She grins preparing her war pick to make the first move. I take out Extase hanging on my back and block it. My muscles strain from the pressure.

"Hoh. So that weapon on your back was a giant pair of scissors? Such a strange weapon."

She distances herself to take a different stance, and begins a flurry of blows. In turn, I activate Full Cowl at 20% and manage to block every single blow with caution. She looked surprised from seeing my body beginning to cloak in sparks of lightning. I am able to feel much calmer now being able to see her every movement. But right as I thought I could take a moment to prepare for a counterattack, I was suddenly hit with a blow too fast for my eyes. I manage to block it, but I was blown a few meters away from my original position.

"That was close..."

Gagaran takes a good look at me.

"Lightning magic? Are you a magic caster?"

”Ahah… I guess you could say that.”

I take on piercing stance holding Extase and activate Death Perception. I begin following a death line to her arm with my eyes. I clash with her war pick, and switch to a different death line and focus on a different point. The switched to another. Then to another in swift succession, slashing in weird angles pressuring Gagaran to a defensive position. She was blocking all my lethal, even slightly life-threatening attacks on her limbs, so I abruptly redirect my attack towards her body quicker than my previous attacks, finally managing to catch her off guard. In alarm, she quickly attempts to block, but in vain as I slash her lower torso. She was blown a meter away from me.

"Hah, Hah... What pressure."

She looks up to me to find that there is not a single bead of sweat, nor exhaustion in my eyes. She wipes her sweat, loosens her stance, and turns to the Guildmaster.

"Guildmaster. As an adamantite adventurer, he has my approval."

Already expecting it, the Guildmaster nods. She has already seen enough since halfway through the test. Coming out uninjured from Gagaran’s flurry of blows already proves one’s ability well enough.

"The test is over. From this day onwards, you are now an adamantite adventurer."

I take a deep breath and put Extase away in my makeshift sheath on my back.

"I am glad to meet such a strong adventurer. I feel like I would have been heavily injured if you were serious. Ahaha."

The Guildmaster hands her a potion and she drinks it on the spot. She approaches me and shake my hand.

“Let's meet again someday.”

"Yeah."

I nod with a thankful expression. We return to the front.

"I have to return now. Take care, young boy! No, Sorai! If you run into any trouble, contact Blue Roses and use my name."

She leaves the Adventurer's Guild after waving farewell. After her figure disappears from the entrance, the Guildmaster hands me the adamantite plate. I happily accept it.

"What are your plans now?"

The Guildmaster asks me.

"I need a large amount of gold to pay off the debt of someone I know."

"Debt?"

The Guildmaster falls silent for a moment.

"Do you have a job that rewards a large amount of gold in a short amount of time?"

The Guildmaster shakes her head.

“High pay amounts to high risk. To lower that risk requires time for proper preparation. If you were to capture any wanted criminals of adamantite-ranked, the reward is extremely high. And of course, it is also high risk of failure and death. No adamantite-ranked job can be done in a short amount of time. You will have to depend on your luck if you want to complete it within a certain timeframe."

I follow the guild master to the second floor, and look through the wanted list on the large bulletin board.

"Are all members of Zurrernorn also wanted by the Adventurer’s Guild?"

“Zurrernorn, huh?”

She walks over to a nearby cabinet and opens a drawer. She takes out a book that displays a large number of faces with names attached to them on every page, and turns to a certain page. She beckons me over to take a look.

"Yes, the core members, the twelve executives are all currently wanted. All twelve of their executives are also adamantite-ranked. The reward is a hefty amount."

"I will accept the job of capturing one of their core members."

The Guildmaster looks at me in shock.

"Are you sure about going in alone?"

I smile, but I don't give an answer. At this point, Clementine is probably not wanted by Slane Theocracy yet. It might put me at risk if I ask when news hasn't reached this city yet.

"I will be back."

I leave the Adventurer’s Guild.

…

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

The air within E-Rantel’s cemetery is a lot more putrid than I thought. I cringe my expression. I activate Death Perception and enter a tomb.

"It was this statue, right?"

I push it, and a secret entrance appears. I walk down the stairs to a lighted path. As I was cautiously approaching an open area, a voice calls out.

"Who dares to enter?"

A bald old man with a wooden staff walks out from the shadows, wearing a red robe. I focus my eyes.

❲Name: Khajiit Dale Badantel❳

❲Title: Necromancer, Executive of Zurrernorn❳

❲Soul Tier: 4❳

Warning bells ring in my head.

"I will have to go all-out from the start, and take advantage of my surprise attack."

