The Ogre's Lunchbox

“Ogre, I already foresaw this day... I really wanted to spend a little more time with you...”

“Father!!”

...

The summer morning light streamed through the window, illuminating some dust in the air.

It also fell upon the boy who had just woken up from a dream in a startle.

“Whew...”

After taking a few deep breaths, the youth habitually wiped away a trace of tears from the corners of his eyes.

This youth was indeed the child raised by an ogre—Ogre Kessin.

He had been out for about two years now and was currently sixteen years old.

“I didn't expect to dream of this again after so long...”

This unique first-person dream was not entirely a product of Ogre's imagination; it was related to his ability.

In this world, a small fraction of people were born with miraculous abilities that surpassed ordinary people.

Ogre happened to be one of them.

He had named his ability “Ogre's Lunchbox.”

Once this ability was activated, Ogre could obtain a portion of a creature's memories and extraordinary abilities by consuming its body, provided it had been dead for less than an hour.

He didn't need to eat it completely, but the portion consumed could not be smaller than one-thousandth of the creature's volume.

After the ability was activated, the acquired memories would present themselves through a first-person dream.

Ogre had unintentionally used this ability for the first time when he was nine years old; back then, he had turned into a bird in his dream.

The sensation of flying had left a lasting impression on him.

At the time, he had told his father about his ability. After hearing it, his father wasn't particularly happy but merely urged him to use this innate ability with caution—because too many external memories might cause him to lose his sense of self.

Ogre had always kept this in mind.

During that period, he indeed had a bit of trouble telling whether he was a bird or a human.

Consequently, Ogre had always maintained a sense of awe toward this ability and avoided utilizing it until his father's death...

He wanted revenge! He wanted to see the target of his revenge!

For this reason, he had taken the initiative to activate this dangerous ability, painfully acquiring his father's memories.

Unfortunately, even after the ability's activation concluded, Ogre failed to discover who had caused his father's injuries.

In the end, Ogre only peered in his dream that the culprit who had wounded and killed his father used fire.

And as a price, this long, recurring dream had also nearly caused him to lose himself.

“A fire mage...” Ogre pulled out a notebook from his bag. Recorded inside were the targets of his revenge:

The Goblin King.

The Ogre Chief.

Fire Mage/Unknown Professional (?)

These three were all targets for Ogre's revenge. The Goblin King had caused the tragedy of the village, the Ogre Chief had caused the tragedy of his father, and that unknown fire mage was the true culprit who directly caused his father's death.

Turning to the second page of the notebook, it was densely packed with legends he had collected regarding resurrection spells.

However, many of the records were crossed out, leaving only the column for a prayer to the gods blank.

Ogre didn't use to believe in gods, but after his father's death, he hoped that the legendary gods might actually exist, even if they were too far out of reach...

At present, Ogre wasn't even a formal extraordinary Professional.

He hadn't even completed his so-called quest for vengeance yet.

“Strength...” Ogre muttered to himself, turning the notebook to the third page—which listed the paths to power he had explored over the past two years for his revenge.

Knight (X).

To become a knight, besides breathing methods and training resources, the most important thing was knight bloodline. Ogre had tested for that—he lacked the talent, which was entirely dependent on whether one was born with it.

Martial Artist (Blank).

Looking at the Martial Artist column, Ogre pondered for a moment before finally picking up a quill and crossing it out as well.

Martial Artist was a path prepared by the Church of Truth for those who couldn't become knights; it involved training in breathing methods and strengthening the body all the same.

However, to become a Professional, the difficulty of a Martial Artist was more than just a fold greater than that of a knight of the same level.

This was because Martial Artists needed to guide their essence, energy, and spirit to reach a balance and achieve a fusion; this process usually required the assistance of meditation to complete.

As long as one had not achieved the Fusion of the Three Qi, they could not be called a Martial Artist at all and could only be considered a stronger ordinary human.

Only by achieving the Fusion of the Three Qi and cultivating vital energy and blood could one be considered a true extraordinary Professional.

Previously, Ogre had always aimed to become a Martial Artist, attempting to cross that threshold into becoming a Professional.

To this end, he had persevered for more than a year.

However, likely due to having used his ability before, Ogre's three Qi could never merge into one.

