The Skill Collector Chapter 2

The Value of Skills

"Which brings me to my request. I want you to buy up all of my current skills and replace them with combat oriented ones."

I was offered a sale and a request at the same time, yet I could not help but hesitate to accept. This might have been the most troubled a deal had made me ever since the time I was approached by a rich lady going 'Give me an age reversal skill!'.

The old man before me was a magnificently white haired scholar who acc.u.mulated so much knowledge he became known as elder sage. He had raised many excellent pupils and was revered by a great number of people; the presence of maids and butlers in the mansion I had been summoned to seemed only natural.

"Pardon me, but do you truly wish to sell all of them? You do have a grasp of your current skillset, correct?"

"Of course. [Instant Memorization], [Speed Reading], [Calculation], [Comprehension], [Vast Knowledge], [Appraisal], [Education] and [Recollection], that should be it. But indeed, I suppose I shall keep [Recollection]. This head of mine has already sufficiently grasped the rest, I doubt their further necessity."

The number of skills as well as the skills themselves were already surprising, but what gave me even more of a shock was that all their levels had been raised to the 20s. It was a skillset fit for a sage. Many people would spend their whole lives wishing for just one of them.

And despite that he was about to ungrudgingly sell nearly all of them.

"They appear to be rather potent versions, too."

"Most likely. I have been seeking knowledge my whole life, properly making use of my skills in the process. Even ended up memorizing every single book of this city's library. At the end of all that, after reading all kinds of literature and gathering rumors from all over the world, I found out about a person called the skill collector, about you."

How awe-inspiring. He talked matter-of-factly without a hint of hubris.

Even though a pleasant life was guaranteed even without exerting oneself after being blessed with such skills it seems he continued to put in effort in his pursuit of knowledge.

"I'm honored to have gained the attention of a sage such as yourself."

"Spare me your compliments. What I'm asking is whether it is possible or not."

"It is. The only problem is the immense value of your skills. With seven of them the combined sum would be monumental; I doubt the money I have on hand will suffice."

"If it's just that then take them all for 100,000."

Without hesitating the sage uttered something unthinkable and before I knew it I had opened my eyes wide in surprise. I was not dealing with someone unfamiliar with the worth of skills. It was a judgement made after having taken all circ.u.mstances into consideration.
It was an exceptionally tempting deal, but precisely because of that I only became more cautious.

"My apologies. With that much one-sided profit I cannot help but hesitate in accepting."

"Hmm, I suppose so. I shall explain my reasons. All my life I have seeked knowledge, letting my eyes run through books of all possible kinds. It seemed only natural to me and a long time I had not even questioned it. However, as I grew in years, eventually the question of whether it truly was what I desired did as well. My state is as you see, I am old. Long-lived as I may be, what's left are what, ten years? With that in mind I decided to leave behind all that I had achieved until now and live anew as an adventurer."

The desire to be reborn. People harboring such a wish were many.

I want to become [Fortunate]!

I beg you, make me [Charming] so that I can be popular!

I want to do something against my frail body, isn't there a way to gain [Muscle Strength]?

Requests such as these had visited me many times, yet I couldn't help but be perplexed by the elder sage's words.

But indeed, as long as he retained [Recollection] he would not need the rest. Losing his skills wouldn't cause the intellect he had acquired with them to disappear as well.

To desire a new life on a different path after having sated one's hunger for knowledge, that seemed to be the sage's standpoint... Indeed, maybe such final years were possible.

"My desired sills are [Sword Mastery], [Endurance], [Inhuman Strength], [Regeneration], [Stealth] and [Shadowing]. Can you do it?"

"Well, yes. I do own them."

"It's fine if they aren't all high level. Level 5 will do, I just need them to be able to support this old body of mine."

He went ahead and mentioned levels like they were common knowledge. Certainly, with an [Appraisal] of high enough level it was possible to see them, but with the old sage's [Appraisal] he shouldn't have been able to.

"Hah. It appears you are surprised. With a high enough level in [Appraisal] they become visible, don't they? They may be hidden from me, but their existence has been recorded in books."

