The morning next day.
Lys showed up at the guild before the market even opened, as usual.
But something was different about today. Today, the staging area behind the guild hall looked like it was already active, more busy than usual. Vessa, the vice guild master who came at dawn, was running her mornings the way she ran everything at the capital, on her own schedule and ahead of everyone else's.
She stood at the front like she owned the dawn itself. Lys had heard she would come today. He also had heard that she was a woman of her own standards, and she looked every inch of it. Tall, broad-shouldered, with arms corded from years of real combat and a chest that strained the laces of her fitted leather vest. Sweat already gleamed along the line of her collarbone, tracing down into the deep cut of her neckline. Her dark hair was pulled back tight, but a few strands stuck to her neck, and her hips shifted with every step she took, powerful and unapologetic. She moved like someone who could snap your spine and make you thank her for the lesson.
A group of seven adventurers was warming up in the cleared yard at the back. Hunters mostly, from neighbouring villages, who had come in when word spread about this guild branch opening.
Most of them were women, which might have surprised Lys before, if he didn't know anything about this world.
Men who might have been in this line of work before had better options to choose from, now that the shortage of men was getting more and more severe than the day before. Multiple ways to earn money had formed for them. So, the women had to figure out the adventuring work before the men had started to distance themselves from adventuring or risky work completely.
Vice guild master, Vessa, checked Lys's guild card when he came in. F-rank. After glancing at it, she handed it back and pointed to the back of the line without looking at his face.
Without arguing or saying anything to her, he went to the back of the line. He wanted to introduce himself at first, but then he stopped from doing so, seeing how stiff and straightforward she was to everyone. He just said hello to Pell, who was now working behind a counter with a huge pile of paperwork for him. The poor guy looked like he was about to be crushed down under that pile of work, but Lys couldn't sympathise with him today. Not when he was waiting for this day for a long while. Today was the day he would get to do something productive. He will be adventuring like those isekai protagonists he used to read about. He was very excited about it.
He fell in line behind the line of adventurers. A couple of locals who knew him shot friendly nods, but even when people who knew him waved hello to him, they didn't talk about his engagement with the priest's daughter. Nobody said anything about how hard he worked for this guild, or how he technically became a member of the village council now.
They likely were going to treat him like a F ranker, like the vice guild master, he guessed. And he liked it this way, too. No special treatment inside the guild might just be a good sign in this case. He had a feeling it might just work out well for him this way.
The yard behind the guild hall smelled like wet dirt and old leather, the kind of sharp morning air that hits the back of your throat and wakes you up whether you want it or not. As soon as he stood at the back of the line, boots sunk into the half-frozen ground, watching the other adventurers shake out their arms and roll their shoulders like they were trying to convince themselves they belonged here.
Though most were women, there were two guys in the bunch: a stocky kid named Doran with a patchy beard that made him look about sixteen, and a taller, quieter one called Kord who already had the dead-eyed stare of someone who'd lost more than he'd won. One other woman, a brown-haired brawler named Kira, kept cracking her knuckles and muttering curses at Vessa under her breath.
Lys kept his mouth shut. Most of them looked unfriendly, and he himself had no wish to get too chummy with them either. This was just business as usual for him. And he plans to keep it that way as long as he can.
After a while, Vessa strode out from the guild hall to the yard. She carried a practice blade in one hand, the other resting on the pommel at her belt, and her dark, sharp eyes swept the line once and landed on all of them like she was evaluating them to see if they were adventurer material or not.
"Listen up," she barked, voice cutting through the cold air. "This guild branch officially opens from now on. As far as I know, there are no guild branches in about 10-20 villages close to here. That means none of you has earned shit yet, not officially at least. To me, you're not hunters, you're not veterans, you're just warm bodies who think swinging steel makes you useful."
She hovered her eyes over all of them for a while before picking up again, "Today, we fix that, before the first real quest even hits the board, I want all the adventurers to know the drills. No amateur is allowed to accept quests in my guild. I'll accept no coddling, no excuses. You fuck up, I tell you exactly how and why, and you do it again until your legs stop shaking. Clear?"
