Least Inconvenient Exam

The Golden Wings were a B rank adventurer team. Though my mother said I could join, she didn’t mean immediately. I still had to pass the adventurer exam.

There are certain skills you need to learn before becoming a good adventurer. Most important of those were Concealment and Detection.

Nearly all monsters can feel the flow of mana. If you don’t use Concealment, which allows you to blend in with the flow of mana in the environment, then the monsters will always see you coming. At the least they’ll run away from you, but the stronger ones will ambush you instead.

Detection allows you to feel the flow of mana in a similar way to how monsters do it, to a lesser degree. It is incredibly helpful in sensing incoming attacks and finding prey, making it vital to Adventurers.

Additionally I had to learn survival skills and had to memorize information on all of the monsters in the area. How to make shelter in a forest, how to start a fire, how to hunt or forage for dinner if you run out of rations, how to not die of hypothermia, and how to process and preserve monster materials were drilled into me by my mother. Only then would I be allowed to take an Adventurer’s examination and register as an adventurer.

After about a month of all this I finally got to the examination.

For me, the exam was to hunt a horned rabbit. Apparently they mix up the prey every exam.

I looked around at my fellow examinees. It was a mixed bunch of about ten people. Some were beastmen and some were human, but all of them looked like adults. I was easily the youngest there, but this was expected.

I had no reason to pay attention to others anyways.

Proctor: Examinees get ready… Start!

The exam took place at the edge of the forest. You simply had to go in and return with a horned rabbit within the time limit of 2 hours. Horned rabbits are basically just normal rabbits but with freaky horns growing out of where their eyes should be. Most monsters have horns where their eyes should be for some reason.

Some of the examinees sprinted as soon as the exam started but I wasn’t in any rush. I’d already hunted horned rabbits before as training, even though technically it was against the rules. I turned on my Concealment and Detection and went in.

Soon enough I found one. It was hiding in a bush and nibbling on a root. Now, there were several ways I could go about killing it. Firstly, I could draw my knife and pounce. I could also use blood magic to pierce through it fairly easily. Finally, I could use a throwing knife to hit it. Because horned rabbits are extremely sensitive to environmental mana changes, I chose to use the throwing knife. If I missed I would follow up with Piercing Shot and give chase.

I lined up the shot

Bam

Direct hit to the neck. The rabbit squealed before quickly dying.

Alright, easy. Just have to get back now.

Sadly, nothing is ever so simple.

On my way back I happened to run into some of my fellow examinees.

They were three dumbasses who were struggling to catch much of anything. Probably because they failed to learn detection and concealment.

Dumbass 1: Hey kid, mind lending me your horned rabbit?

Seriously? If you can’t even catch a horned rabbit why would you even want to be an adventurer?

Dumbass 2: Yeah, hand it over while we’re asking nicely.

What a pain…

Dumbass 3: Don’t be scared kiddo. We won’t hurt you as long as you just give it to us.

As they slowly surrounded me I contemplated the easiest way to deal with this situation.

Dumbass 2: What’s wrong kid? Cat got your tongue?

I know, I’ll do it that way

- - - - - - -

Proctor: looks like it was a more successful hunt than expected.

He lazily looked up from his book as I walked towards him.

Adam: Here is the rabbit. What should I do about these guys?

I had simply knocked out the three dumbasses and dragged them along with me back to the edge of the forest. If I had killed them it might have caused problems for me later on.

Proctor: You can just leave them on the floor over there. This happens more often then you’d think. Congrats, you passed the test. Bring this piece of paper back to the Guild and the receptionist will handle the rest. Also, you can keep the horned rabbit.

While still not getting up from his lawn chair, the Proctor handed me a piece of paper. It just read:

cogratts -Signed by Arthur

Adam: neat…

With that, I dropped the dumbasses on the ground a few feet away and left for the guild.

When I got there, I gave the paper to the receptionist and she sighed and then after a few moments handed me an Adventurer’s identification card.

wahoo…

I registered as just Adam with no last name for obvious reasons. Looking at my card I saw that I was ranked F. There are 7 ranks adventurers can have but all of them have to start from F. Adventurers can only do requests up to one rank above their current rank and to rank up you have to do 10 requests rated higher than your current rank. Apparently they don’t want people killing themselves too easily and care somewhat about their adventurers.

They are a dying breed after all. Even with all of the ways the guild helps adventurers, people still die all the time.

The Golden Wings are a B rank adventurer team, putting them in the top ten highest ranking in this town. The way parties work is that they are rated the same ranking as their highest member. Theoretically, there is nothing stopping F rankers from joining an S ranking party. Not that that would ever happen though.

Funnily enough, Raya is also registered as an adventurer. She did it shortly after arriving in Guileva but because she works solo she is currently only D ranked. I’m sure if she tried, she could get as high as B rank. I’ll ask if she also wants to join the Golden Wings later.

This whole thing has been a real pain.

I’m so tired.

But now, I can finally stop being a burden to everyone.