Year 5015, day 70 of the flowering season.

 

A few days later, from my last trip to the library, I went to the guild. I wanted to get more experience, to hopefully gain my first level, to become closer to have more mana. I had tried to use appraisal alongside my dear sister but alas the chant never came.

At the bulletin board, there were distinct letters. These matched the ones in the adventurers cards, allowing us to know the batch we could choose from. Thus, below each one, pieces of paper remained there pinned to the large wood board. The section I looked at, were those below the letter F, for that was the rank of my card, and of course my party.

For the longest time, I had allowed the receptionists to choose my quests, and even now, I didn't want to differ from that. What I wanted from this was to be able to see what else was there. To quench the thirst of my curiosity, as Einstein had once told me to do.

After talking to my parents about his offer, they were as delighted as they were surprised. They took him for someone who distanced himself from others, but perhaps, age had brought him loneliness. Dad had told me his wife had already passed away, so him wanting to retire was perhaps a way for him to bid his farewell to life. It was quite common for an adult of certain elderly age to extinguish the remnant of their life-force. Especially since they would start getting sick. Worse yet, without having someone to take care of them, nor money to suffice. They'd end up suffering till death came to embrace them for eternal rest. Or as the priests had once said, 'till the soul reaches the goddess caring hands.'

'A horrible world,' I sighed, slightly displeased, unwilling to go through such fate myself. Still, I knew it was a matter of decades till the same end reached out for me.

'I better survive till then,' my hand slapped the nearest paper, causing the attention of an adventurer next to me to fall on the bulletin board.

"That one might be too hard for a new adventurer."

I removed my fingers from it, reading its contents. 

Rank D quest:

Slay the kobolds that have been causing trouble near the South road of Astia village.

I skimmed through the rest. "You may be right. Thank you."

"Recurrent events will lead a group of beasts to be organised, which leads to eminent danger."

"Thank you for the advice, sir."

"Tiago's my name. A rank C adventurer." He winked at me, smiling happily at his achievements.

"I'm-" without delay he decided to interrupt me, leaving me speechless.

"Iris from the unknown party."

"What?" I took a step back, finding it strange for him to know me when we never crossed paths.

"You're the talk of the guild, being the only blonde woman in it. Young, yet gorgeous at that."

The tension of my muscles relaxed, understanding that I may have stood up more than what I wanted.

"My appearance strikes again," I sighed, avoiding his gaze.

"Some better than others," his hand passed in front of me, pulling the nail effortlessly from the paper, causing the thin fabric to float briefly. Meanwhile, the metal remained in the middle of two of his biggest fingers. With a clean motion, he got hold of the piece, showing it to me. "This one isn't too dangerous and gets you some money."

"Thanks. I'll give it a try," as I got hold of it, his fingers slipped by, skillfully avoiding mine, yet close enough to make it look as if they had.

With his back quickly turned to me, he added effortlessly, "you can find what you need in east of Astia village, but don't explore too far."

"I'll keep that in mind and you're wrong."

"Hum?" He turned his face around, halting his pace to know where he messed up. "What do you mean by that?"

"I'm not the only blonde of this guild," without waiting for his reply, I passed by his side all the way to the reception. I could feel the tingling sensation of a nervous wave that had made me speak too much. But I couldn't help attempt to reach his level in some manner. Even if I had acted awkwardly at his helpfulness. My personality was not set, and many were the times I contested others. Sometimes even without proper arguments. The anxious moments were I felt my appearance to be indulged by their taste, automatically made my words turn into small daggers. For better or for worse, I stabbed even the innocent with them. Ruthlessly at times, when all I truly wanted was to befriend them. Nonetheless, I couldn't help myself to feel some distrust, even when they didn't show a reason for it, or do anything that deserved it. Potentially, it was a curse ingrained in my brain, the so-called trauma of my past life that I believed to be solved.

But it wasn't. 

It still tormented me through intricate methods. 

At the reception after waiting for my turn, I showed the quest paper to one of the young men working there, "Good morning. I'd like to go for this one."

"Understood. I'll assign your party to it and since it's a collectible type of quest, it'll be exclusive to your group."

