Chapter 1 -prolog- 30 years

30 years I spent serving with those uppity pricks...…30 years...….to save the hellgaran continent from a demon invasion, 30 years of a war I never should have been a part of, I just got swept up in my anger and kept going along with it.

After 30 years of war we finally managed to drive out those eldritch horrors they call demons back to their domains bruised and limping, I've killed countless demons over this period of time, humans, beastkin and elves as well. The ones that were corrupted by the demons sweet whispers of rewards and power and decided to betray their respective races.

No dwarves funnily enough, but that's to be expected, as a race they have never been one to take what they haven't earned, and their greed doesn't consume them like humans, elves and beastkin, they would rather just stick to themselves in the mountains.

I have bathed in literal lakes of blood, nearly starved to death and forced to consume demon flesh stay my hunger, drink their blood to quench my thirst after weeks of non stop battle finishing no where near any sort of possible supplies.

I had companions who were the "heroes" of the alliance between the humans, elves, beastkin and the dwarves, we were never very close but I called them allies for a time, there were 8 of us who were hailed as "heroes"

The elven ranger - Alice Everforest, she was a proud elf who thought ever other race inferior to her own, typical elven feature of a beautiful face, light green hair and silver eyes, elves had a long life span, beautiful appearance and were quiet gifted when it came to archery and magic, though very weak when it came to physical constitution.

The human priestess - Beatrice silver, a "holy maiden" of the atherix church, platinum blonde hair, blue eyes, a curvaceous body, wearing highly expensive white priestly robes, follows only the will of atherix, "goddess of light", or more correctly put. The will of the greedy old fools who run the church.

The human paladin - Magnus murlow, another follower of the atherix church, and just as racist….. the atherix church promotes human supremacy and light magic, claiming every other magic is heresy and should be purged, and Magnus personifies the church perfectly, with his holier than thou attitude and general disregard of every other species, he stands at 6'1 covered i. Holy silver armour with a long sword and kite shield.

The human mage - Hugo Weest, a very quiet man with little to say, but let's his magic speak for him. A true artist when it comes to flame and lightning magic, able to decimate army's with his large scale spells that would leave even the elves jealous, which often times it does. A rather unassuming man with grey eyes and brown hair, if he wasn't wearing his magely robes you wouldn't be able to pick him out of a crowd

The beastkin swordsman - Blaine Longclaw, a wolf beastkin with silver hair and eyes, wolf ears and tail, specialised in dual wielding swords and speed to brutally cut through his foes. He comes from the beastkin alliance, a nation in the southern east part of the hellgaran continent, he is nothing if not confident in himself and lacks respect for anyone who doesn't know how to use a sword.

The human assassin/rogue - Victor, just Victor with no last name as he was raised an orphan on the streets forced to pickpocket to survive, that was until he found it was worth more to slit a man's throat for money then it was to steal from commoners pockets. And he was the best at it, never caught until he took a job to assassinate Magnus Murlow…..who saw his potential and offered him a position at his side, which the rogue took without a second thought. Black hair, black eyes and standing at 5'8 he was a man to fear in the dark.

And last but certainly not least would be the only person I call friend in the last 30 years

The dwarf shield warden - strous copperfist, a dwarf set in heavy black armour and a large spiked tower shield and mace that detonated on impact, specialised in defence and counter attacks, standing at 4'9 tall and almost a width to match, brown braided long hair and beard and brown eyes and a very perky attitude, loves drinking and a good fight, and like all dwarves was quiet the blacksmith aswell. I actually met him before this war, started before I realised how cruel this world truely was.

And me? Well It would take a lot longer to explain my situation than the brief summery of my former companions, we would have to go back to over 60 years ago.

I was not originally from this world they call terra, I was originally from a planet called earth, I was 25 years old and had just finished my late apprenticeship as a chef, and I truely found my passion. For years I spent most of my free time researching how to make food from scratch from every culture that I could get my mind around, and not just food, alcohol as well.

