Volume 3 - CH 3

Chapter 3 – A Little Uneasy

A month after the subjugation of the group of Wyverns, Amou and Sorano decided to take the B-rank promotion exam. The content of the exam is that they have to successfully complete an escort request specified by the guild. During the exam, not only giving the safety of their escort target the absolutest priority, the Guild will also check whether they could cooperate with other adventurers or not.

When Eto took his B-class promotion exam, the merchant that he had to escort actually had hired some mercenaries as his guards. And those mercenaries kept saying that they didn’t trust adventurers. Had Eto lost his composure there, the escort request would have ended in failure. In conclusion, the key to the test was actually to see how the participant cooperates with the mercenaries who didn’t bother to hide their dislike towards adventurers and complete the said request.

But Eto wasn’t too worried about Amou, as he was originally a B-class adventurer. Although he is indeed not very talkative, Amou can still communicate with other adventurers and merchants as necessary. In addition to not only having a high fighting power, Amou is also always calm and not very emotional, making him very suited for the test.

The problem was Sorano. Growing up in an elven village, Sorano tends to act based on her emotions. Fortunately, after repeatedly being persuaded by Eto to not be like that, as it would make the party hard to cooperate with her, she now is capable of controlling her emotions within their party. However, it is unknown how much Sorano can control her emotions in front of other adventurers and merchants whom she meets for the first time. Of course, that doesn’t mean she will definitely badly injure the other party, but Eto thought she might actually punch someone once and come back.

Since his slaves are the only ones who are going to apply for the exam, Eto had signed a contract, saying he would take full responsibility if the two made any problems in the middle of the request. Of course, Eto intends to tell Sorano to at least control her emotion as long as it doesn’t harm her, but Eto still has no idea what the result would be. And when Eto consulted Kohaku about this, she just laughed and said, “Sorano would be fine. You’re too worried.”

For a moment, Eto thought that Sorano might be more mature than he had thought all this time, but when he recalled how she usually acts around them, he shook his head.

“No, I am certain you know that Sorano has a childish side, right? Such as eating whole meat without cutting it or neglecting anything in front of her when there is something that she wants.”

“If we’re talking about the usual her, then yes. Isn’t that fine? But, as an adventurer, I think Sorano is a little amazing. How should I explain this? Ambition? She has a great ambition, you know?”

“Ambition? What kind of ambition does she have?”

“It’s a secret!”

After that, no matter how many times Eto asked about Sorano’s ambition, Kohaku never told him about it.

☆☆☆

At a camp where B-class exams were taking place, the mercenaries hired by the merchant and the adventurers taking the exam were in a very tense mood. Apparently, the content of the exam was similar to the exam that Eto took. It all started because a mercenary said to the adventurers that they will be keeping watch at night on their own, clearly implying that they didn’t care what the adventurers were doing, as they didn’t trust them. And one of the adventurers opposed it, which started the conflict.

But when the conflict became heated to the point it became difficult for them to back down, a big hand touched the back of the two, separating them. When they turned to the side, thinking what happened, they saw a big man smiling at them1.

“Fighting is no good. A loud noise can attract monsters and wild animals. Regarding lookouts, why don’t we make it two layers of lookouts? Mercenaries can watch the inner layer while we will watch the outer layer. With that, it would be the same as always. Isn’t that right?”

Amou said, looking straight in the eyes of the mercenary and the adventurer. Totally unprepared by Amou’s proposal, the two accepted it, saying “That’s true.”, even though Amou didn’t particularly try to intimidate them.

Since then, every time an adventurer is about to quarrel with a mercenary, Amou will appear and resolve the strife. There was even a time when the merchant ranted to the adventurers, but thanks to Amou, it was completely resolved. Even though he didn’t actually try to scare them, for some reason Amou’s appearance distracted both sides from their strife. In the middle of that, Sorano just kept a close eye on the situation behind Amou, and when it was her turn to be the lookout, she kept away any monsters with her high level of search ability and her medium-long range attack with her bow.

In actuality, Amou and Sorano, who was in the same party led by Eto, were quite famous in the Guild. And seeing that the scenario of the exam was rewritten by Amou’s presence, the examiner who accompanied them thought that, at this rate, it couldn’t even be called an exam.

And when it was Sorano’s turn being the lookout, no matter who was being a lookout with her, the monsters that approached a certain distance were unknowingly subdued, without the other party doing anything. With such a difference in ability, it would be difficult for the examiner to measure the strength of the other adventurers.

Thus, thanks to Amou and Sorano, the exam was about to end without any problems. However, when they’re just a village away from the royal capital, a Hobgoblin came out of the highway from the forest on their right.

That was actually extremely strange. Since they’re near the royal capital, Knights and adventurers should have regularly subjugated the monsters near the highway, making even Goblins, which were common monsters, rarely seen there. But now, a Hobgoblin, which was the higher-ranked of Goblins, appeared before the group, despite their small numbers and how they usually hunt for their prey in the depths of the forest. As Amou and Sorano observed the Hobgoblin, one of the adventurers rushed in and cut off the Hobgoblin’s torso with a greatsword.

“How is it! I finally got to subjugate a monster!”

The said adventurer was screaming while holding his sword. Actually, if an adventurer wanted to be a B-class adventurer, he or she had to be sensitive to strange things that happened in a forest to ensure the safety of their escort target. From there, it can be concluded that even though the adventurer may have the ability to subjugate a Hobgoblin with a single swing of his sword, he lacks the ability to guess the content of the exam. At any rate, with the appearance of the Hobgoblin, Amou and the others remained vigilant to the surroundings. However, even after waiting for a while, the previous Hobgoblin was the only one that appeared.

After skinning the monster and processing the corpse, the caravan began to follow the road again. At that moment, Sorano suddenly felt a gaze looking at them from the depths of the forest to their right. However, the sharp gaze filled with murderous intent disappeared in an instant. Then, Sorano immediately walked up to Amou, who kept being vigilant with his surroundings in the front-line.

“Amou, did you feel a mysterious gaze from the forest before?”

“I didn’t. But, I have a bad feeling, which I can’t really explain, since we entered this highway…”

“I see.”

Since the information was so uncertain, they postponed reporting to the examiner, but they decided to be more vigilant.

Even after thinking for a while, Sorano didn’t know what the sharp gaze that she felt earlier was. It was definitely not something that she could just brush off with thinking that it was just her hallucination, but since there was no actual harm to her or the others, she had no choice but to continue the exam.

With a Hobgoblin that people don’t usually see in the highway and a murderous gaze she felt, Sorano returned to the royal capital with a little uneasy feeling lingering in her mind.