A few of the people nod. Lira muttered something that sounded like "yes, ma'am", but it sounded more like a growl to Lys, as if she had some beef with Vessa or something. But he kept his attention to Vessa only, unless he missed something crucial.
Vessa's mouth twitched. "Good. Let's start with footwork. Basic circle drill. Keep your weight low, guard up, pivot clean. Go."
Hearing her command, the line exploded into motion. Lys stepped in with the rest, trying to match the rhythm like others. His system stats kept his breathing steady and his muscles from burning out too fast, stamina and that quiet Iron Skin passive soaking up the sting whenever a practice strike clipped him, but the footwork felt alien to him.
He had almost no muscle memory to keep up with others. So every pivot of his felt half a beat off. The more he thought about the stance, adjusted, and then moved, the more he knew he was doing it wrong.
Vessa moved down the line like a storm. She was pacing from the front to the back, watching their movement and fixing it if necessary. She stopped in front of Doran first, eyes narrowing. "Your back foot's flat, idiot. If you plant it like that in a real quest, even a goblin the size of a cat will trip you and laugh while it eats your face. Fix it quickly."
Doran flushed red and tried again. She didn't wait to see if he had managed it or not, already on to Kord.
"And you're lunging like a drunk. Keep your hips square, or the next thing that hits you won't be my boot; it'll be something with teeth. Again."
Kord grunted and adjusted, jaw tight. Not looking up at her face even once.
She reached Lira next. She was actually decent, fast, and aggressive, but Vessa still jabbed a finger at her raised elbow. "Guard's too high. You're begging for a blade under the ribs. Drop it or learn from the basics again."
Lira's face twisted a little with anger, but she lowered it without a word.
Then Vessa stopped beside Lys.
For the first half-second, her eyes lit up. Noticing something different in the way he moved, maybe the way his stance held longer, or how he took the glancing strikes without flinching. She actually leaned in, voice dropping just enough for him to hear. "Hmm, not bad on the stamina. Most of these soft ones are already wheezing. Show me that pivot again."
Lys did. Clean as he could make it.
Her mouth curved for a split second, almost a smile, almost impressed, before he pivoted wrong on the next step, and his back foot dragged exactly like she'd warned the others.
The almost-smile vanished from her face. Disappointment slammed across her face like a door shutting. "Amateur," she muttered, loud enough for the whole line to hear. "Guard too high. You're telegraphing every move like you're waving a flag at the enemy to hit you. Fix it or go home and let the real women do the real work here."
Heat crawled up Lys's neck, but not from shame. From the way her chest rose when she spoke, the sweat tracing down between her breasts, making him look twice toward it. He didn't argue. Didn't snap back too. Something about her no-bullshit tone short-circuited every defensive instinct he had. He just dropped his guard lower and tried again.
Before she came, Pell had warned him about Vessa, but seeing her in action made him see why the capital guild was so eager to send her here as soon as the guild branch opened. They might have also been fed up with her attitude.
Lys not just liked this no-bullshit attitude of hers, but also knew very well this was the kind of attitude this branch needed to function.
She watched for two more seconds, then moved on to another person without another word.
-----
The drill stretched on like that for the whole morning. Vessa circled them like a wolf, voice sharp and mean, sometimes even riling them up on purpose. "Myra, you hit like my grandfather, and he's been dead twenty years. Put some fucking weight behind it." "Doran, stop dancing around like you're scared of the dirt. Plant or get planted." "Lira, that swing of yours is pretty, too pretty. This isn't a dance floor, it's a killing field. Break it, or I'll break your wrist and teach you the difference."
She didn't spare Lys, either. Every time she passed him, she corrected him with the same clipped tone, but he caught the flicker in her eyes, first that spark of interest when his system let him tank a solid practice strike without buckling, then the flat disappointment when his footwork betrayed him once again.
She couldn't figure out if he was just another amateur who'd wandered in off the road, or some veteran who was out of practice for a long time. And he could feel her confusion oozing from her.
But weirdly, it felt kinda amusing to him. With no special treatment, no secret cheat technique helping him, he felt like he could finally polish his battle skills to use them properly.
With just raw, brutal training in this yard that smelled of sweat and cold steel while the village slowly woke up around them, made him feel like he was finally doing something productive in this world.