"Really? Thank you." 

"You can look for the appearance of the herb in one of our herb catalogues," he pointed his finger to the nearest corner, showing an old and small shelf without much to show. Yet, there was at least 3 old books. Thus, I started by making my way there. Reading their titles to myself. 

"Monster soul stones, herb catalogue," as soon as I read the second book, I placed the other two back. Then, I quickly took a look at the quest information, finding the name of what I needed to search for.

"Para-cleanser?" Unfortunately, the quest didn't indicate any detail on what this could possibly be. Therefore, my fingers slid through the book contents as it had with others. A page at a time, a small explosion of dust here and there.

"Para... para..." and my eyes widened, finding what I had been enthusiastic about.

"Para-cleanser. A herb that helps reducing the effect of paralyze." And my eyes indulged on the following knowledge, enough to make me place the book on top of one of the empty desks. 

With the help of both my index fingers, I pulled my hair behind my ears, leaving no way for it to meddle with my reading. It took less than ten seconds to start absorbing the words. Despite having low wisdom and intelligence, when it came to reading, I was quite confident on myself. But what sprouted my curiosity, was that paralysis signified the temporary state of the individual's body to become immovable. 

'If it was Aurora...' like sparks, my mind flourished with ideas. My sister who had motivated me to become better and I who knew I needed more tricks up my sleeve.

'If I'm meant to survive on my own...' when I was younger, there were few times where I watched Vicent creating potions. There were two distinct ways to go about it. Either he ordered boxes of bottles to then fill with said liquid, or with the help of mana, he'd be able to create a potion of lesser quality, but the bottle would be made of glass, allowing the user to see the coloured appearance on the contents.

'But how could I go about using these to my advantage?' Certainly my enemies wouldn't just drink something because I asked them too. I laughed at my own silliness. And then I remembered the cloud of dust that I ended up inhaling out of my own volition. If I managed to throw the potion inside something fragile, could it potentially lead to create a little explosion, allowing the contents to slip through the gaps and the cracks, all the way to their nostrils? I grinned, in a mean way that I didn't know to be possible. Of course, I didn't even notice it myself. If I had, I would have hoped no one to notice it. Perhaps it wouldn't matter even if someone did. After all, adventurers surrounded me, and unlike this young lady, they were used to ending lives.

'Paralysis...' My fingers flapped the pages, brain jolting hyped to find potential new ways of weakening my enemies.

After some more research, I walked away, heading back home, ignoring the many gazes of the surrounding adventurers. The problem of living near the South border was that it had a decent amount of them. People that were inclined to increase their fame and power at all costs. To reach the highest rank, to become the number one in the entire kingdom. Such goals were shared by all of us, or better said, most of us, who didn't have ulterior motives.

'F, E, D, C. Four ranks in distance. That guy must be super strong. Tiago, was it?' I didn't check the quests of other ranks to avoid feeling bad about myself. After all, I was and still am quite the feeble young lady.

'Just wait, mom and dad. I'll make you proud!' 

For these past days, ever since the slime quest, I hadn't seen my sister anywhere. Yet, I knew she was alright. The multiple messages from my status kept on alerting me of her deeds, of the increasing disgrace upon me. Mostly fishes and chickens were being killed by her hands. It made me wonder what she was doing with them. However, my mother had told me Aurora had been feeding little saint, and as big as he was, a lot of food was necessary to keep his stomach satisfied.

'I hope they're safe,' my heart trembled at the thought of anything bad happening to either of them, my dear family members.

'Even now she must be gathering information,' in that department, both of us were doing our best to figure out this intricate world. Least to say, its secrets were hard to get a glimpse of. It was especially tough given my recent discovery: the censorship the church did to the books and possibly all the information hidden in the kingdom.

'To rip a book's page...' that had pissed me to an unthinkable extent. One mustn't ruin another person's hard work.

"If only one copy was still intact..." at that moment, my hand rested on the door handle when a voice emerged from my back, surprising me.

"Copies of what?"

