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Chapter 356: The Academy, and Rank-up.

“I’m sorry for the sudden request.”

“Hohoho. Don’t mind it. Being the great-former king is boring beyond belief anyway. I was also curious to how Hilda was doing, so this is perfect for me too.” (Note: I made the term up on the spot. “Great-Former King”. Praise me.)

The great-former king of Lestia Knight Kingdom, Galen Yunas Lestia, laughed and said that. He’s the grandfather of Hilda, and also a gold-ranked adventurer like me.

Although he looks like a nice grandpa with a cane, he’s truly strong. Excluding people like me and Hilda who are part of gods’ retainers or in similar positions, he’s probably in the category of humanity’s strongest.

“Kya!?”

“Hohoho. Fumu fumu, not bad.”

The guild receptionist onee-san close by jumped up while holding her butt. If only he didn’t have that. His ero spirit is the same as usual, I see.

“You never change, Galen-sama.”

“Oh, Rerishia-dono. I cannot give this up, you know. It’s the secret to my longevity, after all. If I stopped, I’ll probably be taking a dirt nap the next day.”

… It might be surprisingly easy to defeat one of the humanity’s strongest.

Without even bothering to hide her exasperated expression, Rerishia-san talked to Great- Former King Galen in the reception room we’re guided to.

I thought he would immediately jump at a beauty on Rerishia-san’s level, but there’s no signs of it happening. Since they seem to know each other, I wonder if he had already cupped a feel before this.

This grandpa has a weird policy of not touching a woman he had touched once again. Also, his targets are women above 20, so Yumina and the others are excluded. (Note: the age-old question: if he actually touched the fiancée group, what would Touya do…?)

I had jumped to Lestia with [Gate], explained the situation to Elder Galen, and brought him over to the guild in Brunhild. Of course, I had gotten the permission of the current king, Hilda’s brother, Reinhardt’s permission. (Note: on second thought, Great-Former King Galen is too long each and every time so I’ll just use Elder.)

Several knights of Lestia had followed along as escorts, but in actuality they’re probably here to keep an eye on him. The one being escorted is far stronger than the escorts anyway, so there’s not much point in guarding him in the first place.

“And? By being an examiner, you mean I’ll be fighting the newbie adventurers or something?”

“No, that role will be mine. For Galen-san, it would be good enough for you to watch and give evaluations.”

The rank-up test will have three examiners giving out evaluations. Two of them are us.

The final person seems to be a silver-ranked adventurer; in my case as well, I’ll be changing my appearance and will participate in the judging as a silver-ranked or red-ranked adventurer.

And Galen-san would give out the final judgment, so to speak. Nobody should be able to object to the opinions of a true gold-ranked adventurer.

“Actually, why would you hide your identity? I don’t think it would pose any trouble for you even if you don’t.”

“We’re a small country unlike Lestia, after all. Since there’s a good chance I might meet the test takers in town sometime, I’d rather not have them carry some kind of weird grudge against me.”

“I think you’re overthinking this, really. And it’s not like them holding a grudge against you would amount to anything.”

Well, that might be true. What’s the king doing in a place like this, go work! Is also something I feel I might hear, but well.

Ido have the self-awareness that I’m a rather free-spirited king…

I’m troubling Galen-san right now, too. Well, although it’s not exactly a proper compensation, when the time comes for Lestia to hold a rank-up test in their country, I would be willing to appear there as a gold-ranked adventurer too.

“Fumu. Regarding the test contents, what do you people have in mind? Would having strength alone be enough?”

I’m also curious about that part. Whether it’s a good idea to increase someone’s rank based solely on their fighting ability.

The type of adventurers who are proud of their strength and usually rely on brute force to solve problems could be found mainly in the blue ranks. As for why, it’s because most of them would not be able to rise up to red.

The wall between blue rank and red rank is high. Within the requests given to red-rankers, who are said to be first-rate adventurers, are ones from countries as well. If the guild made some unbecoming individual a red-ranked adventurer, it may give the guild itself problems.

That’s the reason why, in order for a blue-ranker to rise in rank, that person would require the approval of the guild master in charge of that area. It’s not easy to go up to red.