It was my dream to start my own bar/restaurant and I was making every second count when it came to it, i saved every cent I could, learned and practiced every cooking technique, learned how to serve tables, learned every form of cocktail imaginable, it was my life's ambition.....

But fate can be a cruel mistress when it wants to be...…

There was no truck-kun, no accidents, no death at all.... I had everything ready to sign my first lease ready to start my own restaurant the next day, I was ready...but I went to sleep and woke up again in a body not my own…..

It was small and frail, and I was surrounded by giants speaking an unknown language, it took me a few days to come to terms of what happened to me, I'd been reincarnated into a child's body....

And as I finally calmed down and accepted the fact, I started to assess my situation and found out I was in a animal skin tent, a very large one.

It was decorated with bones and skulls of various animals, some I didn't recognise and some I did. But the ones I did recognise seemed a little big, even with my perspective of everything being a little to big but they seemed more so, I noticed a wolf skull that was half the size of the people who came to check on me.

And I didn't use the term parents here because it was more or less a different person every time,I never did quiet find out who my parents were, and I spent was what felt like weeks in that crib trying to get proper control of my limbs, being a baby was rough let me tell you that, but I'll skip all the details of being breast fed and shitting my self.

It wasn't until a few weeks later when I had grown a little one of my carers suddenly wrapped me up in some fur and brought me outside the tent for the first time and what I saw shocked me...

A massive frozen tundra, only ice and mountains as far as my tiny eyes could see, and around a hundred animal skin tents mixed with with a few fires here and there with men and women walking around.

The men were massive, all of them built like bears, arms 3 times thicker than a normal mans thigh, jaws that look like the could cut diamonds, none of them wearing shirts, only pants made of what looks to be leather with a half kilt of animal fur around the back, all of them possessing black hair and blue eyes.

The women have similar black hair and blue eyes and every single one of them could pose as a model, buxom and lean, and wearing similar clothes to the men but have a sort of leather and fur bra keeping their tits out of view.

The women carrying me starts to mosey down to the "tribe" to introduce me to the tribe, my name was nickoli and I was met with an assault of cooing women passing me around saying god knows what. The men more or less ignored me, not in a bad way though, I got some warms smiles. I can only assume they wanted to stay out of the way of the women.

And that was my first trip outside, and being the baby I was I got tired very quickly and passed out pretty soon after that. And that was my life for a few years, cooing women and tits in my mouth, which would be great if I wasn't a baby, but it was fine.

I picked up their language fairly quickly, a lot quicker than I thought I could, it only took me a few weeks and I don't know if it was because baby's learn fast or something else but it helped all the same.

I was in for a big surprise when I was taken to the "shaman" when I was around 2 years old for a check up, that was when I found out magic was real in this new world and I was pretty stoked, and using my best childish voice I managed to talk the shaman into showing me some.

He seemed happy someone was interested in his magic as not a lot of people were, my "tribe" seemed to want to rely on their body more and I couldn't blame them really. Our peoples strength was insane, watching men lift boulders 20 times their size with minimal effort really cemented for me that we were not normal people at that time.

So over the next few years I had the shaman show me magic, I seem to have had a nack for nature and space time magic, and the space magic aloud me to have an "item box" which was MASSIVE, and the space magic aloud me to keep things in there frozen in time,which was pretty cool, while some of the men in our tribe showed me how to use my body properly. Which was more or less most exercise with weights and rest when you can't do anymore, simple but effective.

I learned from the shaman that our people weren't actually "human" we were what were called the flaroonian, a race created by the war god atishe for battle against other gods tens of thousands of years ago.

At the time I thought we were just a tribe of tall and strong humans....as the shortest man was 6'7 which was around the height of the average woman.

Anyway the shaman told me that we were created as tools of war, and we thrived in it. We could easily bring every other race to heel with minimal effort if we desired, that was also the time I found out about the other races.

We were better at magic and had life spans as long as the elves, we were physically superior to all beastkin, we had a natural affinity to all weapons, but the only thing that held us back were our low birth rates…. Which was solved by breeding with humans, everyone human-flaroonian couple birthed a pure flaroonian child, something about our blood being to strong.