"Your words are proof of your vast knowledge."

"I do possess [Vast Knowledge], after all."

He grinned while stroking his magnificent white beard. A shrewd elder, he was.

"I a.s.sume there is no need for a sage such as you, but allow me to explain. Skills are not omnipotent. For example, let there be a swordman with no experience in fighting but level 10 in [Sword Mastery], and a skillless swordmaster that refined his technique through effort and many fought battles. In a fight, the victor would be the swordmaster."

"I am aware. It's not a matter for numerics, but if one were to represent it through numbers... One without experience, a 0, becomes no more than a 10 through a skill that supplements his ability by +10. A swordmaster with actual ability and technique that rivals that of a level 20 in a skill would achieve overwhelming victory. Of course, that's not all there is to it; fighting instinct and actual battle experience also play a large role."

A sage through and through. It appeared any further explanation from me was unnecessary.

Skills are powers that supplement one's abilities. Even without skills, a well trained body was plenty powerful. However, when actual ability is equal or close to it then the one in possession of a skill has the advantage.

"There really was no need for my explanation, my apologies. Although, due to your requested skills being fairly inexpensive compared to your current skills there is quite some change left over."

"Hmm. In that case I'll have you make some adjustments to them. Indeed, I'd appreciate it if you added some levels to [Shadowing] and [Stealth]."

"Very well, let's go with that. Thank you very much."

The deal was still far from a fair exchange, but I allowed myself to indulge in his generosity. I didn't bother explaining because the old sage was most likely aware, but in order to purchase new skills it was necessary to have vacant skill slots for them. Everyone is born with a limited number of skill slots from birth and in his case all of them had been filled, as such he had to sell seven skills before he could acquire the new ones.

After having filled those slots again that was the end of it. By no means could people acquire as many skills as they desired just because they have enough money to purchase them.
As we were about to exchange a handshake and conclude discussions the door to the elder sage's room creaked open.

"Grandpa, are you done yet?"

The face that peeked through the gap in the door belonged to a young girl in her mid teens with facial features more childlike than her age. Based on what she said she must have been the elder sage's grandchild. Her short-cut hair made her look a little boyish, but the similarity was there.

"We were about to finish. What is it?"

He made a stern face despite talking to his grandchild. It seemed he wasn't the sort to be unconditionally kind, even to family. Maybe he was as austere as his appearance suggested.

"I'll be going on my first adventure tomorrow, just letting you know."

"Hmph. I have to wonder whether you understand the dangers of adventuring."

"I do understand, which I've told you who knows how many times already. You're such a worrywart."

Like a grandchild indeed she responded to the strict look of the sage while smiling, far from faltering. I wondered whether it was due to the girl's guts or due to the elder sage being a kinder man than his appearance let one a.s.sume. A difficult judgement to make for someone who had only just met him that day.

I could have simply toggled [Psychology] and figured it out myself, but how tasteless would it be to make use of it under such trivial circ.u.mstances.

"It was all those adventure stories you used to tell me before bed that made me want to become an adventurer myself, you know?"

"And I regret doing that. I've said it before, but you are becoming an adventurer despite my objection to it. I will not allow you back into this house."

"I know, I know. And tomorrow will be the last time we'll see each other, right? Sorry for the intrusion, Mr. Guest. Grandpa acts like that, but he's actually a nice person, don't let him scare you."

"Don't speak out of your place. If that's all you came for then leave."

"Yup yup."

She was a nice girl, apparently shortly before her debut as an adventurer.
It was a rude act to commit without permission, but I allowed myself to use [Appraisal] on her. As far as adventuring went she was blessed with quite the skillset, possessing the skills [Bow Mastery], [Inhuman Strength], [Health], [Sensing Presence], [Quick-witted] and [Eagle Eyes].

"Collector. You saw her skills, what do you think?"

"I see I've been found out. My apologies, an occupational habit."

"That's not the matter. Do you believe my granddaughter is capable of prospering as an adventurer with her current skills?"