It seemed he might have no choice but to give up now.

Mage (X).

Besides requiring mental talent, a mage also needed an affinity for perceiving and manipulating mana, as well as an affinity for perceiving and utilizing elements.

This was what Ogre had attempted earliest because, compared to knights and Martial Artists, mages of the same level often possessed greater and stronger destructive power, as well as higher social status.

But unfortunately, Ogre didn't possess a single one of these three talents.

If it were simply a lack of mental talent, it could still be compensated for with magic potions; if the elemental affinity was insufficient, one could still transition into an Evocation-type barrier master...

Yet, Ogre's mana perception happened to be negative.

This was not common for humans, and could even be called rare... As for the reason, Ogre had actually guessed it; it was probably related to his ability—

After swallowing his father's flesh and blood, Ogre had learned that the talent “Ogre's Lunchbox,” in addition to devouring memories, also had the effect of replicating a portion of the consumed subject's racial talent.

As long as the target belonged to an extraordinary race.

The bird he had consumed when he first activated his 'feeding' ability was not any kind of monster; therefore, Ogre did not know his true ability at the start.

It wasn't until he woke up from the dream of his father's memories... that he realized several abilities had newly appeared in his body.

These abilities all originated from his beloved father.

Low-level Enhanced Digestion.

This was an ability possessed by most monsters, though ogres were somewhat more outstanding in this regard. It could even be turned through 'training' into—powerful ogres could even swallow lava to become Fire-Stomach Ogres.

Low-level Enhanced Recovery.

This was also a foundational ability for monsters; most monsters that could not perform self-regeneration had been weeded out.

Basic Mana and Poison Resistance.

These were abilities that the ogre race relied on for survival, belonging to the rarer class among monsters. Perhaps because the ancestors of ogres fed on mithril, ogres were born with resistance to mana, giving them highly decent resistance against basic magic and poisons.

It sounded quite nice, but that was precisely where the problem lay. Mana resistance was a double-edged sword; this resistance made the effects of magic potions on Ogre exceptionally poor.

It stripped him of a human's greatest advantage—mana adaptability.

Directly cutting off his path to becoming a mage.

However, even if Ogre were given another choice, he would not regret it!

For the sake of the truth, he had no other choice.

“I still have to work hard.” Ogre looked at his fair hands, which did not resemble those of a Martial Artist.

His body's passive recovery ability kept Ogre's skin in a consistently excellent state.

His hands looked even better maintained than those of an ordinary noble lady; no one could tell that these were hands that fought frequently—there wasn't even a single callus.

“I still have other paths I can choose...” Ogre looked at the last two columns on the page.

Warlock (Pending).

Unlike mages, Warlocks were illegal existences in the Kingdom of Engodo.

Unless absolutely necessary, Ogre did not want to choose this path either—it would turn him into a wanted criminal.

No one knew how the earliest Warlocks came to be anymore.

It was the only choice for those who lacked mana perception but still wished to use mana.

Transplanting extraordinary organs or consuming forbidden replica sequence potions could allow an ordinary human to leap into becoming a Warlock Professional.

How wonderful it sounded...

However, extraordinary organs or forbidden potions often came with side effects—either bodily collapse and death, or the gradual loss of one's sense of self. It was said that the higher a Warlock's level, the more they resembled a magical beast...

The most famous among them were the legendary Dragon-Slumber Warlocks—they could truly transform into giant dragons.

Of course, for Ogre, these worries were currently redundant, because he couldn't even get his hands on forbidden potions.

Mind-Imager (Blank).

This profession was very unique.

To become a Mind-Imager, one only needed to condense a 'Seed of Mind-Image' through visualization; there were no other requirements.

Yet, having no requirements was the greatest requirement of all; if one could not condense it before reaching adulthood, they could basically forget about it for the rest of their life.

As for what use a Mind-Imager was after becoming one, Ogre was unclear—because he had not condensed a mind-image yet, and this profession was highly mysterious.

He only knew that any class serving as a benchmark for Professionals had to be useful and powerful.

Looking at the Mind-Imager column, Ogre let out a sigh. “One more year...”

He had one year left before he would be considered an adult, as seventeen was the age of adulthood on this continent. Once he reached adulthood, the option of Mind-Imager would basically be crossed out as well.