But after the war of the gods, every race on the continent began to fear us for our strength and decided to end us with a betrayal that led to 97% of our people dead and the rest fled to the northernmost part of the continent which was inhospitable.

But the other races payed dearly for it, even with their alliance and ambush set up for our entire race, they lost about 70% of their own races in the process, tens of millions died in our retaliation.

Even with their careful planing and setting our race up the way they did that included placing suiciding mages in all our villages and city's, our retaliation was brutal, they didn't spare anyone, men, women and even children. The nobles at the time seemed to think themselves the exception to our races retaliation...they thought wrong, no survivors out peoples general policy after the betrayal.

The gods did not thing and just watched as it was a "mortal conflict", which I found funny considering us "mortals" fight their wars for them but what ever.

After learning all this I wasn't fuming mad or anything.... It had nothing to do with me, I kinda considered myself an outsider, which I would find out how wrong I was…

But anyways the years passed and I learned to hunt, and I was good, really good. I picked up everything insanely fast according to the tribe elders, weapons, magic it didn't matter, I was a master of using them in short order. And I'm instincts for combat were inhuman….. even though I wasn't human but you get the point.

I could hunter everything that tundra had to offer from yeti elk to the frost wyverns

I could even hunt the cocytus wolf packs alone. They were giant white wolves the size of a house and used ice magic that were usually in packs of 3-6, it would usually take 2 dozen of us to hunt a pack of any size without casualties, but I was special....

I still enjoyed cooking, especially for the tribe, they really loved the way I should make their food taste better. Life was pretty good... that was until one fateful day when I was out hunting there was a roar....one that didn't only shake the tribe...I dare say it shook the whole continent….

Even the frost wyvern I was battling tucked it's tail and ran, which they never do, even if death is close they fight.

My heart at the time told me my tribe was in danger, so I ran back as fast as I could….and when I made it back... all I saw was death…. All of my people were either frozen statues or piles of meat on the ground... I couldn't think of anything as my brain short circuited..

And than a shadow loomed over me as I stood in the remains of my once bustling tribe....as I turn around I saw it...it was an actual dragon….. standing at almost 200 feet tall, covered in icy dark blue scales, the tribe shaman told me about them and how they haven't been spotted since the war of the gods...

It just loomed over me looking almost arrogant as it watched the horror on my face of what it had done to my tribe…..and I felt something snap inside me, I'm not sure how else to explain it…..but I blacked out

When I came to…. I was standing on top of the dragon that was now laying on its back looking to the side with lifeless eyes, I had its heart in my arms and blood around my mouth…..well covered in blood really, but I had been eating its heart... my body ached, my magic was run dry…. But as I swallowed the piece of heart that was I. My mouth I felt a little better.

So I kept eating to try and stave off my sorrow for what I had just lost and as I did I felt my body swell with power as my magic seemed to return but I seemed to feel something different about my magic…..and as I finish the heart and look down at my arms, I see ice starting to swirl around my hands as I play with my magic…..the heart seemed to give me an affinity with ice magic…..

I spent the next few days looking for any possible survivors who could have gotten away from the dragon, but to no avail, I was all that was left…..the last flaroonian, heh, it seemed almost comical at the time, fate found a way to fuck me over again.

I spent months wallowing In anger and regret, hunting what I needed to stay alive and otherwise just training myself like a madman as I got used to my new ice affinity, I stored the dragons corpse on my item box for the future.

But it took a good year for me to make a decision, I would head south and explore the continent… and I could feel my old dream of starting a restaurant threatening to bloom to life again, so with a quick step I started heading south to the unknown.

It took me 6 months of travelling the dangerous tundra and frozen rocky cliffs of what I once called home to reach something not entirely frozen... a lightly snowed upon forest, I made my way through it with minimal effort, it was as if waking on flat land compared to scaling the cliffs of the tundra, and I met all manner of beasts, from car size wolves to house sized bears with ice magic, but they all had one thing in common.

