Well, as long as you meant it when you said you’d do chores.” His eye opened and his neutral expression broke into a slight smile.

“Thank you! And my name is Luqa. What’s your name?”

“Hmph, haven’t had to tell my name to someone in a while. I go by Harold.”

“Nice to meet you, Harold!”

“By the way, that meat of yours is probably finished cooking by now.”

“Oh!”

I hurriedly stood to retrieve the skewers of fatty wyvern meat I had been cooking over the grill on the fireplace. I handed one to Harold while taking one for myself. As I sunk my teeth into a chunk, its juicy, savory flavor spread through my mouth. It’s so… delicious.

“Are you crying, boy? Something wrong?”

Tears had gathered at the corner of my eyes. Eating this made me remember a certain half-demon girl who always made me grab skewers of grilled meat with her every week, by whose side I learned magic and read books. She was still alive out there, held captive.

One day, I’ll find you, Lucia. I’ll keep my promise.

“Nope, just really love the flavor! Who knew wyvern tasted so good?”

***

In the dead of night, in the middle of a clearing within a forest, an old man swung his sword into the air absentmindedly. Each swing was controlled to be of equal power, equal speed. The old man spoke to the empty air as if speaking to a companion.

“Orson, you’re gonna love this. Me, teaching a demon. And to think I almost thought about killing him before he could say a word.”

Each motion of his sword cut through the air appearing as a blur.

“Maybe one day, Orson, your dreams will be made real.”