“And what do you think I did?” Ryn laughed rambunctiously at the crowd that had formed around him in the tavern. Everyone had paused eating and drinking to hear the rest of the story.

“I told him, 'I'm not going to put up with you any longer. You either stop bitching or I'll feed you to the next monster we come across!’ You should have seen his face! I swear it even turned purple! It looked like the lad had burst a blood vessel!” Ryn laughed uproariously at his own joke, and the rest of the tavern joined in, infected by his good cheer.

The tavern was a mix of adventurers, dungeon merchants, and locals who had nowhere else to go. It was a place where stories were told, deals were made, and rumors were spread. All of this occurred despite the bad food and even worse alcohol that the tavern served. That's what happened when there was only a single tavern in Lyr. A perfect monopoly doesn't care about silly details like how the food tastes or how flat the beer is.

Timur sat in a corner nursing his lager, raising his glass every now and then at Ryn's story. Ryn noticed and flashed Timur a smile in return. Stuff like that never slipped past Ryn. He always noticed the smallest details and made everyone around him feel included. Even the poor adventurer lad who accompanied Ryn on the dungeon run was laughing along with the rest of the tavern.

It had been two years since Timur had come to Lyr. He was one of the first dungeon merchants to settle in the town, and at the time he was nothing more than a new merchant looking to strike it rich. Now, after having lived here for two years, he had started to build a reputation for himself. At least among the merchants, most knew who he was.

Ryn began his next story. “One time, I came across a Raiden while walking through the dungeon. I was screwed! What was I supposed to do? I was just a dungeon merchant! As a [Conjurer], I can only really conjure necessities. But what good was a loaf of bread going to do in that situation?!”

Timur knew that Ryn was underplaying his class. He had seen Ryn conjure everything from a bundle of arrows to items as durable and valuable as a short sword. The items disappeared after a week or two, but it was still a special talent that propelled him all the way to the upper crust of the merchants in Lyr.

“What I could do was run. And let me tell you! Those Raidens are fast fuckers!” A new round of laughter echoed across the tavern. Timur repeated the word Raiden under his breath, he didn't know when, but at some point, he learned that the name meant “god of thunder and lightning”. The monsters lived up to that name. They liked to fight by darting in and out, and were flashes of yellow when they moved.

“Now look, in those days, I was just a wandering dungeon merchant. I didn't have anything more than the clothes on my body and the wares on my back! If I lost my wares, I'd starve! So let me tell you what I did. I turned around and screamed! A great big aaaaaaggggghhhh,” Ryn yelled into the crowd. A couple of the drunker patrons yelled with him.

“And you guys see my mouth. It's big! I screamed with all of my strength. It was probably the loudest noise that the damn thing had ever heard in its damn life! You had to be there. It squealed and peed itself! Then it ran off. Can you believe that?! It ran off!” Ryn had a smile on his face. The crowd was quiet, anticipating Ryn's catchphrase.

“And that's how my big mouth saved my life,” Ryn finished.

“To Ryn and his big mouth!” The crowd roared.

“To Ryn and his big mouth,” Timur said, raising his glass once again to the cheer.

As if on cue, the serving girl, Raja, appeared. While admonishing the patrons that had slopped beer and food over the floors, she also started taking orders for a new round. Ryn and the tavern were a match made in heaven. He would bring the stories and keep the adventurers and merchants alike around long enough for them to down glass after glass of beer.

Most merchants had a natural sense of charm like Ryn. They instantly became the center of every room they walked into and quickly established a rapport with whoever they were talking to.

Timur was the opposite. A natural introvert, he had stumbled into the trade because he simply didn't know what else to do. He had spent his youth bouncing from one job to another, never holding anything down for more than one year, before finally taking on the profession of his ancestors. It wasn't that he was a bad worker, it was more that his class [Loremaster] didn't seem to mesh well with any single occupation.

Everyone had a class. Ryn was a [Conjurer] which meant he could create small objects with his mana. Banut was a [Shield Bearer], his giant shield was never far from him, even when he was drinking himself under the table. Classes weren’t something you could choose, and most people gravitated towards occupations that made the most of the skills the heavens had decided to assign to them.

In comparison to more useful classes, Timur's [Loremaster] didn't seem to have many clearly defined benefits. The class's main skill, Arcane Insight, would pop the meaning behind certain names into his head every so often. It wasn’t useless, exactly, but it wasn’t a clear, consistently profitable advantage, either.

On top of that, he had no idea if the class could ever be molded into something worthwhile. No one that Timur had talked to knew exactly what the [Loremaster] class did. Even with centuries of documenting classes, things were still like that. Tank classes were all enough like each other that even a unique tanker would be able to learn from what others had experienced.

But Timur’s class belonged to the group of classes that were even more unique. Some of them ended up being gold mines, but most classes outside of the main tracks were dead ends; novelties that were interesting but not especially profitable or useful. Most of what Timur did was accomplished the old-fashioned way, through sweat and hard thinking. It wasn’t by choice, but it was the only way he could move forward.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Some scholars spent years working with new class-owners to figure out the limits of the class, but they tended to reserve that effort for classes that were more promising from the get-go. Timur’s wasn’t like that. He had gotten the class five years ago, and was still on his own, figuring how to progress by himself. He was still stuck at level 3 while nearly everyone else in the town, even some children who had just finished awakening, were at a higher level. It sucked.

“My fucking [Loremaster] class,” Timur grumbled. He wasn't really talking to anyone in particular, but Ryn glanced at Timur before turning back to his story.

