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Again, the chicken spun. It kicked at him, forcing him to back away. He paced back evenly, keeping the spear between him and the chicken. The chicken glared at him. Hatred shone in its dark eyes, and it tensed, preparing to charge.

Loup dashed in from behind and nipped at the chicken\'s ankles. The chicken startled and whirled again, once more facing Loup. Ike stabbed at it from behind, and the chicken turned.

In that moment, Loup\'s eyes shone. She launched off the ground and caught the chicken\'s neck in her teeth. Blood splattered over dun feathers. The chicken stumbled a few steps, lifting a claw toward Ike, then collapsed.

Ike nodded at Loup. "Good job, girl."

Loup hunched over the chicken defensively. She growled.

Confused, Ike blinked. Huh? Oh. Right. She got the kill, so…but wait, wolves usually work in groups. What\'s going on?

Loup growled louder. She lunged at Ike.

Ike quickly backed away, a little lost. Is it because I\'m a person, and not a wolf? Then again, it\'s not like I\'ve never seen a dog guard its food before. He raised his hands. "Have your fill. But I get the next one."

Loup eyed him for a few more seconds, then set upon the corpse, tearing it to bits. Feathers flew everywhere. Guts spilled out on the ground.

Putting a hand on his chin, Ike watched her feast. I\'ll have to keep an eye on that. See what triggers this behavior. It\'s fine this time—I\'m sure she can\'t eat the whole chicken, so even if we fail to hunt for the rest of the day, I\'ll still be fine—but I can\'t always let her have first pick of her kills. What if there\'s a skill orb, for example?

At last, Loup walked away, licking the blood off her lips as she went. Ike nodded at her. "Was that really tastier than roast chicken?"

Loup hesitated. She let out a soft moan, regretful.

Can she understand me? Ike shook his head at her. "Next time, let me roast it first."

He walked over to the corpse. Using his damaged sword as a knife, he cut off the most savaged bits. He tied a rope around the ankles and strung the corpse over his shoulder, then set off back to the clearing. Loup followed, trotting at his side.

Nothing had interrupted their sleep, so it was probably as safe as he\'d guessed it to be—a good place to set up operations, at least for a little while. He snorted to himself, a bit amused. Perhaps I was a bit hasty in saying farewell to the waterfall. He strung the body up over a sturdy branch to drain the blood, high enough the average predator couldn\'t reach it. Another giant chicken probably could, but not a wolf like Loup.

He eyed the corpse. I guess we\'ll just have to hope these chickens don\'t practice cannibalism.

The sun still gleamed high overhead, big and round. Ike rolled out his shoulders. He glanced at Loup. "You game to hunt a few more?"

Loup flicked her ears forward. She trotted forward a few paces, then glanced over her shoulder at him.

I\'ll take that as a yes. Laughing, Ike followed her into the woods.

With Loup at his side, Ike made quick work of another few chickens. None of them immediately dropped skill orbs, but then, neither had the first chicken. He piled them up in a cache nearer the hunting grounds, then hauled them all back to base at once, his shoulders aching from their weight. It was too much meat to immediately eat, and he immediately regretted using the last of his salt. I\'ll cook them, and see where we go from there.

This time, he felt the chickens\' bodies, massaging the muscle to find any possible skill orb lumps. One of the chickens had a lump in its thigh, nearly the same as the first. He drew his razor and sliced it out, and a little green orb popped into his hand.

Ike held it up to the sun, then sighed. Just like the original orb, this orb was shot through with translucent material in a starlike pattern. Compared to the first, though, it looked a little more transparent. He drew out the first and held them up to one another to compare.

The orbs\' sides knocked into one another. He expected a clink, but instead, there was no sound. The two orbs smoothly merged into one.

"What the hell?" His heart raced. Did I just lose money? Do two identical skills cancel one another out? What just happened?

Pure green light poured out. Ike lifted his newly merged skill orb, gazing into it. The star pattern had receded toward the orb\'s center. The very edge of the orb was now crystal clear, while the translucence around the rest of it had thinned. The whole orb was more transparent, more…there was no other word for it. Perfect.

"Can you make imperfect skills perfect?" Ike wondered aloud.

Behind him, Rosamund spat out her gag. "Yes. You should do that."

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Ike gave her a look. "Yeah? Why?"

"It\'s totally not a waste of time. You wouldn\'t make any money selling those skills," Rosamund scoffed.

"What do you know about selling skills?" Ike muttered. He glanced at his shiny new skill orb. From what I remember, higher-level skills sold for way more than low-level skills. In the outpost…

A few things suddenly fell into place, and Ike blinked.

That skill I was working so hard to buy was probably imperfect, wasn\'t it? Imperfect and Bronze, the lowest rank over Common. Or maybe even Common. I knew it was a shady shop, but… He let out a breath, suddenly relieved. If imperfect skills are as bad for Ranking up as Rosamund says, I could have really screwed myself over there, and I had no idea.

Damn. I was wondering why skills were so much more expensive in the outpost. It\'s not just that the outpost is full of rich people. The skill I was planning to buy was probably the worst kind of imperfect skill.

He rolled the orb around in his palm. Anyways, if Rosamund is against it, it\'s probably a great idea. I\'m gonna keep combining orbs until I get a perfect skill. Only thing I\'m losing out on is the money of selling imperfect skills, and, well, not many merchants here. Plus, doesn\'t exactly sit right with me, selling imperfect skills for shitheaded merchants to sell to poor kids like me.

"Why is it a waste of time?" Ike asked.

