"...okay? Uh, I just woke up. Maybe I was talking in my sleep. I don't remember having any interesting dreams but I don't usually remember them anyway."

"Talking in your sleep?  I've never heard of people talking in their sleep.  Is this a normal thing on your world?"  Haroun is still concerned about her, say, having an alternate personality that takes over her body while she thinks she's sleeping.

"I don't know how common it is exactly and it sounds like I've been doing it an unusual amount but it's not that weird."

"Huh."  This is briefly reassuring for the few moments it takes Haroun to wonder why he's never heard of this happening with anybody else.  "Maybe get into the habit of saying 『『『 before you go to sleep and ⊥』』』⊥ when you're sure you're fully awake.  Oh, ⊥ is one of the pieces of 『Language』 that's safe to say unquoted - it causes a whole spell to not do anything if it's evaluated at any point inside that spell."

(⊥ translates as the unfulfillable clause or an empty list of things such that at least one of those things must be done.)

"That's a good idea. ⊥』』』⊥."

Haroun's Skill for Extrapolating Further Consequences of a Proposition is really getting a workout ever since he met Bella!  He wouldn't be surprised to find that it's gone up from Lv. 3 to Lv. 4.

Breakfast in the inn's common room is free for residents; scrambled eggs and oat porridge with chunks of apple.  Filling and nutritious, but deliberately not so tasty as to tempt people to eat there instead of a restaurant, if they otherwise have the time.  The dining room is sparsely occupied at this time of morning; a well-off couple that looks married-ish, wearing sharp blue matching tunics, is eating quickly but politely in one corner.  A lone man in extra-light armor wearing a copper guildplate is eating a very large quantity of eggs, accompanied by cheeses that aren't on the menu; possibly he brought them in from elsewhere.

Has Bella changed her mind about heading to the Adventurer's Guild, and then, if that part works out, the minor dungeon near Relis?

Bella loads up on oatmeal and eggs; they didn't stop for dinner last night. When she is full the guild still seems like the best idea.

"Can you give me a sketch of how you expect this to go?" she asks Haroun.

"We go back to the Adventurer's Guild.  If your weird unknown Skill," because somebody might be listening, "doesn't screw things up, or they're willing to mark it down as just one more thing about you, we pay the one-silver fee to get you a provisional license.  We ride our horses to that dungeon whose name I forget.  Uh, I'm not sure what part of the dungeon crawl process might need more description - you've played games like that, right?  We go down a flight of stairs into corridors that will probably be stone and lit by brightly glowing moss, we find monsters, they attack us or we attack them, they die, the monsters mostly dissipate and sometimes leave behind valuable body parts we can take as loot.  Occasionally we may run across a treasure chest though probably just tin or copper on the first floor.  I definitely wouldn't expect any monsters on the first floor to have 『Qualia』, though I can't cast the relevant spell to check each time.  I wouldn't expect the monsters to have ranged attacks, support abilities, or poisons either.  It'll probably just be four different kinds of nonpoisonous giant spider, or something.  Uh, tactics: you are much much better in melee than I am, and I should probably conserve my own mana for emergencies rather than trying to support you on any routine basis.  Basically, you are the combatant and if anything tries to attack me, please protect me.  And then you keep doing that until you have whatever the minimum haul is to get you a non-provisional tin guildplate, or ten silver after taxes, whichever is more.  I think that should be enough to get us to Cowcorn, so long as you've got the guildplate to avoid travel issues.  If it's going really quickly and safely, we could go for twenty silver and have some safety margin for nicer food.  If you end up able to get less than five silver of after-tax loot per day, or things start to seem dangerous, we should abort and look for a different plan.  And a different inn."

"I haven't played many games like that, I prefer civ-builders, but I'm loosely familiar with the aesthetic. Sounds like a plan, and yeah, I will avoid letting spiders get you. If you are slightly got by any spiders what are we looking at to get you patched up?"

