Valm put down the stylus and placed the drawings into the folder. The lesson was almost over, and the instructor was openly slacking off, waiting for the bell. Valm was disappointed. This was already the third academy in the kingdom where he had studied the course of monsterology. And it had turned out to be just as useless as the two previous ones. As for the instructors… well, this one seemed better than the others. At least he didn’t get confused with the names and genders of the monsters.

  Valm had a dream. No, not just a dream—A Dream, with a capital letter. He wanted to create a complete encyclopedia of the world’s monsters so that humanity could find the shortest and easiest path to their total destruction. This idea didn’t come out of nowhere; it had a long and painful foundation. It all started fifteen years ago when his hometown was destroyed due to a dungeon breach, compounded by a monster pack’s rampage, and with it, all of his relatives were killed, leaving Valm an orphan.

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  Valm didn’t have the physical abilities to become a hero or even an adventurer of rank A, so personal revenge against the monsters was not even a thought. But the Gods had gifted him with a sharp mind, cleverness, and the ability to notice things that others missed. It was with these qualities, and the considerable wealth that he had inherited, that he decided to pursue his Dream and make it a reality.