It looked like what the girl said was the truth, the air around him betrayed his worry about his daughter; his was face as grim as ever, however.

"It's quite excellent, I would say. If she steadily gathers experience I can see her making a name for herself."

"Is that so. Mhm, although I wouldn't want her using her skills as an excuse to laze about."

Despite what he said he seemed quite glad, his cheeks loosening up just a little bit.

She had plenty of talent, but one could never know what adventuring brought with it. The elder sage's worries were justified; most likely rooted in his abundance of knowledge and experience.

Our negotiations finished and I stood up to take my leave, but as I was about to pa.s.s through the door I reflexively halted my steps.

"As long as she doesn't do anything careless..."

A quiet voice I wouldn't have picked up on if it wasn't for [Listening]. Hearing the elder sage's genuine worries over his grandchild I decided to provide an additional service.

The next day I found myself a bench with a good view of the adventurer guild and watched the area. If that day was to be the sage's granddaughter's debut as an adventurer then she would first have to gather at the guild.

Adventuring as an occupation revolves around completing quests that can range from exterminating monsters to escorting convoys, with all sorts of odd jobs in-between. Bluntly put, adventurers are jacks of all trades. Combat is a near daily occurrence for them and the job's riskiness cannot be exaggerated.

Because the granddaughter had already seen my face I opted to observe the swarming and scattering of people with [Disguise], [Concealment] and [Presence Manipulation] activated,

completely hiding my existence.

"Ah, looks like she and her party have arrived."

After amplifying my gaze with [Thousand Yard Stare] to bridge the considerable distance between us I took a closer look.

Her equipment consisted of some light armor, daggers and a well crafted bow. She was part of a party of four and the skill balance between them was fairly decent. They could use one more member in their party, but with their current composition there seemed to be little need for worry.

I decided to watch over them for a day--my way of thanking the sage for the profit I had made the day before.

Well, goodwill was certainly part of it, but there was something else that I wanted to look into, something that had been on my mind for a while.

The girl and her party left town and so did I, shadowing them while keeping a good amount of distance. The level of my [Shadowing] had gone down a little due to my deal with the elder sage, but it was still a level far above the average.

An interesting aspect of this [Trade] system was that it allowed me to sell, say, a level three version of a skill I had ten levels in and keep the remaining seven. As such, selling a small part of a high level skill scarcely made a difference.

Even with a slightly decreased level, meeting someone capable of taking notice of my shadowing should be unlikely.

After a couple hours of tailing them I witnessed their first battle. It was a smooth fight that made it difficult to believe they were rookies, defeating their first enemy without a hitch. With teamwork like that even the elder sage should be at ease.

From there I continued to watch over their hunt for the rest of the day, until they safely returned to the adventurer's guild. There I stopped tailing them and walked towards the guild entrance myself. Or more precisely, towards a robed person standing there with their hood pulled down. As the figure was peeking into the guild from afar I laid my hand on their shoulder.

The whole day I wasn't the only one that was following the girl and her party, there was also this hooded character before me. The main reason I decided to watch over the party that morning was the existence of this person.

Suddenly having a hand laid on his shoulder must have surprised him, his whole body jolted upwards. With still remaining surprise and even a tinge of fear he turned his head and revealed his familiar face.

"Did your grandchild's performance calm your worries?"

Indeed, that robed person was the girl's grandfather himself.

With his splendid beard pinched between his fingers he looked at me as if he were trying to say something, but, probably due to surprise, he was unable to bring out his voice.

"This was the true reason behind your request for a skill replacement, wasn't it?"

"So you saw through me. Come, let's move somewhere else, my grandchild may well spot us here."

We changed location to a restaurant nearby. After we ordered some light meals and drinks the elder sage took off his hood and exhaled deeply.

"When did you notice?"

"I suppose I knew since yesterday, when I met your granddaughter. Frankly, your requested skillset was more reminiscent of a thief than an adventurer. I even worried you might have planned some grand heist after our deal, so I decided to watch the situation for a while."

