Chapter 189 - Ranking Up

"Hey." Eiro said in a loud voice as he looked at the guild receptionist, "I won this fight, right?" The Demon asked, and the receptionist slowly nodded his head.

"Y-Yes, of course... Truthfully, it is quite uncommon to see someone beat an instructor like this. That alone is enough to show your strength to be more than high enough to be a C-Rank. But we still need to confirm your statements that you are capable of wielding five different types of magic like that. But that can be done in a simple demonstration of any level instead of what I suggested before." The receptionist said, all the whilst Eiro slowly let go of the rogue, who was just continuosly glaring at Eiro with seething anger. 

At least that's what he thought at first. But no, instead of anger... the rogue felt excitement. At the very least he had that kind of smile on his face that Eiro didn't notice before. It was weird, and more than just uncomfortable. Either way, Eiro just turned back toward the receptionist.

"Alright then..." The Demon said and extended his hand toward Nelli. The Naiad moved her hands around and slowly created some water that Eiro immediately took control of. He made the water easily flow around his body, controlling its movement with his hands and fingers. After that, he simply started to make the water heat up to a boil before he shot it forward toward one of the dummies placed up against the wall, making the hot water freeze around it immediately.

The next moment, Eiro pushed his hand into his satchel and pulled out his spark snapper out of his treasury, pretending he pulled it out of the satchel itself. Eiro snapped his fingers and created a large spark of flames out of it that filled out the whole area and even melted the ice on the dummy before the water disappeared and fell apart into mana.

And then, with a quick movement of his hand, Eiro pulled all the flames toward him and extinguished them before they came in contact with his hand. Making use of the movement of the air created through those flames, the Demon made the wind itself speed up even more.

The wind turned into a small tornado in the center of this area, pulling up dust and bits of dirt from the ground, before Eiro, with a swift movement, just pulled a large block of rock from the ground while dispersing that tornado. And just like that, Eiro finished showing off his five elemental magic skills in simple manners. He didn't really show of proper techniques of his besides boiling the water to freeze it more quickly, but that wasn't necessarily a concept you could do much against anyway.

Either way. Eiro slowly turned back toward the receptionist, who was noting everything down, more than just impressed at what he saw.

"I... I see, I must admit, I did not expect something at this level. 'Physical Casting' is usually something that people make use of to cloak their bodies in something, like an extra protective layer of rock on their skin, or cloaking their fists in flames for more damage, but this... this is quite extraordinary. But even then, could we still possibly see you try and create a simple Magic Circle? After that we can get back to the front and finalize your rank-up." The receptionist explained, so without a moment's hesitation, Eiro nodded his head and stretched his hand out in front of him.

He moved his fingers around and quickly created a magic circle within just a few seconds, before he shot out a fast gust of wind with its help.

"Hm?" The receptionist asked, raising his head from looking at the piece of paper, "What just happened?" He asked, turning toward the other guild workers, who were staring at Eiro with a mixture of confusion and awe.

"You didn't see it?" Eiro asked, and the receptionist turned back toward him, "See what?"

"I just made a magic circle."

"No, you didn't..."

"Yes I did."

"Sir, if you-" With a deep groan, Eiro interrupted the receptionist again by simply repeating the same process again. Within just a few seconds, the magic circle appeared in front of Eiro's hand again, once more creating a strong gust of wind.

"That... I see... Then I apologize for the inconvenience. You passed perfectly. Congratulations, Sir." The receptionist said with a nervous smile, before Eiro sighed lightly and started stepping back toward the door together with the receptionist.

But just before he left, the rogue that Eiro fought against before tried to grab his shoulder, "Touch me and I'll cut your dirty fingers off." The Demon said without turning around or stopping, and the rogue just slightly started to laugh.

"Hehe... Of course you would..." The rogue laughed, making Eiro even more uncomfortable. Rather annoyed, the Demon turned around toward the Rogue and looked at him.

"So? What do you want?" Eiro asked. With a broad grin on his face, the rogue extended his hand forward, showing Eiro a small metallic card. It wasn't a Guild Card, but something else. Eiro took it from the rogue to get a better look without the rogue's finger's covering half the card, and then turned back toward him with a light frown.

"What is this?" Eiro asked, and the rogue looked at the demon with a broad smile, "It's an invitation...! For those like us that enjoy exciting fights. I leave it to you to figure out where and when the next meeting is." The rogue smiled and stepped into the hallway ahead of Eiro and the receptionist. 

