Adventuring Time

I got to the adventurer's guild bright and early in the morning. I wanted to avoid a long line as much as possible, as I wanted to start working on ranking up soon.

The same, bright-eyed, cheery, bespectacled brown haired receptionist from when I first visited the guild was waiting at the front.

I was immediately assaulted by a wave of energy and positivity.

"Oh hey! Hello! So nice to see you! You're here super early!!! How can I help? Do you need to submit a quest? Oh! Maybe you want to be an adventurer?! Oh!! Maybe-"

I cut her off before she could continue.

"Uh, er, yeah, I was wondering about applying to be an adventurer...."

"Oh how exciting! Of course! I just need you to fill out this form and I'll go get the ranking device!!"

The receptionist happily skipped off to a back room while I was left filling out forms. Name, birthday, reading community terms and conditions, etc.

I peeked up from the forms and noticed other applicants had started filing in. Old and young, men and women, human and demi-humans alike were applying. Several other receptionists were helping them out. It looked like some of the applicants had issues with reading or writing.

I quickly turned my sights back down to my forms and continued to read.

By the time I had finished reading the documents and signing off on them, the bubbly receptionist helping me through the application process had returned with a slab of a translucent blue crystal.

"Okay! So I'm just gonna need you to put your hand here and it'll do an appraisal and tell us your skills and class and rank you accordingly! Oh I'm so excited!!"

"Oh, so here like this?..."

I placed my hand carefully on the slab where I was told while the receptionist looked on excitedly.

"Ah! This is one of my favorite parts of the job! I love meeting new people and learning all sorts of things and ohmygoshyouwouldn'tbelievetheotherdaythisguywalkedinand-"

Tuning out the receptionist's unending stream of words, I focused on the slab intently.

Please rank me highly. Please rank me highly. Please-

KZZZZT

"Eh?" "Eh?"

Both the receptionist and I looked at the slab in confusion as strange characters and symbols began pouring onto it. Eventually, static started to fill the slab.

The receptionist, looking slightly puzzled, began to reassure me.

"Haha, its okay this thing is probably old. I'll get a newer one and we'll try again!"

KZZZZT

The newer slab displayed the same result. Static and gibberish.

The receptionist, looking even more confused, asked me to wait while she got the guildmaster.

I was beginning to get a lot of stares from the surrounding applicants, and the other receptionists began whispering to each other. I looked down at my feet. I hope this isn't a bad sign.

After a bit of time had passed, the cheery receptionist returned with a strange look on her face. She spoke to me in a different, slower tone than before.

"Well Mister, uhm- let's see.... Charon! Mister Charon! Um, so it turns out the ranking crystals are working fine but for some reason aren't working on you. The guildmaster has reviewed your case and has decided to give you the rank of....."

.....

"Hey Wiz, can you go locate the next batch of herbs and pick them for me? Thanks."

Wiz cawed loudly and flew off from my shoulder to locate some more medicinal herbs in the dense forest I was currently in. After two weeks of doing F rank herb gathering, I had developed a pretty efficient system of gathering. Now, I could complete the gathering in about a day as opposed to the usual 3 days it took most beginners.

Using the magical morph suit Elxa made me, I formed gloves on my hands to prevent the [Desolation of Cain] curse from causing them to rot away from my touch.

I was shocked by my initial placement at F rank. Even though I was told that the guildmaster reviewed my case, he simply dismissed it and told the receptionist that "if he's higher ranking material, he'll work his way up fast" and I couldn't really be too upset by that logic.

So here I am, working my way to climb the ranks by collecting herbs.

The sun had begun to set by the time I had gathered all the herbs I needed, and so I decided to head back to the Adventurer Guild's headquarters and turn in my quest.

As I casually walked back, Wiz perched on my shoulder and monitored my surroundings with his three eyes on the left side of his face.

When I had reached the halfway point of returning home, Wiz began cawing a warning to me and flew up into the air.

I knew today was going too smoothly. I pulled out my weapon, [Death's Key], and changed it into its sword form.

Having sensed that they had been noticed, several large beasts emerged from the foliage around me.

They resembled wolves, but their fur was long and jagged looking. Instead of a regular pair of eyes, a large narrow eye rested on the top of their heads, running from between their ears down to their snouts.

As they surrounded me, I began to think of what to do. Should I capture them for Amily's research? No, larger monsters tended to be harder to experiment on so maybe not....

Several of the beasts lunged at me, fangs aimed for my vitals. With my improved reflexes and reactions, I easily dodged the assault.

Hmmm.... what to do.....

Oh! Of course!

As the next wave of beasts leap to attack, I swung my sword in a simple yet efficient arc.

As three of the beasts' bodies fell decapitated, the rest of the pack began to hesitate.

I surged forward, slicing through the rest of the beasts with great efficiency. Looks like copying the swordsmanship of adventurers was really paying off.

As the last beast fell, I began to gather all the bodies and heads.

I hope these things sell well!

......

"...and you're telling me you killed them all by yourself? An ENTIRE PACK of lesser wolf-fiends?"

I was currently seated across from one of the Adventurer's Guild's three administrators, a bespectacled women with long black hair and perfect body, a secretary supermodel. I bet the guildmaster is happy she works for him.

Either way, what happened was when I turned in the bodies of the monsters, the quest receptionist's eyes widened and she asked me for my rank. When I told her I was F rank, she immediately accused me of bounty fraud and stealing another adventurer party's kills or something like that. I started arguing with her and one thing led to another and I ended up being questioned by the Guild administrator, Lilina, a former S ranker who was titled as "Thunderclap."

I'm not going to lie, Lilina scared me. As she questioned me, I could sense an aura of power slowly radiating from her. Even with my extremely powerful curses, I knew for a fact I could never defeat her no matter how often I resurrect. I didn't have a logical reason as to why I knew, but I just knew.

Ah, S rankers are scary.

"Yes, I did kill them all. And yes, I did it by myself. My familiar did not help outside of warning me of their presence."

As I said this, I felt Lilina's piercing gaze etch its way into me, as if she was carving out all the details from my soul.

"You - Charon, was it? Charon. I can see in your eyes that you are not lying."

"So then-"

"However!" Lilina cut me off before I could continue.

"However, your presence is strange. You do not exude a sense of power like most. In fact, if I was to judge you by your presence alone, I'd say you were near powerless. Yet something about your presence also leaves a sense of danger, a feeling I have not sensed in a while."

Wait she thinks I'm dangerous? No good!

"Wait hold on I'm not a danger to anyone I just-"

Lilina smiled.

"I know you aren't a danger, but you are a curious case. So to figure out if you really are as powerful as you claim to be..."

Lilina smiled.

"....we have a few tests."