The sun had already risen while the villagers were slowly getting up from their homes. When one carefully observed the village, one could notice that there were three main races. The first race and the majority were the dark elves followed closely by the succubae who were mostly half breeds between the dark elves the succubae and the last race was the lizardmen who mostly the elders.

Their village was located in some ancient city which was now in ruins and it mostly served its purpose of putting a roof over their heads against the harsh weather.

Some years before they relocated to the ruins the village was only made up of dark elves who never settled at one place but kept relocating from place to place due to the heavy persecution and purging mostly from the elves who saw them as an evil existence which needed to be erased.

Due to lack, they were able to escape the Elf kingdom and found themselves in a new place. Here they first met a few succubae who were also escaping persecution. They both formed a bond due to their unfortunate circumstances which later lead to their integration into their community.

After travelling for months, they finally reached an ancient city in ruins. When they investigated the ruins, they found yet another race which was the lizardfolk who welcomed them which led to the whole village settling in the ruins until today, ten years later.

Outside the ruins stood a ruined colosseum from which the sound of sword clashing against each other emanated. Inside the colosseum stood a woman who had pointed her sword against a young boy who was lying down with his sword knocked out of his hands.

“Letifer, you still can’t defend yourself properly,” Nini said as she slowly walked towards him.

She picked up the fallen sword and threw it to Letifer who had now gotten up who caught the sword.

Letifer looked tired and injured as he took his form and prepared to block Nini’s attack.

“Have you prepared yourself?” asked Nini while raising her sword preparing to attack.

Letifer didn’t respond which Nini took as a yes as she rushed towards him.

She swung her sword at his calf which Letifer blocked and she responds by changing her form as she swung her sword horizontally aiming for his right ribs.

Letifer had seen this attack many times and tightened his grip on the handle as he had already decided to parry the attack. Thus, when he saw the sword dangerously close to him, he moved his right arm counterintuitively to receive the oncoming attack.

The only problem was the level of difference between the two. Nini had the advantage of too much experience on her hand while Letifer didn’t have the experience of Nini.

Nini had already seen Letifer’s hand moving to parry her attack but instead of following through with the plan, she decided to spice things up to see how Letifer would react.

Her swing which was aimed at Letifer’s right rib suddenly changed its pace and direction and instead opted to aim for his delicate neck.

This caused Letifer to struggled as he awkwardly changed the direction of his sword so as block the strike aimed for his neck. As he did so he left his body unguarded which gave Nini the opening she was looking for.

By increasing the pace and power behind her attack Letifer received the full blow with his sword which caused him to slip up and stagger slightly back.

Nini dropped her sword and instead opted for hand-to-hand combat which left Letifer in a dangerous position.

Nini curled her hand into a fist and aimed at Letifer’s nose which Letifer blocked and suddenly Letifer felt his body gravitate towards the ground.

Nini had thrown the punch which was meant to lower his guard against his lower body which Nini exploited and with one quick blow to both knees Letifer had fallen at the mercy of Nini.

He looked disappointed that Nini had always bested him yet again.

As Nini looked at Letifer who had a dejected face she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

She remembered how they found him abandoned in the forest which had raised a lot of concern when they suddenly came back to the village with a foreign child.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Back at the village, the people took the information surprisingly well. The only problem that was left then was its name. Inside the cloth which wrapped the baby, they only found one thing which was a small wood piece that had the name Letifer written on it on both sides. Thus, Letifer was raised just like any other child of the village.

Letifer grew up in the village surprisingly well and somehow, he developed an aptitude for magic from a young age which was good news.

The only problem that arose was that when he reached five years his aptitude for magic stopped while for the other children they started manifesting more strongly. Other children surpassed him and the highest level of magic he could cast were the base spells like while some could already cast higher spells.

Most people thought that maybe his luck would instead come from things like swordplay only to have their expectations further dulled. His peers exceeded such that he could not hope to catch up with them. Due to this Nini took it upon herself to train him every day to see whether he could gain any new skills or at least have the minimum amount of skill to defend himself.

Though he wasn’t proficient in magic or fighting he did possess an incredibly large mana pool for someone of his age. As he grew older so did his mana pool which currently was nearly approaching her own. How could someone have so much potential yet no seeable outcome or even progress came from him.

She wanted to engage him further but his current state discouraged the thoughts she had.

“That’s all for today,” she said as she stretched her hand to Letifer.

Letifer grabbed her arm and was pulled up. He was happy that this hellish training was finally over as he could feel some of his bones were dislocated.

Nini grabbed her sword and started walking out of the colosseum when Letifer called her causing her to slow down.

“Have you ever heard of any spell named ?” asked Letifer.

“No, I have never heard of it or come across it anywhere,” she replied.

“Ah okay,” replied Letifer as he watched Nini go out.

He had thought that of all people Nini might have some clue. Maybe he could go and ask the elders but considering how rarely they usually responded to the youngsters' requests he gave up on that thought.

Letifer dusted himself and walked back to the village. The village was in a joyous mood as summer had arrived and everybody was trying to have everything prepared to cater for the festival that was going to be held a few days from now.

According to the village, there existed one season which must be celebrated according to the ancient tradition which was winter. This festival held two important reasons for them.

The first was to thank the god of agriculture Melos, for the good harvest they had received and to pray for more blessing to accompany them for the future.

The second reason was to conduct the early status check. This was done to see whether one had received any new skills or whether one had increased their rank. Once the status was checked they were usually recorded and this information was accessible to anyone and also one of Letifer’s major issues.

Since way back Letifer had bad memories of how he was the only one who had the least amount of growth when compared to the whole village.

He hated this day because year after year served to prove that he was indeed the most incompetent of them all. The only attribute that increased was his mana but everything else had always stayed constant.

To his defence, it was not like anybody thought he was useless but still he couldn’t help feeling incompetent as he watched his peers tower above him in so many ways. Once this day passed, he would feel much better since he would have already forgotten his stats.

When he passed the broken gates of the city wall and entered inside, he felt a hand suddenly grab him and a second later he felt his body being embraced in a tight hug.

The place his head landed on was stiff filled with a few bumps and just from this little information he only knew there was one person who could do this.

“Letifer, I see you were training with Nini. Did you get what she likes?” asked Joki.

The question hit him hard and caused him to remember that Joki had asked him last week for a favour. He asked him to investigate what Nini liked as he had planned to ask Nini out during the summer festival. At the time Joki was pestering him so he decided to agree to his request and he has since forgotten about it.

Joki's face looked at him with expectation and he just couldn’t tell him that he had forgotten about it. That answer would lead to Joki pestering him even further considering the festival was just a few nights away. The only solution now was to lie to Joki.

Just as Letifer went to reply he heard his name being called behind and he was happy for the sudden rescue.

Behind him was Nini who had already changed her earlier clothes and was wearing new ones.

“I’m sorry Joki but Letifer has some urgent business to attend to,” said Nini.

“Okay, then see you both later and Letifer don’t forget about our meeting,” said Joki who had already walked away from them.

“The elders are calling for you Letifer,” said Nini who was wearing a serious face.

Letifer was confused because this was not the norm. Usually, one requested for the elders but very rarely was it the other way around.

This could only mean that if the elders were summoning him, it was an extremely important matter which required him to present and whatever that was, he didn’t like it he thought as Nini lead him through the village towards the elders.