Chapter 1

“I can’t believe I’ve been kicked out with nothing more than the clothes on my back…” To get right to the point: Lorna Hermit was standing alone in the middle of a forest. She had no weapons. No armor. No money. It was not a good state of affairs to find oneself in. Especially not in a monster-infested forest. What had happened was simple: Lorna’s family had left her to die. “What is the meaning of this, Lorna?!” “You’ve manifested an incredibly weak skill of the lowest possible rank! How could you bring shame to your family like this?!” “Your brothers all have B-Rank or higher skills. Why can’t you be more like them?” Her mind was filled with memories of the skill appraisal ceremony from the day before. She recalled the insults hurled at her by her family, the jeers of the other attendees… Lorna had been born into the illustrious House of Guugelheit, a line of warriors. Her father was a margrave. And yet she had manifested an SSS-Rank skill. Not only was it ranked S—a letter far lower than what was often thought to be the lowest letter possible, G—it had three of them! That clearly meant it was even worse! This was an unpardonable sin for a member of the Guugelheit family. The people of this world were judged according to the rank of their skills, and that rank was said to correspond directly to how much they were favored by the gods. “Get out of here! You are hereby banished from our family! You are not to use our family name ever again!” So it was for that reason Lorna was thrown into the woods like a common criminal. “I can’t believe I’m going to die all alone out here…” Lorna assumed the only reason they hadn’t killed her on the spot was to avoid getting their hands dirty and sullying the lineage with a criminal record. Yes, her situation was dire, but Lorna was grateful to have made it out alive at least. She sighed as she opened her status screen. Lorna Hermit, Lv. 1 HP: 10/10 MP: 12/12 ATK: 3 DEF: 4 (+5) M-ATK: 9 MIND: 9 SPD: 4 (+2) LUCK: 8 Equipment Weapon: None Armor: Cloth Dress (G) Armor: Leather Shoes (G) Skills Internet (SSS) Magic I (G) Titles The Abandoned One Lorna Hermit, Level 1… At some point, her family name had been changed to her mother’s maiden name: Hermit. The fact that she had been cast out of the Guugelheit family was really starting to hit home. Worse, she was only at Level 1 and had no useful equipment or skills. At this rate, she could forget about ever leaving the woods; she would probably get murdered by the first weak monster she ran into. “If only I could figure out what this ‘Internet’ skill does…” Not that she had much faith in an SSS-Rank skill—the weakest of the weak. “Well, first things first…I have to try to get to the nearest town alive.” Just as Lorna steeled her resolve and began to cautiously make her way through the forest… Boi-oing! …a small shadow descended on her from the trees above. “Wh-what the—?! Wait… It’s just a slime.” It had scared her half to death. She figured it had jumped down from the tree in an attempt to land on her face and suffocate her. She’d heard that the Ipple Slimes in the Ipple Woods hunted that way. “Well, as long as it’s just a slime, I’m sure even I can handle it… right?” Lorna had been studying and practicing magic her whole life. And while it might have been only a G-Rank skill, she had learned Magic I, which allowed her to use beginner spells. And so… “Starter Spell—Petit Ice!” she timidly incanted. A magic circle formed in front of her palms. Tiny shards of ice emerged from the circle and gingerly collided with the Slime. “No effect?!” The slime was entirely unfazed by her attack. It jiggled as it continued to charge toward her. “Th-this thing’s strong!” It wasn’t, of course. Lorna was just weak. At Level 1 and without so much as a staff, defeating the slime with spells was going to be a tall order. “…Looks like I’ve got no choice. I’m going to have to use it.” Lorna made up her mind. She thrust out her palms in front of her and cried out. “I summon you—INTERNET!” This was the name of the SSS-Rank skill she had manifested only one day prior. The time had finally come to activate it. Particles of light gathered in front of Lorna’s palms until they formed a translucent board. And then… “Goooo, Internet!” she called out. She pointed at the slime and directed her Internet skill to attack it. But nothing happened. “……” A moment of uncomfortable silence passed. The internet merely floated, unresponsive, glowing with a white ambient light. Lorna awkwardly cleared her throat. Then, after regaining her composure— “INTERNET KICK!!!” —she booted the slime into the air. The creature, which had likely been distracted by the glow of the internet, was unable to avoid the attack. It smacked into a nearby tree with a splat and died. The slime vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a small gem—crystallized mana. Defeated Ipple Slime! You gained 4 EXP! LEVEL UP! Lv. 1 Lv. 2 Lorna stared at the text that had appeared before her eyes. “Hah! Ah-ha-ha…! So this is the power of Internet!” But as soon as the words had left her mouth, she felt hollow inside. “Whyyy…? Why did I have to manifest such a weird, pointless skill?” Not that any of this came as a surprise. What could she expect