Timur drowned his sorrow in his beer. Feeling the cold liquid wash down his throat made him feel a little better. Today had been a good day, overall. He had learned how profitable it was to sell weapons to low-level adventurers. If every day were like today, he'd be rich soon. But, if someone asked Timur what he would do with the money, he wouldn't have been able to answer.

Raja noticed Timur's empty glass, and made her way through the crowd towards him.

”Another one?” she asked, smiling warmly.

It took a second for Timur to understand the question. He was way more drunk than he realized. Without friends to converse with to help pace himself, Timur had unknowingly finished his glass of beer. Groggily, he gave Raja a smile and shook his head.

With a swift motion, Raja swept away Timur's glass. She took another, more serious, look at him, “I'll put this on your tab. You should get some rest, I'll see you tomorrow.”

Timur tried to get up from the table. His whole world swirled. He sat back down. It was hard getting used to the beer in Lyr. One second, Timur would feel perfectly fine. Another gulp and, boom, he was plastered.

Elsewhere in the tavern, the conversation had shifted to a slightly more serious topic.

“Did you hear the news this morning?” one of the merchants asked his table. Timur knew the guy, but couldn't quite remember his name.

“No, I've been busy doing inventory all day today… It's crazy how much these adventurers have been going through mana stones recently,” the other merchant responded, annoyance showing on his face. Another person that Timur could probably recognize if he was sober.

“I heard that the guards carried out another two adventurers today. They were found on the second floor, I think?”

“Second floor? Are you sure?”

“That's what I heard. I double-checked.”

“There's no way. What's on the second floor? A couple of beasts that are more pigs than monsters. It was probably a deeper floor.”

“Still though, another two adventurers dead. It's been happening more frequently.”

“Bah, it happens around this time every year. The town gets a bunch of new adventurers looking to strike it rich. They overestimate their strength and things end badly for them. It's good for business, though.”

“Good? What happens when adventurers stop coming to Lyr?”

“And why would they? When we have one of the safest dungeons in the area?”

“We won't if this keeps up…”

“And where will they go? Vallath…”

Timur had heard enough of the merchant's chatter, and his head felt better. He was good enough to stand without having the world spin in front of him. He slowly made his way out of the tavern, taking a couple of tentative steps before finding his footing.

—

Timur's lodgings weren’t incredible in any respect, but the worst aspect of his rented room was its closeness to the tavern. He couldn’t help but hear the drunken yells at all hours of the night. He was used to it enough that he could usually sleep through the noise, but that got quite a bit harder when the room was already spinning.

The best part of Timur's lodging was the same thing: it was close to the tavern. On days like today, that was especially important, as Timur stumbled back home in a daze. Before he realized it, he was getting reacquainted with his bed. It was a rest long overdue.

But for some reason, despite how tired Timur's body felt, sleep wouldn't come. His mind had decided that this was the moment to bring up his childhood memories. A lot of Timur's childhood had passed by in hospital beds. It wasn't that he was constantly sick - the opposite, in fact. The time Timur wasn't lying in a bed was time spent in fist fights with the neighborhood kids.

Growing up in a neighborhood where everyone's parents were adventurers, fights were pretty commonplace. Kids would fight to figure out who would do the homework. They would fight when their “honor” was threatened. And they would fight to figure out the pecking order.

Timur was both at the bottom and the top of that order. Timur's father was almost always drunk, but everyone's adventurer parents had drinking problems, so it kinda worked out. What got Timur in trouble with the other kids was the fact that his dad was also broke. He seemed wholly incompatible with numbers. He'd overpay for everything; arrows, essentials, and even booze. And so, despite his skills, there never seemed to be enough money to go around.

The other kids knew of his father's inability to use numbers and applied it to Timur. And so, for “honor”, he had to fight. At a certain point, he wasn't sure why he was fighting. His own honor, his father's honor, and his rage at his father had all blended together. It always felt great to smash that amalgamation with his fists. It was a miracle that Timur didn't get a [Pugilist] class.

His one saving grace was that the hospital of his hometown had its own bookshelves. In books, Timur could escape his reality. Some days, he'd be off killing dragons, kissing princesses, and saving the day. Other days, he'd learn about the history of the world, like the Great Demon War, where millions perished to stop the demons from unleashing the monsters in the dungeon to the surface.

Eventually, when it came to class bestowal time, he was just as shocked as everyone else to learn that he had been given the [Loremaster] class, which had no clear utility and with an equally useless skill of Arcane Insight that alerted him when he was near items with heavy amounts of mana. Timur had an idea that his love of reading had brought the class about. But no matter how many books he read or what subjects he learned, he couldn't seem to budge his level. After that, he quickly plummeted down the pecking order. The other kids, who had classes that enhanced their Body stats, were simply better. It was little wonder that Timur didn't have many friends while growing up.

Timur flicked open his stat window with a thought. The screen showed up as a floating box in front of him. It was a mental construct for his eyes only.

Timur Antias - Level 3

[Loremaster]

Stats:

Mind: 19

Body: 12

Spirit: 15

Skills:

Arcane Insight, Silvery Tongue, Name Evocation

It looked exactly the same yesterday, last month, and even last year. Timur had reached level 3 about four years ago. After that, his [Loremaster] class stubbornly refused to climb. He had to watch as his peers leveled up and left him in the dust. The gulf in stats wasn't something that could be overcome with just hard work. That's why two years ago, he ran off to Lyr in the hopes of finding a better future.

With a grumble, Timur pushed away his stat screen and turned over to his other side. He hoped that sleep would come soon and make him forget about all of this.