Chapter 10: 10 – Cynderace Branch Adventurer’s Guild

The Adventurer's Guild.

An organization where gifted individuals from all walks of life may form lifelong bonds, take quests on notice boards from requests sent in all over the continent, and even earn fame and wealth doing so. The guild has many branches all across and beyond Dysentia, but none is more famous than the Cynderace Branch, boasting a whopping eighty-five-percent quest success rate— a whole fifteen-percent more than the next highest branch.

Some adventurers have risen through the ranks and demonstrated themselves enough to be employed by the royal family. Several army generals and knights were former adventurers. Even Kain himself is a member of the guild.

At least that's what he's been telling me.

We get to the massive guild hall and there are just a bunch of people drunk out of their minds. A fight breaks out in the middle of the tavern floor. Instead of breaking it up, people are jeering and throwing their coin to place bets.

"Today's just a let-off-some-steam day," Kain says, clearing his throat.

The guild lass, a young cat-eared woman, at the reception area welcomes us with bags under her eyes and a deadpan stare. "If you would like to submit a request, please fill out a form by the notice board."

"Frey, it's me. Prince Kain!"

Frey looks up, then casts her eyes back down at the desk. "Heh. I wanted to be a baker."

Kain puts a hand to his face and grumbles. Loraine disappears and returns a moment later with two member registration forms. 

"Excuse me, we would like to register to be members of the guild!" She says.

"You're better off taking an apprenticeship from someone in the artisan's district," Frey remarks. She points to the tavern floor where one fighter has just been knocked unconscious. "I've lost hope in this place."

I snap my fingers in Frey's face. "Hey, we just need to register so we can get our shit logged into your books."

Frey pulls out two pencils and slides the registration forms back to us. "If you can get past the form, you're qualified."

I snatch it from her hands. It's a simple form. In fact, it looks a little too simple. All it asks for is my name, what I'm good at, and what my class and subclass are.

"What did you write?" I ask Loraine.

She shows me her form. "I'm no exceptional mage like Mildred, but I am able to cast spells and enhancements. Naturally, my ability to make use of mana in this way means I'm a mage."

"Then what's subclass?"

Kain chimes in to explain further. "Subclasses are specializations of the class. Take Mildred for example: she's a mage, subclassed as an enchanter. Her ability to imbue magic into objects is better than mages who aren't in the same subclass."

"I don't have a clue what class I am," I say, staring down at the form.

On the box where it asks me what I'm good at, I've already written that I'm good at bashing things.

Kain glances over my shoulder to look at my form. "How about gorilla class?"

My hands instinctively grab him by the collar and lift him from his feet. "Ya wanna say that again?"

"Ack— I mean… warrior… class?"

I drop him back to his feet.

Frey takes both mine and Loraine's form from our hands and glances over them. She leaves her desk and emerges from the counter. "You can figure out your class later. For now, we need to determine each of your rankings."

We're taken down a spiral staircase much deeper than I would have expected a basement to be. Frey leads us to an empty chamber with nothing in the room except for a large square block nearly two meters tall seemingly made of stone.

"This stone is used to determine your strength, and thus allows us to apply an appropriate ranking," Frey explains.

"You want me to hit this oversized salt-lick?" I ask.

"That's precisely what I'd like you to do."

Kain brushes a finger across the smooth stone surface. "It's magically enchanted and reinforced to withstand any force."

Frey extends a hand. A large silver mallet materializes in her grip. She swings hard at the block, but the impact neither moves it nor cracks it. A strange symbol I don't recognize appears on the surface.

"As you can see, I am C-ranked." Frey makes her weapon disappear and then steps aside. "The ranks are as follows from lowest to highest: D, C, B, A, S, and SS."

"What are you?" I ask, turning to Kain.

He puffs out his chest. "Mildred and I are A ranked. However, it's been years since she's reevaluated her strength. It's possible she's moved up a rank. Speaking of which, it might be time to see if I've improved."

Loraine, Frey, and I step back to give Kain room. He pulls out his newly reforged sword and makes a lateral cut across the stone. Another symbol, different from the one that showed for Frey, appears.