Although the surprise is now ruined. I grab Extase.

"Full Cowl 50%."

I jump forward. Right as I was about to make contact, I clashed with a wall of bones.

"Tch. No answer, huh? No matter. Now that you’ve seen this, you will not be leaving here alive."

I jump back and separate Extase to two parts, and swing to cut the wall of bones with one hand.

"What!?"

"Full Cowl 80%."

I should have the strength of a peak soul tier 4 now.

"Extase!"

I activate Extase’s trump card, immediately emitting a bright flash of light to the surrounding area. Dale raises his aim to cover his eyes, but it was too late to act in time because of his momentary shock.

"Petty tricks! Orb of death!"

While he is temporary blind he raises his free arm holding an item. It seems he is attempting on summoning a second skeletal dragon. He surrounds himself with more walls of bones to protect himself. It seems like it is parts of a body of a skeletal dragon he already summoned and have control over.

"But it's already too late."

I break the walls once more with ease, and chop his raised arm..

"Gaaahhhhh!!!"

I put the parts back together and used the surface of Extase to hit the side of his head, forcing him unconscious.

"Gaah-"

He loses consciousness and falls to the ground.

"Hitting his head this hard might be overdoing it…"

The side of his head was bleeding more than a little. Well, at least he is still alive. I take one of the potions I bought for safety measures from my pouch, and pour it on his injury where his arm used to be to stop the bleeding. The arm I cut off… I guess I’ll bury it.

…

I carried him straight back to the Adventurer’s Guild in Re-Estize Kingdom. I enter the building and walk up to the guild staff member.

"S-Sir Sorai, w-who is that?"

"It’s a wanted man."

"Please wait for a moment!"

After a few seconds, the Guildmaster comes out to meet with me.

"... I never would have thought you would complete such a high-ranked job within the same day."

The Guildmaster was baffled.

"He is still alive. He is disabled, but please restrict his movements and bind him. He is a dangerous person who can use up to tier 6 magic."

"Tier 6?"

She takes a good look at the man on the floor.

"Wait, isn't that Khajiit!?"

Her expression hardens as she sends orders to the nearby staff members. They begin running around.

"Because you captured him alive, you will receive a higher reward."

He heads to the back. After a few minutes of waiting, he returns holding a bag of gold and hands it to me. I nod, and leave the rest of the work to the Guildmaster.

...

The next few days, I focused on completing a large number of delivery jobs, gaining fame from everyone in Re-Estize Kingdom’s Adventurer’s Guild. My name became famous before long through word of mouth. I am now returning to E-Rantel’s cemetery to wait for Clementine’s appearance.

"She should arrive in a couple of hours."

I hid behind a tree and patiently waited.

…

I suddenly hear footsteps, so I open my eyes. I turn to take a good look from the side, focusing my eyes.

❲Name: Clementine❳

❲Title: Warrior, Ex-9th Seat of Black Scripture❳

❲Soul Tier: 4❳

It's really her. She was slowly approaching the tomb, wearing a black robe.

"Full Cowl 50%."

I open my eyes to focus on the most lethal death lines, grab Extase already in two parts, and appear behind her in lightning speed.

"Hehhhh? Who the hell are you?"

She blocks me with her weapon at the last second. It seems I can’t easily cut her magic weapon with just one part of Extase…

"Someone who wants you dead."

I continue following the death lines in continued succession.

"Hahahaha! Hah. I don't know how you found me, but I will play around with you for a bit then!"

I cross my arms for the two parts to form an ‘X' in front of me, and slash outwards with her weapon as the target.

"Na-!?"

Her magic weapon gets cut in half. I move in aiming for her chest, but she unsheathes her second weapon deflecting it away to her arm.

"Flow Acceleration!"

At the same time, she accelerates away from a fatal wound, but it wasn't fast enough to leave her body unscathed.

"Gahhhhh!! You bastaaarrrrrd!!"

Her arm falls to the ground. She jumps back and distances herself from me.

"Gale Stride! Greater Evasion! Agility Boost! Greater Agility Boost!"

I jump back as well, and return another succession of slashes following one death line after the next, but she manages to evade them all.

"What weapon is that! You damn bastard!!"

She makes sure her weapon doesn't clash directly with my weapon as she continues to evade. She makes a move and tries to pierce my side.

"Full Cowl 80%!"

I successfully evade by a margin to the side. I move in to slash her body with both parts at the same time towards a single point. She unconsciously tries to block with her weapon, but it was in vain as I cut through it like butter and slash at her body.

"Ga-!?"

