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Chapter 15.1 The Nature of Hardship
“An archer
 I can’t be an archer,” the girl in warrior equipment said, perplexed.
“That’s not true. Your archer-type skill, [Hawk Eye] is—”
“Hang on, what are you talking about?”
Just as Laurent was about to explain further to the girl, a young man interrupted.
“Monica has received proper training to be a warrior. She finally got to this point, and now you want her to switch to archery. How about you think a little before you speak?”
“Uh, and you are?”
“Wilkes. Guardians of the Magical Tree’s exclusive Appraiser.”
“An Appraiser, huh?”
“When I heard about a special consultant, I wondered what kind of person would turn up, but it was just like I feared. I take my eyes off things for a second and this happens—talking about having Monica fight as an archer at this point in her career. What a joke. You said your name was Laurent-san? I don’t know if you’re a special consultant or whatever, but this is my job. I was the one training them up to this point. I’m not putting up with some outsider who thinks he can suddenly swoop in and mess up everything,” he said, not even pausing for breath.
“Wilkes, I already said that Laurent-san is a special consultant and that, from now on, his instructions take precedence above all else,” Lilianne said angrily, as Laurent floundered for words.
“Lilianne-san, but—all the hard work I’ve put in until now—”
“Wilkes, I know you have your reservations. But you’ve already been in charge of Monica for three years. If she doesn’t show any improvement soon, her career is done.”
At Lilianne’s words, Monica flinched.
“No, but
 no matter how you put it, having an Appraiser from an alchemist guild is—”
“If you really want an explanation, have a look at Laurent’s skills with your Appraisal skill. That should satisfy you.”
“Look at his skills
?”
Wilkes Appraised Laurent’s skills.
[Skill Appraisal] S
[Personnel Training] A
Wh— S -rank in [Skill Appraisal] and an A -rank in [Personnel Training]?! His skill composition is devoted entirely to talent discovery and training

For Wilkes, who could only see an individual’s top 4 skills and couldn’t even see their potential value, it was clear to him why Laurent was considered a far better Appraiser than himself.
But his smile was cynical.
He huffed. “An S -rank Appraiser; I’m amazed. But even if you possess that much skill, it’s meaningless if you end up mistaking someone’s core aptitude, anyway.”
“Hm? What do you mean?” Lilianne asked, perplexed.
Wilkes explained—about how Monica became a warrior. About why she wasn’t suited to being an archer.
——
“Low Agility?”
“Yup. Monica’s base Agility stats are below average. Even if you train her up as much as possible, she’ll probably be barely C -rank.”
“How can that be?”
“In short, she’s not suited to being an archer. An archer requires, above all else, the mobility to find advantageous positions in battle. Without Agility, she wouldn’t be good for it,” Wilkes said flatly.
Monica hung her head, despondent.
In the beginning, she’d wanted to be an archer, too.
But with her low agility, she had been unable to capture good positions in an actual fight. So she’d been labelled a failed archer and had been forced to become a warrior.
It’s true that Agility is the most essential stat for archers. Not having it is a huge handicap. What will Laurent-san do?
“On the other hand, her strength and defense stats are great. So she’s most suited to being a warrior in the vanguard, not an archer,” Wilkes said with a satisfied look. Laurent Appraised his skills as he spoke.
[Skill Appraisal] C -> C
[Stat Appraisal] B -> B
I see. His [Skill Appraisal] is quite poor, but he makes up for it with his [Stat Appraisal]. But he’s not the main concern. Monica’s Unique Skill, [Hawk Eye] is.
“It’s alright, Monica. You have a skill that makes up for your low Agility.”
Monica looked at Laurent, taken aback.
Wilkes was about to say something, but Laurent beat him to it. “Wilkes, I hope you won’t hold this against me, but please entrust her to me. If she has two instructors telling her different things, it’ll just confuse her.”
“You heard that, Wilkes? Sounds like Laurent-san has an idea. Try leaving her to him,” Lilianne said. “Well then, if we linger here longer, we’ll just be getting in Laurent-san’s way. Wilkes, I have something else I need you to do, so why don’t you come with me?”
She tactfully guided him towards the door.
“ Tch . Whatever, it’s not my business anymore,” Wilkes grumbled. He flung the door open forcefully and stormed out of the seminar room.
Laurent gave Lilianne a small, grateful nod. Thanks, Lilianne-san. She slipped out of the door after Wilkes.
Once they had both left, Laurent turned to face the adventurers again. “Alright, aside from Monica, the rest of you, come stand in front of me. I’ll Appraise each of you one by one; I want to see if any of you might have a hidden skill or talent.”
Laurent lined them up in a row, walking down and looking each one in the face, appraising them as he went.
