The Adventurer’s Guild is an independent

organization serving globally as freelancers,

monster hunters, and all around handy-men.

While no country lays claim to the guild,

That does not mean that we are above the law,

it could even be said, that we are even more subject to the law.

-Adventurer’s Handbook pg.1

Crimson, still reeling from the shock of his simple class being OP, decided to work on the [Calligraphy] skill. He’d worry about looking closer at his Class later. His cheap and tiny room didn’t have a desk or anything like that so he sat on the floor cross-legged, and removed the calligraphy set he’d bought, along the the large stack of paper that came with it.

He’d actually bought the cheapest set with ‘everything’ in it. He had had dip pens and ink brushes along with ink stones to grind his own ink. It probably wouldn’t last long; he wasn’t using it to send letters, but grind a skill.

First thing he did after grinding the mix of water to ink stone that the storekeeper had recommended was write the English alphabet in two rows of thirteen, one half at the top of the page, and the other half in the middle. He did so casually without paying attention to his handwriting with the dip pen. After that he rewrote the letters again under the sloppy ones, writing slowly and carefully, trying to make his handwriting as neat as possible.

That much alone was enough for it to level up once.

Skill Level Up!

[Calligraphy I] > [Calligraphy II]

Amity with writing implements increased to 25%

Twenty five percent was quite the jump for just one level up! A grin streaked it’s way across Crimson’s face. Seeing the effects of your hard work and effort play out in front of you was truly satisfying in a way that his old world could only attempt mimicking.

He swapped the dip pen for the brush and wrote the letters again in cursive as neatly as possible. The fascinating thing was that he could immediately tell the difference. With the other skills he’d leveled up he couldn’t see an immediate difference, but with [Calligraphy]? It was instantaneous!

After writing the alphabet in cursive he switched back to the dip pen and slowly began writing again, this time he was trying to mimic some of the fancy lettering he’d seen on old letters. The lettering that wasn’t cursive, but totally was. Well…it was something. Certainly a massive fail. The letters looked more like a child’s scribbles, no, a child’s scribbles would look better…practice makes perfect. He tried again.

And again.

Once more.

Last chance!

The sheet was full, front and back. His final attempt actually had a semblance of legibility, and his hard work paid off.

Skill Level Up!

[Calligraphy II] > [Calligraphy III]

Control over writing implements increased to 10%

Hmm. Doing all that made him wonder something. Hang on. He went ahead and neatly wrote -huge difference already!- the alphabet in print and filled up another sheet, front and back only with the print writing. Nothing. He filled another one. Still nothing. It took filling up the front of the third sheet to get any results.

Skill Level Up!

[Calligraphy III] > [Calligraphy IV]

Amity with writing implements increased to 50%.

Okay, while it wasn’t hard evidence he could confirm within a reasonable margin of error two things about the skill. First: it appeared that there was more value in training new things than training things he could already do. Second: [Calligraphy] was a first tier skill.

Skills were divided into three tiers based on the difficulty to level them up. ‘First tier’ was the easiest, and the ‘Third Tier’ was the hardest. The annoying thing about that? The difficulty rating of a skill wasn’t included in the [Blessing] since it appeared to be something like a hidden value.

Since he’d gotten [Calligraphy] up to Lv.IV in just about an hour or so he didn’t think that it could be anything other than a first tier skill. An extremely fast first tier skill at that. Well, when he’d glanced at the first few pages of the notes Raften had left him earlier he’d learned that the first five levels of a skill were easier to grind than the second half. Something about the difficulty increments going from linear to exponential.

Getting back to work he tried to replicate various fonts and styles with the dip pen to keep himself from getting bored he even started writing down tongue twisters to. Once he’d filled up another two sheets front and back he got another alert.

Skill Level Up!

[Calligraphy IV] > [Calligraphy V]

Ability to replicate styles of writing increased to 50%

That made the biggest difference of the night. He could replicate fonts from his previous life pretty well, and the unique style of the Falst characters.

Interestingly enough the written language of the world looked a lot like someone had warped the English alphabet. It was similar enough that Crimson hadn’t needed to learn the language. The only letters he’d had a hard time with were: N,S,Q, and Z. That had been quickly rectified without any issues once he’d entered the guild.

Crimson kept at it, even used his [Fire Light VIII] to work for an extra hour after sunset before turning. It was fairly cheap to use, and he didn’t have any other uses for his MP, so it wasn’t a concern. Too bad it didn’t level up.

Leveling magic was extremely different from leveling skills. First were the requirements: some magics required specific Classes or Skills, some had minimums stat requirements, and some required having specific spells or skills at LV.X.

Second thing was how they were learned. Spells could be learned by anyone so long as they passed the requirements, and had enough MP to cast it. If they met the requirements they needed to seek out a book that taught the specific spell that they were after.