By then, the only path left for Ogre would be Warlock.

“I won't give up!” In truth, Ogre still had another path he could choose.

And that was his innate ability—Ogre's Lunchbox.

Without this ability, Ogre would have probably given up on his unrealistic revenge long ago; it was precisely this logic-defying devouring power that gave him confidence and backing.

Ogre's Lunchbox.

This ability was not something that could be activated at a whim.

Ogre felt a faint premonition—if he activated this ability again before fully 'digesting' his previous 'food,' something very dangerous would happen.

Before his revenge was completed, Ogre did not dare to gamble.

Aside from that, relying on this ability to plunder and replicate extraordinary power... had another requirement—Ogre could not be too much weaker than his 'food.' This was feedback left behind from his previous consumption.

Of course, if the opponent were willing to be 'consumed' before dying, perhaps this restriction could be broken.

This restriction meant that in the two years after 'digesting' the ogre's power, Ogre had only conducted one additional 'consumption'.

Fully digesting the extraordinary abilities left by the ogre had taken Ogre nearly a year and a half.

Ogre felt this was probably because he had 'consumed' a lifeform far stronger than himself.

So for his second consumption, he chose a less powerful monster—a Devil-Claw Falcon.

This was a highly common low-level monster bird in the Forest of Monsters that survived by preying on mana rabbits, common and ordinary. The reason he chose it was because Ogre remembered the very first creature he had consumed upon activating his ability—a bird; he had a feeling that 'consuming' the same type of creature would make 'digestion' much easier.

Of course, capturing a Devil-Claw Falcon was still quite difficult for Ogre at the time, so he simply bought one from a hunter at the monster trading market.

Digesting his food a second time indeed proved much easier.

Perhaps due to having the experience of transforming into a bird, or perhaps because this consumed monster had lived a very short life, Ogre was not affected as heavily as the first two times.

But even so, he still spent nearly half a year 'digesting' it.

However, there was also good news; due to a high degree of 'digestion' completion, the abilities Ogre acquired had become much more complete.

Though he didn't obtain the powerful talon ability he desired, he had obtained an even more incredible and practical ability—Super Dynamic Vision!

The dynamic vision of falcons was extremely powerful, and even more so for the monster Devil-Claw Falcon; this ability allowed his eyesight to reach a terrifying level.

This had played no small part in Ogre's accumulation of wealth over the past six months.

“Time to prepare new 'food' as well...”

Ogre let out a soft breath and put down his notebook. Standing up, he walked to a metal mirror and tied back his shoulder-length hair.

His hair grew relatively fast, so he needed to trim it frequently.

The reason he didn't shave it bald was that it would be too eye-catching.

Ogre didn't want to stand out too much. His current hair length was just right, a relatively normal and inconspicuous length among residents—provided one ignored that face which looked prettier than a girl's.

After tying his hair and lightly wiping his face, Ogre picked out a wax mask from his bag—he had crafted it after learning his father's disguise techniques in the dream.

It was made by mixing the beeswax of Silver-Needle Bees with fat scraped from a mana rabbit, treated with herbs, and then applied to the face.

Once removed from the mold and dried in the sun for three days, it could be used for several months.

Wearing it made his face look slightly stiff and expressionless, but it was enough for Ogre, as long as he didn't expose his true face.

Ogre knew very well what kind of trouble this face of his would bring him.

Although protected by imperial laws, it was still very easy for Professionals to act against non-Professionals.

Preventing trouble before it arose was always better than trying to remedy it afterward; Ogre would not invite greater trouble just to save a bit of effort... He was too weak and had to remain constantly cautious.

This was also what his father had frequently taught him.

Only after masking his beautiful face to look utterly ordinary did Ogre contentedly pull a mask from his pack.

“First, I need to earn today's money.”

Stepping outside, he passed through an empty street, put the mask in his hand onto his face, and underwent a complete transformation.

He transformed into a regular at the arena—and an extraordinary one at that.

Because of this patterned mask, Ogre had acquired a surprisingly huge reputation in the Apprentice-level arena.

There, he had a very resounding yet embarrassing title—

The Strongest Mortal!

The Strongest Mortal, “Gourmet”!