Chương 6: Talent

I didn't remember falling asleep, but when I awoke, it took me a few moments to realize that my eighteenth nameday had come. Awareness returned with shocked clarity. I was eighteen! I should have my talent now! In fact, I'd had it for hours if the sun was any indication. I rose from my chicken-feather mattress and yawned, only to jump when I saw Mom staring at me.

"Gahh! Creepy much?" I shouted. We lived in a wooden cabin with only three rooms: my parents' bedroom, the kitchen, and my room. Dad had built my room when I made it clear that I could no longer stand sleeping in the same room as them. They'd thought me odd—odd! —for having the audacity to want a little privacy, but they'd done it. Privacy wasn't nearly as much of a concern as it had been in April's world, though. To my surprise, I found the room incredibly lonely my first night there around my eleventh nameday.

Still, I certainly wasn't going to be ungrateful for all the work they'd put into building it. I stayed in the room, but eventually, I'd compromised by removing the door I'd been so insistent on. I hadn't regretted it since! Except now, mom could watch me sleep from the kitchen table and stare at me, waiting for me to tell her about my talent the moment I woke up. I supposed I was lucky she hadn't thrown a bucket of water on me! The woman's eye twitched. She looked like she hadn't slept all night.

"I've been awake for hours. This is your big day! You finally have your talent, and you've been sleeping through it! Honestly, half the town has bets on what it will be! You're keeping all of Pemolar's Hill in suspense!"

"That's a little over-dramatic," I said blearily. I took the time to yawn very slowly, stretching out every kink in my back. My ribs and shoulder were still incredibly sore, and it felt good to luxuriate in the warm morni–!" Elmerina Farmer! You tell me what your talent is right now, or I swear I will kick you out of this house!" Mom threatened. I snickered but finally brought up my status screen. Sure enough, at the top was a new section titled "Talent."

Selecting it, I jumped a little as a trumpeting fanfare echoed in my ears for the first time, opening a new screen. It had been ages since I'd unlocked my status when I turned five, and I'd almost forgotten that trumpet. Soon enough, lines of text began to swim across my vision. Congratulations! For reaching your eighteenth nameday, you have been awarded your talent.

— Bond Crafter — — Everyone has a story — Effect 1: You know how to create an item that would best fulfill your companions' most pressing need and what you need to craft it. Effect 2: The closer the bond, the fewer supplies you need to craft the item. Effect 3: Gain ten percent of a companion's highest skill when you create what they need as free points. Rank: Legendary I blinked a few times, making sure I wasn't just seeing things. Legendary. L-Legendary? The only ranks higher were Mythical and Otherworldly!

Two steps above Hadra's already unprecedented elite talent. I licked my suddenly dry lips, ignoring the rising panic. Legendary talents were known for sparking wars. But it didn't seem that strong. I could make things for other people. My greedy little soul felt mildly suckered, but at the same time, I liked what that said about me. By helping others, I could help myself. How dangerous could that be?

"I-it's… uh. I don't understand it," I said, turning back to Mom. I was about to say more when I suddenly saw. Hovering around her was a bubble. Within, when I looked at it, I saw knowledge. Mom's strongest need. She… wanted a way to protect me. Specifically, that desire was related to defending me from war trolls. Mom was clearly quite close to me. Our bond was probably the strongest I'd ever had in either life. I'd never needed a talent to tell me that, but it was nice to have it confirmed.

All I needed to construct the item that would best fulfill her needs was an open flame, charcoal, and tree bark.

"Did you figure something out?" she asked.

"Is it active, or passive!? What's the rank!? Honeeey! You're killing me!"

'Jeez, what a child,' I thought. I hopped out of bed, ignoring my protesting ribs and my protesting mother, as I shuffled out of the house. I shot her a cheeky grin before dashing off towards the nearest tree. We already had an open flame and charcoal, so all I needed to get was some bark to try out my new talent. I'd gotten an active talent rather than a passive one like Hadra's. While talents were always unique to the individual, they universally improved people's skills by providing free points.

They were always customized to the individual. Hadra, for example, hated nighttime. She'd always feared the dark and slept with a fire burning all night in her kitchen. It came as no surprise to me that her talent was called "Bright Weaver." All skills related to weaving were eighty percent more effective during daylight hours. That meant her already ludicrous weaving skill was nearly doubled from sunup to sundown. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Her skill was a passive increase to her stats, but her second effect was a simple free point gain based on finished creations. Hers could count as both, as she only gained free points when she chose to make something… but it would be silly to weave at night when her skill was so much more effective during the day. For me, I'd gain my free points when I crafted something for someone. Fully active. Ten percent? Every time I crafted for someone? That seemed like a lot, but I'd have to test it to find out.

Thankfully, I didn't have to go to the woods for a bit of tree bark. There were plenty of trees left around the village for shade. I had no idea what my talent was directing me to craft with the small number of ingredients, but I decided I'd trust my newfound instincts and ran to one of them. I certainly wasn't going anywhere near the woods anytime soon. I ached suddenly as I remembered how close my lab was to the trees. Mom would probably actually kill me if I tried to go back out there for the next month.

So many experiments would be spoiled by the time I could go back. Well, at least I had a new talent to keep me entertained. I saw a few people wandering around, doing their usual morning tasks. They'd tip a hat or wave to me if I came within earshot of any of them. Some of them would excitedly ask what my talent was, while the rest expressed their thankfulness that the troll hadn't gotten me. I smiled at each of them, refusing to elaborate on my talent.

All of them had something they needed, something I could craft. The difficulty for some of them was ludicrous, though. Pretyr Woodworker required over a thousand logs, iron ingots, gallons of oil, and a bunch of leather for me to create his need. Somehow, that would help protect him from war trolls. It made sense that the requirements were so high for him, though. The second effect lowered the supply requirement of the crafting job based on how closely connected I was to that person. What… defined that though?