They were all incredibly weak, they would die to a mere back hand, but I put them in inventory all the same, I know once I reach civilisation I'll need money, I'm not sure how much these weak creature would sell for but I'll try it anyway.

I spent 6 days in the forest still heading south before I caught some signs of civilisation, which looked to be a mid sized town with around 6-9 thousand people, surrounded by 10 foot high stone walls.

And as I approached the city gates I noticed the guards were up in arms at my coming closer like o was some sort of monster.

He shouted at me in a language I couldn't understand, and I'll admit I didn't think the possible language barrier through all the way when I decided to come south.

And after 10 minutes of making hand gestures and trying to speak to them in my language they finally caught on i wasn't here for trouble.

Another 20 minutes before they were willing to let me in the gate, but stopped me again as I had no money for the gate toll, so with a quick thought I dropped one of those weak wolves at his feet which left him gob smacked again and said a few thing to the guards on duty and they ran to fetch someone. Who turned out to be a mid 20s woman.

She inspected the wolf and gave a few words to the guard and gestures for me to follow while carrying the wolf, so I did... I was worried about possibly being ambushed, but again everyone seemed quite weak so it didn't bother me to much.

We ended making our way to a largish stone building i later found out was the adventures guild and set the wolf down near the counter, and 3 burly men came out to carry the wolf away, I say burly and they were for humans, but they were tiny to me. I sat at a comfortable 7'2 and I didn't have a lean build either, something close to Alex Armstrong from full metal alchemist if I had to compare.

The women "calls" me over and shows gestures to place my hand on an orb, which I do, and it glows. Suddenly she presents me a bronze coloured card which turned out to be an adventurers lowest level adventurer card with my info on it….. it showed my home as the small town of hellon and that was basically it, the woman then handed over a decent sized sack of what turned out to be gold coins.

So with a little gold and the woman I later learned was called Helga I found a place to crash at a decent inn.

Luckily Helga took a liking to me and slowly taught me how to read and speaking the common human language over the course of 4 months, and I'd nearly even dented the gold I got from what I learned were calling death hunter wolves, and they were apparently an A ranked monster that were very dangerous...

I learned many things while I was In town like local specialties and how to cook them but I eventually left Helga and Hellon to continue exploring the continent to learn everything I could about the world I was thrust into.

I spent 30 years just travelling the continent learning all there was to know from different magics from the mages, how to brew the best wines with the elves, how to prepare the finest meats with the beastkin even how to forge and craft runes with the dwarves, who mind you were very standoffish at first with me being a big "human" but once I showed them I could make a time dilated space to age their whiskeys and wines they welcomed me as a brother of the dwarves, again thanks to time and space magic and that was where I met Strous copperfist, and we became close friends

I had a blast running around the continent for 30 years just learning and enjoying myself and was just about to set a tavern at the borders of the dwarf and human kingdoms when the demons attacked.

And i joined the war effort on the front lines after I saw what the demons were doing to the beastkin and elven kingdoms, it was just brutal and I knew I couldn't rest in piece until they were dealt with, they weren't demonkin who were more like humans with horns and high magic who are scattered in all 4 kingdoms...no they were horrible unfeeling beasts who's only purpose Was death and destruction, so again I joined the war effort

Over the years I earned the name the druididic berserker, as I would use nature magic and a pair of axes as I slammed head first into the enemy lines and killed them by the hundreds without rest or sore for days on end.

For years I lost myself in bloodshed and hate of what those demons were doing to the people of the lands, massacring everyone I could get my axes into.

It was about 2 years into the war I was invited to the "heroes party" which being the blood thirsty war maniac I was at the time I did, as we spent years delving into the heart of the demons invasion forces to drive them back….

I didn't get along much with any of them except strous, but I didn't need to. All I had to do was unleash hell upon the demons and retreat when it was time.

For 30 years...… I know I have an extremely long life span, but 30 years of constant war wore me down and by the end I was so tired…..of war…of hate…..of everything, I just needed to rest.

