I awoke to the sound of angry hissing. The sort of violent whisper people make when they really want to be screaming at each other, but would prefer not to air their dirty laundry in front of half the village.

  "It's suicide," hissed Mum.

  Presumably my parents were having an argument and trying not to wake me, but they'd failed spectacularly.

  "It's the only hope he has for freedom," argued back Dad.

  "No, it's the only hope you have for freedom."

  "You put too much trust in our baron, if you think he'd risk losing such a valuable asset."

  "And you put too little, if you think he wouldn't reward such a valuable subordinate."

  "Screw the baron. With a Mark like that, Robin could replace him."

  "Ssh! For goodness' sake, don't say that sort of thing out loud, even in jest!"

  "You're missing my point. As good natured and meritocratic as he may be, do you really think he'd risk promoting Robin into a position where he risks usurping his power? No, the baron would keep our son on a tight leash."

  "Even if you're right, it would be no worse than the leash we're kept on. At least he'd get a golden cage, instead of one of mud."

  "I'd rather our son not be in a cage at all, and now he's been blessed with the opportunity to make that wish reality. Those adventurers wouldn't have mentioned a dungeon if they thought it was suicide."

  "You really think it's the dungeon I'm worried about?"

  "Yes?" asked Dad, suddenly sounding less angry and more confused. "If it's not the dungeon, what is it?"

  "Say he buys citizenship for the three of us. What do you think happens next?"

  "Nothing? We don't really have any skills other than farming, so we'd have to stay here, unless we wanted to sponge off Robin, which I don't. The only difference is that we'd get to keep what we grow, instead of having to hand it over to the baron for a pittance."

  "Fool... You've invested too many stat points into Constitution and not enough into Reasoning. By clearing a dungeon and buying us out of serfdom, Robin would be declaring himself openly, but we'd have no support and no protection. At that point, it wouldn't just be the baron who was interested. Robin would attract forces from outside the canton, and maybe even the kingdom, benign and malign alike. We'd likely be kidnapped within the week, used as hostages to control him. There is no possible good future in which he reveals his abilities without political support."

  Dad didn't respond for a time. "... Then what do you propose?" he asked quietly.

  "I don't know!"

  "You don't know?! After all of that, you don't know?!"

  "Of course not! I'm a farmer! I grow corn, wheat and barley. Occasionally potatoes and other root vegetables. I'm not any sort of strategist."

  "So much for your Reasoning."

  "No amount of Reasoning helps if I don't have relevant knowledge to draw on! Look, I think our original two suggestions were best. Either conceal his abilities forever, or seek suitable political backing. Yes, the baron would doubtless extract a price for providing that backing, but it's my opinion that backing of that sort is an absolute necessity if he wants to make use of his Mark."

  Mum had obviously devoted rather more thought to my future than I had, despite having only recently learnt of my Mark. Such thoughts as someone kidnapping my parents in order to, for example, force me into a slave contract wasn't something that had occurred to me, even if I'd been intelligent enough to figure out that blindly revealing the details of my Mark would not be a good idea.

  She seemed to be completely against my plan to buy their citizenship. Or, at least, against buying it prior to obtaining the backing of the baron. What was that supposed to achieve, though? Was my Mark really so valuable that he'd station guards at the village? It seemed unlikely to me, however worked up my parents were getting. At the end of the day, I was still only level one, and it would take years for me to catch up with the baron's higher-level servants. More, if any of them had growth-boosting Marks of their own.

  In my opinion, she was being a little too black-and-white. It wasn't a straight decision of concealing my Mark forever or running immediately to the baron for protection. I could conceal it for a time and then inform the baron later.

  Likewise, I disagreed that clearing a dungeon would mean revealing myself. Especially a beginner dungeon. I'd lied about the effects of my Mark, pretending it was something that would have a great effect at lower levels but fade to irrelevance at higher levels, when more free stat points were awarded. Such a Mark could explain how I'd managed to clear a beginner dungeon without implying that I'd be able to continue my rapid growth. The powers-that-be wouldn't have any interest in someone who cleared the lower levels quickly if they thought their growth would stall out in the mid-level range.

  In any case, I'd already decided that, until harvest, I'd work quietly and keep my rapid growth concealed. There was plenty of time to decide what to do afterwards. Since my parents had stopped arguing, I rolled over and went back to sleep.

  The next morning, I ate breakfast—happy to find that even at a measly two, my Strength made our black bread slightly more edible—and spent a quiet day weeding.

  The level up confirmed my [Ancient Soul] Mark worked exactly as advertised, so I dropped a skill point into [Farming], as my current position demanded of me, and headed home, enjoying the buzz of my suddenly doubled Stats.

  "Hey. I haven't seen you all day!" called a familiar voice as I approached our village's little cluster of huts.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  "Oh, Simon. Getting used to field work?"

  "Maybe? The [Farming] skill obviously helps. Not looking forward to spending my entire life doing it, though."

