14 - a mock game

Among the uniformed men standing blocking the gate, only one man in armor steps out.

His hair was flaming red in the setting sun, enhanced by his ebony-black skin.

He was probably no older than 30.

He wears a breastplate and shoulder armor covering his neck, and an elaborate sword hilt peeks out from his waist.

The silver trim of the plate around his neck told us that he was an adventurer of rank B.

With a penetrating gaze fixed on Thor, the man asked in a low voice, "What do you want?

"Is this him?"

The question did not seem to be directed at Thor or the men in uniform behind him.

After a short silence, the older guard nodded faintly.

The man who got the answer opens his mouth again.

"I have been accused of guiding new adventurers, which you are forbidden to do. You must follow me."

The man who gave the one-sided message turned on his heel and started to walk away.

At the same time, men in black uniforms surround Thor and Sora to prevent them from escaping.

"What?　What is this?　What are we going to do, Thor?

"Don't worry, it'll all be over soon."

Thor, who had calmed the anxious Sola, scratched the underside of his chin and began to walk across the square with the uniformed men in tow.

At the outer gate, after the commotion had died down, two men began to argue with each other.

"Don't tell me you tipped off the security guys, Rickan!"

"You're Mr. Lycan, Carles. You may have had a higher rank than me in the service, but in this job I'm your senior. Show some respect."

You want me to respect a guy who sells out his own people? Don't make me laugh."

The old gate guard's face flinched for a moment, and then he raised his voice as if to cancel it out.

"He was in violation!　What's wrong with the gate guard reporting it?"

"Why is it only the old man? There were many others who could have done something like that.

"............ you told him to retire, over and over again!"

"Well, he's a stubborn old man, he'll never retire."

Unlike Rikan, who was ranked just barely E during his active career, Carles was a high C-ranker, even though he was forced to retire due to injury.

He should not have had to be a gate guard, which is a third-class job.

The reason he was doing this job was purely to score points.

If he could be promoted a little more, he could have his own subordinates. Then he would not be out on the street when the old man retired.

Carles was one of the adventurers who was guided by Thor.

"......Please don't tell anyone that I told the security services."

"I'm asking for a reason, Rickan. Why did you bother with the old man?

"He's a mud-slinger!　People who should be below us. That's all I'm saying."

Carles' eyes widened as if hit by a hammer when his colleague suddenly revealed the reason.

The young gatekeeper, speechless for a moment, slowly pulls his left hand out of his pocket.

There was no part of his hand where it should have been.

The part beyond Carles' left wrist had been torn off three years ago by a rock lizard in the windswept wilderness.

"You know, the old man has been working hard all his life, unlike me. Don't you dare let your petty jealousy get in the way of that. You're the lowest of the low."

When confronted with his left hand, which had lost its tip, Likan turned away, his face reddening.

Letting out a breath of disappointment at the pathetic attitude of his colleague, Carles looks across the square.

Then he let out a concerned voice.　

"But what were you thinking, pulling out a silver class raschel all the way for that?　The guys in the security division. ...... but a party with a pretty girl like that, I guess the old man should be in a bit of pain too, yeah."

Behind the Adventurer's Bureau is a neatly landscaped area surrounded by a fence.

It is a training ground for guards and adventurers.

Traditionally, martial and magical skills can only be used against monsters.

However, this would mean that newly-learned skills would suddenly be put into action.

To solve this problem, the pseudo-toxic miasma generating camp of the magical stone tools has been created.

This is a system that temporarily thickens the miasma to make the souls of those who are inside the camps aware that they are just like monsters.

Tolle and the others were brought to a corner of the training site where the makuseki tools were placed.

The area, which is about 15 paces wide and wide, is also called a battlefield for mock fights.

The sun had set long ago, but thanks to the exceptionally bright magic stone lamps, there was no obstacle to visibility.

The red-haired adventurer Razzel kept the sword at his waist and picked up the wooden sword on the fence beside him.

He shakes it lightly to test its weight.

Thor does not move but opens his mouth to Lasserre, who motions with his chin for him to come up to the ring.

"Will you listen to me?　I know this guy from my hometown, and we party together. We're going to keep it fixed, so I'm not going to show you around or anything.

"It doesn't matter. I was just asked to check. If you say it's not a guide, it would be faster if we were both present to prove it.

Raszel was asked to check on the performance of a newcomer named Sora, who was performing unexpectedly well.

He was also told that if he seemed useful, he should beat Thor and show Sola how weak he was.

Razzel had no interest in the truth of their transgression or where the newcomer would go after the party broke up.

Thor, who looked thoughtful for a moment, let out a small breath as if he had decided that this was inevitable.

"Okay. I don't want to damage my sword, so can I borrow one of yours?"

