Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash vol. 1

5. Meetup

Whether or not they actually had fun, he would never be able to tell anyone about those seven days.

The freewheeling nature of the thieves' guild meant he was free to quit anytime he wanted. He could rejoin later for eight silver, but only those who had attained the rank of mentor could teach others about thief methods, ambush tactics, the killing arts, and other secret skills of the guild.

What happened during training was, as a general rule, not to be disclosed to outsiders. That was why he couldn't talk about it.

The work name given to him by his mentor was one only to be used in the world of thieves. There was no need to tell it to ordinary people. Not that he'd have wanted to.

"...Because it's Old Cat. My work name is Old Cat."

According to Barbara-sensei, his sleepy eyes made him look like a tired, old cat.

He couldn't deny that there was some resemblance, but it was kind of an awful name. Why couldn't he have been Panther, or Jaguar, or Hawk? There had to have been a cooler name she could have given him. Honestly, he was starting to feel like he'd have been satisfied with pretty much anything but Old Cat.

In any case, after seven days of training, complete with room and board, Haruhiro was now a competent thief...

...Not.

Barbara-sensei had taught him thief morals, thief philosophy, the importance of ambush tactics, and two skills: Picking, which was a thief's most basic skill, and Slap, which was the most basic of basic techniques in the art of fighting and killing.

Still, he hadn't mastered any of it.

Haruhiro would have to gradually improve those skills through experimentation. And to pick up more skills in the future, he would have to return to the guild and learn them from his mentor. Of course, that would cost something, and of course he would have to stay overnight for several days of lessons.

In other words, Haruhiro had learned the skills Picking and Slap, but his proficiency with them was much too low for him to use them reliably.

As a gift to celebrate the end of his training, he had been given an old thief cloak, a well-used dagger, an equally well-used set of thief tools, and a second-hand pair of thief boots, all of which he was wearing right now. He probably looked at least somewhat thief-like thanks to this, but he couldn't really move like a thief just yet.

After Barbara-sensei's harsh training, he had learned that the path of the thief wasn't easy. Quite the opposite, in fact, and he was a new thief just taking his first steps down that path. That was Haruhiro's situation right now.

"Is this going to be all right...?" he wondered.

Old Cat headed on to his destination with a sigh.

It was still before noon, so the market wasn't all that crowded. There were only two customers in front of Dory's Skewers. One was a curly-haired man in what looked like leather armor with a longsword, and the other was wearing a bow and quiver of arrows over her back with a large machete at her hip. She had her hair in braids.

"Ranta, Yume!"

"Oh?" Ranta said, turning around.

Yume did the same, still gnawing hungrily at a skewer of meat. "Huwha?"

Yume's relaxed expression was a sight for sore eyes to Haruhiro. Even Ranta's curly hair was a welcome sight.

Thinking back, the training had been pretty difficult.

Barbara-sensei was always sexy, but she was also a total sadist sometimes. She'd never let up on him. At night, as he'd slept on the hard floor of what he liked to call his solitary confinement cell in the thieves' guild, wrapped only in a dirty blanket, he had imagined the hard time the others must be having, too. The thoughts may not have made him feel he needed to try his hardest, but they had helped to console him a little.