Skylar slammed down his sword, injuring the orc as he slashed the creature's forearm. However, his strike could not penetrate the monster's bone

He hated orcs and will go out of his way to kill any orc he encountered, but they were 4 times stronger than a human, and nearly twice as tall!

"Fall back!" Marcel shouted as Skylar retreated, his sword imbued with aura and slicing the last orc in twain, making it the final orc in the group they were hunting

Marcel gave him a disgusted glance, and then charged forwards

It was clear to his team mates that Skylar's strength was not enough even to take care of an orc

With Marcel's attack, they accomplished their mission to exterminate this orc village

They have been rising the ranks for two years since the destruction of their hometown Homely

By now, Marcel was the official leader of the group, and called themselves the Grey Wolves, a tribute to the most famous team of adventurers in their town Homely

They had risen to B Rank too, which was the level the original Grey Wolves were at

Coincidentally, Skylar's parents were original members of the Grey Wolves, but Marcel, Miranda and Elizabeth's parents were only civilians, who have had their lives saved by the Grey Wolves one time or another

The team of Skylar, Marcel, Marinda and Elizabeth was now 18 and have been joined by the two dwarves Duncan and Donut, and the knight Lucilder

Duncan was a typical warrior Dwarf, standing around 5 feet tall, but with the strength of 8 men, with his family axe Golumbane

Donut, affectionately called that by his teammates even though his name was Duramor, was a Armored Berserker, his whole body covered in spiky armor. His battle style was to directly charge into battle using his head and shaking around as the spikes all over his body tear off the flesh of his enemies

The rest of the team called him Donut simply because his style of fighting, while brutal and efficient, looked stupid. After the battle, his whole body was covered in the green blood of the orcs he slaughtered, and the spikes protruding from his armor covered in bits and pieces of orc flesh that remained stuck on his armor

They were both cousins, and were considered young among the dwarf race, being only around 200 years old each

Lucilder was a up and coming knight who was looking for a party to join. He was 21 years old and his whole team had perished leaving only him alive

Lucilder often questioned aloud why Skylar was part of this team as they had grown into a B Class team. Skylar's battle abilities were clearly not up to mark and to him, was considered a liability

Skylar had the ability to summon birds and used them to scout the area, and was good at controlling the donkeys and horses to carry their belongings and not to flee in times of danger. After all, he was rumored to be a beast tamer

But what kind of tamer was that? He had met a real tamer before and to his knowledge, tamers had a familiar that they could share some abilities with, and a tamer can activate the familiar's evolution and make their familiar more powerful

Skylar on the other hand, only used whatever animals that were around and didn't seem to have a permanent familiar. 

As such, he was not more useful than a normal human in battle, although admittedly he had good sword skills, limited in damage as they were

So he was given the task of mainly for scouting, as well as other miscellaneous jobs such as cooking or cleaning armor and weapons, especially Donut's frequently gruesome armor

They returned to the adventurer's guild in a town called Awayo to claim their rewards, with a bag full of beast ores of the orcs to confirm their kills

Somehow, Sky had noticed that his share was no longer equal and his portion was getting smaller and smaller from the rewards

Marcel stated openly that it was because there were now more people in the party, but Sky knew that even if the rewards were divided up among 7 people, he still received 1/4 of what anyone else was getting

Skylar knew deep inside, that it was because off the whole group, he was the only one not able to kill the orcs in this mission

While the others are able to upkeep their weapons and armor, Skylar had barely enough to pay rent

As the team was ranking up, he seemed to be getting more and more injured in each mission, taking days using his limited healing abilities he learned from his mother to heal himself

He returned to his shabby room that he rented behind the stables

He could not afford the luxurious rooms the others were renting

He noticed that in the last year, even Miranda was no longer close to him, and Elizabeth simply ignored him as if she was ashamed of him and for over a year hasn't been using her magic abilities to help him heal

Marcel too was silent towards him, but he knew the new guys Duncan, Donut and Lucilder were outright hostile towards him

They regularly stated how useless he was during missions and treated him like a burden

But Skylar didn't care. He only wanted to kill monsters of this realm, as he still needed to get his vengeance on the killer of his parents

Deep inside, he knew that the actual arcs that killed his family was likely dead from the US Airstrike, but he felt that he had no other reason to live

A few days ago, he wanted to see Miranda alone, to talk to her on why they have drifted apart. They were close in their village and they planned to marry each other before the academy, and even after their parent's death two years ago, she was sympathetic towards him as she had lost a parent in Homely too

But as he approached her room, he heard loud fucking noises, and he recognized them as Miranda's voice... together with Marcel!

He was shocked and hid in the dark corner nearby to confirm it. Hours later, Marcel walked out of the room, and he could see Miranda covered in only a bedsheet, kissing him before he departed

"Damn" Skylar muttered helplessly as he walked away alone into the dark alley to his room

--

Several days later, Skylar was called into Marcel's room, and Skylar was surprised to see the whole team there

However, standing next to Marcel was a new person, and elf!