It seemed like none of the others really heard what the rogue told Eiro, although a couple people saw Eiro being given that card, the 'invitation'. It actually seemed pretty interesting, so maybe Eiro should look into it sometime.

But for now, it didn't matter. Eiro followed the receptionist to the front again, only a few minutes after they went to the back.

With a slight laugh and a pitying expression, one of the other receptionist looked at Eiro, "Back so quick, I see? Don't worry about it, it happens to many. Better luck next time~!" She said, and Eiro stepped past her with a deep glare, "Shut up, dumbass. I passed." Eiro replied, not wanting to let anyone like this receptionist speak to him like that. He would have liked to push his dagger into her throat just for that, but in the end it didn't matter either way, so Eiro just walked past her only with that comment.

"H-Huh? Who do you think you're talking to, that's unacceptable!" The female receptionist exclaimed, and Eiro turned toward her with a deep sigh, "Listen here, your job probably doesn't include being a f.u.c.k.i.n.g bitch to me. That was just my way of declining that little extra service. So shut it and leave me be. There's other people that need your help over there." Eiro sighed annoyedly.

"Now, now, please don't fight with our employees, Sir." The receptionist taking care of Eiro said with an awkward expression, and turned around a couple times to deeply glare at his coworker while mouthing insults toward her.

"Oh, back already?" James asked, downing the beer that he ordered while Eiro was gone, and the Demon just nodded his head, "Mhm. It was pretty easy, so that was to be expected." The Demon pointed out as he received the bag filled with bundles of coins from James that they got for the materials. Eiro would distribute them evenly later. After all, he wasn't really in need of money at the moment.

A few moments later, the receptionist came up to Eiro and handed him his guild card back, which had now been updated to verify that Eiro was actually a C-Rank adventurer, "There you go, Sir. Do you need my help with anything else?" He asked, and James quickly took over.

"Yep. He's joining my party and taking over as party leader." The Light Elf explained, and the receptionist raised his brows in surprise, trying his best not to let go of the customer-service smile on his face, "I see... Then I need your two Guild Cards please. It will only take a minute. Please go ahead and take a seat." The receptionist said, and Eiro quickly turned around and starting heading to the entrance, "I'll go get some more materials now." Eiro said. The receptionist was seemingly a little annoyed, but Eiro and James didn't really care too much.

The Demon made his way out of the guild building while watched by the other adventurers curiously, before heading off to the place where they kept the cart at the moment. 

With Krog and Jess' help, Eiro picked up a majority of the rest of the materials, just leaving behind the blood, venom, and roughly a quarter of each type of spider egg that Eiro had gathered. The rest wasn't really of use to the party at the moment.

And so, after also quickly grabbing Krog and Jess' guild cards to let them be updated properly with all the information of passed quests as well, Eiro made his way back inside of the guild carrying even more materials than before.

It was a bit annoying because there were a fair amount of people in here and it was tough to get through the room while carrying all of it, but people soon made way when they saw that it was Eiro and what it was that he was carrying.

Eiro placed everything down on the counter in front of the receptionist who only just returned with the updated Guild Cards, and once more had a rather tough time perfectly hiding his clear discontent.

"More materials... I see?" The receptionist asked, and Eiro quickly nodded his head, "Yes. This time materials collected from the whole party."

"...Understood." With a quiet groan, the receptionist started sorting through the materials, until he stumbled across the first egg. And then the second, and then the third. He looked down at the hundreds of spider eggs in the bags in front of him, and then raised his head to look at Eiro again.

"These are extremely high-quality materials, where did you get them?" The receptionist asked, and Eiro just looked back at him as if it was obvious, "In a spider-invested forest in the mountain-range a few days south."

"You're telling me you went into that place and got out again with these many materials in the few days you were gone?" The receptionist asked, and Eiro nodded his head, "Mhm. What about it?"

"Nothing, nothing, I was just thinking that this is perfect! You can maybe give us information vital to find and kill the Noble Monster that's giving birth to all those spiders! You see, you got really lucky, people say that it's a Baron or even Viscount rank Noble!"

"Viscount?" Eiro asked with a wry smile under his mask, "That thing was a Knight at best. Maybe even just a high-commoner. It wasn't strong at all, it just gave birth to a lot spiders. With a bit of fire magic those were easily dealt with." 

"...excuse me..?"