Skill Tree 1

Leaving the four men with their shattered ankles behind, I ran a reasonable stretch across the plains and slipped out of the Tower. My body felt oddly restless, like my condition had improved somehow — but that was probably just my imagination. As if beating up a reeking middle-aged man would put me in a good mood.

I don't have that kind of taste.

Everything after that went smoothly. The whole affair wrapped up so easily I almost felt bad for Hanna, and we never even needed to visit the guard station. The bandits were still writhing near the Tower entrance when patrol guards — out because of the Horned Wolves — came over to investigate.

"Sir Roland! We owe you for the last incident. But these fellows…?"

"Bandits who murdered adventurers inside the Tower. They claimed they were former outlaws with bounties on their heads."

"Ah, I see! We'll confirm the bounties and send the rewards through the Guild."

Under normal circumstances, there would have been all sorts of tedious procedures. After all, this was a violent incident inside the city — an Advanced Adventurer had beaten men into cripples and dragged them in without evidence or witnesses. But the guards' goodwill swept every complication clean away.

If the Horned Wolf crisis hadn't been resolved quickly, the ones taking the full brunt of the fallout would have been the guard corps. As the organization responsible for city security, they would have been buried under a cascade of scolding from on high — and I was the one who'd prevented that. On top of that, the nobles had been so busy puffing themselves up with stories about me that almost no blame had spilled onto the guards at all. Stack my reputation as an adventurer on top of that, and a simple investigation was casually ignored right along with the bandits' human rights.

…Okay, what the hell is this.

Hanna is choosing my skills? What is that supposed to mean? After handing over the bandits, I was walking slowly toward the Guild when I ducked into an alley and opened the forum board. I felt a little bad for Hanna — she'd been looking forward to visiting the guard station.

Apparently, while waiting for me at the Guild, she'd revealed my skills to her viewers and let them vote. Both the chat and the forum were in complete chaos. Viewers were going wild over skills I hadn't even known I had. Someone had already put together something that looked like a wiki page — so this world had its own version of that, too.

First, the passive that seemed to have activated the day I met the Horned Wolf: Indomitable Knight. It had two effects — an unconditional 50% reduction to all incoming damage, plus a damage reflection against melee attackers proportional to my health and defense.

…I burned eight hundred and fifty thousand won on a single pull, didn't I. Worth every won.

So that was why a single pity pull cost a million won in expected value, even without full multi-pulls. The sheer absurdity of it brought back the memory of my trembling fingers hammering the gacha button ten years ago. Were the Heroines Chronicle devs just money-grubbing bastards, or was their balancing ability rock-bottom?

Both, probably.

Next was the first skill Hanna had chosen: Master of Shield Techniques. The name made it sound like a passive, but a helpful annotation clarified it was an active skill. The effect: upon activation, counter every incoming attack for a short duration.

…And how exactly was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I supposed to do that?

It wasn't like I'd learned shield techniques from anyone — I'd just figured them out by throwing my body into fights. What else was I supposed to do?

Dozens of comments piled up, all sharing the exact same questions I had. Obviously, until I met Hanna, I'd never had anything like counters or damage reflection. Whether it was a goblin's thrown rock or a lesser dragon's breath, all I did was block and endure. How was I supposed to counter a ranged attack with a shield?

After reading everything useful, I stepped out of the alley and headed slowly toward the Guild. Now that I'd found the info on my skills, I browsed some of the more upvoted posts to kill time. Plenty of people were arguing about the skills Hanna had passed over to pick the shield technique.

Some were fighting over whether the Menacing Roar she'd scrolled right past was an AoE debuff or an AoE taunt. Others were arguing about whether a self-heal was necessary once a priest joined the party, or completely unnecessary.

This might have been some kind of parallel world, but Korean gamers' passion for theorycrafting was apparently universal.

"Ah, you're ba— wait, what about those bandits?"

"The guards at the Tower entrance hauled them off right away."

"Oh right, they were on patrol earlier."

I'd been so absorbed in the forum that I'd arrived at the Guild without noticing. Hanna greeted me with a completely unbothered expression — whether that meant thick nerves or sheer guts, I couldn't say. The chat had been a war zone over the skills she'd passed on, but she seemed to be ignoring it entirely.

Even with moderators scrubbing insults and criticism in real time, it had to weigh on her — yet she looked completely fine. As a streamer, that was genuinely impressive.

"The bounty gets confirmed by the guards and sent through the Guild. At Intermediate Adventurer rates, that should be enough to buy gear for both of you right away."

"Intermediate gear already?"

Grace and Hanna both startled at that. Fair enough — since I was covering their meals and lodging, every coin from hunting Horned Wolves was going straight into savings. We were earning several silver a day, and the only real expense was Grace's arrows. Oh, and the materials for Hanna's Horned Wolf lure scent.

That made our party's savings rate incomparable to most groups. If we sold the Full Moon Wolf materials, both of them could kit themselves out in full Intermediate gear.

Still, the Full Moon Wolf probably won't pay out that big.

I'd told Grace the Full Moon Wolf hide was worth dozens of gold — nearly a hundred — but I doubted that money would ever reach our hands. It looked like a game-balance nightmare.

A normal player who wasn't Hanna might scrape together one or two silver on a good field day. And the first boss drops an item worth a thousand times that daily income? In real life that would be like winning the lottery on the street, but inside a game it would shatter the story. They'd probably just give Mana Stones and skip the materials entirely. Then those Mana Stones would open a gate straight to the tenth floor or something.

