LXXXVII

He returns with a very large man, a man with green skin and rippling muscles across his bare torso and arms.

"This is an ogre, like the goblin from earlier, he is a citizen of the empire with full citizenship rights, killing him is the crime of murder and will be treated as such. Now, begin your fight!"

The ogre immediately draws a large blade, not unlike the one Toril possesses, before taking a defensive stance. He eyes me warily, black eyes flicking about, careful not to miss any of my moves.

I try sticking out my tongue at him, in hopes of riling him up enough to cause him to advance. When this method has no effects, I begin to make a number of odd faces, still trying to goad my opponent into attacking.

Still, my methods are ineffective. I have just resorted to sending in a few test magical attacks, just to see how he would respond, to see if he has any special way to counter magic or if he is just here to disrupt strength builds that have made it this far, when he unexpectedly speaks.

"What are you doing? Why are you making strange faces?" he asks, in a slow, pained pair of sentences, sounding every bit the brainless beast I would imagine from his appearance.

"To goad you into attacking me, you dummy. I figured that any creature dumb enough to submit to humans would also fall victim to even the silliest of taunts, but it seems that you are too dense to understand even those."

While I wait for him to comprehend what I just said, I glance to the beast tamer, who is glaring at me fiercely. I somewhat expect him to intervene on behalf of his humanoid pet, but thankfully he does not do so.

Eventually, the ogre responds. "Dummy? Are you being mean to me?"

With a snort, I say "Why yes, I am being mean to you. Only an absolute idiot would submit to a species inherently weaker than its own, to submit to humans, I knew you must be quite dense. And, from your manner of speaking, it would seem that I am correct."

The ogre's eyes go blank as it appears to struggle to comprehend what I have just said to it. I flash what I hope to be an evil grin to the beast tamer, who looks back in irritation, as if to ask 'now what?'

I answer this imaginary question by leaping towards the ogre, propelling myself forward with the power of land and air in my attempt to end this battle in only a single quick blow as a conclusion to a single attack.

To my surprise, the ogre has no issues at all blocking my full speed attack, his sword meeting mine in a loud clamor. "Dense, but not incompetent, it would seem," I comment, jumping away. "If it is a sword fight that you want, then it is a sword fight that you shall have!"

Saying such, I replace my standard blade with Reinhart's, giving up the power of boosted mobility for the power to cut through normal steel like butter. After doing this, it is only a matter of waiting for my opponent to bring his blade down upon me, at which point I can swing back towards it, cutting cleanly through the blade, effectively disarming him.

My opponent looks at his broken blade, dumbfounded at how easily I was able to destroy it. "How are you so strong? How do you break my blade with a single attack?"

"Heh heh, my blade is far more powerful than your own that is all. Had you followed the most basic rule of combat, that one must know his enemy, you would not have had this happen. You would have known to avoid direct blade-on-blade conflict when I have this weapon in my possession, you could have at least had a chance at victory. Now, however, your loss is certain. Submit now, or I shall take your head."

I glance to the beast tamer who sighs, before coming over to lead his pet away, giving me a nasty glance in the process.

A moment later, he returns, with another monster in tow. [If I can just defeat this one, I will enter B-rank, a hole level higher than that Toril. Obviously I desire to go at least that far, to see his envy towards me upon realizing that I really am qualitatively more powerful than he. The question really lies in whether I should try to go further? Well, I guess I'll decide after I finish this last fight, there is no point in considering a decision that I might not have to make.]

The monster comes into view, or rather, monsters. "One important element of being a B-rank adventurer is the ability to defeat large groups of enemies. While lower level adventurers are often used to deal with a single threat, or do a single task, adventurers starting at B-level will often be deployed to defeat much larger groups. So, if you can defeat this group, you shall be declared rank B. Oh, and one more thing: the limitation on killing is lifted here, these are common monsters and are very easy to replace, do not worry about keeping them alive. Now, begin!"

The group that he has brought out consists of dozens of wolves, while none are individually imposing, in such a group they take on much greater power, I'm sure. The wolves are a dull gray, not a particularly flashy color, and, honestly, just look like regular wolves to me, I would not have been able to say whether they were monsters or not. Though, I suppose, it is perhaps the case that they people of this world do not differentiate between monsters and animals the same way people on the modern Earth might. After all, why would they? I only use it as a differentiator, to an inhabitant of this world what makes a normal lion any different than the one that I fought earlier, other than size? Both pose some level of threat to humans, both are monstrous beasts, why would both not be considered monsters.

Ahem. Back on track. Killing these monsters should be incredibly easy. Obviously this is just a challenge to make sure that some master duelist doesn't become a high rank adventurer, for the fear that said duelist would be awful in scenarios against more than one opponent.

I quickly swap back to my more basic sword, intent on utilizing magic to its fullest here. And indeed, I do. As soon as the magic dispelling properties of Reinhart's sword are no longer acting upon me, I am able to commence an absolute slaughter.

The wolves aren't very special, an uncompressed ball of fire does massive damage to them, and a somewhat compressed wind-based attack is more than capable of slicing right through them with minimal difficulty. Adding on the earthen spears that I launch and the fact that I am essentially uncatchable when I propel myself around the courtyard with wind magic, the wolves quite literally disappear beneath my attacks.

[I know that they want to make sure that B-rank adventurers can fight groups of enemies and all, but surely having us fight creatures this weak is pointless, right? I mean, I struggle to believe that there is a single person who could have defeated that lion but couldn't defeat this group, while the idea of having a group fight is certainly a good one, against so weak a group, one must really question whether there is really a point.]

In less than a minute, every wolf is dead. Unsurprisingly, the beastmaster seems unfazed by the ease with which I killed them; I doubt that he has ever seen anyone who got to this point and couldn't succeed against the wolves, perhaps he has gotten into the habit of explaining why this fight exists in the first place because of how often he was forced to explain it to confused, newly promoted B-ranks

"So, would you like to continue to the rank A evaluation?"

"Sure, I don't see why not. I don't expect to persist all the way through, but I can at least get a feel for what it involves for the future."

"Well, in that case, I will certainly give you the chance you so desire. If you will wait one second…" Saying this, he waves his hand, immediately clearing the field of the wolf corpses. He then sets off into whatever room he stores his monsters in, which I now can only assume to be a monstrously large place indeed, considering the great number of creatures he has drawn up from within.