In my case, it seemed that the fact that I contributed to building a friendly relationship between countries, namely the case between Belfast and Mismede, counted a lot towards my promotion.

In terms of actual strength, I did defeat that black dragon back then. At the point where I defeated the mithril golem, there’s already no problems for my promotion to red rank. The approval had already come down, really.

A lot of the adventurers who suffered setbacks on their careers came from the blue rank too, it seems. The fact that they couldn’t rise to red made them build up frustration towards the guild, and eventually they start refusing to listen to the guild’s instructions, and got their adventurer’s registration erased as a result.

In my opinion, if they would fall down from something like that, they never had what it takes to be a red-ranker in the first place, really.

“In general, the test content would be decided by the examiners, but I do agree with Galen- sama’s opinion that it’s not a good idea to decide based on only their fighting ability. The rank

of an adventurer doesn’t reflect only that adventurer’s combat power. As for the detailed judging, that’s also part of the examiners’ skill, I suppose.”

“Fumu. So you’re telling us to think of a proper test ourselves, yes?”

“Yes. Of course, we’ll also be participating in the process to see if the contents are good.”

It’s not as if we cannot judge them solely based on their fighting ability. However, it will cause us no end of troubles later if we just hand out ranks to people irresponsibly.

It’s because the ranks of those people would be linked to our names, who gave the ranks to them.

If you think about that, it’s best not to do this casually.

As I was thinking about stuff like that, knocking sounds came from the door.

“Guild master. The last examiner has arrived.”

Seems like the final examiner has been brought here by the receptionist nee-san. I think they said it’s a silver-ranker…

When I saw the person who entered the room, my eyes turned into dots. Eh?

“Wai-, why is Karina nee-san here!?”

“Well, I was called here, duh. You didn’t know?”

The one who appeared in front of me was none other than the Hunting God, Karina nee-san. She looked the same as usual, with her emerald-green hair tied in a ponytail and light leather armor on her body.

“Eh, the examiner, is Karina nee-san!? Wait, when did you get to silver rank!?”

I did know about the fact that Karina nee-san registered with the guild as an adventurer, but I thought she only wanted to hunt stuff…

Wasn’t she aiming for the fact that she can sell the parts of the monsters she hunted at the guild, instead of being able to receive requests and getting promoted?

“Well, I had already hunted most of the prey that could be found around here-ne. So I went to the dungeon islands for a bit. And when I did that, a stray wyvern showed up there, you see. So I defeated it after accepting the request from the guild. The rank up was a side benefit.”

“Defeated it… With only a bow and arrows!?”

I mean, I know her bow skills are beyond first-rate even if she doesn’t use her powers as a god, but is that enough to shoot down a flying wyvern!? (Note: Touya, did you forget about your uncle who shot down a wyvern with his bare hands? Tsk tsk.)

“It’s nothing, if you just cut the tendons in the wings with an arrow it won’t be able to fly anymore. And once it falls on the ground, just one swing of the machete at a major artery and it’s as good as gone.”

No, cutting the tendons in the wings with an arrow is… The only one who can do something like that against a wyvern in the sky is you.

Still, to think there’s a silver-ranker this close to me… I wonder if the third gold-ranked adventurer would be born soon too.

“From what I can gather, the ojou-san over here is an elder sister of His Majesty the Sovereign King?”

“Ah, no. Although I call her nee-san, she’s technically my cousin. Karina nee-san, this is the Great-Former King of Lestia Knight Kingdom, Galen-san.”

“Hee, nice to meet you.”

“Hohoho. As expected of His Majesty’s cousin. There’s no openings.”

Galen-san said that with a somewhat disappointed face while wriggling his hands. He must’ve tried to go for a touch. He did get spun around by Karen nee-san before when he tried to

touch her; since Karina nee-san’s physical abilities are even higher than Karen nee-san, it should be basically impossible for him to touch her.

Since Karina nee-san is here now, we went through the details regarding the rank-up test once again.

Still, the ones being examined by this line-up of ours must have it rough too…

“And so, what’s it going to be?”

