“Hey, don’t come near me, you worthless skill-holder!”

I got punched in the right cheek by the village’s biggest troublemaker.

Blown away by a fat guy three years older than me, I rolled on the ground but quickly got back up and delivered a flying kick to his uselessly fat belly.

“Guhah!! You little...! Acting all high and mighty for a squeezed-out leftover! Get him, everyone!”

The fat kid’s cronies all rushed at me at once.

Just because he’s the village chief’s grandson, he’s letting it get to his head. And your skills—“Intimidation,” “Stench,” “Tail,” “X-ray Vision”—you’re practically a born criminal.

“Come at me, you bootlicking pigs!”

I won’t lose to something like the violence of numbers. Today, I’m beating all of them to a pulp.

“You really got yourself beaten up this time.”

My sister turned around from the canvas where she was painting in oils and said that.

Today she was working on a really small painting—about the size of a book cover, maybe a bit smaller.

I like rampaging outside, but my sister always stays at home reading books or painting. I have no clue what’s fun about that.

Her long, beautiful blonde hair was tied up carelessly with a string, and she didn’t wear a hint of makeup. Even so, she was annoyingly beautiful.

There’s only five years between us, yet she looks so much more mature. It’s probably less about her being grown-up and more about me being too much of a kid.

“Yeah, I got my ass kicked real good.”

“Haha. Rinse your wounds with water and put some ointment on, okay?”

“Your medicine always works like a charm, sis.”

“I am honored by your praise.”

My sister deliberately stood up and bowed gracefully like a noblewoman.

A sister who could hold her own anywhere. A little brother no one wanted to see. A brilliant sister, the complete opposite of her disgrace of a brother. A brother from whom the sister stole all the skill. The leftover scraps of the sister.

That’s how everyone viewed us as siblings.

And they weren’t wrong.

My sister, gifted with ten different skills related to the arts and academics, was overflowing with talent. Every skill of hers was high-level from birth. Everyone expected her to outgrow this village one day.

In contrast, I had only one skill. And even that skill had unknown abilities and activation methods—utterly useless.

“You’ve got it good, sis. Lend me one of yours, will you?”

“If that were possible, I’d gladly give you as many as you want.”

I grumbled, and my sister replied with a wry smile. It was our usual back-and-forth.

She wasn’t joking—she seriously meant it.

Unlike our parents, who abandoned me the moment they realized their once-promising son was useless, my sister always defended me and stayed by my side.

This house was one she bought with the money she earned from selling paintings, feeling sorry about the relationship between me and our parents. Only she and I live here.

Our parents are supposedly living in a mansion in the capital now, bought with the money my sister made.

Once, I got angry about that and confronted her.

Back then, she laughed and said:

“Think of it as a severance payment. Now they won’t bother coming all the way out here, right? I don’t want my precious time with my dear little brother interrupted.”

“That’s creepy, sis.”

“Aww, say something that cold and your big sister might cry!”

She usually talks like a guy, but in moments like this, she acts all sweet.

It’s a side of her only I know. It makes me feel like I’m the only one who gets to have it—but I’m not honest enough to say that out loud.

“You were called a prodigy since you were a kid, right?”

“Not really. People only started praising me a few years after I turned ten. I think I was around the age you are now. I didn’t even know what my skills were before I turned ten. And even if a tomboy like me had skills in art and academics, they would’ve been wasted at the time.”

Some people show glimpses of their talent from a young age due to their innate skills. Others, unsure of how to use their abilities, spend their childhoods in confusion.

Skill “Appraisals” at the church are expensive, so unless you’re rich, you usually wait until the communal appraisal ceremony at age ten.

I got a sneak peek from my sister before I turned ten, so I already knew what my skill was.

But I still had to officially get a skill certificate, so I joined everyone at the appraisal ceremony two years ago in spring. …Still clinging to a faint hope that maybe my sister had been wrong in her appraisal.

