"I'd like a [Dagger Proficiency] skill crystal, please," I asked the clerk manning the guild store.

  "[Dagger Proficiency]?" he asked. "Are you sure you've thought this through? A dagger will serve you well at the low levels, but in a year or two you'll find yourself facing monsters that you'll struggle to harm with a dagger. Things like golems that don't have weak points, or monsters with thick skin or natural armour."

  "A golem would be just as difficult to harm with a sword or spear," I pointed out. "To damage one with a non-magical weapon, you'd be best using something like a war-hammer. On the other hand, for something with thick skin you would want a spear, and something naturally armoured... Maybe blunt again, but daggers are a decent second. Easy to slot them in between scales or plates."

  The clerk blinked. "Seems like you have put some thought into this. I'll fetch it now. Give me a minute."

  He vanished off into a back room, while I peered out of the window at the sinking sun. Determined not to let the excitement go to my head, I'd gone to the library first, spending hours skimming books about skill builds. What was good for what, which Skills synergised well, what sort of Skills were available. And, after all that reading, I finally had a decent, well-informed plan. It was a decent improvement over what I'd been doing so far, which was a mix of necessity and impulse.

  While the clerk fetched the second skill crystal I'd be using today, I retrieved and activated the first.

  He was right that daggers wouldn't work on everything, but they'd work on everything I was likely to meet in an E-rank dungeon, and I fully intended to clear a few before moving up to D-rank. Additionally, they were light and easy to handle with my small frame, and they synergised well with stealth Skills. Active combat Skills could push them further, too, inflicting wounds longer than the length of the blade.

  By the time I bumped into anything immune to being stabbed in the face, I intended that my magic would be high enough level to compensate. For most people, dividing skill points between physical attacks and magic would leave them underpowered in both areas, but with my doubled skill points, it was a perfectly viable strategy. It was practically a necessity, unless I joined a party.

  Joining a party would be logistically difficult. My rate of growth was just far too different to anyone else. A party that matched my level today would be dragging me down tomorrow. If I wanted to make the most of my Mark, I'd need to operate alone, or at least only work with others on a temporary basis.

  "Here you go," said the clerk, returning. "That'll be ten silver. Let me confirm your guild rank."

  He took out a device very similar to the one downstairs, except that now I could feel the way it pulsed with mana. I touched it, and felt the mana reach into me and reflect off something within.

  It was a strange feeling. E-rank Skills weren't supposed to do anything you couldn't do naturally, with education and training. Did that mean that humans could learn to sense mana? If so, could humans do magic without Skills?

  "Yup, you have the right authorisation," he said, distracting me from my pondering. "That'll be ten silver."

  And so, with the exchange of one of my large silver coins, I was finally the owner of my first combat Skill.

  I grinned at the message box, soaking in the feeling of accomplishment of finally getting my hands on one.

  And with an anticlimactic pop, the crystal crumbled to dust and vanished.

  "Wow. Up until now, I've been handling my daggers completely wrong," I muttered. "And I haven't maintained them properly, either."

  I'd hoped [Blacksmithing] would have helped with that, but nope. It told me how to sharpen them, but not what I should be doing to stop them dulling and rusting in the first place.

  "Hah. At least now you can do better," he said. "Anything else I can help you with?"

  "Yes, actually. The stuff I read when I signed up said that the guild provides light armour?"

  "Well, 'provides' is a strong word. You still need to pay for it, and it's low-end monster-leather stuff. Just enough to ensure new joiners don't get killed the moment they meet their first monster. Anything better, you'll need to commission something from a craftsman."

  "Low-end will do for now. It's better than the armour I'm currently wearing."

  "... You're not wearing armour."

  "Yes. That was my point."

  The clerk looked confused, apparently not blessed with a sense of humour. "Whatever. Let me measure you up. It'll take a day or two to get something properly sized."

  "That's fine. I intend to spend some time browsing your library before I go fighting anything."

  And with that, it was time to find an inn. And then tomorrow, further research in the library. The day after, too. And maybe, the day after that, I'd consider going to a dungeon.

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

  I'd thought [Identify Monster] was a necessity, but, as I'd already considered, an E-rank Skill didn't do anything that couldn't be learnt without skill points. The guild library had enough monster compendiums—and I had enough Memory—that I could make do without identification Skills. Sure, at the higher ranks, they'd give me information I wouldn't otherwise be able to get, like the way [Adept Foraging] could tell the difference between two trees even if I wasn't close enough to inspect the leaves, but despite my glut of skill points, they weren't infinite. I needed to be picky about what I spent them on.

  Downstairs, the guild was busier than it had been when I'd left. The older adventurers—still boozing away in exactly the same positions as when I'd arrived in the morning—had been joined by others at a wider variety of ages. I saw helms and an occasional breastplate on the tables, weapons strapped to sides, and a general veneer of dirt and dried blood that suggested they'd returned from a day's work, but hadn't stopped to change or wash.

  That conclusion was backed up by the smell, which was, to put it into polite terms, ripe.

  "Wow. You really did spend all day reading," said Oliver the receptionist, who had a mug of his own in hand. Given that he'd relocated from the reception desk—now occupied by three other staff members, who were dealing with a constant stream of adventurers—to one of the tables, I figured he was off duty.

  Amusingly, he was sitting next to the guy who'd been complaining earlier.

  "An entire library of useful information? Of course I'm going to make the most of it," I said.

  "Wish more adventurers were that studious," he sighed. "We wouldn't have so many people trying to turn in cowthistle thinking it was manaweed."