Which isn't to say I hadn't investigated my buyer properly in advance, but cases exist where people's actual dispositions are different from the information spread about them. That is why I make it a rule to keep watch over my buyers, just in case they were planning on utilizing their new abilities for crime. A lesson learned from the past.

Watching over my client's family like this time really was an additional service, but based on the elder sage's chosen skills and his worrying att.i.tude towards his grandchild I could more or less predict this development.

"If it's already out then no point in continuing to pretend. Yes, I am worried about my granddaughter. I have lived my life, celebrated it, and if I were to die now then so be it, but my precious daughter's left behind child, my only grandchild... I cannot bear the thought of losing her."

And so he resolved to sell his skills in order to fill their slots with the power to protect his granddaughter. He was a fine grandfather.

"It was only a day, what do you think now after having watched over her?"

"She appears safe on her own, but still, I am worried beyond help."

It was no surprise. Even if the day ended without accident, one never knew what might happen in life.

She may have returned safely, but his concern for her wouldn't disappear all his life. Such is family.

"Do you intend to always continue shadowing her like this?"

"For as long as this body of mine holds out, that was the plan... but being on my own makes things difficult, and death likely."

He may have raised his physical ability with skills, but he was far from able to fight for his life on his own without problems.... despite the fact that I had secretly given him higher levels than he requested. The probability of him losing his life while watching over his grandchild could be called quite high.

But still, seeing the elder's behavior from yesterday and today there was something I didn't understand.

"Why are you this worried about your granddaughter? If I may be so straightforward, It appears rather overprotective."

"My reason, you ask. Very well, after showing you such an unshapely behavior I suppose there is hardly any point in hiding it. Atonement. It is my atonement towards my wife and my daughter."

The moment he had said those words he sighed deeply, so deep it seemed like he breathed out his soul.

With empty eyes and a self-deprecating smile the man before me no longer appeared like an elder sage, but like an exhausted old man at the end of his vitality.

"I had drowned in my skills on my search for knowledge, my only desire to acquire more of it. Everything else was no more than a disruption to me. Then, in the middle of living like that, I was introduced to the woman that became my wife."

I didn't usually care for people's love affairs, but that time I could not help but sit still and listen carefully, not missing a single word--I instinctively felt that the elder's past was just that valuable.

"At the time, I, not interested in wasting time on ch.o.r.es, viewed wives as little more than a replacement for maids and married her with that very mindset. Cruelly, I hadn't even cared to commit her face to memory. I merely desired a person that would serve me with each and every act of theirs."

Lamenting his past self his eyes stared into a distant time long past, their light gone and now colored in repentance.

"Nonetheless I put on the mask of a good husband, feigning to lead a happy life as married couple. One day a peer of mine urged us to have a child, to preserve my valuable bloodline. I abided with little personal interest and indeed, we had a daughter... but she, who carried all of our surrounding's expectations, was ungifted."

"Ungifted... A child born without skills, then."

One gathered information pertaining to skills quite naturally in this line of occupation and as such I was more than familiar with the existence of ungifted.

In fact, I have encountered people without skills more times than I could count and even among my customers there is one, who... Apologies, I went off-track.

"I, who possessed so many, such powerful and such refined skills, produced an ungifted child. Certainly, I was surprised, but far more so was my wife. Not even that did I notice, I didn't even try to. With my daughter an ungifted I lost all interest in the existence of both her and my wife."

Frankly, I thought it cruel. He appeared to have reflected on his faults, but thinking of what his daughter and wife must have gone through I found myself unable to sympathize with him.

"Even when my daughter sent me the news of her engagement, I did not care whatsoever. And so, many years later, I was met with a change of heart. My thirst for knowledge found its end. ...Having read through all the books one could find in this city the knowledge they could impart on me grew thin. I traveled to the bordering countries, but even there, no books could give me the sense of fulfilment I so desired."