She raises her weapon, and lightning sparks begin to form. I finally move in and pierce her chest, but she pierces my side and activates the lightning magic. It was only after a moment the magic activated is when she finally falls limp to my sword.

”Hah… Hah…”

I remove my sword from her chest a heartbeat later, and she falls to the ground like a ragged doll. I held my breath, and took out the weapon pierced in my side.

“Aagh!?“

It hurts like hell. I shakily take out a potion from my pouch and drink it. I take a deep breath. I am glad I manage to avoid a full blown lightning spell, or else I might have lost the upper hand.

“She was dangerous…”

One wrong move and I might have died. After seeing that my injury has healed, I punch the ground to create a small hole and bury the body inside.

“I only won through sheer speed. I have to train in techniques as soon as I can, or I won’t be so lucky next time…”

I finish up the burial, and stood there looking down in silence for a moment.

"I guess I’m finished here. Just one more thing to wrap up, then I can jump out of this realm without too much to worry for a while."

…

I was on my way back from another job, but then I find someone suspiciously approaching my family’s residence from a distance. Hm?

"Isn't he the adventurer that helped my sister the other day? Why is he here this late at night?"

It was a weird coincidence. Does he have some business with her family?

"Dark Vision."

Even if he was wearing the black robe, I was able to see his face clearly with Dark Vision. He jumps over the gate with ease.

"Invisibility."

What is he doing…? At this point, he is obviously trespassing now. The first time we met, with my All-Seeing Eyes, I already knew I would be no match against him alone; but I couldn’t let my guard down because I had my sisters to protect. Waiting for a chance to make a surprise attack, I silently tailed him… but what was stopping me to take any serious action is because of his lack of killing intent. I hesitated. All I felt was sincere intent in his gaze. He somehow broke the lock to the door without a sound and entered the residence. Feeling extremely wary of his next move, I follow him while thinking of a counterattack. He went through each room, but doesn't steal anything. There were some rooms with gold out in the open, yet he didn’t take it. His actions were becoming more of a mystery to me. He opens another door and enter. It had nothing much, so a framed picture stood out on top of a shelf. A picture of her twin sisters. It was her sisters’ room.

"Her sisters’ room?"

He glance towards the bed, I do the same. Her sisters’ were sleeping soundly. For some reason though, she relaxed her muscles. She felt that her sisters won’t be harmed. His tone of voice was warm and gentle.

"She is out for a job at this time of night? I guess I missed my chance to talk to her. I doubt she would be unable to notice my presence."

He sighs. I make a perplexed expression, but his next action perplexed me even more. He takes out a bag packed full of gold coins, and place it on the nearby shelf, along with a letter.

"Hm. The mission is completed. It seems this room works too."

He begins exiting the room.

"Arche, protect your sisters well."

He forms a soft smile, retrace his steps, and leave the mansion behind. After seeing him disappearing into the distance, I undo Invisibility and quickly move back to my sisters' room to open the letter.

‘Arche, use this money to help your sisters, and break away from your parents. This was earned through honest effort. So please be at ease and use it wisely.’

There was no name on it. He didn't take credit for this. Why does he care so much about us? We've only met once… or have we met before long ago…? He even knows about our family debt... My hands start shaking with the letter still in my hand. I turn the letter to make sure if there really wasn't anything written on the backside.

...Is he a noble? or one of Father’s connections? My eyes full of confusion turn to the window to look at the distance where the boy disappeared to. There is only one way to find out, and it’s to ask him directly...

"Fly!"

I quickly exit the mansion and fly out to try and catch up to him. I kept on flying towards the direction he disappeared to, but he was nowhere to be found. Only after a few hours of searching did I give up.

"His name is Sorai… Sorai…”

I turn to look towards the forest in the distance for a long moment, before finally returning to my family’s residence.

...

❲Name: Sorai Takeir❳

❲Title: Dimensional Traveler❳

❲Soul Tier: 4❳

❲Granted Skill: Mystic Eyes of Death Perception; One For All.❳

❲Weapon Assigned: Extase❳

I completed the mission and became a soul tier 4.

"Hey, are you there?"

❲Your orders, dimensional traveler.❳

A recognizable spherical robot appears from thin air.

"T-That kind of freaked me out…”

I sigh in relief that it wasn't an enemy.

"I am ready to jump into Musutafu City. What do I need to do?"

A window suddenly opens within my field of vision.

❲Enter ’Musutafu City’ Realm 139. Continue?❳

*beep*

I close my eyes. I will be sure to return again to check on Arche and her sisters... but for now, I hope they will fare well until then.

…