episode_0015

The day of a novice adventurer starts with checking if there are any requests at the guild early in the morning.

Among other adventurers, I squeezed in to look at the new requests on the bulletin board… but my request wasn’t there.

The guild’s request board only posts requests that can be taken on by Bronze-ranked adventurers and above.

So where does a novice like me get requests from?

Spotting a gap where the receptionist isn’t attending to other formal-ranked adventurers, I quickly ask, “Um, is there a request to catch mice at the grain warehouse today? The reward is 1 silver per mouse.”

Since Tina was busy attending to other adventurers, I received guidance from another receptionist.

Meruru was undergoing receptionist training, so she wasn’t visible at the counter.

Catching mice…

“Are they just regular mice? Not monster mice or anything like that?”

“Yes, just regular mice.”

“Is there anything else?”

“There’s also dock cleaning, moving luggage for the upper carriage, and pest control.”

This is basically a day laborer recruitment agency.

Well, it couldn’t be helped.

The Novice rank was essentially a temporary rank given to those whose abilities as adventurers had not been verified.

“Yunoa inflated with futile hope that there might be at least one task befitting an adventurer even for someone like herself with a Novice rank.

But such hopes were as futile as trying to get gold nuggets by sifting through sand.”

Now, setting aside the familiar narration’s cynical commentary, I accepted a few odd jobs and left the guild.

Upon closer inspection, the guild arranging such menial tasks for Novice-ranked adventurers was a form of welfare.

Until Novice rank was upgraded to Bronze, the guild’s tasks alone provided a minimum means of livelihood.

Of course, the money earned from these tasks was nothing more than a means of survival.

Even just catching mice for 1 silver per mouse, I’d have to catch 30 just to cover the inn room cost.

Since this system wasn’t designed to make a profit, I only took on tasks that could be completed by late lunch after receiving work from the guild early in the morning.

By diligently completing odd jobs without a moment to spare in the morning, I managed to accumulate enough money to get by for the day.

Compared to gathering herbs with Meruru, it was truly living hand-to-mouth.

But apart from not being able to save money, there were clear advantages.

First, becoming familiar with the guild’s system by visiting daily.

Second, gaining various information by eavesdropping on other adventurers’ conversations.

And most importantly, the third advantage was being able to train personally during the rainy afternoons.

Of course, working hard in the morning and training in swordsmanship all afternoon wasn’t an easy task.

But without effort, there would be no change.

I didn’t have a status window to raise my stats or an invincible cheat ability.

Only the occasional narration in my head could offer some painful commentary.

So all I could do was to put in the effort.

***

“Hah! Hah!”

With a shout, the sword repeatedly slashed through the same empty space.

Thick beads of sweat rolled down my forehead and cheeks.

The wrist holding the sword was numb, and the palm was calloused and rough.

The forest where Meruru and I used to gather herbs.

Every afternoon, I came here alone to swing my sword.

“Haa… haa…”

“Yunoa hoped that by diligently swinging her sword every day, she would reach a level that could be called ‘swordsmanship.’

But without a master to teach her swordsmanship, her method of simply swinging the sword recklessly was ignorant beyond belief.

Naturally, Yunoa’s swordsmanship was at a level that couldn’t even be called swordsmanship.”

After swinging the sword for hours, I was exhausted, and the narration struck a chord with me.

I knew it too well.

Without a master of swordsmanship or even a textbook to guide me, I couldn’t call what I was doing “swordsmanship.”

But that was all I could do at the moment.

It was a matter of basic physical fitness.

Swinging the sword required far more stamina than I had imagined.

I had chosen a sword that felt comfortable in my hand and had a suitable weight.

But due to my lack of strength and stamina, I couldn’t handle it properly.

I had looked into various ways to learn swordsmanship without spending a lot of money.

But with my current income, it was impossible to pay for swordsmanship lessons right away, as I was barely making enough to get by each day.

So, I decided to simply swing the sword for a long time to build up my stamina.

I thought it was better to do something rather than skipping training because there was no one to teach me or no way to learn.

At least until I could properly learn swordsmanship, I planned to continue training like this.

So, every day, without fail, I swung the sword from the afternoon until night.

At first, after a few swings, I felt so exhausted that the sword felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.

By nightfall, I was in such severe muscle pain that I couldn’t sleep.

But the next day, I would wake up at dawn as usual, do odd jobs at the guild, and train in the afternoon.

As time passed, I found myself able to swing the sword without resting for longer periods.

It may have been an inefficient and crude method, but I believed that building up the stamina to handle the sword was crucial.

I was afraid that if I gave in to the temptation to imitate all the flashy techniques I had seen in manga, it might hinder me when I actually learned swordsmanship.

When learning a physical activity, it takes several times longer to correct bad habits that have been ingrained in the body, or so I had heard.

I was like a blank sheet of paper with no drawings on it.

The size of the blank sheet was too small, and even if I wanted to draw the picture of swordsmanship, there was not enough space on the palm-sized blank sheet.

So, I decided to first build up my basic physical fitness to expand the space on the blank sheet where I could draw that swordsmanship.

And if possible, I didn’t want to draw anything unnecessary on that expanded blank sheet.

So, I spent my days swinging the sword alone in the forest.

I saw a familiar young man walking towards me from inside the forest.

It was Oren, the adventurer who had rescued me and Meruru from the slime hell.

“Oh, Yunoa. What are you doing in a place like this?” Oren asked as he approached me, sweating and sitting on a rock to rest.

“I’m training in swordsmanship. It’s embarrassing to call it swordsmanship at this point, though.”

“Oh, I heard you recently registered as an adventurer.”

Oren, a bronze adventurer, was on his way back after completing a request.

I saw this chance encounter as an opportunity.

If I were the me from before coming to this world, I might have scoffed and said, “Bronze adventurer? That’s pathetic.”

Until you experience it yourself, you can’t truly understand how difficult it is, whether it’s F-rank or bronze.

It was like someone who had never worked at a company thinking that becoming a manager was no big deal, only to realize later that being a manager was harder than they thought.

Well, I hadn’t experienced it myself.

But I had a feeling that I would soon.

Anyway, to me, even a Bronze adventurer was already impressive and excellent.

Having seen Oren fighting slimes in front of my eyes, I truly admired Oren.

There was definitely something to learn from him.

“Hey, if you have some time…,”

I briefly greeted Oren and stopped him as he was about to return to Kuber.

“Could you please watch my swordsmanship once?”

* * *

“Haap!”

In front of Oren, he showed the countless repetitions of the downward strike that he had practiced.

Honestly, I didn’t expect to receive a good evaluation.

But I hoped that Oren would give me some advice, even just a little.

“Do you swing your sword like this every day?”

“Well, yes. That’s all I can do.”

“You just swung your sword without any magic conversion?”

Oren asked me.

Magic? I had no idea what he was talking about.

Suddenly talking about magic while swinging a sword.

“Magic?”

“You surely know about it, right?”

“I don’t know.”

“Wow…”

Oren’s eyes widened in surprise.

Magic? How would I know about that?

Is it really that surprising?

Thinking like that, Oren explained to me.

“Magic conversion. Gathering the magic flowing in this world into your body to enhance the functions of your body.”

“Is that really possible?”

“It should be common sense for those aspiring to be adventurers.”

Suddenly, I became someone who lacked common sense.

No one ever told me about that.

“How do you gather that magic?”

“Well…”

Oren began to explain in detail about the ‘magic conversion,’ a common sense among adventurers, to me.