“Well then, it’s about that time. I’ll be heading out... and don’t go sniffing my underwear just because your big sister isn’t home, okay? My favorite is the black one in the second drawer from the top.”

“Yeah, yeah. You're going to do appraisals again, right?”

Every month, my sister is asked by the villagers to do appraisals.

Even though it's usually expensive, she does them for free, so the monthly appraisal ceremony is super popular. …Disgustingly so.

“Why the hell do you do free appraisals for those people? They take advantage of your kindness and ask for appraisals like it’s no big deal. Skills don’t pop up just because you check often.”

“If a simple appraisal makes them feel grateful, then it’s a small price to pay. Besides, no one knows when a skill might awaken.”

She spoke with gentle eyes.

She was probably trying to cheer me up—telling me that I, too, might awaken a skill someday.

“But that’s not the only reason. There’s a benefit for me, too. Skills grow stronger through use. I told you that, right?”

“Yeah, I remember. Since your ‘Appraisal’ skill is high-level, you can even see skill levels. The villagers don’t seem to know that, though.”

“Exactly. I want to train my ‘Appraisal.’ If its level goes high enough... maybe, just maybe, I’ll finally understand your skill, my beloved little brother.”

She lowered her eyes sadly as she said that.

Even my exceptional sister couldn’t decipher my skill.

The church said it was a rare skill with no known precedent, and at first, people had high hopes for it.

But the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment when things go wrong.

A year passed without even understanding the activation conditions, and by then, people had started treating me like they do now.

“Does this skill even work at all...?”

“Like I’ve said before, there are thousands, tens of thousands of identical skills all over the world. Even rare skills have shown up more than once in the past, according to the records.”

She pulled a book titled The Complete Encyclopedia of Skills from the bookshelf and started her usual explanation.

It was one of the many skill-related books we had at home.

She’d used her artistic skills to earn a lot of money and filled the shelves with books, some of which were apparently quite rare. But I couldn’t really tell the difference.

“Yeah, I know. I’ve heard it a million times already.”

“Mm, true. But among rare skills, there are those even rarer—so rare that no two of the same kind exist… Unique Skills. That’s what I believe your skill is, my dear brother!”

She raised one arm dramatically and spoke with a blissful expression… her usual self.

She was trying to cheer me up by overestimating this skill that had no use whatsoever.

“No way. Even if it were a Unique Skill, just from the name… it sounds useless.”

“Don’t say that. I truly believe it’s a valuable skill.”

When she says that with such a serious face, it almost makes me want to believe her.

Even though I’d given up, I still find myself clinging to that faint possibility.

“Wait, sis. Aren’t you cutting it close on time?”

“Aaaah, you’re right! Apparently, the village chief’s relatives are visiting today, so I might be back a bit late. Warm up the stew and eat it, okay?”

“Got it. Be careful out there.”

“Won’t you send me off with a passionate goodbye kiss?”

Don't pout your lips like that. If someone saw us, they'd seriously get the wrong idea.

Especially if someone our age saw us, I'd definitely get beaten up twice as much. You're the kind of girl all the guys look up to, after all.

“Haah, just go already. You're really going to get scolded.”

She blew me a kiss, which I easily dodged, and she stuck out her tongue with a scowl… Like a child.

She turned around several times, waving her arms wide, and ran off toward the village square.

“Alright, first up... cleaning, I guess.”

I let out a sigh as I looked at the scattered trash and the piles of books left open around where she’d been painting.

My sister can do everything—she’s a true all-rounder—but cleaning and tidying up are the only things she seems to have completely missed out on. If not for that, she’d be perfect.

“Come to think of it, what was she painting?”

I peeked at the canvas and saw the two of us—me and her—smiling side by side. It was so detailed, it felt like she'd captured our real selves inside the painting.

“She’s amazing… really.”

I couldn’t look at it any longer. More than being moved by the breathtaking art, I couldn’t forgive myself for feeling jealous.