Spending a ‘day off’ was an interesting concept to Ciel. If she was being completely honest, she thought that it was kind of a bad one too.

  Back home, the rogue had never had days off. Her days had been spent either training or fighting weak beasts to prepare for her eventual awakening. That, combined with her dark magic lessons, had left her with basically no time off. Not that she had minded such a life; it had made her strong.

  At least Rodrick allowed me to take on a solo mission or two. This weekend would’ve sucked if I had to stay within the city. I hope there’s at least a moderately juicy contract on the board though.

  She… wasn’t exactly sure if her team knew how strong she was. They seemed to treat her well enough, although that seemed to be a given in these lands, but she had a nagging feeling that they weren’t exactly aware of her level of skill. Sure, Rodrick let her roam around pretty freely during missions—a somewhat peculiar decision based on what she knew about adventurer strategies—but he seemed to consider her only a little above his own power.

  Ciel hadn’t disillusioned him of that notion just yet. Perhaps when we travel to Kilras? That should be a good time to start solo hunting properly alongside the team contracts.

  To be completely fair to her team, she didn’t think she was leagues above the rest or anything like that. Ciel couldn’t cast massive spells like Carla, nor could she do whatever Arthur seemed to be doing. She couldn’t even cleave her enemies in two like Rodrick. She wasn’t the singular best magic or physical combatant in their team, and that was okay.

  Because she was second best at absolutely everything they excelled at. And I’m the fastest of us all!

  A small smirk coloured Ciel’s lips as she strided into the stone building that was the adventurer’s guild’s Lyndale branch. Realizing that she was smiling, she tamped the emotion down and adopted her customary frown. She didn’t want to attract any adventurer slobs to her side, that was for sure. The frown has worked this far; no need to change what I’m doing in that regard.

  The rogue walked to the bronze rank contract board and perused the choices available to her. As she read one solo contract after another, her frown kept intensifying. Lycan activity near the north side… Boring. A nest of tunneler worms southeast that’s making caravan travel harder… Way too easy for a dark mage like me. I want a bloody challenge for once!

  The pale woman clicked her tongue and turned to the front desk. Her walk towards it was unfortunately interrupted after only a few steps.

  “Hey, lassy!” A masculine voice full of faked roughness and bravado called to her. She turned her gaze to the offender in question and sighed.

  “Call me lassy one more time, and I’ll make you one as well… Are we clear?”

  The man in question was a young one. She suspected that he was around eighteen or nineteen years old—a significant accomplishment considering he could’ve awakened at sixteen or seventeen. He was pretty much at the start of bronze rank by her estimation. He could maybe be considered an elite, but somehow, I doubt it.

  The young man wore medium leather armor and carried a halberd on his back. His short dark hair was clipped short enough to create the illusion of a military man. That illusion was unfortunately broken by his boyish features and soft skin. This was a noble brat, no doubt about it.

  “I’m sorry for my insolence, young miss,” he rasped. “I just saw you and decided to ask if you wanted to join me and my friends on a contract.”

  “No.”

  The slimy noble didn’t seem to take no for an answer. “No? I can promise that you'll get good pay, and I could even treat you to a nice dinner afterwards.”

  “Again, no. Leave me alone, brat.”

  A flush of rage coloured the noble scion’s face, and he started blustering. That revealed his normal, much higher, voice. “I’ll have you know that I’m a member of the prestigious house Kalron! You’d better listen when I-.”

  She had heard enough.

  In the next instant, Ciel’s hand was wrapped around the young man’s throat. “Did your mother not teach you the meaning of the word ‘No’? I heard that noble children have great tutoring, but you seem as dumb as a sack of bricks. Did your house cheap out on you or what?”

  “My father will hear of this!” the slimy man wheezed.

  “And I don’t give a shit,” she growled. “Get out of my sight!”

  As the slob of a nobleman stumbled out from the guild, Ciel sighed. Practically every pair of eyes were now fixed on her. Sure, they were just interested in drama, but she was still a rogue. Being looked at was annoying…

  I should’ve just worn the cloak… The combat equipment is way too revealing for these situations.

  To be clear, Ciel’s clothing wasn’t purposefully made to be revealing. She had custom-tailored the set to cover any areas that were considered sexually attractive, including but not limited to her cleavage, rear and reproductive organs. The areas that were revealed were mostly limited to her arms and some of her midriff, but even that was too much at times.

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  Why didn’t I get mage’s robes instead? Oh, right… The price of customized robes was way too much.

  She’d have to come up with a better solution at silver rank and beyond, as her spells would start requiring more empty skin than just her arms and midriff. Perhaps I’ll finally invest in a mage’s robe then…

  Ignoring the curious and lecherous gazes, the dark mage walked to the front desk. This time, no one came to interrupt her. She’d already shown the other adventurers that she wasn’t interested in whatever they offered. A blessing, really.

  “John, was it?” she asked the clerk at the front desk. He was clearly the same man they had seen when Valar signed up to the guild.