For some of the spells out there like [Campfire] the ‘book’ was no bigger than a particularly long pamphlet, and others, like the [Apocalypse] spell, were massive tomes that hit 40+ pounds in weight. Never say scholars are soft, not the ones that had to deal with those books! Any warrior would run in fear at the sight of the truly thick spell books.

Once they had the book they would have to study and comprehend it’s ‘chapters’ for each chapter they comprehended they would gain one level in the spell, up to Lv. 5. Once Lv.5 is hit just studying the spell isn’t enough, there are requirements for each level afterword.

For spells like [Fire Light] the requirements were just using it for a steadily increasing period of time, simple. He’d used it enough to instantly get it to Lv. VIII. Campfire was similar, but some of the stronger spells had truly ridiculous requirements, in fact, it was common practice to study up to Lv.10 then go and fulfill the requirements from there.

The problem with spells was that their levels degrade with time. While it is impossible to lose a skill short of a memory wipe, it can drop down to Lv.1 over time. That period of time changes from spell to spell.

For Crimson it would probably take about a month for both of his spells to drop to Lv.1, and he would never let that happen under normal circumstances. All he would have to do is brush up on what he’d read from the spell books and that would cover it. Knowing all that it was no surprise that INT was needed for more than just MP, it was needed to remember all the spells, and keep them straight.

Laying in bed with the reddish light of [Fire Light] winding it’s way across the room Crimson had to repress the giddy excitement that was roiling in his gut, having a Class, leveling skills, he had waited for so long! But, he couldn’t debase himself by acting like a giddy child, and if Verity noticed that anything was off she would definitely tease him. He snuffed out the light and fell into a light doze as several hours passed.

*creak*

His left eye, the one partially concealed by the pillow, flickered open. He kept the rhythm of his breathing uninterrupted, as he tried to see who’s foot cause the sound of that creak. He spotted a cloaked man in front of his bed. No time to think, he had a dagger!

He threw himself back as he appraised his chances of victory. The man was..not a man. While he was cloaked Crimson could see his face fairly easy, and it was a boy, probably about his age, looking at him with a desperate and gaunt face. Considering his age, the chances of being above Lv.5 were not high, and his stance with knife was horrible. Not even Crimson on day one had a stance as horrible as this kid, if he had Mars would’ve beaten him black and blue.

In other words, his chances of victory? Reasonable, to reasonably high. Assuming that the whole thing wasn’t an act to make Crimson drop his guard. He would definitely have to be careful of the dagger, the moonlight seeping through the cracks of his rotted shutter reflected off a liquid that, if he had to hazard a guess, was probably poison.

It was also interesting that was already showing itself to be useful, he could certainly feel panic thrashing around in him, but his thinking didn’t feel impaired at all. He could even think quite clearly, clearly enough to grab the basin of water off the table behind him and throw it at his would be attacker who had frozen.

The water splattered all over the room as the basin went flying and slammed into the attacker’s arm and chest, sending the knife flying into the corner of the room, and sending him stumbling back. Crimson rounded the bed and mimicked the selfsame move that Mars had used on him earlier that day: a roundhouse kick, but unlike his bear-kin teacher he didn’t hold back, and he sent his foot into the spot that no man wants damage. What? It’s self defense. He needed to incapacitate his opponent, and it fulfilled that duty wonderfully.

His attacker dropped to the ground, in too much agony to even scream, his mouth flapped open like a fish, but no sound came out except an agonized wheeze. The sight made Crimson, the cause, wince in sympathy. He wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. Which was good for Crimson, but bad for his attacker’s chances at being a father in the future.

Crimson walked around the invalid, careful to keep an eye on him, and grabbed the dagger. He then walked over and sat on the bed holding the knife in a menacing manner while staring at him broodily.

What to do? He couldn’t kill the kid. His conscience wouldn’t let him do it, and he honestly had a hard time imagining himself killing another person. A goblin? That’s fine, but another person? He couldn’t imagine it.

Well, first things first: he needed to know why he was attacked. Too bad he didn’t have any rope, but considering the damage his attacker wouldn’t be able to stand up and attack faster than he could react.

“Why did you attack me?” He said with a bright and warm smile.

The kid flinched, a smile, used correctly, could be scarier than screaming, shouting, or threats. It was a mind game to scare him into talking, hopefully it would work, he’d never actually done anything like this before.

With an unnaturally high voice -that Crimson pretended he wasn’t the cause of- the kid told him that ‘he would never talk’. Cliched garbage.

The fake friendly smile on Crimson’s face widened, “That’s too bad. I was hoping we could have a nice talk. Well, I suppose there’s nothing I can do. I might as well give you a little ‘gift’ before you go.”

