MTLNOVEL Chapter 3
“Hey, Erik! Stop zoning out!”
Ahead of me, my childhood friend Rex marched through the dimly lit dungeon with a sword slung over his shoulder.
Dressed like a proper warrior with his sword and armor, he moved forward confidently.
“Well, it can’t be helped. No one expected you to get that kind of Blessing,” said Miranda, another childhood friend, as she illuminated the path with a light spell from her staff.
She wore a cape and carried her staff like a full-fledged mage, casually manipulating the glowing light as if she found it amusing.
“But still, what was with that flashy light during the ceremony?”
The third member of our group, clad in the robes of a priest, wasn’t from our village.
Her name was Serene, and she had been dispatched by the church to oversee the ritual. A healer trained in advanced magic since childhood, she carried herself with a calm, dignified air.
“Hey, Erik, can you show us your Blessing again?”
“Uh… sure, I guess,” I replied hesitantly to Rex’s request.
I raised my hand, and before me, the air itself seemed to tear open, revealing a small pocket of empty space.
“I’ve never heard of anything like this before,” Rex muttered.
Without a hint of fear, he stepped inside the space with a casual “Here goes.”
As soon as Rex, a pre-adult teenager, entered, the space seemed entirely filled.
“Alright, close it now,” he called out.
I followed his instructions and closed the entrance.
“Wait, Rex just vanished! Is this some kind of magic trick?” Miranda teased, clearly entertained.
Not finding her joke particularly funny, I immediately reopened the space.
“Hey, Rex! How was it in there?” I asked as he stepped out.
“Uh… kinda cramped, but oddly cozy,” he replied with a shrug.
“What does that even mean?”
Miranda burst out laughing, clearly enjoying the banter.
“Oh, and by the way, Miranda, I could see you laughing from inside,” Rex teased with a smirk.
“No way! That’s a lie!”
“Oops, caught me,” Rex said, feigning innocence.
As the two of them exchanged playful jabs, I sighed and turned to see Serene standing beside me. She calmly extended her hand and chanted, “Item Box.”
Another dimensional space opened up beside my Blessing. This one was slightly larger, filled with a variety of supplies stacked haphazardly inside.
“Whoa, this one’s way bigger than Erik’s!” Rex exclaimed teasingly.
“Serene, you have an Item Box, too?” Miranda asked, switching to a polite tone given Serene’s older age.
“Yes. It’s not uncommon as a derivative skill,” Serene explained nonchalantly.
In this world, the Blessings people received could branch off into various related skills. Serene’s Item Box was considered fairly standard.
In contrast, my Blessing, with its much smaller storage capacity, was quickly dismissed as a “useless Blessing.”
When I first demonstrated it, most of the people present laughed at me, mocking the Blessing’s small size. The only ones who didn’t laugh were the two childhood friends standing before me now.
“I can’t wait to unlock my own skills someday,” Miranda said, her excitement evident as she dreamed of her future.
“That’s why we’re training in this dungeon, after all,” Serene said, her tone steady and reassuring.
After receiving their Blessings, children are enrolled in schools suited to their abilities, where they spend three years training. Once they’re skilled enough, they’re assigned roles where they can contribute to society.
As part of this preliminary training, we were diving into a dungeon as a party.
Of course, since we were beginners, the dungeon had already been thoroughly explored and mapped, making it relatively safe. The monsters we encountered were weak, and we had a map to guide us.
Still, because of my supposedly useless Blessing, no one else wanted to form a party with me.
The parties formed during this training were often used as a reference for future assignments after graduation.
Forming a party with someone like me—who had an inferior Blessing—was seen as a burden that would only drag others down.
But these two childhood friends of mine didn’t care about that. They willingly formed a party with me, and Serene agreed to join as our mentor.
“Hey, Erik, why don’t you store the magic cores we’ve collected in your Blessing?” Rex suggested.
For this training exercise, we were tasked with collecting magic cores—purple stones dropped by defeated monsters.
While magic cores didn’t have much practical use, they disappeared after a short time if left in the dungeon. We’d been gathering them in a bag until now, but…
“Yeah, Erik, since we’ve got your Blessing, we might as well make use of it!” Miranda added with a cheerful smile.
Their thoughtfulness warmed my heart, and I felt a quiet but profound sense of gratitude toward them.