Sarah's Story Chapter 031 - Scout Training

That night, after dinner, Sarah lay down in bed.

[Brawler] Class chosen. 1/2 Classes chosen. Please select a Class.

And she relented.

Her eyes opened in the world of her soul. She was wearing the same training clothes she had been all day; and as before, she was surrounded by doppelgangers of herself wearing the attire and bearing the accessories of different classes.

Her eyebrow rose as she saw the Martial Artist version of herself. Last week, on her Choosing Day, she had rejected it and it had disappeared. The Martial Artist grinned and shrugged at her.

“Yeah, I’m still here, still an option. You won’t lose any options, not until you pick a second Class. Just gain them.”

Sarah nodded, and noticed a few new options. A version of herself dressed like Tiffany had been, carrying a stack of papers and a quill. Herself in a bar maid’s outfit. Herself… actually, that was just exactly her. She pointed at that one and it smiled. “I’m a Sparring Instructor!”

Behind them all, lurking in the shadows, grinning really creepily, was Avenger Sarah.

Real Sarah cleared her throat and projected her voice. “Other than Avenger, is there any class that can, or can possibly grow into, something that can find James?”

In unison, every Class shook their heads.

The grin on the Avenger Class’ face grew even wider.

With an effort of will, Sarah’s eyes opened again, back in the real world.

[Brawler] Class chosen. 1/2 Classes chosen. Please select a Class.

It was only the first week. She had tomorrow off, and then Scout training starting on Monday.

She just had to be patient.

Eight months passed.

The initial Scout training was intended for unclassed children who were approaching Choosing Day, to ensure they could choose the Scout Class, or for freshly Classed Scouts to help them acquire the basic skillset, practice their skills, and learn how to work with a typical Party in a Dungeon.

That’s not to say that Scouts didn’t work with Parties outside Dungeons, or that they never did jobs for the Guild solo; but because they were so crucially important to Dungeon Exploration, that was naturally the focus of the basic Scout course at the Guild.

The first part of the training went really smoothly for Sarah. She took a broad approach to the training, and not only unlocked the Scout Class, but also a number of specializations: Explorer, Monster Tracker, Treasure Hunter, etc.

In the world of her soul, however, none of the Classes said they could grow to find a missing person once the trail had gone cold. Tracking a person in the wilderness, or a Dungeon? Sure. But someone who went missing years ago in an entirely different village?

So Sarah continued the training.

And this is where things got hard.

Normal training is designed to complement the natural urge of the soul to grow and develop Skills. So for Scouts, simply putting them in situations and through exercises designed to stimulate Skill development is enough for the Skill to be acquired or advance in level.

One of the fundamental Skills for Scouts, it turned out, was [Danger Sense]. And Sarah was able to refine her vague sense of the danger of her surroundings and situation until she could pinpoint where the danger was, or, in some cases, who or what it was.

But her [Threat Awareness] had a large overlap with this already.

The problem was that the training was supposed to be at least partially automatic. Getting the trainer to actually explain in words what was happening, rather than just stimulate the Skill to grow, proved difficult. Sarah had to engage in a lot of trial and error, but eventually, taking thrice as long as any other student in the course, she was able to complete the certification exam for a level 1 Scout, unclassed.

The next Scout course she took was Tracking, and she was pleased to see it was taught by Mr. Tenns. He was more patient with her, partially because she was highly motivated compared to other students who just wanted the certification for rank advancement.

It still took her over a month to complete the one week course.

Doing everything manually sucked.

Learning to spot tracks in dirt was hard, and then figuring out how long ago they had been left, who or what left them, and so on, pushed her to her limits and then some.

The course after that, Search and Rescue, was intended for Scouts approaching C Rank, who were strong enough to act alone in natural disaster situations. She breezed through this course, since much of it was focused on personal safety, self defense, and making a fighting retreat while carrying the rescued person back to safety.

After this, Mr. Tenns recommended she take the Hunting course, which was mostly not Scout training, but had some overlap and would improve her rated Rank for quests outside the city. The course was a blend of tracking, stealthy movement through various environments, and taking down monsters at range. Her [Throw] skill saw large improvement, as did her [Archery] Skill. Tracking had by this point become second nature, even without the support of a Skill or Class.

The last available Scout course was Exploration. It was focused on mapping out Dungeons and marking down hazards and identifying and disarming traps. The course for Scouts that worked in the Adventurer’s Guild.

As the seasons changed and the weather grew hotter, until it was the height of Summer, for two months Sarah focused on Exploration. The trouble was, this course more than any other leaned heavily on the Scout class to do the heavy lifting.

The trainer had a set of traps that he would hide in the training yard, both magical and mundane, that when triggered would make a loud noise. The goal of the training was to identify where they were, and then once the [Trap Detection] skill was acquired and trained up, the student could move on to model traps for disarming, based on what was common in nearby Dungeons. Sarah’s problem was that Brawler couldn’t learn [Trap Detection], and even her [Danger Sense] and [Threat Detection] skills couldn’t be contorted into detecting the traps, since all they did was produce a loud noise.

And the trainer refused to use actual dangerous traps for the training. Not even just for her.

And he was really good at hiding the traps. He said that the Dungeon was even better but Sarah didn’t see how that could be possible. The yard never showed any signs of being disturbed, although freshly Classed Scouts acquired their Skills and were able to find them within a day of training.

Sarah was stuck on this for weeks before she gave up, and accepted a non-completion certificate for the course in exchange for being able to do the rest of the course’s material. She also acquired the Skill [Stubbornness] which mortified her and she swore she’d never admit to anyone she had.

Learning to disarm the model traps was simple: just learn how to do it and practice. Of course, the point of the course wasn’t to memorize how to disarm a handful of different model traps, but Sarah didn’t really care, and the trainer was getting paid and wouldn’t be held responsible for Sarah’s performance outside the class, so he let it slide.

What was interesting was the magical traps.