Crimson stood up and then slid the dresser in front of the door before walking back to his bed. He grabbed the rucksack he kept next to the head of the table and walked back to his seat on the bed.

“Oh that’s too bad, my bag’s all wet.” Fake look of sadness, he was the one who’d gotten it wet after all.

“I hope you can pay me back for it,” he directed his ‘sad’ look at the boy, “if not I may have to give you a ‘punishment’ instead of a ‘gift’.”

A look of terror broke through the pain on the boy’s face and he began to desperately attempt crawling to the door. A difficult process considering he didn’t appear to be able to effectively move any bones connected to the pelvis, and couldn’t let certain ‘things’ touch the ground and add to his agony.

“Where are you going? I was just going to give you a lovely tattoo! I got a new pen today and I’d love to try it out on you, but I’m not too sure if this is the type of pen you’re supposed to use. I think you’re supposed to put the ink under the skin, but I don’t have any special tools for it…oh well! The pen is sharp enough to put it directly in without any problems, no special tools necessary!”

Crimson pulled out the dip pen he’d purchased with his calligraphy set and clutched it, and a bottle of ink in the hand not holding the knife as he walked over to the boy. He broke down, and told Crimson everything.

Apparently, there was a gang that used a certain area of the passages underground as an escape whenever they performed robberies. They’d spotted Crimson entering near their territory and thought that he had seen them/would rat them out. They had done some research and found out that Crimson didn’t have a Class or a [Blessing[ so they sent their newest member to ‘take care of him’ as an initiation.

After hearing all that Crimson knew that he’d have to move to the inn near the guild. The discount from his rank up would help him stay there without losing too much, and it was safer there, he wouldn’t be staying in an inn on the edge of the slums anymore.

He put away his ‘tattoo’ tools and drug the dresser back from the door frame. He then stuck his head out the door and screamed bloody murder. The innkeeper’s son came running just a few second later and Crimson handed the boy over to him with a quick explanation about what happened -minus his questioning- and informed him that he would have to change inns in the morning.

The innkeeper’s son didn’t have any complaints with what he’d said and dragged the kid off to the guard station less than a block away.

The owner came in not much longer after his son had left and moved Crimson to the floor in his room for the rest of the night, which wasn’t restful, and he left first thing in the morning-after paying what the innkeeper was due of course. Fifty bronze for what he’d broken, and fifteen silver for his stay. Handing over the money had hurt, he could probably had lowered the cost if he’d been willing to haggle more, but it wasn’t worth the time he’d need to spend.

He quickly left after that, heading to the guild via wide open streets. They were fairly empty at that hour of the morning because the sun had yet to show itself. The whole area was just barely lit up with pre-dawn light, but it was a still a pretty sight, and breathing the morning air free of pollution was pretty nice too.

The guild wouldn’t be open for another hour so he sat down on the steps in front of it, and leaned against the side wall.

One part of him was really grateful that he was a perpetually a light sleeper, the other part of him was honestly shocked that the kid had broken after just that much, there was no way that should have worked. Maybe he was lying? Well, regardless the actions he had taken sickened Crimson. From the offset he knew that he wouldn’t kill the kid, and he knew he couldn’t torture him either, so he’d threatened him. Even if it was stupid and shouldn’t have worked, even if he hadn’t hurt the kid -after the kick-, even if he’d gotten what he wanted, he still couldn’t help but feel guilty.

If he had to kill someone to protect himself then he would do it, without hesitating, but once he’d subdued the kid killing him would have been murder, plain and simple. Self defense was fine, anything more was too far.

Murder, Torture, Cruelty, all things that turned his stomach. Not long after he’d arrived in the world he’d decided that he would do whatever was needed to get what he wanted, for the first time: he decided to draw the line, not in sand, but in granite.

He would never do something like that again.

With his new resolution some of the guilt he felt left him, not all, but some. Maybe it wasn’t guilt, but a fear of what he’d become if he kept going down that path? Well, either way he wouldn’t do it again.

Crimson took a deep breath, his introspection had eaten up about fifteen minutes, so he decided to use the approximately forty-five minutes he had until the guild opened to grind his [Calligraphy]. He actually wanted to meditate, but that would leave him way to open to an attack or an ambush, or Verity. He must never forget how dangerous that woman is with the right teasing material.

To fit his mood he decided to write a paraphrased version of Edgar Allen Poe’s Pit and Pendulum in his best recreation of the ‘chiller’ font.

It was a grueling process, and he’d decided to leave out quite a few details too, to finish recreating the short story before the guild opened; he barely made it, and his efforts paid off, but he’d need to pick up some more paper. He was out.

Skill Level Up!

[Calligraphy V] > [Calligraphy VI]

Control over writing implements increased to 20%

“Crimson, what are you doing out here?”

Verity, and Sherry were standing together, in front of him.