"...basically I'd have to get to either my family or the university, if it's more medical care than we can afford here.  If it's more urgent than that..."  Haroun thinks, and lowers his voice further.  "You could take a risk on telling somebody your secret, and ask them to help.  It would be your call whether the situation was worth the risk.  I'd understand if the answer was no.  That, uh, scary lady from last night is the first person who'd come to my mind.  Though it's always a risk trusting somebody with superior Social Skills."

"I'm more asking what is in fact the price of intermediate healing. This also applies if I'm got."

"If we can't tie a bandage on it and wait for four days to get to my academy, we can't afford to get it healed on our current budget.  I guess if a spider gave you a deep bite on your sword-arm, you could get that healed for ten silver and try to continue?  Frankly, I'd consider it enough of a risk past that point that we should look for a different strategy instead."

"...I wonder if I'm ambidextrous now." She tries writing left handed.

Bella's fingers do what Bella thinks they should do.

"Cool. Okay. I'll try to keep the spiders off both of us though."

"This whole endeavor is predicated on the assumption that, if you can fight off bandits, you should be very nearly completely safe on the first floor of a minor dungeon, even if you have to protect me too.  Otherwise it'd be less dangerous to just trust somebody.  Also, am I right that you want me along, even though you'll have to protect me and I'm not much of a combatant?  I was imagining that you would want around somebody with - more experience in key areas - in case something unexpected came up.  But maybe I was wrong about that and you'd feel better on your own."

"I would like you along in case there are surprises, yes. If it makes sense for me to do the same floor of the dungeon twice I can probably do the second time alone, and maybe I'll get used to dungeons as a class after more practice."

Haroun nods.

Shall they set out?

Yup. Adventurer's Guild ho.

The Adventurer's Guild building looks the same as it did last time!  It's as if there weren't any major renovations since then.

After temporarily stabling their horses and being directed to the appropriate office, Haroun explains what the two of them want to do.  Bella is interested in joining permanently and is looking for a provisional license so she can enter the nearby dungeon and get enough loot for a proper tinplate.  She's strong enough to protect Haroun and wants him along for, uh, personal reasons, so Haroun needs a one-time guided entry permit.  There's some skepticism from the official and well-meant warnings about the unwisdom of going into a dungeon accompanied by somebody who isn't a full Adventurer.  Haroun tries to convey that he understands all the obvious reasons why this is a terrible idea and he is set on doing it anyways.

Ultimately, the official relents.  This isn't Earth; the Adventurer's Guild is not concerned about lawsuits and liability and they will ultimately let you commit suicide if you are bent on doing that.  Their job is to make more Adventurers and collect more fees from them, not keep would-be applicants safe.

The official asks Bella to donate one drop of blood, into a small crystal pipette set with glowing runes too tiny to read.  If Bella's sword isn't currently sterile enough for her to perforate herself, an intrinsically sterile dagger can be supplied for her.  (Obviously, an Adventurer capable of protecting this innocent boy-student will have the skills to use sharp objects, right?)

She can get some blood out of her pinky, anyway.

...That is not how you hold a dagger.

The official looks at the paper.  The blood ritual should have infused it with a description of the applicant's stats, and her levels in any relevant common Skills.

Instead the paper says:

STR 8+??
DEX 4+??
CON 9
INT ??
WIS ??
CHA ??

HP 11
SP 9
MP ??

The paper doesn't list any Skills at all.

This could reasonably be described as more or less completely absurd.

"Pardon me," says the official, putting the obvious questions on hold to test something else.  "Would you mind exhibiting a few cuts of the sword in whatever form you may practice?"

Bella gives herself four seconds to think of a graceful out and then draws the sword and does a poor impression of Errol Flynn.

What.

What is this the official doesn't even.

Bella's exhibition looks exactly like her ridiculous stat report.  It looks like a sword form performed by somebody with STR boosted by ??, DEX boosted by ??, and no melee-related Skills whatsoever.

"Have you literally ever held a sword before today," says the official.

"Yes." Yesterday.