Nobina was back in the financial office of the guild, continuing her review of the finances. Despite how busy things were, Carina and Mustan were the main ones in charge of ensuring that the guild was handling the upcoming financial crisis without issues. It might have been a lot for two people, but they had dealt with other crises in the past, and this was no different.

“We are quite good at handling them, actually,” said Carina, scanning her table, which was full of reports.

Carina had just gotten back from meeting with Lord Kasanta, who was apparently very open to assisting the guild in handling the issue. It was mainly thanks to Lord Kasanta having personal ties to the town, so he had every reason to support the guild’s operation to deal with the rogue dragon.

“As for Mustan, he’s halfway done creating a financial analysis. Thanks to his ability Grand Economics, he can learn about the economic impact of any decision by concentrating his mind. Of course, due to how powerful the ability is, it can only be used once a month, and it takes him six hours to fully gather the information. After that, he takes a few days to compile all the information while it’s still in his mind, because it does strain him having all that information. He has to manually disable the ability to remove any strain, but it also causes him to lose that information.”

Nobina found her mouth wide open upon hearing her explain Mustan’s ability. It felt so powerful, making her wonder what other powerful economic abilities he had.

“What about you?” asked Nobina to Carina. “Do you have any economic specific ability?”

“Uh… Increase Calculation Speed,” she sighed. “It allows me to perform a calculation twice as fast. It has about ten uses a day. Not the best ability, but it helps.”

“That’s neat,” Nobina smiled.

“And you Nobina?”

Hearing that, Nobina felt a bit shy to speak.

“I… don’t really have an economic focus ability.”

“Ah… right… Path of the Writer. Anyway, Mustan’s ability is the main reason I respect him. His path, the Path of the Economist, makes him highly gifted in this line of work. He carries most of the load, while I use my connections. We make a pretty solid team,” Carina smiled.

Nobina was surprised to see Carina actually smile when talking about Mustan, but it was very short-lived.

“However, that prick thinks he’s always right and perhaps he’s right a bit more than half of the time, but it’s still annoying.”

Carina was once again in a bad mood, with Nobina smiling awkwardly in response.

The two of them, despite butting heads here and there, were a solid team as far as Nobina could tell. She wondered if Mustan would use Grand Economics to figure out the impact of the new accounting system she was going to implement. If so, it would save so much time, making Nobina realize further how much powers helped in this world.

The day continued on, with Carina, Mustan, and Nobina hard at work. When dinner rolled around, Nobina headed off first. Once she was outside of the guild building, she saw that Mimiki was waiting for her. She was already in her adventuring outfit, which she often used for training.

“Oh Nobina,” said Mimiki. “I got a spot reserved in the Farkon Training Area. We’ll do our training there. Let’s go!”

Nobina merely nodded and followed. There was a sense of dread at the expected difficult training, but she was also excited to be visiting a new area to train. In her mind, any excuse to look around this city, which was still very much new to her, was a good excuse.

The trip to the Farkon Training Area was rather short, only being about five minutes away. The training area was basically a walled-off area with a lot of training equipment. It had a few small buildings inside for either medical healing or teaching. Besides that, it also had a few permanent trainers there to assist others who didn’t have anyone to train them.

Due to its proximity to the guild, Nobina wasn’t surprised to see it was extremely packed with people. Most of them were people training in the way of the sword, but some were using alternative melee weapons. To enter, Mimiki gave their names, and the guard of the training area nodded and let the two through.

Once inside, Mimiki led her to one of the “training squares,” which were sectioned-off areas with a few training dummies, various training equipment, and a ring that they could spar in if they wished.

“Due to how packed this area is, getting a personal square was rather tough,” smiled Mimiki. “I manage to make a deal with someone to get their square and I’d personally train them another day. They had decent potential with swordsmanship, so I was more than happy to accept their terms.”

Nobina smiled, knowing it was just like Mimiki to find an excuse to continue training other adventurers. At least, she was assuming this person was an adventurer.

“Now. Let’s begin warmups,” chuckled Mimiki.

The two began the process of warming up. It had been a while since Nobina trained, so Mimiki was rehammering into Nobina the whole warmup process. It made it tough, but Nobina was managing to get back into the groove of training. Mimiki didn’t fail to notice that either, since she was smiling every time Nobina did something correctly. By the end of the first hour, Mimiki was giving a nod.

“Took a bit longer than I wanted, but that should be good. Let’s do some form training.”