  I hadn't read up on botany, but [Farming] informed me that cowthistle was a fairly vigorous weed that was a particular problem in fields of root vegetables, while it provided no information whatsoever about manaweed. Nor had I ever heard of it. From context, I could guess it was a useful plant that adventurers took jobs to collect, that looked very much like cowthistle.

  "Since you caught me while I was passing, any recommendations for an inn?" I asked.

  "Oh? You aren't a kid of one of the knights? Sorry, I assumed you already had somewhere to stay, else I'd have mentioned it earlier; the Sheathed Blade caters specifically to adventurers. Long-term rentals, don't mind if you're away a while on a multi-day mission, a variety of room sizes so that full parties can stay together, good washing facilities, cheap booze, and meals that focus more on volume than appearance."

  "As if the adventurers aren't getting enough booze here," I said as he hastily scribbled some directions.

  "Bah, we'd all have gone home by now if not for the guild-master ordering us to remain on standby a few hours back," said the complainer from earlier.

  "Huh? Why?" I asked.

  "There's talk of a potential compulsory quest. Something bad going down in Harvent Canton," replied Oliver. "It's why I'm still here, despite my shift finishing hours ago; it's looking like it might be an all-hands-on-deck situation."

  "Don't worry, you won't be called up," laughed the complainer, mistaking my expression. "Not when you've only just joined. Let us old timers put in some work for once."

  "Ha, so you admit it!" exclaimed Oliver.

  The adventurer stuck out his tongue, then took another swig of booze.

  I left them to it. It was nice to know help was coming to the famished canton, but I'd done my part. If I thought there was anything else I could do to help, I might have been tempted to go back, but right now the best thing I could do was get stronger, so that in the event of running into something similar again, I wouldn't be so helpless.

  Following the directions led me to a place on the outskirts of the city, rather less glamorous than the guildhall. Presumably the rich adventurers could afford houses, or Oliver had directed me to a low-end inn on account of my rank. The inside was clean enough, though, and in exchange for another large silver I had two weeks' use of a single room. It even had an en-suite! Low end or not, it was good enough for me.

  A little base of my own. I stashed the adventurers' guild documentation and unused skill crystals in a drawer and hung up my spare clothing in a wardrobe simply because I could. It was my room. Something a little more permanent than the assortment of inns and trees I'd slept in since leaving the village. It finally felt like I was done running.

  That felt a little strange, actually.

  I still had a gold coin remaining, but my supply of silver was dwindling rapidly. My inn fees included food—as they damn well should when I'd just paid out something like several years' worth of my parents' income for two weeks' rent—but I needed equipment before I took on any serious jobs. I had no reason to replace the daggers I'd taken from Leo, which were high quality blackened steel, and should last me well if properly cared for, but I didn't yet have armour, and that would wipe out the rest of my silver in one go. Then there was other equipment I should gather, like rope, lights, camping equipment, emergency potions, and so on. I wasn't even sure what I should buy altogether; it was just ideas I'd had while browsing the library and visiting the shop, and my next couple of days of research might uncover more.

  Equipping myself decently could easily soak up the rest of my looted coin, and even that wouldn't cover everything I wanted. Healing potions cost a gold coin each!

  I wasn't even considering mana potions.

  What did other newbie adventurers do? I doubted the new starters at Greenhold had a gold coin to hand, and at a mere five coppers each, that was a lot of [Farming] skill crystals. I could see why the guild provided low-end armour at cost price. I suppose the Fluffy Meadow didn't require ropes or lights.

  The library would tell me what was needed for each dungeon, and so the next morning I headed back to the guildhall.

  The first thing I noticed was that it was almost empty. There was no-one hanging around outside, and inside only a few parties sat at the tables, talking in hushed voices. Those that were there were eating. No booze was flowing.

  Oliver was back at the reception desk, though. "What's going on?" I asked him.

  "Exactly what we thought yesterday. Compulsory quest. Everyone has been dispatched to Harvent Canton. But I suspect you know more than I do."

  "I do?"

  "They went with a company of the Thorned Rose. Not to mention a group of researchers from the Society of Exploration and History and a couple of the royal guard."

  "Ah... I see. I don't know much, but rumour has it that Count Harvent uncovered dwarven ruins and kept them to himself."

  "I know that much," sighed Oliver. "We'd hardly despatch adventurers without knowing why. I was more alluding to the fact that this happened the same day you turn up with a letter of introduction from that exact knights' order, which I refuse to believe is coincidence. Whatever. I can question you later; it seems you have other guests for now."

  "I do?" I asked, turning around to find that one of the groups seated at the table had relocated to directly behind me. "Hello?"

  The group of four boys—they were a little older than me, but young enough that 'boys' still seemed more appropriate than 'men'—didn't answer, all of them peering at me as if sizing up a prized cow.

  "Uh..." I said, wondering what the heck was happening.

  "Sure you got the right guy? He doesn't look like much," said one, but to the rest of his group rather than to me.

  The four were dressed in light armour, one with a sword and shield strapped to his back, another with a staff, a third with a long spear and the last with a bow across his back and a long knife at his waist. It seemed like pretty normal adventuring getup, but [Blacksmithing] was chiming in, pointing out the white sheen on the first guy's shield implied the entire thing was forged from sky-iron, while the purple edge to the spearhead implied spirit-steel. [Mana Sensitivity] was reacting to everything, everything the group carried apparently enchanted in some way. I had no knowledge of enchanting, and little knowledge of material prices, but I suspected I was looking at rather more than a gold coin of kit each.

  "He matches the description my aunt gave exactly," said the sword-wielder.

  "Hey, brat. Be proud," said the spear-wielder. "We're going to let you join us, the Golden Avengers."