Second Talent: Ouroboros Ring

Lance.

In the common tongue's dictionary, this name meant a forthright, razor-sharp spear.

It was the greatest blessing Lance's late father had given him, hoping he could be like a spear and carve out a future in this shitty world.

Yet staring at the astonishing talent panel before him, Lance could not help falling into deep self-doubt.

Heaven clearly had no intention of making him a hero. Was it trying to turn him into the legendary perverted demon king instead?

In this world, talents were not unique to Lance.

Beyond the talents granted by one's profession and special bloodline talents, there was another, even rarer kind: personal talents.

A person could awaken at most one in their entire lifetime.

Their quality was strictly divided into five ranks: common, exceptional, extraordinary, legendary, and mythical.

And that glaring red text on the panel, Lance was certain, represented mythical.

Though he felt somewhat ashamed of where this talent had come from, he had to admit that it was powerful to an outright illegal degree.

Even overpowered was not enough to describe it.

As long as he breathed, his stamina would fully recover. That meant that as long as his mind did not break down, he could train without end and hone his skills at a speed ordinary people could never reach.

Even veteran adventurers, after all, often had to withdraw hastily from the high-pressure environment of a dungeon because their stamina had run out.

But Lance, with this talent...

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

He would be a perpetual motion machine that never knew fatigue.

"Perhaps... I could give it a try too?"

Just as ambition had begun to stir in Lance's heart and he was considering whether to change professions and become an adventurer—

Reality slapped him across the face.

The following afternoon, grim news arrived from the Adventurers' Guild.

The dungeon outside town suffered an unexplained magical rampage, burying hundreds of adventurers who had been exploring within.

The disaster did not merely claim living lives; it also struck directly at Grayrock Town's economic lifeline.

The sudden loss of adventurers, a group known for heavy spending, instantly plunged the town's service industry into a bitter winter.

The most obvious effect was that Lance found his daily meal expenses had risen by two copper coins.

Worse still, his workload exploded.

As a scribe, he had no choice but to work overtime processing hundreds of death notifications.

And amid the mechanical copying, he received many letters sent from faraway places.

Sadly, the people those letters were addressed to would never open them with their own hands again.

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

It belonged to a young adventurer he had once served back when he made money writing letters for others.

Making sure no one around him was paying attention, Lance secretly opened the reply letter that no one would ever claim.

The paper was rough, and the handwriting crooked.

Inside was an old farmer's pride that his son had become an adventurer, along with rambling assurances that everything at home was well.

The letter mentioned how the young man's younger brother often leaned by the window and asked when his brother would return. He wanted to know whether Grayrock Town really had airships with enormous gasbags and propellers, and whether they could truly fly above the clouds.

At the end of the letter were the mother's somewhat clumsy words of advice.

She said that not a single silver coin her son had sent home over the years had been spent. They had saved every last one.

If he was tired of life outside, he should come home.

They had saved enough to find him a pretty wife.

Every line overflowed with the unbearable longing and concern of parents for a child far from home.

As Lance read on, his vision blurred.

He could not continue.

At that moment, the little "dream of adventure" that had just taken root in him was thoroughly extinguished by this letter from home.

The only change brought by that red talent was perhaps an adjustment to his retirement plans.

Originally, he had wanted to marry a foxgirl with fox ears or a delicate, frail elf.

Now, he added high-demand succubi and dragonkin girls with strong builds and astonishing endurance to his list of options.

That was all.

Life in Grayrock Town continued amid sorrow.

The rampaging dungeon was eventually subdued, and Grayrock Town slowly regained its former prosperity.

New adventurers filled the vacancies, and it seemed 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 slipped them into the envelope containing that man's death notification.

Other than adventurers who had become professionals, ordinary low-ranking adventurers received no compensation for death.

It was only a tiny bit of help Lance could offer that distant family.

After doing all that, Lance fiercely slapped his right hand with his left.

"Ah, you useless sympathy."

The money he had thrown away meant his dream of going to Ostella would have to be postponed for a while longer.

For the next three months, life returned to calm.

With that harmlessly handsome face of his, Lance successfully wormed his way into the little circle around Nia, one of the Guild's receptionists.

Nia had long, silky brown hair and a tall figure. She was widely acknowledged as one of the Guild's beauties.

Through her, Lance met two more girls with entirely different personalities.

One was Amber, the poster girl of the tavern. She had dazzling short hair in shades of gold and red, an eye-catching bust, and a fiery, straightforward personality.

The other was Flora, from the town's potion shop. This braided girl was always quiet and spoke in a soft, gentle voice.

The four often got together 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 stingy with food and drink, often buying only the hardest black bread to fill his stomach.

Flora noticed, so she often secretly slipped him honey croissants. Blushing, she would say she had tried baking bread, but today's batch had gone wrong, so she could only give them to him to deal with.

Whenever he went to the tavern, the well-endowed Amber would always add a large cup of warm milk on top of the cheap set meal he ordered.

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

Whenever the adventurers in the tavern burst into laughter over it, Amber would slam a huge wooden tankard onto the table and scold those rude men back like a mother protecting her calf.

Over time, Lance gained a bit of fame in Grayrock Town and even acquired a nickname that left people not knowing whether to laugh or cry:

"The pretty-boy scribe."

But Lance did not care.

Every day, he happily counted his saved copper coins, occasionally played cards with the girls, and mooched some good food.

From time to time, Nia also found him private jobs writing family letters for others, helping him earn a little extra money.

As his savings gradually grew again, his dream seemed to be drawing closer as well.

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

Another month passed.

Late one night.

That panel, which behaved like it was having a spasm from a short circuit, suddenly popped up again without warning.

Logically speaking, personal talents were unique.

But perhaps because Lance possessed the special soul of a transmigrator—

After four long months of gestation, a second line of crimson text slowly emerged.

[Talent: Ouroboros Ring (Red)]