"What's wrong? Were you that curious about the guard station?"

"Ah, Grace… I mean, I was a little curious, but it's fine."

"No need to hold back. If you're curious, just go look. It's not like the guard station is a restricted zone."

I'd been happily daydreaming about game balance and shortcuts when their conversation suddenly kicked into gear. Fair enough — the sun was still high, too early to just grab dinner and split up. Today's income could be covered by the bounty, but there was no way to fill the hole in Hanna's streaming schedule.

Which was probably why Hanna — a born streamer — lit up at Grace's coaxing and looked my way. She seemed to think that since it was a security facility, you couldn't just walk in without business, like a police station. From beside her, Grace shot me a look that said please do something about this.

"Just say ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠we need to confirm something with the bandits we caught earlier. They'll let us in."

"Confirm what?"

"We'll invent a reason right now. Alice? We caught some Intermediate Adventurers who were doing bandit work — can you check their badges for us?"

Alice, who'd been edging closer out of curiosity about our party still occupying a table this early, furrowed her brow hard. Of course, with a face that beautiful, the scowl looked cute rather than menacing — but I had no interest in weathering the aftermath, so I quickly added:

"I'll handle everything with the guards myself. On top of last time's compensation paperwork, I'll bring thick macarons and cake slices."

"You're not just buying for me, right?"

"Yeah, I'll get some for the other receptionists too."

With a solid bribe promised, she beamed and took the adventurer badges I held out. Hanna sidled up and whispered in my ear. Apparently the idea of a Guild receptionist extracting something every single time she did her job was still foreign to her.

"Uh, if we caught bandits, aren't we supposed to check their badges?"

"Nah. Adventurer badges are basically fashion accessories outside of finding Tower exits. Even if you say you're checking them, there's no way to prove whether a badge actually belongs to someone."

"Then what is she checking for us?"

"She heard our whole conversation, so she's making us an excuse to get into the guard station. It doesn't mean much, but she can at least draft an official document."

Alice would stamp the Adventurer's Guild receptionist seal on a form and jot down something like "this badge is presumed stolen." Since these bandits were headed for execution or prison anyway, a flimsy pretext was all we needed for a quick visit.

What kind of connections could guys living off robbery inside the Tower possibly have? The guards were probably already planning a casual execution, and I had zero interest in hearing their tragic backstories.

Swing by the guards, deliver the desserts, split up early, and get some skill practice in.

With my schedule conveniently free, I took the document from Alice and started planning skill drills. Through the open office door, I could see the other receptionists — their bright, smiling eyes practically dripping with longing for sweet desserts.

I'd asked Alice for so many favors that the formula "Roland wants something = Roland brings snacks" had been burned into their brains.

Still, the receptionists in that office were the Guild's public face, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every last one of them a beauty. They might have ulterior motives, but no man alive objects to pretty women being friendly. I gave a quick nod of greeting through the doorway, then opened the Guild doors and stepped outside.

"And stop breaking the doors!"

"I'm too scared of the repair-cost scam to break anything!"

I fired Alice's joke right back at her, then started down the street with two women quietly attaching themselves to my sides. Hanna seemed to have something she wanted to ask, and Grace was watching her with an expression that said she found the whole thing adorable. To Grace, Hanna probably just looked like she was whining about wanting to tour the guard station.

The streets were quiet with the sun still up — most adventurers were deep inside the Tower at this hour. As we walked the empty road, Hanna spoke up.

"I know I'm the one who asked for this, but… is it really okay for Alice to just manufacture documents like that?"

She'd gotten comfortable enough with informal speech that it came out naturally now. Her eyes kept flicking toward the Guild document tucked against my chest. Fair enough — to someone from modern society, forging official documents was a crime that got you prison time. Of course she was curious.

But this was a medieval fantasy world built on a completely broken mobile game.

"If Alice makes it, that is the Guild's position. Unless it's something ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠truly bizarre, it mostly doesn't matter."

Guilds were associations that merchants, craftsmen, and the like formed for mutual profit in free cities without a lord. In short, the Adventurer's Guild was adventurers banding together for their own benefit. That meant the Guild wasn't structured around one person wielding dictatorial power.

Just as the city's authority was messily scattered among the various guilds, the Temple, and the nobility, the Adventurer's Guild's power was similarly distributed — among the Guildmaster and others.

"Alice is one of those people. Receptionists hired for their looks often get trained and reassigned to other support work. She's the most senior among them, so she has quite a bit of authority within the Guild."

If the leadership of a craftsmen's guild like the blacksmiths consisted of masters who owned large workshops, the Adventurer's Guild's management was made up of retired famous adventurers, accountants — and Alice, the big sister of all the receptionists. Since it was a group assembled for profit, you couldn't just ignore internal voices.

"Getting on her good side will pay off. She's a bit… excessive about looking after pretty people."

Every receptionist was a beauty, and Alice was extraordinarily kind to beauties. That kindness had expanded into Guild influence — whether that counted as brilliant social maneuvering, I wasn't sure.

Grace and Hanna both nodded with slightly dazed expressions. Their mental image of Alice was probably closer to a pushy sales auntie who clung to them asking if they'd ever considered becoming receptionists.