  "No, I suppose not," I agreed. Yes, it was peaceful, and the hours drifted by, but the thought of doing it every day for the next five decades did seem a bit... daunting.

  "What are you grinning about, then?" he asked.

  I schooled my expression into something I hoped was more neutral.

  "Hah. Too late to hide it now," he laughed. "You were wearing the same dopy smile as you had in the cart. Decided to spend your stat points?"

  "Yes," I lied. Alas, as good an excuse as it was now, it wouldn't work in two days' time, when I levelled up again. At least, not to Simon, who now thought I'd already spent them. I'd need to try to ensure I didn't bump into him, or hope that the smaller relative change in my Stats would prevent the buzz showing up so obviously on my face.

  "I spent mine this morning. Figured I might as well raise my Constitution and Stamina if I was going to spend all day working outdoors. Less exhaustion, and less worrying about sunburn."

  "Sunburn? In this weather?"

  "Okay, perhaps I was a little optimistic. You never know, though."

  I grinned again, this time for a reason other than a Stat high. "You didn't consider raising your mental Stats?"

  "Hell no. Eight-hour workdays are long enough already without accelerating my thinking speed."

  "You sound like my dad..."

  "Your dad sounds like a very sensible man."

  "Say... You don't like being trapped here, right?"

  "Have I not made that obvious?"

  "How far would you go for freedom? Did Grant's suggestion tempt you?"

  Simon peered at me with a rather inscrutable expression.

  "Uh... I have no idea if that's a yes or a no," I admitted.

  "Did you hear Boris took on Lana as an apprentice last year?"

  "Yes?" I answered, rather unsure what our village blacksmith had to do with my question.

  "Well, he currently has her forging farming tools from scrap iron."

  "Scrap iron? But it's brittle as anything. Tools made from scraps wouldn't last a week in the field."

  "Indeed; we already have everything we need for harvest. This is purely to earn experience, so everything she makes just gets molten straight back down again for reuse. On top of that, once harvest rolls around and there's real work to do again, the scraps will just get tossed away as waste. If some of that waste ends up in our hands, rather than buried, who's going to care?"

  "Oh," I said, having worked out where he was going with his odd subject change. "And a pitchfork is basically a spear... But if they won't last a week in the field, it's unlikely they'll last a day in a dungeon."

  "You think? I doubt a slime is tougher than soil. Besides, they don't need to last long. Just long enough for us to find a real weapon. Dungeons contain treasure, right? They must contain skill crystals; Grant said so."

  "Yes? Probably? Mum was talking about rewards for clearing one earlier, but she didn't say anything about finding weapons. Besides, I doubt a dungeon would contain nothing but slimes."

  "Look, it's an idea, okay? If you have a better one, feel free to suggest it. Or if you want to spend the rest of your life slaving away in someone else's fields, feel free to do that, too. Either way, I'm going."

  I walked on in silence as I churned over the new information. Processing helped someone think faster, while Reasoning helped them think smarter, but I only had four in each. Yes, they'd made a noticeable difference, but Stats were just an improvement over one's base, and my base was a sixteen-year-old uneducated kid. What was I supposed to do?

  "Dad offered to inquire about dungeon locations when he was next in town," I said eventually. "Remember the adventurers said there was a beginner one near here?"

  Simon stopped walking.

  "Mum is very strongly against me entering a dungeon. Perhaps she'd be more... permissive... if she knew I wasn't going in alone."

  "You told your parents?" asked Simon, aghast.

  "Of course. You haven't?"

  Admittedly, our positions weren't quite the same. If I'd said I wanted to go fight monsters without mentioning my Stat boost, I was fairly sure Dad would have shot me down immediately.

  "Hell no. They'd tell me to get such stupid ideas out of my head and wouldn't let me out of their sight for the next year."

  "Okay... What if I have a quiet word with Dad while Mum isn't around... I'll get him to find me a dungeon without mentioning you. You handle the weapons without mentioning me. We can sneak in a few times after harvest. No-one else needs to know."

  I should be able to convince Dad. It was never the dungeon bit that Mum had a problem with. It was the bit where I openly walked into town, sold a bunch of loot from clearing a dungeon, and then bought my family's citizenship. If we just kept the dungeon loot to ourselves, she wouldn't have a problem, right?

  As much as I tried to justify myself, I knew full well that the answer was 'yes'. She'd very much have a problem. I also knew it was easier to ask forgiveness than permission. I didn't mind getting into trouble, as long as I didn't put them in any danger, so I just needed to be careful not to stand out.

  It took a few minutes of contemplation, but Simon eventually nodded. "You know... In a way, this plotting was just something I was doing to help myself feel better about my life," he said. "I wasn't expecting it to actually happen. I expected to wander out of the village with a fragile pitchfork, completely fail to find a dungeon, maybe off a slime or two, then realise I was being stupid and come home. But... If you're in on this too... Perhaps there's hope for my future after all."

  He held out a hand. I placed mine on top.

  "To freedom," he whispered.

  "To freedom," I agreed.