Nobina nodded and the two were at it again. This time, Nobina was practicing the forms that Mimiki had taught her. Her body was feeling the burn as she was pushing herself to keep pace with Mimiki. On Mimiki’s side, she told Nobina to not push herself too much as she shouldn’t make herself too sore with their first session.

“Remember. Pace yourself Nobina,” said Mimiki firmly, yet strictly. “This is a marathon, not a sprint. There’s no immediate crisis that needs you in tip top shape.”

Nobina wanted to correct her but kept silent since she was somewhat right.

“Got it,” she responded back, sweat dripping all over her body as she tried to control her breathing.

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After another hour, Nobina was already feeling exhausted. She was definitely not in fighting shape, and part of her felt disappointed that the arena might go to waste. However, Mimiki didn’t look disappointed at all.

“Good job Nobina,” nodded Mimiki. “Getting back into the groove is rather hard and I am pushing you a lot. However, subsequent trainings should be easier at least. Now then, let’s move on to…”

Before she could finish her sentence, two other individuals approached. Both of them were male adventurers with swords on their hips. One had short black hair, was a bit skinny, and gave off a rather timid vibe. The other had hair a bit longer that was blond, was decently toned, and gave off much more confidence in comparison.

“Hey there,” waved the blond hair person. “Names Arsen. This here is my buddy Koridon.”

Koridon, the black-haired man, timidly raised his hand.

“Hi there,” he responded back.

“We saw you two weren’t utilizing the sparring ring of your area and wanted to ask if you two were down for a one-on-one spar. I can face whoever is the strongest and Koridon has the weaker one.”

Nobina’s eyes turned to Mimiki, who seemed to be very excited about the prospect.

“I’m so down,” she responded. “Nobina might be a bit too exhausted to spar, so please forgive her if she declines.”

They all turned to Nobina, who merely gave a nice smile.

“As she said… I’m a bit too exhausted for a spar. Sorry Koridon.”

Nobina hadn’t had a chance to spar with someone close to her level before, so the offer to spar was very tempting. However, she didn’t want to give a poor showing and would rather rest than potentially injure herself fighting in a bad condition. Plus, she was more excited to see Mimiki in action.

“No worries,” he smiled, a relief coming over him. “We can watch the two and do some studying of their fight.”

Nobina gave a nod. The two headed to the side of the area as Mimiki and Arsen went to the center of the arena. As those two stood there, stretching a bit before getting into position, Koridon started a bit of small talk with Nobina.

“So,” smiled Koridon. “Uh… what rank adventurer are you?”

“D-rank,” she replied, feeling a bit embarrassed she was still a bit far from becoming a respectable C-rank

“Oh, nice,” he smiled. “I’m just a E-rank adventurer, so I’m sorry if I might feel too inexperience for a discussion.”

“Not at all,” smiled Nobina. “I’m honestly not the most experienced with swordsmanship either. Mimiki’s been hammering into me the training and I’ve done my best, but I’m not really a fighter. My path is focused more on writing.”

“Oh, that’s really cool,” he responded back.

Nobina felt herself overjoyed by his answer, mostly because it involved her writing rather than her combat ability.

“Thank you,” smiled Nobina back.

The two went quiet when they saw that Mimiki and Arsen were beginning their spar. The clashing of their swords sent sparks everywhere as both tried to out-maneuver each other. Mimiki was clearly the superior opponent, but Arsen was holding his own well.

“Wow,” said Koridon, his eyes fully focused on the match. “Mimiki… is easily beating Arsen. I’m shocked someone that skilled is in this arena. Most of the A-ranks and above usually use the more advance training areas.”

“It might be because of me,” chuckled Nobina. “I’ve been slacking and Mimiki wanted a fast way to get me up to speed. That’s really why we are here.”

“Oh,” nodded Koridon. “That makes perfect sense. Though… I’m curious about what you said. You are a writer, right? So what are you doing training the sword?”

Nobina began explaining to Koridon how she was writing a book about being an adventurer and performing the whole process as a result. Koridon merely nodded, with him taking everything she was saying in.

“I see… I see,” he smiled. “Well… hopefully all of this is useful to you.”

“Oh, it is for sure,” nodded Nobina.

Their attention turned back to the sparring circle, where an exhausted Arsen was trying to catch their breath against Mimiki, who looked much fresher.

“That was a pretty good warmup,” Mimiki taunted, waiting for Arsen to catch his breath.

