Chapter 20: An Overlooked Possibility
Lamdrion, adventurer's guild.
During this silent time of night, a certain room at the top floor of the guild was still lit up.
Within the room, a girl dressed like a military adviser was diligently working behind a desk.
The girl was quite beautiful. She wore a pair of glasses, but they did not cover up an inch of her exceptionally pretty face. Rather, it added an intellectual and studious accent to her. If she were on Earth, she would definitely have a huge following as a beautiful professor type.
At the very least, with the atmosphere that she gives off, it makes others find it hard to refuse her, to the point where some would even ask her for orders.
Not long after, the sound of someone knocking at the door interrupted the current silence.
"Come in."
The girl didn't raise her head. She just spoke while still doing her work.
At that, the door opened, and a person slowly entered from outside.
"You're still working like I though, Leili."
The one who said this with a gentle tone was another girl of similar age.
The girl unhurriedly entered from outside the room. The appearance exposed by the light was someone who looked as gentle and kind as her voice suggested. She looked just like an understanding big sister, very attractive indeed.
However, this gentle and kind beauty was actually wearing an unbelievably heavy looking set of heavy armor. It covered up the entirely of her graceful form.
Under that kind of situation, the girl also carried an enormous tower shield on her back, along with a long and thin knight's sword on her waist. She looked very much like a female general about to enter the battlefield, which clashed greatly with her soft and gentle beauty.
Thanks to that, the girl's every step carried with it clanking sounds. One could imagine just how heavy her full set of equipment are.
The girl called Leili raised her heard and looked at the other person. The normally cool and collected face shifted to show a hint of exasperation.
"Say, Vivian, are you still not letting go of all that armor?"
That exasperated tone made it quite obvious that Leili had tried talking to the other person about it many times before.
The other girl – Vivian still looked as gentle and genial as before.
"I won't let it go you know?" Vivian spoke gently without a hint of impatience, "I've said this many times now, I want to be a knight capable of shielding my comrades from all that would assail them and block all evil intent and damage. Therefore, I won't be letting go of this full set of armor and this shield no matter what."
The girl named Vivian spoke with a very accommodating tone of voice, but the contents of her words couldn't be further from accommodating.
As Vivian's long time friend, Leili also naturally knew that it was basically just some empty grousing on her side. To try to actually convince Vivian would be impossible.
Even if…
"That obviously doesn't suit you at all."
Leili sighed in resignation.
"Not at all."
Vivian just gave such a reply with a smile.
The two seemed to have a very good relationship. They therefore chatted about nothing for quite some time before finally getting into the real issue.
"Sorry Vivian, there's a matter that I need to trouble you for."
Leili handed a piece of parchment over to Vivian.
"This is…?"
Vivian took it with some curiosity.
"This is a report from the personnel in the adventurer's guild today." Leili gave a knock on the surface of the office table before her, "Supposedly, a strange newcomer arrived today, and they don't know how to deal with him, so they handed the matter directly over to me."
"Newcomer?" Vivian got a bit interested. She took a quick skim of the report in her hand and, after a pause, said, "Reaching level 10 at 20 years old, but not having even one skill?"
"Well?" Leili spoke intrigued, "There were quite a few adventurers there who saw what the magic scanner showed for this newcomer. This matter also seemed to have already spread too, and the magic scanner used then was also checked over and it was determined that there was nothing wrong with it. So it all should be true you know?"
"Really?" Vivian replied sincerely, "That really is strange then."
"You think so too, right?" Leili took up a quill and pointed at the parchment holding the report about the new adventurer, "It's one thing if it's a lack of talent and potential, but since he was able to reach level 10, that shows that he does have at least some potential when it comes to fighting, so he shouldn't be in a state where he hasn't learned even one skill. Why do you think this is happening?"
Hearing that, Vivian seriously considered it for a while, and then she raised three fingers.
"I could think of three possibilities off the top of my head."
"The first is that this newbie pursued the wrong path. He originally had the potential for leveling up, but he didn't learn the skills that he had talent for. He ended up putting all his efforts in the wrong areas, like someone who had a talent for magic but put all their effort in the sword which they aren't suited for. Thus, in the end, their level managed to grow, but their skills end up not showing up."
"The second is that this newbie might have encountered something, like a major sickness or something else like it. In the end, he couldn't get the growth and training he should have. In the end, he only started growing later on, so his level managed to reach 10 and his potential started showing, but he just didn't quite have the time to learn a skill."
"The Third..."
As she got to that point, Vivian spoke like she's still considering it.
"Perhaps, this newbie has some kind of unique or special skill, which is why this current situation came about."
The three possibilities that Vivian raised are the same as those that Leili had thought of.
Of course, the two never considered the possibility that it's not that the newbie didn't have skills, but the magic scanner couldn't detect those skills.
That's because, for a 20 year old newbie adventurer, no one would believe that someone like that could hold a level 7 or above skill.
A skill of that level, normally speaking, would be impossible to get before level 70. Unless someone were to do something like not learn any other skill and pour all their skill points into a single skill, then it might be possible to push a skill to level 7 by around level 30. However, having only one skill makes it very hard to even do battle, never mind leveling oneself to level 30.
In this world, baring special circumstances, people generally will all learn a bunch of skills before their fighting abilities mature and they become capable of actual battle and raising their levels more quickly.
That is to say, normally speaking, people will generally train several skills at the same time, and by the time one skill has reached level 7, their personal level would naturally not be all that low anymore.
This newbie was only level 10 though, so there's no way he could get a skill up to level 7 and above. There has never appeared anyone in all of history who could wield a level 7 skill when they're only 10, not even among the gods or demons.
Therefore, that particular possibility was naturally overlooked by Leili and Vivian.
However, even so, the newbie's strangeness was enough to arose the interest of others.
"No matter which possibility it is, it's worth properly observing, right?"
Leili's statement finally made Vivian show a bitter smile.
Because, Vivian had guessed the reason Leili called her here.
"You want to stuff a newbie into my adventuring party again huh?"
Vivian directly brought Leili's plan out in the open.
"As expected of Vivian. You guessed right away."
Leili chuckled out loud.