And that leads us to the present…..with me bleeding and 3 arrows in my chest, a cut across my shoulder down to my ribs, which you can see the bone and being surrounded by my so called companions at the edge of a jagged cliff overlooking the ocean with a nearly kilometre drop into sharp rocks, everyone except strous.

I can't teleport out due to Hugo Weest having locked down the area, uggggh I can't even access my inventory, with that bullshit space lock

Magnus Murlow " did you really think we wouldn't figure out what you were after spring so much time together nickoli?, you were practically announcing it to the world with the way you fight"

I struggle to take a breath and respond

Nickoli " I was hoping you wouldn't or maybe you would just let it go after the service I've done the 4 kingdoms…..turns out I was naïve...pity though, I was almost warming up to you uppity assholes hehe *cough*...where is strous?"

Alice everforest " the dwarf refused to participate in this just execution of a monster, he even wanted to warn you so we had to sedate him….."

I coughed a few more times and noticed some black in the blood that came out, turns out to be hydra poison, it's really messing with my magic circulation... must have slipped it to me somehow, it's the only reason I was to slow to avoid those arrows…..

Nickoli " that so?, I don't know how you fuckers slipped me hydra poison without me noticing but good job…..really took my edge off, so you could back stab the man who saved all your lives multiple times over the last 3 decades…."

Blaine Longclaw " yeah well, it just goes to show how much of a freak your race truely is, a drop of that stuff would kill any of us….. but half a bottle barely even slowed you down…..and look at those injury's, an arrow to the heart and your insides showing and you're stilling moving even with all that poison in you, you're nothing but a monster in human skin"

Nickoli " that's funny flea bag, I didn't see you complaining when I took that sickle to the chest to save your cowardly life"

He seemed to wince at that a little as the groups little "holy maiden" gets her last words in before my final departure

Beatrice silver " please understand nickoli that you're to dangerous to be left alive, and it's the will of atherix that you die here to day, just know she will guide you into the light and cleanse your corrupt soul"

Nickoli " you can fuck right off you little bitch….. you're nothing but the glorified healing whore of those little fat old fuckers sitting on their golden thrones pretending they hear the voice of that glorified lamp you call a goddess"

She and the paladin prick seemed to be offended at that particular statement…..good, even at the end of my life it feels good to get some licks in on these pretentious cock sleeves.

I look to Victor who just looks at me with a little anger but besides that nothing else, but the mage Hugo weest seems almost reluctant to do this, I'd say they forced him into it with some bullshit, doesn't matter I forgive you buddy

At the end of the road, after 30 long years of blood and war, all I can feel is relief...which is funny to me, considering all I went through but I guess I'm just a little broken.

I drool slightly as I feel my life slowly fading and Victor takes that moment to try and end it...just as I thought he would, better to leave a little parting gift seeing how he would be the one to feed me that fucking hydra poison.

He comes in low and goes for a dagger to the neck as I'm looking down about to fall over when all of a sudden a small piece of ice forms under where his foot would land and he slips, only for a moment...but it's enough..... my axe moves faster than he can retreat and he jumped back to his little group 1 leg short.

And normally you could reattach it with magic but I manage to keep my axe in the leg as I flick it over the cliff with a loud laugh…..

Magnus Murlow " YOU SON OF A BITCH!!!"

HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

My laughter sounds like madness as I start to slowly move back, I truely am ready to face death... but I'm going out on my terms as I get out one last lick before I take the plunge

Nickoli " take that you rat bastard, they're gonna have to call you stumpy from now on, that's for the poison....well ladies and gentlemen it's been a pleasure, I wish you and your kingdoms nothing but ruin and poverty, but it's time for me to take my leave, so I'll see you assholes on the other side!"

As I flip them the double bird after I placed my axe into my inventory, I make my leap into the rock filled murky depths below with a true sense of freedom, as the blackness of the water comes closer I can't help but think of the years I spent with my tribe and the years I spent exploring the continent and a smile comes to my face.

If I got another chance I would definitely open my own tavern next time, i would make it the greatest tavern to exist, well I guess there's nothing left to do but take what comes next

As I close my eyes suddenly I felt my body hitting something solid and I black out...