You couldn't really quantify closeness by any metric I understood. Yet that appeared to be what my talent was doing. I was much more familiar with Travmetis Woodworker, another man with the same profession, who I spotted working with Pretyr. All I needed to craft for him was a large hunk of rock, a few tree branches, and a lot of leather. Admittedly, the requirements were still pretty high, but not unattainable. He needed it for goblins, it seemed. Weird.

I didn't know Pretyr all that well, and he was typically irritated by my stories, but Travis was a family friend. We saw him every time we needed wood! So, Pretyr's need was nearly uncraftable, while Travis's was quite simple. The closer I knew people, the fewer ingredients I'd need to craft for them. I bet Hadra's crafting requirements were pretty simple, too. Reid? I wondered what he might need most. I tore off a few pieces of bark. I wanted to get more than I'd need, so I tore off several chunks.

Hands full, I turned around and headed back up the road toward home. Mom, Dad, and I lived on the outskirts of town, and our fields stretched for almost half a mile into the east. Rye stalks were spiking high and looked healthy and brown. Summer was on its way out, and autumn was here. We'd have a good harvest this year.

"Okay. You're allowed a little leeway," Mom said from the doorway, glaring at me.

"But this feels like you are teasing me."

"Maybe a little," I teased.

"My talent is… strange. Good though! Very good!" Terrifyingly good. I was trying to ignore the creeping fear of knowing that my talent was the sort that caused nobles to send assassins instead of invitations.

"Is it rare? Elite, even? Oh, tell me it's not common! If it is, Uraleka will never let me live that down!" I frowned at that. If it were only a common skill, would she be disappointed? This felt like getting a report card, but worse, because I had no direct control over my result. Evaluated by some otherworldly system, I'd been granted a legendary talent… but what had I done to deserve that?

If I'd only had the skills I'd learned in this world, I certainly wouldn't have been even close to Hadra's skill at anything. Even with April's skills, none of mine skills matched Hadra's highest one. Was it the sheer breadth of skills I'd gained from my dreams of April? I sighed, pulling myself out of the thought spiral as I stepped into the house. I closed the door before looking my mom in the eye. Everyone secretly dreamed of a legendary talent and dreaded it in equal measure.

It was sort of like the lottery from April's world. Everyone knew winning it would be amazing, but they also knew that most people who won ended up crashing and burning. Fatally. Actually, that described Masterful better than Legendary. Most Legendary talents just ended up dead. Or worse, the cause of revolution, before also ending up dead. I walked over to the stove. It was lit, and a pan on the iron grate was heating up in preparation for cooking breakfast.

I grabbed a cloth pad and moved it aside before holding the bark near the fire. I felt my talent grab hold immediately, assuring me that I didn't need about half of the bark I'd brought. With the open flame and charcoal already present, I felt… something. It wasn't mana or household magic. Instead, it felt closer to the anticipation of a good story. Potential, waiting, ready to spring. A sensation swept over me as my hands began to move.

Intricate rhythms I'd never learned and didn't know overtook me as I kneaded the bark. Logic dictated that nothing should've happened, but talents defied reality and bade logic turn a blind eye. The bark began to change. Each piece flattened into an impossibly thin sheet, the wooden impurities sapping out of the creation with each touch of my fingers. Slowly, surely, each tiny fragment became different slices of… paper? The charcoal was next. To my shock, I reached into the fire and grabbed a burning coal.

Mom gasped, too, but it didn't seem to hurt me. Instead, I began to roll the charcoal between my hands like playdough until it became an impossibly thin line, reminding me a little bit of the lead from a mechanical pencil. The excess spiraled into the ceiling in a long black ribbon, each atom waiting for its proper place. The pages were floating in midair as I brought the spiraling charcoal to the first sheet. Writing began to form, spelling words, writing out entire sentences, and even drawing pictures and images.

Then it began to speed up. Entire pages were written in moments. Each piece of paper flashed by like I was just flipping through a book rather than actively creating one. Mom's eyes were as wide as saucers, but I didn't have time to focus on her. My talent was doing all the heavy lifting, crafting something that I could never hope to create without it, but it was exhausting somehow. Draining me personally with each new page. A book. I was writing a book, using charcoal and paper made from tree bark.

The last page was drawn and finished in minutes that felt like hours. The final two pieces of bark formed a denser paper that wrapped itself around the pages, binding them with sorcery that defied any rudimentary physics April had ever learned. Finally, the last segment of ink began to draw a symbol. My symbol. Two fancy upside-down commas, drawn back-to-back with swirls at the ends. The space left in the middle kind of looked like a heart. It had been a joke between Hadra and me at first.

She'd chosen a butterfly for her own and had begun adding it to every article of clothing she'd ever made, usually on the inside hem somewhere—a sort of maker's mark. I'd called her lame ever since, but only because mine was equally lame. I'd made that stupid comma heart my own. Besides Hadra's spinning wheel pedal, I didn't think anything I'd crafted had been worthy of a maker's mark. I had one just in case I ever did, though. It was part of me. Now, that symbol etched itself into the front cover.

Behind it, an artistic flame began to form. The etching left a mosaic art that looked as good as any professional book cover I'd ever seen. A roaring fire with my symbol atop it. Black and white, but beautiful, nonetheless. When it was over, I felt like I'd run a marathon. I wobbled, and Mom instinctively caught me, guiding me back to the table where I set the book down.

"What… was that, honey?" Mom asked. She didn't look impressed. She looked worried. I proffered the book to her.

"I-it's for you. It's what you need most, according to my talent," I said.