Before Sung-Il-Kook reached Asterra, he learned three things about Elysara.
The first was that the six-eared creature following him understood considerably more than an ordinary rabbit should. The second was that seeing a city did not mean he knew how to reach it. The third was that having a Unique Ability did not mean having a useful Unique Ability.
That last one hurt the most.
The creature had followed him for nearly an hour.
At first he ignored it, assuming it would get bored. It didn’t. When he walked faster, it walked faster. When he stopped, it stopped. When he hid behind a tree, it waited politely on the other side.
Eventually Sung-Il turned around.
It sat in the grass, six long ears standing straight up. Its round body was covered in pale yellow fur, and its two enormous black eyes held an expression that somehow looked smug.
"Are you following me?"
It blinked.
"That’s a yes, isn’t it?"
It blinked again.
He pointed toward the city. "I’m going there."
The creature nodded.
Sung-Il froze. "You understand me?"
It nodded again.
"Can you talk?"
It shook its head.
"Of course you can’t." He sighed and started walking. A minute later, tiny footsteps pattered after him. "You’re coming with me, aren’t you?"
A nod.
"Fine. But I’m naming you."
The creature shook its head hard.
"Too late." He studied its ridiculous ears. "Six-Ears."
Its face crumpled in deep offense.
"That’s actually a good name."
It squeaked furiously.
Sung-Il grinned. "Six-Ears it is."
Getting to Asterra took another two days. The city remained visible above the trees, which Sung-Il considered proof that he was making progress until he found the same split tree for the third time.
On the second morning, he finally followed the sound of wagon wheels instead of his own judgment. By midday they reached the main road. Hungry, stiff from sleeping beneath trees, and unwilling to discuss navigation with Six-Ears, Sung-Il stopped beneath the city walls.
Up close, Asterra didn’t look like one city. It looked like several civilizations stacked on top of each other. Moss-covered walls scarred by old battles. Crowded markets and colorful rooftops behind them. White towers above those, hung with banners of noble families. And over everything stood a spire so tall its tip vanished into the clouds, with a crystal floating above it that released a slow pulse of blue light.
"What the hell..."
The crowd streaming through the gates wasn’t made of ordinary humans, either. A man with enormous wings carried a crate past him. A woman with glowing blue eyes argued with a fruit seller. A little girl ran by with tiny flames dancing around her fingers.
Above the gate was a massive inscription:
WELCOME TO ASTERRA CITY OF A THOUSAND GIFTS ALL ABILITIES HAVE VALUE
Sung-Il read the last line twice and laughed bitterly.
"Not mine."
A guard beside the gate looked over. "You have an ability?"
Sung-Il grew cautious. "Yes."
"What is it?"
He considered his options. He could lie. He could say he hadn’t awakened yet.
Unfortunately, he had always been terrible at lying.
"Rectum Analysis."
The guard stared at him. Sung-Il stared back. The guard slowly turned to his colleague. His colleague slowly turned back. Neither spoke.
Finally the first guard cleared his throat. "...Is that a medical ability?"
"No."
"Combat?"
"No."
"Production? Divination?"
"No. No."
The guard looked genuinely lost. "Then what does it do?"
Sung-Il opened his mouth. Closed it.
"I don’t know yet."
The guard sighed. "Name and place of residence?"
"Sung-Il-Kook. Currently undecided."
"Origin?"
The honest answer formed in his throat. Another world. A ritual. A thing that smiled when he insulted it.
He swallowed it. He had no reason to believe telling strangers would help him.
"Far away. I arrived on foot."
"Visitor without papers, then." The guard tied a white cord around his wrist. "Lower two tiers. Guild registration before sundown. If you find somewhere to stay, give them the address."
"Do you get many visitors without papers?"
"We had a man fall out of a wardrobe on Tuesday."
That was reassuring until the guard added, "He still owed the entry fee."
Sung-Il turned out his empty pockets.