  “Hello, adventurer,” he greeted her with a forced smile. “What can I do for you?”

  “The bronze rank solo contracts on the wall suck. Give me a better one.”

  “I apologize, but those are the publicly available-.”

  “Then give me a private one,” she drawled. “I want a challenge.”

  The young man squared his shoulders and let out a nervous breath. “I’m sorry, but I cannot do that. It’s against the rules.”

  Ciel bit her lip in annoyance. This was the exact problem with Leoria. Everything was governed by some stupid rules made by some stupid high rankers. Their coddling of bronze and iron rankers was infuriating!

  Back home, I could’ve grabbed whatever mission I wanted. Now, I need to lie through my teeth to get something worth my time.

  She sighed dramatically. “I guess I’ll have to drag my teammates from their weekend then. I’d like to take a contract using Rodrick Steelheart’s credentials.”

  “Ma’am,” John stammered. “I can’t do that either. It’s against the rules to use other adventurer’s name to take contracts, even if they’re a teammate.”

  “Oh dear…” Ciel shook her head. “Do I really need to drag Rodrick from who knows where to take on a single contract? Is the star on my badge not enough to show that I’m trustworthy enough for you to make an exception this once?”

  She took her bronze badge from her pocket and put it on the desk. As she had said, a single silver star decorated the badge.

  “You have a star?” John asked. “That changes things… Do you promise that you have authorization from your team leader to do this?”

  “Yes, yes… He agreed to do this.”

  “If you say so…”

  “Thank you, John. I’ll remember this favor.”

  …

  Soon, Ciel walked out of the guild, contract in hand and a smile on her face. Her star had worked like a charm!

  Interning in a team of absolute lunatics at iron rank wasn’t a waste of time after all… Shame that all of them are dead now. They were a good group.

  She turned south as soon as she left the guild, heading towards the gate out of the city. The contract she had picked out was a juicy one, but to get to it, she’d need to run for quite a while. At least I can run at full speed this time.

  The walk through the southern district was as peaceful as she predicted. Some poor iron rankers stared at her, but considering the noble brat she had just met, they seemed like proper folk. She waved to them, and they waved back. That earned them ten copper out of her pocket.

  As soon as Ciel was out of the gate, she cast a simple spell. She even chanted its name out loud, although it was by no means necessary.

  “Umbral Shift.”

  When the air surrounding Ciel’s skin was finally replaced by comfortable darkness, she let out a relieved sigh. Her next step felt lighter, less affected by outside forces like the air around her body or gravity. Gods, I love this spell!

  The next second, she took off.

  Blazing through the farmlands at blistering speed, Ciel laughed for the first time in days. She laughed her heart out, passing by confused beasts and into the forest without a care in the world.

  For some teams, the trek would’ve taken half a day. For Ciel, it took only a few hours, and that was with infrequent usage of Umbral Shift. She couldn’t have kept it up for the full two hours anyway, especially as she was going to fight relatively soon. She wouldn’t want to get mana exhaustion mid-fight, would she?

  As for what she had chosen to fight? Ciel grinned from ear to ear, mouthing out the name of her coming opponent. “A bronze rank forest troll…”

  When people considered different beasts at bronze rank, they often compared them to each other in terms of a fight. In the Leorian wilds, a behemoth ursa was the biggest threat an adventurer could find at bronze rank. It was simply a threat that a single adventurer at the same rank could not defeat. Ranked against a beast like that, a single forest troll still ranked very, very highly.

  In some ways, it belonged to the same group as the ursa. Both were opponents that relied on extended fights, and although trolls lost to a behemoth ursas in size and strength, they were known for their regeneration instead. It will be a tough fight, and I’ll have to stay wary for the whole time. A quick rest is definitely needed before I engage.

  Ciel had been stalking her target for fifteen minutes or so at this point. The dumb bipedal beast was wandering aimlessly around the forest, smashing and eating any smaller beasts that were dumb enough to attack it. The wounds it received from the short bouts healed in seconds, and the beast’s aura never seemed to show any exhaustion.

  That was for a good reason too. Being a simple beast, the troll regained mana with every creature it killed and ate. That meant that as long as it kept finding targets to smash with its fists, the green-skinned monstrosity could continue regenerating endlessly.

  Ciel clicked her tongue and vaulted to another tree. The troll didn’t react to the rustling leaves, nor did it look around to check for attackers. At least it’s stupid. Intelligence and speed are pretty much the only things I have over this dumb creature, so those differences better be huge…

  She shadowed the beast for around an hour. That time was enough to regain all of the mana she could hold within her body, which was a lot. I’ll still need to be efficient if I want to outlast that brute.

  Ciel hadn’t been stupid enough to leave the city without any supplies. Her travel pack held a couple bottles of alchemical fire, wrapped in cloth in order to not shatter against each other. They would be pretty much the only thing that she could use to put the beast down permanently.

  Am I ready? I think I am…

  It was time to fight a troll!