The sudden familiar tone caused my heart to skip a beat. It was her, the one entity that made my mind race. My core quickly throbbed in delight. The sole being whom I could have expectations for without having them betrayed, thanks to our contract. Aurora, my beloved twin sister. With a merry expression, I hastily turned to her, finding my pet to be sitting next to her awfully quiet and, worse yet, strangely still.

"At will," her words caused my dog to jump on me, causing me to collapse, not expecting him to do that out of a sudden. At least, not after his unusually stern behaviour. He licked my cheek, reminding me how he truly was. This showed that Aurora had disciplined him throughly, more so than what I and my parents ever managed to do . Truly remarkable. Just how outstanding was this peculiar reflection of me? While I am bad at many things, she's amazing at many of them. It almost feels like our connection is truly set by the mirror laws, where my left is her right, and her talent is my flaw.

"Hey, hey, hold up!" I complained, but there was nothing I could do other than rub his fur and enjoy this delightful moment of love. It was not until he made sure he filled every inch of my face with his saliva, that he sat and rested his head on my legs as if super proud of his masterpiece. It reminded me of the paintings of that crippling mansion. Perhaps I was one of them and he was painting on me with his delicate fluids as if it was ink. 

After passing my arm on my face, wiping most of it, that I gave Aurora the answer she sought. "I found a book about classes, but sadly, the last page or pages were ripped."

"Is that so?" She crossed her arms, resting her chin in her right hand.

"Einstein, the library man, told me it was likely the censorship of the church, meaning that book possibly had a clue about them."

"Interesting. So what do the pages say?"

I looked at her, extremely confused. She who earnestly expected me to know the answer to her question. Yet, there was no way for me to know what was no longer there. "I don't know. The pages are missing."

"So they're also missing when you copied the book with your skill? That's too bad."

Her reply shocked every single fiber of my body. It was such a simple thing to try. Yet I had failed. "I'm sorry sister. I didn't think about using my skill."

Her hand reached out for the top of my hair, patting it gently.

"You'll grow in no time. First, you must master what you already have."

She was right, and I knew. Her words had once been the ones stated by my mother. One of the memories Aurora must have copied from me. Plainly superb, how she knew exactly what to say and especially when. Was this charisma? Or something far more fundamental? Whatever it was, it charmed me enough to look up to her, to be more like her. Deep down, a hint of jealousy for her innate talents emerged within me. Yet, I didn't have a clue about the effort she had gone through to attain them.

I smiled innocently, infatuated by her behaviour. Undoubtedly, this made her the older sister, even if in this world I sort of appeared first. "Right. I got a new quest."

"Need a hand?"

"It is something you can help with," I took out the quest from my pocket, a piece folded in many equal parts.

To that, Aurora quick unfolded it, absorbing a grasp of its contents, nodding swiftly in favor. "You're right. Let's go."

After I ate my lunch, Aurora dressed herself in a long coat with a hood covering the entirety of her head, leaving, but part of her face revealed. We walked side-by-side back to Astia village. Then to the east side of it, where a gate remained closed with two men guarding it. In the end, we came to understand the village had a small feeble wall that minimally protected the villagers. The South entrance leads to my home and to the forest where beasts and monsters fight for supremacy. East, however, leads to a forest where some magical beasts reside, more often than not in peace.

"Halt! Who goes there?" Their rigid tones caused us to stop on our feet, briefly making our hands enter our pockets to remove the guild cards.

"We're here on a quest."

Ignoring my words, the guard checked our identification, one at a time, as if making sure of something.

"These two are newbies."

The guards traded glances, ending up with slight nods. As one man opened the gate, the other, while holding our cards, warned us. "The forest isn't too dangerous as long as you don't fight horned rabbits, especially those with more than one horn. Further deeper, there're some ruins and that place is certain death for adventurers. You're forbidden from entering it."

"Thank you for letting us know." 

With a soft motion, he returned the cards back to us. He turned his hand into a fist, reaching it shoulder height, and pointing out with his thumb at the gate behind him for us to pass.

After going through, they closed it, telling us to yell when we return. Thanks to the horned rabbits causing problems in the past, they ended up having to open and close the entrance every time. But at least casualties had reduced.