“Even if we say judging someone based solely on fighting strength is bad, having none is unacceptable as well, isn’t it? For up until green rank, I think basing it on strength only should be fine.”

That’s true. To apply for the rank-up test means that the person has that much confidence in his/her strength. If it’s judging whether that is true confidence or just arrogance, it would be easy to do.

If all the participants don’t have enough strength to reach green rank, then the test would be over at that point.

“And what if there is someone with green-ranker levels of ability?”

“How about we let them receive a request and judge them based on their performance while completing that? I think we should be able to understand the things they put importance on pretty easily with that.”

“That’s a good point. In that case…”

While exchanging ideas, we solidified the content of the first rank-up test.

A month later, the Adventurer’s Academy, sponsored by the Adventurer’s Guild, opened.

Within the academy, the basic knowledge and skills which are important for adventurers are taught.

Things such as handling of weapons, characteristics of magic beasts, survival skills, and other adventuring basics are taught. Mostly, these are things that a somewhat experienced adventurer would consider as common sense.

To put it bluntly, it’s a school where a complete beginner would be raised to the level of a somewhat-novice adventurer within a short period of time.

On the other hand, for people who were not adventurers but were doing similar jobs, this place doesn’t have a lot of new things to offer them.

People like former knights or hunters, those with a decent foundation and sufficient strength already, are mainly the ones who would be taking the rank-up tests.

Well, in the first place, this academy was built to prevent things like inexperienced novices dying due to a lack of knowledge and skill. It’s not in its purpose to help those with enough experience already.

With that kind of reason, the number of people who expressed their intent to enroll wasn’t very large. It’s only several young boys and girls. After passing through two weeks of training, they would automatically be promoted to black rank.

As for the rank-up test, for this first time only, black-ranked adventurers would be able to apply for the test as well. It’s a helping hand towards the new black-ranked adventurers who registered with the guild before the new white rank was implemented, apparently.

Of course, there were people from other ranks saying they wanted to take the test as well, but this test is, to the end, a test used to measure the strength of “those who have no experience as an adventurer”.

The answer from the guild was that there’s no need to re-evaluate those who already had experience working as an adventurer and had been evaluated by the guild through the default process.

In the end, the number of people taking the rank-up test was 27. Quite a lot.

The test takers were assembled at a training field inside the academy grounds, and after a greeting from the guild master Rerishia-san, the rank-up test began.

“Now, we would begin the rank-up test. First would be some self-introductions, I suppose. My name is Galen. Although I’m no longer active, I’m a gold-ranked adventurer. The young lady over here is Mochizuki Karina. She’s a silver-ranked adventurer. And finally, that young man there is Regin Leiv. He’s a red-ranked adventurer.” (Note: your naming sense, Touya…)

Galen-san was the only gold-ranker in the entire world before I became one as well, and a legendary hero who became the king of Lestia Knight Kingdom (by marrying in). Of course, his name would have a large effect, and most of the people there focused their attention on him.

Since Karina nee-san was pretty, she also gathered some attention.

As for me, I had used [Mirage] to change myself into a young man with dark brown hair and a bit of a plain face; someone who wouldn’t really leave an impression on first glance.

Among the test takers, there are also people looking at Karina nee-san and me with obviously negative gazes. I can see their discontent towards a woman and a kid in silver and red rank respectively easily.

“First up would be a simple test of strength. A one-minute long match against Regin. For weapons, it’s fine if you use the ones you’re used to.”

As Galen-san said that, someone from within the test-takers raised his hand.

“Excuse me, but shouldn’t we be using weapons for training use? Since some of us have weapons that could cause serious injuries if someone is hit with them.”

The man with long brown hair who raised his hand flicked his eyes towards the person next to him for an instant. A large bald man was standing there with folded arms and a daring smile on his face.

The man, who’s wearing a tiger-stripe vest, had somewhat dark skin and looked like a bandit from somewhere, had a huge battle axe hanging from his waist.

It’s true that if something like that hits a person, they won’t get off with anything light. I don’t know if the large man knows that himself as well, but his smile didn’t fade in the slightest.