"Skylar, I regret to inform you that you have been fired!" Marcel said

"Wha... what?" Skylar asked

"While you were injured the past few days, I got promoted to A Rank, while Miranda, Elizabeth, Duncan, Donut and Lucider would require a few more successes to get promotion too" Marcel said

"Surely..." Skylar was about to ask

"No. There is no chance for you to get promoted. This is as far as you can go. As it is, you barely survive after each mission. I am afraid we cannot carry you anymore" Marcel said before gesturing for the elf to step forward

Skylar was shocked, but he could still notice the elf staring at him with looks of disgust

"This is Temax. He is... a real tamer, unlike you" Marcel said

From somewhere behind the Elf, the shadows started swirling and a large black wolf appeared

"A.. shadow wolf" Skylar mumbled

"Yes... you so at least are competent enough to recognize one" Marcel said

Skylar wanted to say something, but Marcel cut him off

"It's best you leave our group. This is a unanimous decision. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Bye" Marcel gestured sarcastically

Skylar looked towards his other original teammates, as he could see Duncan, Donut and Lucilder smirk at him, but trying to hide their elation

Elizabeth stared at the floor and ignored his gaze

Worse still, Miranda who Skylar always thought who would be the one he most likely will marry, walked over and sat on Marcel's lap, kissing him on the lips

The door slammed as Skylar ran out the door with tears in his eyes

"Good riddance" Lucildar said from the second storey window of Marcel's room, looking at Skylar pathetically running below

Instead of going back to his room, he found himself heading towards the town stable

It was late and there was practically nobody around

He stole a horse by taming the Guildmaster's prized pegasus in the stables and immediately set off

He needed the pegasus, due to the distance he was travelling

As Earth had 3 known portals to the Myriad Realms, the realm of Luminor too had were linked to several realms including Earth that they knew off

Humankind have sent their military to the far reaches of Luminor for research, and discovered 5 that they knew off, after fighting terrible battles with the local monsters to access such portals

They have so far discovered portals the Land of the Dead, the Demon Realm, The Insectoid Realm, The Sea Realm as they named them, and of course Earth

The Insectoid Realm was hypothesized to be the same Insectoid Realm that connected to Zimbabwe on Earth. But they couldn't be sure as the samples of giant insects they took were not similar to that they fought in Zimbabwe. It might very well be that there were many realms that had giant insects. 

As for the Sea Realm, when they sent underwater drones, were found to be habitable as the water was drinkable and the air breathable. But there was no land in sight anywhere. And there were sea monsters everywhere as well as fish of every shape and size

The reason that Luminor was not overrun with creatures from other realms is that Luminor had monsters of their own who prevented invaders and similarly invaded the other realms, such as the Insectoid Realm

The realm of the Dead seemed to have no interest in invading, as it was a land of darkness, and many of the undead creatures from there couldn't stand the sunlight on Luminor

The same was for the Sea Realm as all the creatures could not live on land for long in Luminor

The demon realm had successfully invaded Luminor, but it was more the case of demons curiously crossing for fun and food, rather than a full scale invasion

As for Earth, they had established a stronghold here, but they could not fully conquer Luminor outright, even thought they had every intention to, and only managed to create a buffer zone, even after 7 generations here

Even their most powerful fighter jets were easily downed by flying dragons and the like, and they only managed to chase dragons away from the cities in the Buffer Zones, using a sonar weapon they devised that chased dragons away as they disliked the hypersonic pitch it created

But being irritating and defeating a dragon are two different things. Chasing away dragons that are not committed to harm the human cities were one thing. If the dragon was angry, not even such tricks would be enough to stop them

Skylar departed Awayo on the pegasus and headed for the Realm of the Dead

Of all the realms they knew off, this realm was the most "human"-like as they seemed to contain humanoid undead, such as skeleton, wights and the like. It wasn't known if they were the actual undead of Luminor, but Skylar figured that he should be able to venture a bit into the realm before dying, rather than dying immediately upon entering, like the other realms

It wasn't as if Skylar was deluded and thought he could accomplish anything significant

He knew very well his limitations, and knew that he was a D Rank at best, only one higher than a beginner adventurer which was E Rank

But he planned to end his life in the Realm of the Dead, fighting to his very last breath

His woman he loved was taken by his friend and old rival who had surpassed him, his parents and sister were dead. There was nothing for him, except a minor taming ability which doesn't work according to what everyone expected

He wanted to die and was fully committed to do so

However, he didn't want to be found hanging in his dingy room, or dying a pathetic death by some lower level monster in a mission by himself

If he was going to die, he wanted to die in a blaze of glory, in the most terrifying environment possible where he could laugh at death in the face, and curse everyone that wronged him with his dying breath

He landed several kilometers away from the portal, known to have appeared on a field where a massive battle took place in Luminor long before the humans even came here

Skeletons were frequent in this area, but they disappeared back to the ground in the day time and never venture too far away from the portal

Summoning a sizable amount of his mana, he attracted over 100 rats

He didn't bother saving any mana as he intended to die here anyway

"Charge!" he mentally commanded the rats as he charged after them