Chapter 2.1

“Woooooah! Finally! Finally, it’s here!!”

My shout echoed right beneath the walls of the fortress city of Exus. I quickly apologized to the other adventurers, who yelled back, “Shut up! You snail-brained idiot!” as I grinned at what I had finally obtained.

—You have acquired the skill “Melt (Beginner).”

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After voluntarily expelling myself from the “Hero” party led by my childhood friend Blaze, I decided to stay at an inn with reasonable security.

That said, even staying at a decent inn in a city was painful for my wallet, given the meager pocket money I had saved from my rural days and various odd jobs.

Specifically, the cost of one night would exceed my income for the day.

However, it was necessary to stay at a more luxurious inn, not because I wanted to indulge but due to security concerns.

There was a fear of being attacked by Blaze, the former party leader.

At cheaper inns, there was a risk of having my luggage stolen or of the innkeeper being bribed, leading to Blaze breaking into my room and kidnapping me while I slept.

Moreover, even without that, the quality of service at lower-end inns could be terrifying, and the other adventurers weren’t much different from Blaze in terms of their conduct.

Having lived in a country like Japan, which boasted the highest safety standards in my past life, I didn’t understand this; however, in a civilization like this one, eating out could be a matter of life and death.

It was forbidden to eat at cheap diners or roadside stalls; meals should only be taken at establishments with higher prices or those deemed trustworthy.

Unless you were okay with potentially being served anything—like skewers laced with poison or soup made from mushrooms picked haphazardly—you absolutely should not eat anywhere that wasn’t reliable.

Let’s get back to the main topic.

After switching to a high-end inn, I moved my base from the South Guild, where Blaze and the others operated, to the North Guild, and continued to accept the beginner requests from the adventurer guild, specifically the “City Wall Guard” requests.

—Request: “City Wall Guard.”

Due to the ongoing threat of monsters, humanity in this world has been forced to live in large cities protected by immense city walls, similar to those in ancient Chinese cities.

Naturally, there were armed professionals known as “Civilians” who served as guards and gatekeepers to protect those walls.

However, continuously hiring civilian classes as soldiers during peacetime was costly and would lower productivity in the city. Therefore, for combat support and other related tasks, the city would contract jobs to the adventurer guild at a low price.

That was what I took on.

It was a low-paying request that, if accepted normally, would lead to losses.

However, if monsters appeared while on guard duty and I defeated them, I could add the bounty to my earnings, making it a little easier to cover my lodging expenses.

Nonetheless, many aspiring adventurers, typically the second or third sons of farmers from nearby villages, came to the fortress city of Exus, resulting in a large number of low-quality adventurers.

While these adventurers constantly hunted monsters in the surrounding forests and wilderness—often suffering casualties—encounters with monsters during my guard duties were quite rare.

Even when luck was on my side and monsters did appear, I would be competing with other adventurers, making it financially unviable to take on these requests seriously. As such, these requests weren’t popular…

(If I hadn’t been gathering herbs or completing hunting requests during breaks, I would have seriously run out of money.)

Thus, the hellish days of guarding the city wall would come to an end today.

Having achieved my goal by noon today, I sat in my room at the inn, grinning at my “Status Device.”

“Still, it took a whole month in real time to acquire a skill of this level. That was really long.”

Life was much easier when this world was just a game. There were more monsters spawning, and it was possible to stay at low-tier inns instead of high-security luxury ones. After all, if you died, it was just considered bad luck.

The “Status Device” I currently possessed was a magical tool that had the skill “Self-Analysis” granted to it, which was distributed by the adventurer guild.

It also served as an adventurer’s identification card and automatically performed skill checks for adventurers.

In this world, shouting for one’s status wouldn’t reveal it; there’s no ability to just summon a window in midair that displays various information or to have a voice in your head that tells you everything.

You actually have to use the right tools.

Additionally, it’s worth noting that the adventurer guild is not a wonderful organization that freely lends out such handy tools.

Using the “Status Device,” my information is extracted by the machinery, and even the fact that I’ve acquired monster-related skills is known. However, I have been living in this world for fifteen years now.

I understand that being cautious about organizations or nobles at this point is futile.

(In a fictional setting, you’d probably get a concealment skill first, but seriously, who has time for that?)

While I do possess the skill to acquire monster skills, obtaining a concealment skill is currently absolutely impossible for me.

To gain a concealment skill, I first need to find a monster that possesses that skill.

This requires me to level up sensory skills such as “Exploration,” “Discovery,” “Enemy Detection,” or even “Piercing Insight” and “Mind’s Eye” to a high level to locate monsters, and then I have to keep killing those monsters with concealment skills until I can acquire the skill.

It’s not like in a game where you just walk through a forest and encounter enemies.

In this real world, monsters have a certain lifespan before they are born, and those with concealment skills are rare, so they are not easily found. Plus, I didn’t have the option of not registering with the adventurer guild until I obtained a concealment skill.

(That’s right, I’ve been reincarnated in this world for fifteen years…)

I’ve already spent fifteen years.

Earth, Japan, the game… modern knowledge, science, Japanese.

Given how long I’ve lived in this world, it’s no wonder my past memories have started to fade.