Who Says I’m Not a Legitimate Adventurer?

Chapter 2: Second Talent: Ouroboros Ring

Lance.

In the Common Language dictionary, this name meant a straightforward and sharp spear.

This was the greatest blessing his late father had given him—hoping he could, like a spear, carve out a future in this damned world.

However, looking at the astonishing talent panel before him, Lance couldn’t help but fall into deep self-doubt.

Was the heavens not planning to make him a hero, but instead turn him into the so-called perverse king of legend?

In this world, talents were not unique to Lance.

Aside from talents granted by professions and those stemming from special bloodlines, there existed an even rarer kind—personal talents.

In one’s entire lifetime, a person could awaken at most one.

Their quality was strictly divided into five ranks: Common, Excellent, Extraordinary, Legendary, and Mythical.

And that glaring red color on the panel—

Lance was certain it represented Mythical.

Although he felt somewhat ashamed of the origin of this talent, he had to admit that it was outrageously powerful.

Even calling it overpowered wasn’t enough.

Recovering full stamina just by breathing—this meant that as long as his mind didn’t collapse, he could train endlessly, honing his skills at a speed unattainable for ordinary people.

It should be known that even veteran Adventurers, in the high-pressure environment of a dungeon, often had to retreat hastily due to exhaustion.

But Lance, who possessed this talent—

only needed to consider two things: whether his health bar was long enough, and whether his backpack was big enough.

He would become a tireless perpetual motion machine.

“Maybe… I could try venturing out too?”

Just as a trace of ambition began to ignite in Lance’s heart, and he was considering whether to switch professions and become an Adventurer—

reality slapped him hard across the face.

The very next afternoon, grim news came from the Adventurers’ Guild.

The dungeon outside the city had undergone a sudden mana rampage without any warning, burying hundreds of Adventurers who were exploring inside.

This disaster not only took countless lives but also directly impacted the economic lifeline of Graystone Town.

With the sharp decline of Adventurers—a high-spending group—the town’s service industry instantly entered a harsh winter.

The most immediate effect was that Lance noticed his daily meal expenses had increased by two copper coins.

Worse still, his workload skyrocketed.

As a Scribe, he had to work overtime processing hundreds of death notices.

And amidst the mechanical copying, he also received many letters sent from distant places.

Unfortunately, the owners of those letters would never be able to open them with their own hands again.

While sorting through personal belongings, Lance saw a familiar name.

It belonged to a young Adventurer he had once served when he worked as a ghostwriter.

Taking advantage of no one paying attention, Lance secretly opened the reply letter that would now never be claimed.

The paper was rough, and the handwriting crooked.

Inside was an old farmer’s pride in his son becoming an Adventurer, along with rambling words about how everything at home was fine.

The letter mentioned that his younger brother often leaned by the window, asking when his big brother would return. He wanted to hear whether Graystone Town truly had those airships with huge gasbags and propellers, whether they really could fly above the clouds.

At the end of the letter was the mother’s somewhat clumsy reminder.

She said that all the silver coins her son had sent home over the years hadn’t been spent—they were all saved.

If he was tired out there, he should come home.

There was enough saved to marry him a beautiful wife.

Every line carried the deep, inseparable longing and concern of parents for their wandering child.

As Lance read on, his vision blurred.

He could no longer continue.

And at that very moment, the faint spark of an “adventurer’s dream” that had just ignited within him was completely extinguished by this letter.

The only change brought by that red talent—

was perhaps a revision of his retirement plan.

From originally wanting to marry a fox-eared fox girl or a delicate Elf—

to now including high-demand succubi or physically strong, highly enduring dragon-blooded girls in his options.

That was all.

Life in Graystone Town continued to flow amid sorrow.

The rampaging dungeon was eventually subdued, and Graystone Town gradually returned to its former prosperity.

New Adventurers filled the vacancies, and it seemed as though no one remembered those who had died.

Only one person was an exception.

Lance quietly took more than half of the wages he had saved over the past month and stuffed them into the envelope of that man’s death notice.

Except for Adventurers who had become professionals, ordinary lower-tier Adventurers had no pensions.

This was merely the insignificant help Lance could offer to that distant family.

After doing all this, Lance slapped his right hand hard with his left.

“Sigh, you useless sense of sympathy.”

That money he had given away meant that his dream of going to Ostera would have to be delayed again.

Over the next three months, life returned to calm.

With his harmless and handsome face, Lance successfully integrated into the small circle of the Adventurers’ Guild receptionist, Nia.

Nia had smooth brown hair and a tall figure. She was widely recognized as a beauty in the Guild.

Through her, Lance got to know two other girls with completely different personalities.

One was Amber, the poster girl of the tavern. She had dazzling golden-red short hair, a breathtakingly full chest, and a bold, straightforward personality.

The other was Flora, from the town’s potion shop. This girl, who wore her hair in braids, was always quiet and spoke softly.

The four of them often gathered in their spare time to play a game called “Three Dragon Cards,” whose rules were similar to poker from Lance’s previous life.

To earn back the money he had donated, Lance became extremely frugal with food and drink, often surviving on the hardest black bread.

Flora noticed this and would often secretly give him honey-glazed croissants, blushing as she said she had failed her baking attempt and could only let him “dispose” of them.

When they went to the tavern, the well-endowed Amber would always add a large cup of warm milk to his cheap meal.

Then, in front of everyone, she would tease him, saying that little boys needed to drink more milk to grow stronger.

Whenever the Adventurers in the tavern burst into laughter, Amber would slam her huge wooden mug onto the table and scold those crude men away like a protective mother hen.

Over time, Lance gained a bit of fame in Graystone Town and even got a nickname that made people laugh and cry at the same time:

“That pretty-boy Scribe.”

But Lance didn’t mind.

Every day, he happily counted his accumulated copper coins, occasionally playing cards with the girls and enjoying free food.

From time to time, Nia would also bring him private letter-writing jobs, helping him earn some extra money.

As his savings slowly increased, it seemed he was getting closer to his dream once again.

However, the goddess who governed talent, courage, and adventure in this world—Areteia—clearly had no intention of letting him off easily.

Another month passed.

One late night—

that panel, like a short-circuiting device gone haywire, suddenly popped up again without any warning.

Logically, personal talents were supposed to be unique.

But perhaps because of Lance’s special transmigrator soul—

after four months of long gestation, a second line of blood-red text slowly emerged.

【Talent: Ouroboros Ring (Red)】