from a skill even weaker than G-Rank? Lorna had hoped that if she summoned it in front of a monster, something would happen. But it seemed she’d been wrong. “It’s definitely not a combat skill…” Lorna wasn’t particularly hungry for the thrill of battle. But it would have been nice to have some kind of skill to use for self-protection. Then again, a combat skill with a rank as low as SSS probably wouldn’t do much to prevent her grisly demise in these woods. “An Ipple Slime gem… I think one of these is worth ten shil, right?” She proceeded to claim her spoils, though the most ten shil would get her was a helping of bread crusts. Even the cheapest of accommodations cost one thousand shil. At this rate, it looked like she would be sleeping outside. “Urgh… What a cruel world.” Tears welled up in Lorna’s eyes as she put the monster’s gem in her bag. “I wish I could at least figure out how to use this internet thing,” she said, poking at the glowing screen. “…?!” Suddenly—click—something on the screen changed. When her finger touched the long, thin rectangle in the middle of the screen, a panel with letters appeared. It almost looked like a puzzle. She had never seen any of the letters before. But somehow, she understood them. “So…does it want me to use these letters to make words? Let’s see… Maybe I need to put in a password or something.” Unfortunately, nothing came to mind. “Well, I won’t get anywhere without trying.” She decided to begin by typing the word internet. “I…N…T…E… Uh… I wonder which one of these is supposed to be the R? Oh, here it— Whoops! I didn’t mean to hit that one! How am I supposed to erase letters on this thing…? I guess I’m going to have to erase it all and start over… Hold on. I can’t remember what I did to bring up the panel with all those letters anymore. What was it again?” This continued for about ten minutes, until finally… “Phew, there we go!” The letters she had typed floated proudly in the middle of the screen. internet Satisfied, she tapped the ENTER button. “Whoa, the screen changed! Looks like I guessed right!” On her very first try. Impressive. Boy, I’m doing great today! She could feel the excitement well up inside her. “But…now a whole bunch of other letters have shown up. It looks like a list of book titles or something… Th-there are so many!” All the titles seemed to have something to do with the internet. Lorna guessed that it was showing her a list of books related to the word she had just entered. “Hmm, let’s see… What about this one? Uh… Wiki…pedi…a? It says ‘The internet is a system of com…put…ers that uses the internet…proto-call sweet? …to communicate between networks and something, something…’ Okay, I have no idea what any of this means, but I can see the word encyclopedia here… So I guess Internet is like a library skill.” It was a tool for gathering information. Suddenly, it made sense why nothing had happened when Lorna activated it. I was really hoping for a combat skill I could use to protect myself, but…I guess if I’m going on an adventure, I’ll need as much info as I can get. Thinking it over, this skill of hers didn’t seem so bad after all. “All right! The first thing I want is…a map of the Ipple Woods.” If she couldn’t find her way out of the woods, Lorna was practically guaranteed to meet a gruesome end. But maps were valuable items. She didn’t expect it would be so easy to look one up. “Oh well. No harm in trying, I guess. I… P… P… L… E… Wait, how do I put a space between the words…? Oh, it must be this bar down here. W… O… O… D… S. There!” She entered the letters into the internet just as she had a moment ago. Once again, a list of titles appeared on the screen. The one at the very top of the list caught her eye. Ipple Woods Map—Etalia Wiki Guides “…Wiki Guide? What’s that?” She wasn’t sure what the words meant, but perhaps she would find a simple map of the area. She touched the title and—click—the screen changed. “…I-it worked! It’s a map!” There was no doubt about it—the page before her showed a map of the Ipple Woods. It was so intricate that she could hardly believe it was a map of a forest. “Th-there’s no way! What in the world…? I’ve never seen a map with so much detail before!” It showed areas of the forest without paths and even came with illustrations so elaborate they looked like pictures of the real thing. It was way more detailed than the map of the domain she’d seen back in her childhood home. Hold on… Something like this could be really bad news… The Guugelheit domain was on the border of a neighboring country. A map this detailed was equivalent to a state secret. A regular person like Lorna probably wasn’t even supposed to see it. But this is a matter of life and death, so… Okay! I’m doing it! I’m gonna look! Lorna peeked at the map while cautiously keeping an eye on her surroundings. “I should be right around here, but… Wha—? What’s this marker?” She noticed some words written at the bottom of the map. Map: Ipple Woods Item #4: 500 shil They seemed to indicate that there were five hundred shil nearby. Wh-what? Whoa, whoa, whoa… Come on. There’s no way the map knows something like that, right? But suspicions aside, Lorna had zero shil to her name. If there was money to be had, she wanted it.