The tag hanging from Luca's neck had gone from wood to iron.
Somehow, that alone made him feel a little heavier.
The Delvers' Guild, Verda Branch.
As on every other morning, a long line had formed at the front desk. Luca waited at the back of it, running his fingers over the tag on his chest again and again.
Rank Ten Delver: Luca.
That was what it said.
"You're grinning," Celes said from beside him.
"I'm not grinning."
"You are. You haven't stopped touching that tag."
"...Maybe I'm grinning a little."
Celes laughed, exasperated, then gave a small cough.
"Also, Luca. Yesterday I told you to just call me Celes, didn't I?"
"Yes, Celes."
"Then why are you still so formal?"
"It's a habit."
"First names and perfect manners at the same time. It sounds so strange..."
She kept grumbling under her breath, but then the line moved forward and that was the end of it.
* * *
"Good morning! Today's the day I explain everything, isn't it?"
Behind the counter, Nora opened a thick booklet.
"Rank Ten can go down as far as the seventh floor. Rank Nine, as far as the ninth. There's a Gatekeeper on the tenth floor, and you have to be Rank Nine to challenge it. Past the Gatekeeper, from the eleventh floor down, it's Rank Eight and up."
"The seventh floor," Luca repeated.
As a scavenger, his limit had been the fifth. Now he could go two whole floors deeper.
"The Rank Nine promotion exam is in half a month. To sit it, you have to have reached the seventh floor and turned in thirty mana stones. The exam itself is a mock battle against the proctor, plus a practical test in your specialty."
"Half a month..."
Celes was counting something off on her fingers.
"Nora, what happens to a party that defeats the Gatekeeper?"
"They get promoted one rank, as a reward. Normally you need half a year on the books at Rank Nine first, but defeating the Gatekeeper is the exception."
Celes's eyes glinted.
Luca knew exactly what that glint meant.
"And last of all, we measure your mana. It goes on your record for when you form a party."
Nora brought a crystal ball out from under the counter.
It was about the size of two fists. Inside it, ten thin lines were stacked one above the other, from bottom to top.
"Put your hand on it. The more mana you have, the more marks light up, starting from the bottom."
Celes went first.
The inside of the crystal flushed a soft red. One line, two, three, four, five. All five of them glowed, clear and bright.
"Five. That's very good for a new mage."
"Naturally."
Celes put on a prim little face and lifted her chin.
Then it was Luca's turn.
He put his hand on the crystal.
Deep inside, the lowest line gave a tiny flicker.
And went out.
It flickered once more.
And that was that. Nothing came anywhere near the second line.
For a long moment, nobody said a word.
"...So. A one," Nora said finally, and wrote it in the ledger with a look of deep sympathy. "And the first mark didn't even light properly. Even everyday magic is going to be a struggle for you."
"I can make a light, at least."
"About as bright as a candle," Celes added.
It was true, so Luca had nothing to say to that.
* * *
"Hey, you hear that? His mana's a one."
Someone laughed behind them.
Luca turned around. Three young delvers in leather armor were watching them and smirking. The one in the middle spoke up, loud enough to make sure they heard.
"Word is, our scavenger-turned-Rank-Ten here registered with three sponsors. The Branch Master and two former Rank Ones."
"What kind of connections does that take?"
"I've been grinding away at Rank Ten for a year, and nobody's ever sponsored me."
That last line was the only one with no laugh in it.
Luca looked at the delver's hands. His sword calluses had split and hardened over and over again. Those were the hands of someone who had spent a year swinging a sword, seriously, every day.
Oh. I see.
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It stung, Luca thought. This guy had put in a year and still hadn't ranked up, and right next to him, a scavenger had walked in and registered with sponsors. Of course he didn't like it.
"Now, see here, you three—"
"Celes."
Celes had started forward. Luca gave her sleeve a light tug.
"It's all right. I really am only Rank Ten."
"But—"
"I think they'll understand once they see me at the exam."
The delvers snorted, bored now, and drifted off toward the notice board.
Celes studied Luca's face.
"You don't get angry, do you?"
"I'm more hungry than angry."
"...What scares me is that you mean that."
