Osric woke with the light already seeping through the cracks in the wooden ceiling.
Not rested—but less weighed down.
The deep ache from days before had dulled into something manageable, his body no longer protesting every small movement. He sat up slowly, testing his balance, his breath, the way his muscles responded.
Better.
Not stronger.
Just… aligned.
The familiar presence lingered at the edge of his awareness.
A free stat point.
Osric acknowledged it without opening the screen. It sat there patiently, unchanged, waiting for intent rather than impulse. He considered it for a brief moment—Endurance, perhaps, or Strength—but pushed the thought aside.
Not yet.
He wanted to know what he lacked before deciding how to grow.
Osric dressed, secured his sword, and stepped out into the morning air. He skipped breakfast without concern. Hunger could wait until evening.
Today was for choosing direction.
The Adventurers' Guild was already awake when he arrived.
Voices overlapped in the familiar way—requests, arguments, laughter too loud to be genuine. The scent of parchment, metal, and old wood filled the air as Osric stepped inside.
Something was different.
Franklin wasn't behind the front desk.
Osric slowed half a step, eyes scanning the hall. The branch leader was usually there—watching, listening, measuring everything that passed through the doors. Today, the desk was occupied by one of the guild's administrative staff instead: a middle-aged man hunched over ledgers, quill scratching steadily as he muttered to himself.
No armor.
No weapon.
Just ink-stained fingers and tired eyes.
Osric didn't ask where Franklin was.
He already had a sense of it. Osric didn't know details, but he had a rough understanding of Ashbrook's politics because it interested him and he had sharp instincts.
The hobgoblin hadn't just been a problem—it had been a signal. And Franklin wasn't the type to ignore signals. Whatever faction he belonged to, whatever preparations he was making, they clearly took priority over routine oversight.
That alone told Osric more than words would have.
He moved past the desk and stopped in front of the mission board.
The lower section was sparse.
A handful of F-rank missions, most of them the same ones that cycled endlessly: rat infestations, fence repairs, courier work, herb gathering. Poor pay. Minimal danger. Minimal growth.
Osric barely spared them a glance.
He'd never taken those. He only recently became an adventurer, but he was quite desperate for money in the beginning.
Above them, the E-rank section was crowded.
Dozens of postings overlapped, parchment layered upon parchment, inked descriptions repeating familiar themes:
-Venomfang Snakes sighted along forest paths
-Wolves near hunting routes
-Aggressive Thornback Boar sightings
-Missing travelers
-Disturbed farmers by Feral Dogs
Almost all of them pointed toward the same place.
The Ashbrook Forest.
Osric read slowly, carefully, taking in details rather than titles. Group size recommendations. Estimated threat levels. Notes added in different handwriting—some cautious, some dismissive, some outright bitter.
There were no D-rank missions posted.
Not surprising.
Those didn't appear unless something had already gone wrong. And House Greydell didn't want to pay for D-Rank missions. So a lot of E-Rank missions were more dangerous than implied.
And even if one had… Osric knew better now.
He thought of the hobgoblin.
Of Roman's shattered shield.
Of Erica bleeding in the dirt.
He had fought alongside D-rank adventurers—and survived—but that didn't mean he belonged there yet. Not alone.
That realization didn't sting.
It grounded him.
Osric shifted his focus back to the E-rank postings.
This was where he belonged for now.
Not for safety.
For growth.
He studied the missions not as tasks to complete, but as problems to solve. Which monsters would force him to adapt? Which environments would punish mistakes? Which jobs would test his awareness rather than brute force?
This wasn't about coin.
Not anymore.
Osric let his gaze linger on one posting longer than the rest, lips pressing into a thin line as he considered it.
A new challenge.
Something unfamiliar.
He reached up and touched the parchment lightly.
And made his choice.