Ren arrived at the guild earlier than yesterday.
Guild Tanah's iron door was still locked, so he stood outside waiting. No sound from inside. He tried pushing, but it was locked.
From behind the door, Brek's voice: "Five more minutes."
Ren stepped back and sat on the curb across the alley.
Five minutes later the door opened. Brek was already inside with a cigarette in hand and the ashtray full again.
"You came early," Brek said.
"Yeah."
"Good. Now deliver this document upstairs."
Brek handed over a thin unsealed brown folder. "To the room at the far end. Give it to whoever's in there."
Ren took the folder. "Upstairs?"
"Stairs are at the back. Just go up."
The upper floor was narrower than below. A long corridor with wooden walls and three doors on each side. Ren walked to the far end, where the last door stood half-open.
He pushed it gently. The room inside was larger than he expected, walls lined with wooden shelves from floor to nearly ceiling. Every shelf was full of books.
Bone Anatomy of Type-A Monsters
Material Characteristics of Dungeon Levels 1–3
Basilisk Tissue Composition: A Field Study
Catalog of Mana Effects on Organic Material
Ren didn't move. His eyes moved from one title to the next.
Thermal Properties of Dungeon Reptile Skin
Comparative Analysis of Monster Bone and Human Bone
Mana Resonance in Dense Materials
"Huh," Ren said under his breath. "This is a library, not an office."
He stepped in, hand reaching toward a book on the second shelf—Internal Composition of Type-A Monster Bone. His fingers almost touched the spine.
"Go ahead and take it if you want to read."
Ren stopped. The voice came from behind the shelves, not from the door but from inside the room.
He turned. Behind a stack of books, an old man sat in a wooden chair in the corner, barely visible beneath a cloth hat and the towering piles around him.
"I'm just here to deliver a document," Ren said, holding up the brown folder.
The old man—Elder Moss, according to a small plaque on the desk—nodded. "Set it on the table."
Ren walked to the desk and placed the folder on top of a stack of yellowed papers. Behind the desk, Moss didn't move, but his eyes tracked Ren from beneath the hat.
"Rank F?" Moss asked.
"Yes."
"What skill?"
Ren hesitated for just a second. "Synthesis."
Moss didn't laugh. Ren waited, but there was no laugh, no smile, no mockery.
"...Usually people laugh at this point," Ren said.
Moss lifted his hat slightly. His face was creased, skin like old paper folded too many times, but his eyes were clear—not cloudy like most people his age.
"I'm too old to laugh at things I don't understand."
Ren looked at Moss. "You understand my skill?"
"No." Moss leaned back in his chair until the wood groaned beneath him. "But I don't understand why I should laugh at something I don't understand."
Ren weighed that. "You're the first person to say that."
"You're the first rank F to walk into this room."
Ren sat on the floor and leaned against the bookshelf, setting the folder beside him. He took the book he'd almost touched—Internal Composition of Type-A Monster Bone—and opened to the first page.
Moss didn't tell him to leave.
Type-A monster bone (basilisk, small wyrm, and dungeon reptile variants) has an internal structure distinct from ordinary vertebrate bone. Its collagen fibers are arranged in a cross-pattern that increases density by up to 40%...
Ren read two pages, then went back to the first.
Cross-pattern? That's why it's stronger. Not because of mana, but because of the physical structure.
He moved on to the fourth page.
From behind the desk, Moss said, "If you want to read here, no one's stopping you. But don't be loud."
Ren didn't look up. "I'm never loud."
"You've been loud since you walked in. Your eyes."
Ren looked up. "My eyes?"
"They're bright. Like someone who just found a new toy."
Ren thought about that. "The new toy is my skill."
"A skill you don't fully understand yet."
"I understand the basics."
Moss laughed—low and short. "...."
Ren went back to reading.
Outside, the sun climbed. Ren didn't know what time it was—no windows in this room, just the oil lamp on Moss's desk burning low.
He'd read ten pages. His hands turned each page carefully.
Moss didn't speak. Sometimes he stood, pulled a book from a shelf, read briefly, then put it back. Sometimes he just sat with his eyes closed.
Ren closed the book and rested it in his lap. "I have to go down. Still have work."
Moss didn't answer, but his eyes moved to Ren.
Ren stood, straightened the book in his lap, and placed it back on the shelf in exactly the same position.
He picked up the brown folder and turned to leave.
"Hey."
Ren stopped.
Moss pointed at Ren's hand. "That."
Ren looked. Between his index and middle finger on his right hand, a small wound—skin peeled thin like a scrape.
"Backlash?" Moss asked.
Ren looked at the wound. "Cramp. Not an explosion."
"Not yet."
Ren didn't move. "You're talking like you know something."
Moss stood slowly, then walked to a shelf in the corner and pulled out one book—thicker than the rest, black cover, no title.
He opened it to the middle.
"I've seen three people with material manipulation skills," Moss said. His eyes weren't on Ren, but on the book. "Two died."
He turned a page. "One is still alive, but can't hold anything anymore."
Ren didn't answer. He waited.
Moss closed the book and put it back on the shelf. "It wasn't the skill that killed them. They just never calculated."
"Calculated what?"
"The cost."
Ren thought about that. "Cost in what form?"
Moss looked at him for a long moment. "No one ever asked that."
"Because they got scared first?"
"Because they died first."
Ren nodded. "But I'm not dead yet."
"Not yet." Moss went back to his chair. "If you want to try synthesizing something new, consult me first."
Ren stood at the doorway. "Okay."
On the stairs, Ren stopped for a moment.
Two dead. One permanently disabled.
He looked at his hand.
Not yet.
But Moss said consult first. Which meant Moss had information. Information that wasn't in any book.
Ren smiled, small.
Material manipulation skills. They weren't me. Their skills weren't Synthesis.
He went down to the first floor. Brek was no longer at the desk, just a full ashtray and the smell of cigarettes.
Ren stepped outside and walked to the warehouse.
There were still carcasses to haul.