I couldn't take my eyes off the book in front of me.
"How about it? Impressive, isn't it?"
The one saying that with a smug grin was Kanata — or rather, Kathia, the duke's daughter.
Ever since that Appraisal ceremony, Kathia had taken to visiting me fairly often.
At first, I'd been calling her Kanata, but she told me to use her current name since the old one would seem out of place.
For her part, though, Kathia still called me Shun, same as always.
Since my family name was Shurein, she figured being called Shun didn't sound all that strange, and apparently decided to just bulldoze ahead with it.
Personally, I didn't mind, but the problem was that, to onlookers, Kathia and I calling each other by our first names made us look rather… close.
We were close, sure, but Kathia was a girl now.
And some people were starting to see our closeness in… that sort of way.
The ringleader of those people was my little sister,
Every time Kathia came to visit, Sue would glare at her with a terrifying expression before wedging herself between us.
Each time, Kathia would put on a strained smile.
I'd aimed to be the ideal big brother, so how did things end up like this…
"It's the Skill Encyclopedia held by the Duke's House. A copy this detailed shouldn't be circulating among common folk."
The book contained exhaustive details on every Skill that had been identified.
It covered not just their effects, but all the way down to their acquisition requirements.
It was like a strategy guide.
Incidentally, Kathia's speech style changed quite dramatically between Japanese and the Human race language of this world.
While she spoke in rough, masculine Japanese, her Human race tongue was the polished, ladylike manner drilled into her befitting her status as a noblewoman.
Having seen the real her underneath, that gap nearly made me burst out laughing at first, but I was used to it now.
"This is amazing. With this, I can grab whatever Skills I want, right?"
"Not quite. Time is limited, after all. You need to decide which Skills to prioritize and use what little time you have efficiently."
I flipped through the pages with mounting excitement.
Some Skills I recognized, others I'd never heard of.
Whenever I spotted an unfamiliar Skill that looked powerful, my hand would instinctively pause.
"You and Sue have already acquired all the basic Status Skills, correct? Then you should focus on leveling those up early on."
Basic Status Skills were the ones that simply boosted your Status outright — Life, Magic Power, Strength, and the like.
"Basic Status Skills evolve once you reach Level 10. Their effects jump up a tier, and on top of that, you start getting growth bonuses when you level up. Since we haven't fought any Monsters yet, we'll be stuck at Level 1 for a while. If you acquire these Skills with growth bonuses before your Level goes up, they'll pay off enormously down the road."
Our Levels were still just 1.
Levels increased by killing living things — not just Monsters.
We hadn't even been given permission to fight Monsters — or rather, permission to go outside — so our Levels weren't going up anytime soon.
Even so, Status still grew gradually through training and development.
But the truly dramatic jumps only came when you leveled up.
"Ideally, I'd like to evolve my Skills twice before then, but that might be aiming a bit too high."
When Skills hit Level 10, they could evolve or grant derivative Skills — various benefits like that.
However, the higher your Level, the more Proficiency you needed for the next one, so getting a Skill to Level 10 was quite the grind.
"If they can evolve all the way to Fortitude, Fortress, or Idaten, the way your Status grows changes significantly. Reaching that far would be a dream. We definitely want to hit the stage before that, though."
"Yeah. But I'm surprised there aren't any Skills that boost Experience Points or Proficiency gains."
In RPGs and such, Skills that boosted Experience Point gains were staples for progression, but none existed here.
"Indeed. And… did you notice?"
"Yeah."
I'd already gone through the Skills listed in the encyclopedia and figured out what Kathia was getting at.
Sue had been peering into the Skill Encyclopedia alongside me, but she hadn't caught on.
She wore a puzzled expression — and, at the fact that Kathia and I seemed to share some unspoken understanding, a distinctly displeased one.
"There are no production-type Skills."
"More than that — every single Skill in this book is strictly for combat."
That was right. Despite there being enough Skills to fill an entire book, not a single one fell into the so-called non-combat category — no production Skills, nothing.
There were Skills that could theoretically be repurposed for production if you got creative, but they were all merely secondary effects of combat Skills.
Having such a massive catalog of Skills, yet every single one was combat-oriented — it felt deeply wrong.
That sense of wrongness was probably something only Kathia and I, having played games in Japan, could pick up on.
The people native to this world probably took it for granted that Skills were simply how things worked.
"It's like this world was made for fighting."
I startled myself a little at the quiet words that escaped my lips.
A world where your Level only rose by killing something.
Skills that were nothing but combat-oriented.
It really did seem like the world was encouraging conflict.
"This hasn't reached the general public yet, but I've heard the Demon King's army is rapidly expanding its military forces."
"That's…"
"A war may be coming someday. Until then, let's get as strong as we can."
At Kathia's words, all I could do was nod in silence.