It is said that to have read every single book in this town's library, the one considered the greatest book collection in the world, was equivalent to having read two thirds of the world's literature and more. A regular mortal wouldn't come close to such a feat even if they spent all their lifetime on it, but with the skills [Speed Reading], [Instant Memory], [Vast Knowledge], [Comprehension] and [Recollection] it was feasible.

"That was when I finally shifted my attention to my family, but it was too late. When I returned to my daughter and wife I found them a.s.saulted by a disease particularly prevalent at the time. With my knowledge... if I had been with them, we could have discerned their symptoms in the early stages of the disease and started treatment early. There would still have been time to save them."

If it was the elder sage's great knowledge then indeed, saving someone from such a disease sounded possible.

"By the time I arrived they were already in their hours of death and beyond saving, there was nothing I could do but watch them breathe their last... What they entrusted to me in their final moments was my daughter's child, my granddaughter. It comes not even close to sufficient atonement, but ever since then I have been watching over my her growth. All I wish for is to be able to continue watching over her until my own final breath. That is all I desire."

"The lowest of husbands and the lowest of fathers," the sage concluded his recollection.

His wish to protect his grandchild was so great he even threw away all the skills he had spent his life refining, the life he now laments so much.
I wanted his prayers to be answered. As a fellow human, and as a trader of skills.

"If you are truly prepared to throw away your everything in order to protect your granddaughter, then I have a spare skill that would be a perfect fit. You do have exactly one slot left over, if I remember correctly. With this skill, watching over your daughter for the rest of your life may be possible indeed."

"Is there such a skill!? If it's a matter of money then I shall pay however much you want! I beg of you, sell it to me!"

He grabbed my hand and for the first time since we met I saw the sage lay bare all of his emotions. I could sense everything he felt towards his grandchild, the blissful as well as the painful.

"Very well. But mind you, the price is high. It is a special skill and selling it to you will require no less than 50 levels of it. To buy a skill of such a level is equivalent to selling one's entire fortune; do you still wish to purchase it?"

"You know my answer."

The sage's response was without delay and his eyes fixed onto mine. I met his determination with a deep nod.

"Looks like he adjusted nicely to the skill."

The day before, I received the money for which the sage sold his mansion, only paying his servants' retirement money before handing it over to me. What he acquired in return was a certain skill called [Youthful Appearance].

Long ago I had received a request for [Age Regression] and wandered through many lands on my search for it. In the middle of that journey I arrived in a village with elven inhabitants, a long-lived race that sustained a beautiful, youthful body throughout all their lives.

I used that occasion to investigate their skills and found out that they all possessed skills of the names [Long-lived] and [Youthful Appearance], which appeared to be a fixed component of elven skillsets, allowing them to look young all their lives, until their deaths.

However, they never stopped aging; merely their appearance did. As an effect of [Long-lived], most likely, their rate of aging was slower than that of humans, but nonetheless over time their bodies became slower and their dexterity more dull. A young looking elf with the movements of an elder was a most perplexing sight.

What was special about [Long-lived] and [Youthful Appearance] was that their level increased proportionally with their years of age.

With [Long-lived] Lv 50 one's lifespan extended by 50 years.

With [Youthful Appearance] Lv 50 one appeared 50 years younger than one's true age.

These skills wouldn't allow one to live for eternity, but they were in huge demand by those with great fortune as well as those of great influence. A lot of people wouldn't spare effort nor money if it was for the sake of retaining their youths.

As for the sage, since he hadn't truly returned to his youth it was only his appearance that changed, but his current skills were more than enough to support his old body.
And his incredible knowledge was certain to be of use to his new party.
There was no way for his grandchild to know how he used to look, so he most likely didn't have to worry about being discovered just based on appearance.

If he had sold me [Recollection] as well he would have had room for [Long-lived], but he was absolutely against selling it. When I asked him for his reason, he said,

"It's not like I ever wished for a long life. Also... I don't want to forget my wife, or the days I spent with my daughter."

And to this day I find myself grinning upon reminding his embarra.s.sed face at that time.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his grandchild the sight of the embarking adventurers seemed to me like that of a smiling elder and a childish granddaughter.