“My god,” he replied, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “This was definitely worth speaking to you two. I haven’t been worked this hard in so long.”

“Then you clearly are slacking,” pouted Mimiki, her hands on her hips. “You owe me a lap around the city after this.”

He chuckled, nodding his head.

“Unless I beat you right now.”

Mimiki smirked, getting her sword ready for the next engagement.

The two of them were sparring for a good hour. It wasn’t ever close, but Mimiki wasn’t perfect throughout the whole thing. Koridon pointed out the few small mistakes she was making, shocking Nobina at how well Koridon read the fight in general. Nobina wasn’t experienced enough to pick up on what was exactly right and wrong during a fight, but Koridon was covering for her.

“See,” said Koridon, pointing a finger at Mimiki after one of her swings.

“That swing was a bit off, resulting in Arsen being able to counter it.”

“How can you notice swings that fast,” asked Nobina, curious about Koridon’s skill.

“Lots of practice. I’m… not really good at using the sword myself, but I’ve been practicing for ten years. I know it must seem slow to someone who’s done more in the same amount of time, but I’m doing my best,” he smiled.

It made Nobina a bit guilty that she had gotten as skilled as she was in such a short amount of time, but that was Paths for you. They significantly influenced potential, and Nobina was no exception to that. She had a feeling she wasn’t that far from C-rank, but only time would tell if she could keep such a pace.

“Oh,” said Koridon. “Did you hear about an upcoming adventurer who’s recently reached S-rank in a year of becoming an adventurer?”

“Wow,” replied Nobina. “A year? That’s crazy.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “She’s starting to become all the rage, as we got a newspaper saying that she’s currently participating in the National Combat Tournament that only happens once a year. I’m waiting for us to get another paper with the results, since a new edition is produced weekly. I hear she’s using it to promote her clothing brand. It sounds a bit strange, but apparently that’s all she cares about.”

Nobina gave a chuckle. Someone only caring about clothing reminded her about Fay. She was similar, and it was a bit of Nobina’s fault Fay became someone who loved cosplay.

“I’d love to see her in action,” said Nobina, turning her attention back to the adventurer in question.”

“Same,” nodded Koridon. “Who knows if she’ll stick around our humble nation. All the money and cool stuff is in Gar-Gar, while the high-value monsters are in the Nation of Arren. I wouldn’t be surprised if she left and headed to either post tournament.”

“A bit disappointing, but sometimes those things happen,” nodded Nobina.

Soon, the sparring of Mimiki and Arsen concluded, with both looking a bit exhausted.

“Alright… you’ve won this one,” said Arsen.

“You mean I won all of the spars,” Mimiki chuckled back, looking a bit exhausted now. She was still in much better shape than Arsen though, who fell to the ground.

“My body hurts all over,” said Arsen, his gaze turned to the sky.

“Well… etch those feelings into your brain. Use them to continue to improve and one day you’ll reach my shadows,” smiled Mimiki.

“Ouch,” chuckled Arsen.

Nobina and Koridon approached the two. Mimiki helped Arsen up, who was still recovering.

“Looks like it’s a bit late,” said Mimiki, looking up into the night sky. “How about we eat at a nice restaurant? I know a good one not too far from here. It’s my treat to all of you for a good days work.”

Koridon felt a bit embarrassed since he didn’t personally feel like he earned it. However, all of their stomachs rumbled in unison, resulting in a big laugh.

“I’m down,” said Arsen.

“Same,” replied Nobina and Koridon.

“Great. It’s called the Coridan and…”

Nobina’s face drained instantly upon hearing those words.

“I’m so sorry,” she bowed. “I’m banned from the Coridan and other high-end restaurants.”

They all looked dumbfounded by the fact she was banned, resulting in Mimiki entering deep thought.

“How about Joen’s Meats,” replied Koridon. “They sell very nutrient heavy meals, perfect for post-training.”

“Perfect,” responded Mimiki.

With that, the four of them were off. Nobina found herself enjoying the chattering about the training they all did, with her being in the conversation and discussing her own progress. To her, it felt like she belonged there, which mattered a lot to Nobina. With everything happening, it was great having a break from the craziness of the current crisis and the dread she was starting to experience more and more. It made her excited for the future and she hoped that her swordsmanship would one day become impressive enough that she could call herself a strong adventurer. It would mean a lot and make her feel like her book would be even more valid coming from herself.

“Progress is progress,” she nodded, silently speaking to herself.