* * *
Once they were out of the Guild, Celes held up three fingers as they walked.
"Here's the plan. One: within half a month, we reach the seventh floor and collect thirty mana stones. Two: we pass the Rank Nine exam. Three: we defeat the Gatekeeper on the tenth floor and make Rank Eight."
"All the way to the Gatekeeper?"
"The deadline on my family's debt is half a year away. If we rank up the normal way, we won't make it in time."
Her face was dead serious.
Luca thought it over for a moment, then nodded.
"Understood. Let's do it."
"...You agreed to that awfully easily."
"If you say we can, Celes, then I think we can."
Celes whipped her face away. The tips of her ears had gone a little pink.
* * *
When Luca got back to the shop, Grun was just setting down his back-basket.
He'd been out salvaging since morning, it looked like. The basket was packed with the usual: single gloves, crumpled water flasks.
"Boss, I'm back."
"Yeah. His Lordship the Rank Ten returns."
"Please don't. ...Also, they measured my mana. It was a one."
"Figures. Anybody who's seen that light of yours could've told you."
Grun gave a snort of a laugh.
Then he started sorting through the basket, and spoke over his shoulder as he worked.
"Luca. You're a delver now, and maybe you're done being a scavenger. But don't you ever stop picking things up."
"Huh?"
"Your strength is how much you've picked up. Delvers get stronger by killing monsters. You get stronger by picking things up. Forget that, and you're just a Rank Ten with one mark of mana."
Luca looked down at his palm.
[Lunge]. [Ladle Work]. [Reverse Grip]. All twelve of his Echoes were skills he'd been given by things he'd picked up.
"Whatever you find, bring it here. What sells, we sell. If we can find the owner, we give it back. Same as always."
"I will."
Luca nodded firmly.
"I'll keep picking things up, all the way down."
"Good. That'll do."
Grun plucked a dented pot lid out of the basket and tossed it onto a shelf.
Then he turned around with a crooked grin.
"So. Where to tomorrow?"
"The sixth floor."
This time, he wouldn't have to sneak. He could wear his iron tag and walk straight in through the front.
Luca's stomach let out a loud, eager growl.
* * *
"An iron tag, huh? ...Oh, you're Grun's boy. Watch yourself down there."
At the entrance to the Labyrinth, the guard checked Luca's tag and stepped aside to let him through.
It was the same guard as back in his scavenger days. The only difference was that now nobody would stop him from going past the fifth floor.
"Luca. Your face."
"I'm not grinning."
"I haven't said anything yet."
Floors one through five were his old, familiar route. Luca used [Sense Presence] to pick out paths with no monsters on them, and Celes followed behind him with her wand in her hand.
"...You really don't run into a single monster."
"A scavenger's job was getting home without fighting."
"That skill is far too convenient."
* * *
The sixth-floor forest was filled with the same pale light as the last time he'd been there.
Today, though, he had different goals. Collect mana stones. And pick up whatever people had dropped.
"Two fang wolves. Behind the tree on the right."
"Got it. Flame, gather in my hand—"
Celes began her chant, and Luca stepped forward.
The first wolf leaped at him, and he turned it aside with the small shield on his arm. [Shield Block]. A knife into the second wolf's throat: [Throw]. Then, into the first, still off-balance: [Lunge].
"—become searing heat, and pierce my foe!"
A fireball swallowed the second wolf as it tried to run.
The forest went quiet.
"That's two."
Celes picked the mana stones out of the scorched dirt. A fang wolf's mana stone was a tiny thing, no bigger than the tip of a thumb.
Luca made quick work of butchering the other wolf with [Dismantle], and put the pelt and fangs in his basket.
"You're taking the pelt too?"
"The old woman at the materials shop pays double for them."
"...You're a delver now, and you're still a scavenger, aren't you?"
"Yes. The Boss said the same thing."
By noon, they had nine mana stones.
And Luca's basket was crammed full of things he'd picked up. A snapped bowstring. A single shoe. Somebody's water flask. And an old quill pen that had been hanging from a tree branch.
"A quill? Out here in the forest?"
"It was tied to the branch with a cord. I think someone left it there on purpose."