"Recorded as a debt. Welcome to Asterra."
Sung-Il walked past with Six-Ears at his heels. Behind them, one guard leaned toward the other.
"Was that ability real?"
His colleague shrugged. "I hope not."
Sung-Il’s first priority was money. His second was food. His third was figuring out why the system kept calling him an asshole.
The city, at least in theory, solved the first two. He found a huge building marked with a sword-and-shield and a sign reading
ADVENTURERS’ GUILD.
"This is where protagonists register," he said, and walked in.
Hundreds of people filled the hall. Warriors drank from enormous mugs. Mages studied glowing crystals. A group of battered adventurers just back from a dungeon were celebrating loudly enough to rattle the windows. Sung-Il joined the line at the long counter and ended up in front of a young receptionist with dark hair tied back neatly and a small gold emblem pinned to her uniform.
"I want to register."
"Of course." She slid a crystal plate toward him. "Place your hand here."
He did. The crystal lit up, and letters appeared.
NAME: SUNG-IL-KOOK
AGE: 29
RACE: HUMAN
ABILITY: RECTUM ANALYSIS
The receptionist read the screen. Her eyebrows rose as she looked at him then she looked back at the crystal.
Sung-Il already knew what she was thinking.
"Don’t."
"I didn’t say anything."
"You were thinking it."
"I was not."
"You absolutely were."
She pressed her lips together, trying to conceal her laughter. Sung-Il narrowed his eyes looking seriously at her. She lasted three more seconds before a tiny laugh escaped.
Sung-Il looked devastated. "Everyone’s laughing."
"I apologize."
"No, you don’t."
"I really do."
"No, you don’t."
She coughed and recovered her professional face. "Your ability classification is... unusual. There is no recorded ability with this name."
Sung-Il leaned forward, hopeful. "So I’m unique?"
"Yes."
"Special?"
"Potentially."
"A genius?"
She paused. "...We cannot determine that."
"That means yes."
"No, it doesn’t."
The receptionist gave her name as Nessa, aged thirty-one, currently losing patience at a professional rate.
"May the Guild list your name and provisional specialty for employers?"
"Will that get me work?"
"It may."
"Then yes. Please use small letters for the specialty."
She slid him a form whose letters obligingly shrank. Her own gift, she explained, fitted writing into available space. It had taken her nine years to learn how to expand it again without losing punctuation.
Sung-Il watched his humiliating new identity become pocket-sized.
The receptionist explained how things worked.
Everyone in Elysara had one ’Unique Ability’, usually awakened in childhood. Some could destroy armies. Others seemed useless. But abilities grew. A weak one, used creatively, could turn into something extraordinary.
She gave him an example. A man in the harbor district had been born with Detect Slightly Expired Milk. Now he ran quality inspection for half the city’s food trade, and nobody dared cross him.
Sung-Il filed that away under proof the motto might not be a lie.
Then she pointed at a huge board on the wall that listed the famous gifts & people who had them
Aurelian Knights.
Dragon Hunters.
Royal Magi.
Saints.
Beside every name, a Unique Ability.
Ravenn: Titan Strength.
Seraphine Vale: Infinite Spellcraft.
Lysandra Alan: Life Restoration.
Brude Will: Shadow Step.
Sung-Il read the list. Then he looked at his own screen.
RECTUM ANALYSIS.
"I see the problem."
The receptionist Nessa looked at him with real sympathy, which was somehow worse, & said, "Registration is complete; your classification will be listed as provisional until you’re tested, which means you can only take basic assignments for now. Perhaps your ability has a hidden function."
Sung-Il brightened. "You think so?"
"It’s possible. And the testing chamber is free this afternoon."
He looked at the crystal. Then at the door that led downstairs. His stomach growled.
He still needed a classification, a meal, and a place to sleep, and he was starting to suspect this appointment was the only way to get any of them.
"Then let’s find out," he said.