Rosamund rolled her eyes. "Because, it would take dozens of imperfect skills combined to make one perfect skill orb. The forest near the city is nearly depleted. In another few thousand years, there will only be shitty skills left. Even now, there\'s only a few monsters with good skills left, and most of those are gifts given to Father rather than skills that developed organically in the forest."

"Like the Salamander?" Ike guessed, feeling a sinking sensation in his stomach. Whoops.

"Like the…how do you know about that?" Rosamund\'s eyes narrowed.

Ike waved his hand. Casually, he said, "Common knowledge."

Still squinting at him, Rosamund continued. "Father has to pretend like he doesn\'t care, or else the other cities will realize how weak we are. I think it\'s stupid. He should at least post guards or put a warding spell around those monsters, even if it makes us look weak or whatever."

"Huh? How does that equate to the city\'s weakness?" Ike asked.

Rosamund shut her mouth.

Ike shrugged. Pretending not to care, he turned to the chickens and began plucking the plumpest one. He eyed the rest of them, considering his next move. The bones could be used as building materials. If he skinned a few instead of cooking them in their skin, he could use it as a thin sort of leather. It wouldn\'t be good for much but maybe patching and maybe stretching over the bones as interior walls. Is it even worth it, really?

"We can\'t Rank up."

Ike\'s ears perked up, but he continued to pluck the chickens as though he didn\'t care. He added the feathers to the pile from the first chicken. Hmm. I wonder if I could use that thin leather as a sort of mattress cover, shove all the feathers inside…

"If we don\'t have powerful higher-realm skills in the vicinity of the city, the higher-Rank mages have nothing to form the foundation of their next Rank. The city was founded in a low-Rank area to begin with. There were never many high-Rank monsters with high-Rank skills. Now that Father has reached Rank 5, and a few of his friends are drawing close, the forest has run completely dry. It takes a long time for monsters to form skills, after all. Especially higher-Rank skills."

"I recall a certain princess getting hundreds of skills on her birthday," Ike replied dryly.

Rosamund wrinkled her nose at him. "First off, dozens. Secondly, that was a clever ploy by Father to obtain more high-Rank skills for me by throwing a lavish birthday party and inviting all the surrounding cities."

Ike hummed, deep in his throat.

She harrumphed. "And it would\'ve worked perfectly, if that twit Hargrove hadn\'t decided to enlist thieves in some poor attempt to steal my skills. They got no skills, the thieves are dead, and Hargrove wishes he was dead."

"Odd that I escaped for so long, then," Ike remarked dryly.

Rosamund wiggled her head back and forth, rolling her eyes so hard they almost vanished into the back of her head. "Father insists we must keep up appearances in front of civilians. Rule of law. Justice. Whatever. Can\'t just up and behead people that we know did wrong."

"Oh," Ike said dryly.

"It\'s so stupid. Who cares if we\'re righteous rulers or not? None of the other city lords bother. They just take what they want. It\'s only Father who acts like you people matter."

A shiver ran down Ike\'s spine. Her father cares what the ordinary people think, but he only considers it \'appearances.\' Why would that be, unless he wants us to do something? And what do rulers ever ask of lowly civilians, but war?

His lands are low on resources, but his neighbors have plenty. I\'ve seen how that plays out in the slums. If not for my uncle\'s Rank 2 badge, we would\'ve been constantly besieged. If her father... that is, the city lord, thinks he\'s big enough to take on another city, we\'re in trouble.

He looked over his shoulder, though from here, he couldn\'t see the waterfall, let alone the city. Ike ran a hand over the back of his neck and turned away. Good thing I\'m down here.

Unaware of Ike\'s disquiet, Rosamund continued. "It\'s vital that the other cities see us as powerful. It\'s vital that the people see us as righteous. It\'s all about how others see us. Visuals. I\'m so tired of it all."

"Well, good news. You can quit while you\'re ahead."

Rosamund opened her mouth. She shut it again. Her lips pursed. "How long have you been waiting to say that?"

"I wish I could say forever, but actually, I only thought it up just now," Ike admitted. He dropped another handful of feathers to the pile.

Rosamund fell silent. She let out a snort, but that was it.

Ike continued plucking the chicken, thinking over everything Rosamund had said as he did so. Did I really escape such a conniving city lord because of \'appearances?\' Someone willing to go that far… if he really wanted my Lightning Dash back, I wouldn\'t have breathed another second. After all, he was there, wasn\'t he? He, and a bunch of other powerful mages. I\'m sure he could tell who had Lightning Dash.

And he let me get away.

Why? Why not take it back and give it to his precious… Ike looked at Rosamund\'s head. He licked his lips. Oh. Right. Not-so-precious, replaceable, porcelain doll of a daughter.

I\'m starting to get the feeling that there\'s more to this. All of this. Me getting the skill. Rosamund. The city lord and his war. Everything.

Shaking his head, Ike turned back to his chickens. I\'m in the Abyss. None of that matters.

A little voice in the back of his head spoke up. The city lord can enter the Abyss freely and grab you whenever he wants. Whatever his game is, you\'re still playing it.

Ike grimaced. I\'d better get strong fast. Whatever the city lord has planned for me, I\'m sure it\'s nothing good. The stronger I am, the more likely I\'ll survive it.

He touched his core. Already, after one day\'s hunt, it was larger, strong enough to hold more mana. There was something else, too, a shapeless something slowly taking form. Instinctively, he knew that when it reached its full shape, he would reach Rank 2.

He turned his head, gazing back into the forest. "Loup?"

The wolf perked up, lifting her head out of the pile of chicken feathers. One stuck to her nose, and she blew it free with a snort.

Ike nodded. "Tomorrow, we hunt again."