Galen-san looked towards me. Receiving that gaze, I took one step forward.

“I don’t care what kind of weapon you use. Using magic is also fine. I won’t do anything offensively until five seconds before the match ends, so don’t worry. On a side note, I’ll be using this as my weapon.”

While saying that, the thing I took up was a wooden stick that doesn’t even reach 70cm in length. The material is cypress. The fabled “cypress stick”, so to speak. (Note: it’s a pretty famous meme weapon that appears in Japanese games, apparently.)

Upon seeing that, the expressions of the test takers were split cleanly into two camps. Those who relaxed their face because of relief, and those who hardened it because of rage.

The former was relieved that they won’t likely suffer serious injuries, and the latter was angry that they’re being looked down upon, I suppose.

Especially the bandit-like skinhead with the battle axe, he was glaring this way with a pretty dangerous expression.

“Now then, who would like to go first?”

“Interesting. I’ll go first.”

The one who came forth was, as I expected, the bandit-like man who was glaring at me. Since I didn’t really mind the order, I accepted his challenge, so to speak.

As the bandit-like man stood opposite me and readied his battle axe with both hands, he opened his mouth with a grin.

“So if I beat you down, it’ll be proven that I have the strength of a red rank?”

“Well, although that’s not everything, it’s true that we’ll have to admit you have the same amount of strength as a red-ranker. That aside, are you sure you’ll be using that? You can still change your weapon now if you want, you know?”

“Ke, what’s this guy saying. You scared this late in the game? O great examiner?”

Haah, this guy’s no good. He doesn’t understand anything.

Karina nee-san, who seems to have understood that as well, let out a small sigh before starting the match with an unmotivated voice.

“Oraa!”

At the same time, the man before me swung his prided battle axe down towards me. It’s a little scary how he didn’t hesitate in the least.

I dodged to the side lightly, upon which the battle axe gouged a deep mark on the ground. Seems like he’s got the power, at least.

“Bastard!”

The bandit-like man was swinging his battle axe furiously, but since each swing was large, none of them could hit me. It’s as clear as day to me the directions his attacks will come from. On top of that, he’s already out of breath after just that much. A classic example of someone who’s not using his weapon well at all.

“Thirty seconds have passed.”

Karina nee-san sent an emotionless voice over here. Even her sight was directed to the mass- production smartphone in her hand, and she wasn’t looking here at all. Well, she’s probably looking at the stopwatch app on the screen, but still.

“Tch, scurrying around…!”

“You couldn’t foresee this happening? I’m of a light body type, and my weapon is light too. You didn’t think it would be hard to hit me? There are speedy types within magic beasts as well. If you can’t switch weapons based on your needs, you’d die.”

It’s not like the battle axe is a bad weapon. However, he should’ve had a sub-weapon like a hand axe or a machete with him.

We tried to give him some subtle hints before, but he didn’t notice and charged straight in. His attacks are relying on nothing but strength, and only the thought “I need to hit him somehow” is driving them; basically, he’s leaving it to luck. He’s not thinking “how can I hit him” at all.

“Don’t, joke with me, this…!”

“Five seconds left.”

“Alright, good work.”

Together with Karina nee-san’s voice, the cypress stick in my hand thrusted into the solar plexus of the bandit-like man.

“Guowa!?”

The bandit-like man, who probably doubles my own weight, was sent flying with that attack.

The man, who fell on his back and started rolling backwards like that, eventually stopped and lied on the ground with rolled-back eyes.

I didn’t put that much force into it though… Seems like he’s not very well-trained either. A complete let-down, so to speak.

“Purple, I guess.”

“Something like that.”

“Right, purple then.”

The three of us reached the same opinion. Since he has some strength, it’s fine to promote him from black. However, it’s not enough to raise him to green. At his level, if three or more horned wolves attacked him, he would probably be taken out easily. As such, he would be given the purple rank.

There’s no need for that man to continue the test.

Staff members from the guild started carrying that man towards the infirmary.

“Well then, next person.”

I switched gears, and called out to the remaining test takers.

- Pixel