"Still A-ranked, huh?" Kain sighs.

"If you're a spellcaster, conjure as strong of a spell as possible at the stone." Frey gestures for me and Loraine forward. 

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Loraine goes first. She summons a mighty fireball that appears to crackle with lightning inside it. The blast surges forward and is then consumed by the stone. The same symbol that shows for Kain, shows for Loraine.

Frey's ears twitch with an excitement that's in contrast to her lack of energy. "Oh, my. Congratulations, you are an A-ranked. We can count the number of A-ranks on two paws, nya!"

"That's the third highest, isn't it? Am I as strong as Prince Kain?" Loraine asks.

"Not necessarily. What is being measured is raw power quantified in arbitrary ranges. It is more apt to say you are similar in strength to Prince Kain." Frey answers.

It's still damn impressive. Magic power on Mildred's level was measured at an A-rank years ago, according to Kain. That means Loraine's power is where Mildred was back then, which means she can still improve.

Loraine skips up to me and lowers her head.

"Really…?"

She won't get out of my face until I pat her on the head. I stroke the side of her head and she leans into it. Seeing how happy the simple act gets her makes me forget how embarrassing it is even with people watching.

"Do your best, Micchi." She cheers on.

"Watch me knock this out of the park." I point to the stone block with Sacchan and ask, "I just break this thing, right?"

Kain and Frey burst out laughing.

"It can't be broken. There are too many magical enchantments and reinforcements on the thing. The stone was also forged from the strongest metal in the world— osinthanite." Kain says, amused at my ignorance.

"Alright…" I spit into my palms and wind Sacchan up for a strike. My mind sinks into thought.

Silence.

Laughter.

Yui's shrill laughter again. Her face appears in my head as clear as the back of my hand. An inferno comes to life along the length of the bat. Flames lick at the ceiling. I hear the others gasp and step back.

With anger welling up within me, I picture Yui's face on the block and swing. Hard. Sacchan makes contact on the side of the stone. A loud bang, followed by the ground shaking all around me almost knocks me to the ground.

What happens when an immovable object meets an unstoppable force? A question that has been asked time and time again throughout the ages, I see it answered before my eyes.

The stone block doesn't move from where it's sitting, but Sacchan has blown a chunk off the corner, shattering debris across the room. The rest of the block begins to crack where I struck it. Two symbols appear along the crumbling surface before the stone splits horizontally into two halves.

I reel back, my hands numb from the hit. Sacchan doesn't look injured at all despite how hard the impact was. I turn back around to see Kain and Frey's jaws dropped to the floor.

"What? Was I not supposed to break it?"

***

We head back upstairs after the test. Some of the members expressed concern as we came up, asking about an earthquake they felt a moment ago. Frey brushed aside their worries, and they quickly went back to their drunken party.

Frey plops down at her desk, staring off into the distance with a blank stare.

"Uh… sorry… for breaking your rock," I say quietly.

Frey shakes her head and springs to life. "That was insane! I've never seen anyone so strong before! You've got to be SS rank at least. Maybe more? Holy shit, I need to send this data back to headquarters and petition for a new rank."

"Does that mean my rank is—?"

"Yes!" She interrupts and answers me before I can even say it. "Congratulations, Micchi… eh, what's your last name?"

"Tokiwa. Just Micchi is fine."

Frey pulls out a dusty box from under the counter and blows the dust away. She opens it to reveal a large stamp, which she slams onto my registration form. 

Frey extends a hand to me. "Congratulations, Micchi Tokiwa. You're our first SS-ranked member!"

Kain is speechless, meanwhile Loraine hugs me from behind, congratulating me on the achievement. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be happy about. I just hit a rock. But I guess this means I'm really strong, which was a given.

"I'm going to make copies of this and send it to the other branches. Ahhh, the other girls will be sooo jealous. Nyahaha!" Frey produces a magic crystal and flashes light at my form like a camera.

"Wait, what about my subclass? Kain said my class is a warrior, right?"

"I know the perfect class for you, Micchi— class, warrior. And for the subclass..." Frey writes furiously into my registration form and shoves it in my face. One word sticks out in heavy print.

Berserker.