Sometime before Ed's level up, Samuel was observing the starry sky from his office window. He then changed his focus to the residents of Arbor town.
The cheery folk of Arbor town were still up and socializing. There were people in pubs noisily drinking, children playing outside while the parents watched, and just people enjoying the Autumn breeze.
Samuel loved the people, he wanted to do more for them. Adventuring was obviously not the only job available to the people, but the poverty of the kingdom and their lack of education naturally guided them towards it. An estimation from a reputable source found that most of the unemployed youth chose to become adventurers pursuing some lofty dream.
From rags to riches. The youth of the Bosque Kingdom hope to be the one to drag their families out of poverty.
Being an adventurer is a profitable business but only if you are good at it. That is to say, if you don't have the aptitude all you are doing is sending yourself to your death.
Samuel wanted to make use of the Freedom Union to fix that issue but as soon as the higher-ups found out about his aspirations they "promoted" him.
The freedom union as an organization was not righteous. What organization would forego profits? That was the reason why an outstanding person like Samuel was appointed to some backwoods town.
He was sent out of the Freedom Union's headquarters located in the capital and made a representative of the Freedom Union in Arbor town.
While the Union didn't oppose lowering the dangers inside of dungeons which was the first part of Samuel's goal, the part about lowering the amount of Adventurers was not in their favor.
Of course, they could have tried to use Samuel and then kick him to the curb, but it was too big a risk. If Samuel's influence in the headquarters expanded they wouldn't be able to get rid of him. They would instead be heavily criticized by the public.
Samuel heard a polite knock on the door at that moment.
"Come in"
The door opened revealing a slender young man. His outfit was that of the scouts affiliated to the Freedom Union.
"A new report Sir"
The scout was very respectful towards Samuel, he admired him. Anybody with a bit of smart would realize that Samuel shouldn't be in this town.
Samuel moved away from the window and sat down on his office chair.
"Please take a seat"
The scout quickly nodded upon hearing Samuel's calm yet confident voice. Is this what they call the voice of a leader?
The scout sat down and started to report about the situation inside the Dungeon.
He told Samuel about how they found no irregularities in the first two floors, and how they lost two scouts on the third floor. Unfortunately, they couldn't find out what being caused their deaths.
"Is that all?" Samuel asked while thinking.
"Yes, that should be all"
"I see, return to the dungeon and keep me updated on the current situation."
Just as the scout was getting off of his seat ready to leave Samuel added another part to his order.
"Hire somebody to take care of the irregularity on the third floor. We can't keep losing scouts; Contact Jasmine to help sort out the payment"
The scout nodded before bowing respectfully and leaving.
The door closed and Samuel relaxed on his chair. It appeared that what he feared might be true after all.
***
Ed successfully escaped from the scouts, he was now near the area of his first death. How did he know?
There were larger groups of Skeletons and some were holding swords, some even showed their respect as he ran by. He should be close to the stairs leading to the next floor as well.
He finally stopped his mad dash. The room he was now in had eight skeletons with about half of them holding rusty swords. The lighting was dim as usual and there were many old crates. The room seemed to have focused on storage.
All of a sudden he had a random curiosity. What is inside those crates? Based on his memories of what he thinks might have been a game, the player never gets to find out.
'But this isn't a game! Which I vaguely recollect...'
He felt his memories got better after leveling up as a consciousness. He vaguely remembered certain aspects of video games now.
He approached one of the crates and knocked on it a few times. The inside was not entirely hollow.
'There are actually things in these crates?'
He removed the shortsword from the toolbelt which barely worked properly.
'It was a pain to get this thing on my waist'
He didn't have much "waist" if you will. He used the hilt of the shortsword to strike the top of the crate resulting in a large hole.
'Oh'
He found what seemed to be a lot of paper. He wasn't sure if he could use them though, they had aged quite a bit. Still, finding resources he could try to use in the dungeon wasn't a bad thing.
Having sated his curiosity, Ed moved on to something much more important.
'The books!'
He only managed to grab three of the magician's books. He never even read any of the titles properly since he never had time to. When he first acquired them he put off reading them to level up.
'I kind of regret it'
Times like this make you wish you could see the future. He can only hope the books he brought were useful ones.
He brought out a random book from his bag after putting the bow next to the crate.
'Let's see'
Ed was confused. He didn't know the language! Still, he couldn't just give up.
'Time to for the real test! Deduct!'
[Magic book]
A book on magic. The contents are in another language.
'...'
The problem with the deduction skill is that he doesn't know how it came to that conclusion. If he knew he could continue making deductions based on it. If he wants to know more without starting from scratch he would have to level up the skill.
'Let's try another one'
He put the magic book back in his bag and pulled out another one.
[Monster Encyclopedia]
A book about monsters found on the continent. The details are in another language.
This book was far easier to deduce as it had pictures, the cover showed what he assumed to be the shape of the continent. But Ed couldn't use it for anything.
[Deduction has leveled up]
He ignored the message and took out the last book which was smaller than the other ones...
[Spelling book]
A book that teaches how to spell. The contents are in another alphabet.
'Was the magician illiterate? Or maybe the book was for a relativ-'
He halted that train of thought. It made him feel guilty.
Ed now had a new problem. He couldn't afford to learn a language right now, he needed to get stronger if he wanted to avoid the penalty.
'I might as well level up my skills'
[Wooden crate]
[Stone floor]
[Dim torch]
He got to work immediately as he tried to deduce everything in the room. He then realized he could probably use the skill on Skeletons as well.
[Skeleton]
A relatively weak undead mob.
[Sword Skeleton]
A sword-wielding Skeleton, relatively weak.
The descriptions were nothing revolutionary. As a matter of fact, they seemed to be somewhat limited. He was hoping it would point out weak spots or display numerical values.
'Maybe at a higher level'
He returned to the grind, finally seeing results after about 10 minutes of random deductions.
[Deduction has leveled up]
He wanted to check how much things had changed.
[Skeleton]
A relatively weak undead mob. Susceptible to blunt weapons.
'Indeed! leveling up this skill is the right call!'
The information was something that as expected, he could deduce, but it won't always be so easy to know. If he encountered a strange creature the skill will be able to show off its true prowess.
So Ed spent the rest of the day deducing things.. So much so that the word deduce started to sound weird.