A thin leather cord was knotted around the base of the feather, and dried ink was caked on the nib.
Luca sat down in the shade of a tree and closed his hand around the quill.
◆ ◆ ◆
—One step. Two steps. Three.
He counts his paces. Always walk with the same stride: that's the first rule of mapmaking.
He holds his compass flat against a tree trunk. Twenty degrees right of north. He draws a single line on the parchment.
A thick tree root. A tumbled rock. A stream. He turns each of them into a symbol and marks it down.
He draws the last line and lifts the pen.
"...Done."
The sixth-floor forest, every inch of it. It took three years.
He drew this map so he and his friends could find good hunting grounds. He isn't going to sell it to the Guild. It's their treasure. Theirs, and nobody else's.
The quill's feather is worn out, half its barbs gone. It can't draw a fine line anymore.
Good work, old friend.
He ties the pen to a branch of a tree at the edge of the forest. A good-luck charm, for whoever maps the way from here.
◆ ◆ ◆
Echo inherited: [Mapmaking].
Luca opened his eyes.
Before his stomach could even growl, Celes silently held out a piece of shortbread.
"Thank you."
"I'm used to it by now. What's the skill?"
"A skill for drawing maps."
"...That doesn't sound much use in a fight."
"I'll try it out."
Luca took a notebook and a stick of charcoal out of his back-basket. Grun had given them to him for logging salvage.
He stood up and started walking.
One step. Two steps. Three.
His stride evened out on its own. Somewhere in his head, the count of how far he'd walked kept piling up all by itself. Where the trees stood, which way the rocks faced, how the stream bent. The charcoal slid smoothly across the page.
"W-wait a minute. Where are you going?"
"I'm going to walk a loop around this area."
Celes hurried after him.
By the time they'd circled through the forest and come back to the same patch of shade, a finished map filled the page of his notebook.
Celes unfolded the map she'd bought at the Guild and laid it next to Luca's notebook.
"...Yours is more detailed."
"The Guild's map doesn't have this stream. And this rock is really farther west."
"You're right. That rock nearly got me lost earlier."
Celes looked back and forth between the two maps, then up at Luca.
"I take back what I said about it being no use in a fight."
* * *
Evening.
When Luca set nine mana stones on the Guild counter, Nora nodded. "Not bad at all for a first day."
While he was there, he handed over his notebook as well.
"And this. It's a map of the sixth floor, from the entrance to the northern hollow."
"A map?"
Nora took the notebook and studied it for a long while without a word.
Then she went to a shelf in the back, came back with the Guild's master copy, and laid the two side by side.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
"Luca. Who drew this?"
"I did."
"A Rank Ten who went into the sixth floor legally for the very first time today?"
"Yes. I picked up a skill for drawing maps."
Nora pressed her fingers to her temples.
"...There's an extra stream. The rocks are where they should be. You measured all this by your stride, didn't you? The distances are barely off at all."
"Can I sell it?"
"I'll buy it. The Guild's map hasn't been updated in years."
Nora set three silver coins on the counter.
Luca's eyes went wide. That was more than the nine mana stones had fetched.
"In exchange, bring me the rest. The seventh floor too. And once you make Rank Nine, the eighth. Whatever you draw, I'll buy it all."
"I will!"
Just outside the Guild, Celes spoke up quietly.
"Isn't the stuff you pick up earning more than my mana stones?"
"That was just luck."
"You have far too much just luck."
* * *
That night, in the shop's kitchen, Luca showed Grun the three silver coins.
"Three for a map, huh."
Grun flipped through the notebook, his pipe clenched between his teeth.
"Seventh floor next."
"Yes. I'm still twenty-one mana stones short."
"Then swing by the old mine tunnels."
"The old mine tunnels?"
"East side of the seventh floor, there's a tunnel where they used to dig ore. Twenty years back there was a cave-in, and the Guild gave up mining it. Comes down easy, so normal delvers keep clear. But the ore diggers still go in."
Grun knocked the ash out of his pipe.
"Tunnels come down easy. When they do, everybody drops their tools and runs. ...For a scavenger, that's a treasure trove."
Luca's eyes lit up.
So did his stomach. Well—it growled.