"Suit yourself."

Thor approached the fence and carefully tested the weight of the wooden swords and spears in his hands, but shook his head as if he did not like them.

He shook his head and looked at the wooden sword in Razzel's hand.

"They're not very good. Will you let me swing that one too?"

"Then use this. I don't care what it is."

At Thor's suspicious gesture, Razzell wiggles his eyebrows and hands the wooden sword to him.

Even with his long experience, there was no way he would go to the trouble of preparing something in advance for a mere G-rank fish.

While Razzell picked out a new sword in frustration, Thor returned the wooden sword he had received to the fence without even making a gesture.

"I guess I'll just use the one I'm used to wielding," he said.

Raszel, his teeth grinding behind his back at this attitude, strode to one side of the playing field.

Any thought of going easy on him was long gone.

The fact that he had been dragged into such a low-level request had hurt his pride.

On the other side of the room, Thor with a wooden sword hanging in one hand, and Sora, who is looking around the room, are standing side by side.

A voice speaking to the girl as if to reassure her could be heard as far as Razzel.

"Watch it, Thora."

"Uh-huh. I'll see to it."

Thor's hubris, which seemed to indicate that he intended to stand alone, and Sola's response, which did not seem to indicate that she doubted him, caused Lasserre to tighten his grip on the hilt of his sword.

He raised his fighting spirit at once, intending to make a decision as soon as he started.

In contrast to magical techniques, which are performed by draining magical power, the equivalent in the martial arts is fighting spirit.

Fighting spirit was raised by using weapons against monsters, and when it reached a certain level, it was manifested as a technique.

As one becomes more skilled in the use of weapons, the rate at which one's fighting spirit builds up increases, and one is able to unleash one's skills at an earlier stage.

In the case of Raszel, however, he was able to gather fighting spirit at an incomparably faster rate.

This is because he possesses .

This is a martial skill tree of Rafalit, the god of fire, and is obtained by making the mid-branch skills of and complete.

"Let's begin!"　

Raising his sword with a shout, Razzel finally realized that his body was not filled with any fighting spirit.

He had been too preoccupied with his anger, but that was before that.

It was impossible for the tree of skills given by the gods to be ineffective.

Then, Thor closed the distance.

With his sword pointed at the ground, he easily steps into Razzel's gap.

"d*mn!"

Unaware of what was happening to him, the red-haired adventurer swung his wooden sword down to gain some distance.

In an instant, Thor's sword, coming up from the lower level, smacks him up and deflects his trajectory.

Razzel's sword, which had not been powerful enough, is flicked wide, opening the front of his body unprotected.

Thor's sword came back with tremendous speed and struck through a finger-sized gap in the back of his shoulder, which was slightly opened by Lasserre's lifted arm.

With a sharpness that no ordinary man could follow, the sword made a circular motion and struck him squarely in the lower ribs above the breastplate.

The momentum of the sword did not stop, and it struck Razzell in the thigh from the side as he stepped forward.

Raszel was hit in three places in one breath, and fell to his knees with a groan.

It was unbelievable.

His body, which had withstood the blows of the giant spider in the swamp, was paralyzed and unable to move.

Trying to breathe in, Razzel gasped loudly as a searing pain shot up his side.

His left shoulder had been dislocated and he was in great pain and completely weak.

He tried to stand up, but his left leg would not move at all.

Thor, who had knocked the B-rank adventurer to the ground with a single blow, looked down at Razzel without changing his expression.

Scratching the underside of his chin, the middle-aged adventurer mutters a few words.　

"Too fast for you?"

"What, what?"

"Yeah, I'm talking about this one."

The outstretched tip of Thor's sword taps Razzel on the shoulder as if to comfort him.

The man turns on his heel and walks away, paying no attention to the loser.

The sight of the man sends a fierce fire raging inside Razzel.

Razzel's body is filled with fighting spirit.

Rage overpowers the pain, and his body is roused.

Razzel regains his grip on his sword and swings it again.

--

In a single breath, Rassel's wooden sword closed the distance and was engulfed in a blazing fire.

The red-hot blade swung down in a straight line toward the back of the defenseless man.

"--Sora!"

A calm, low voice echoed around the arena.

The girl who had already lifted her staff nodded in reply.

Immediately, a vortex of flame engulfed Razzel's arm, which was gripping the sword.

With an inaudible scream, the man lets go of the sword and rolls to the ground.

He slams his right arm, which is engulfed in flames, against the ground and struggles to extinguish it.

The uniformed men surrounding the ring notice something is wrong and rush to the ring, water buckets in their hands.

There are shouts of rage, white smoke and the smell of burning flesh wafts through the air.

Amidst the uproar, Thor and Sora leave the training ground without being blamed.