In the end, he found two others apart from Monica who had the talent to become an ace adventurer.
One was a combat mage called Shaqma.
She was a petite girl with black hair, cropped short. She had a mole underneath her eye.
[Flame Magic] C -> C
[Lightning Magic] D -> C
[Stone Magic] C -> C
Combat mage, huh? But with this level of skill, she doesn’t have a hope of beating an A -rank in terms of firepower.
Laurent dug deeper into the rest of her skills.
[Earth Magic] E -> A
[Illusion Magic] E -> A
[Attack Buff] D -> A
[Defense Buff] D -> A
Laurent huffed. “You have the skills to be a support mage. Why are you training to be a combat mage?”
“Ugh, I was training to be a support mage ages ago
”
——
Shaqma scratched her head in embarrassment as she explained why she converted to a combat mage.
The fundamental role of a support mage was to provide support from the rear guard. But when the battle began, she had a habit of somehow making her way to the front.
“I tried a lot of ways to fix that habit, but it stuck, in the end. When I hear a charge or the clash of weapons, the urge to go to the front lines just takes over. So I get targeted by the enemies and each time, I just hold my teammates back.”
“Right, I can see how that would be a concern.”
However, there’s no way I’m not improving a skill that can be improved, Laurent thought.
“Shaqma, it’s not that you dislike being a support mage, right?”
“No, I love it!” Shaqma said with a freeing look on her face.
“There has to be a solution to your little habit. Let’s try raising your skills as a support mage again.”
“Yes! Thank you.”
The other talent was similar to Monica, a young woman dressed as a warrior.
Just like Monica, her disposition to being a warrior was average. She was equipped with armour and a sword, designated to be a tank.
It seemed like whenever Wilkes could not allocate someone to a profession, his method for dealing with it was to make them a tank.
[Individual Recovery] B -> A
[Mass Recovery] C -> A
[Mass Recovery] C, with the potential to become A, and despite that, she’s a warrior? Why the hell would

“You have the [Mass Recovery] skill, and yet, you’re not a healer? Plus, you’ve been raising the skill, so why aren’t you a healer? It doesn’t seem like it’s a problem with your stats, either.”
When Laurent dug into her stats, he found that her Agility and Mana were just fine. He didn’t think there were any problems with her aptitude as a healer.
“My Accuracy was too low, so I was told I wasn’t suited to be a healer.”
Ah, so that’s it.
Laurent quickly Appraised her stats. Her accuracy was, indeed, terrible.
In this world, even healers required accuracy.
When healing magic was activated, there had to be a set range around the healing target. To get that range properly lined up with allies, having high Accuracy was a must.
“In the past, I used my healing magic to try to heal my allies, but instead, I restored the monsters’ health
 I ended up trapping my unit in dangerous situations. Since then, I was banned from entering dungeons as a healer,” Euphene said blandly. She didn’t look particularly upset about it.
She seemed like the type to be cagey about showing her emotions.
“I see. But this isn’t enough of a reason to let a strong skill go to waste. We’ll find a way to make the best of it somehow. I’m converting you to a healer.”
“Alright. Understood.”
For now, Laurent decided to focus on training these three ace candidates: Monica, Shaqma and Euphene.
He didn’t do anything as drastic as a job conversion for the others, but gave them a bit of advice.
Laurent finished Appraising and giving advice to all the members. After he outlined the training details, he dismissed the gathering. “Well, let’s wrap it up for today. Thanks for coming in. Make sure you’ve properly completed the tasks I discussed earlier by the time you come in next week.”
Having finished Appraising almost thirty adventurers, Laurent sat down in the room with a weary groan.
It is just as tiring as I could have expected.
He might be an S -rank Appraiser, but Appraising this many people in one go was really back-breaking work.
But Laurent still had things he had to do.
Just a conversion won’t be enough. If I want to make them A -rank adventurers, there are other things they’ll need—like the right equipment and the right quest.
Leaving Guardians of the Magical Tree, Laurent turned his feet toward the Quest Reception building.
——
“Hang on, Lilianne-san. Are you really sure about this? That guy’s talking out of his ass,” Wilkes complained to Lilianne. In one hand, he held the lesson plans that Laurent had submitted.
“Monica, Shaqma and Euphene—I converted them away precisely because they’re no good for these jobs. I’ve almost got them whipped into shape, but at this rate, they’ll be just as useless as they were in the beginning.”
“It’s fine. Laurent-san has been successful at training up people with worse dispositions. Anyway
”
If we aren’t willing to do something bold like this, we’ll never win against Golden Hawk. We can only rely on Laurent-san’s capabilities; that’s the only option we have left. I’ll trust his Appraiser’s intuition.