As Lone and Al'ka's group weaved their way through the underground city towards the Adventurers Guild, Fosco and Tobias, the two B-Rank Halflings, answered any questions Lone had about Milindo and what had happened to it in the past year.

Shortly after Lone had left Milindo's capital after having killed Duke Oswald for trying to sell Kyuubi, his kin, a collaborative effort had been started to search for the Duke's killer with the Church of Astera, The Goddess of Light.

Unfortunately for King Ralph of Milindo, despite having summoned a few dozen otherwolder children with extraordinary powers, they couldn't find this new 'Demon Lord'.

It didn't take long for word of Gilbert's treatment and accusations to reach the headquarters of the Adventurers Guild. 

The true Guildmaster of the Guild was furious that a minor country like Milindo would dare to assault and try to kill one of his branches' Guildmasters, so he sent the most powerful Adventurer group, The Seven Deadly Sins, who were coincidentally available, on a quest to investigate further details and destroy the Milindonian Royalty and the Church of Astera.

Naturally, the reward he had offered was ginormous. It was such an attractive offer, that the leader of the Seven Deadly Sins, Sloth, had even gone so far as to act himself.

"Wait wait wait wait!" Lone shouted, interrupting the Halflings. "Sloth is the leader? Shouldn't the leader be Wrath or Pride?" Lone asked with confusion wildly flowing from his very being.

"Huh?" Fosco replied with an annoyed look on his face. If there was one thing that Halflings hated, it was being interrupted while they were telling a story.

"Are you stupid? Of course Sloth is the strongest sin. His unique power lets him get stronger just by sleeping. How powerful do think he'd be if all he ever did was sleep?" Tobias answered with a disdainful click of the tongue.

Looking slightly embarrassed, Lone turned to his companions and anxiousness filled him despite the ignorant or uncaring gazes of his friends. 'Is that really obvious? Look, even Breena, Swind and Eolande didn't know that it was obvious!' Lone shouted in his mind.

"Heh, such a kid," Fosco said despite his short hight of three-feet, much like Eolande's own height. Lone's face turned red with embarrassment and the Halflings continued their story as they all snaked through the labyrinth that was the city of Everlast.

Lust, one of the members of the Seven Deadly Sins, easily used his unique powers to learn that the Royal family, their summoned Heroes, and the Church of Astera had all colluded to find and Kill Gilbert, the Guildmaster of the local branch of the Adventurers Guild.

As soon as this was revealed, Sloth used his might to kill all of Milindo's armies with one move. All he did was open his eyes. That was all it took to decimate several armies of thousands of soldiers made up of D to B-Rank soldiers.

Unfortunately, Sloth fell asleep immediately afterwards and in that opportunity, the Royal family, the two Dukes and the Duchess managed to escape Milindo with the help of the summoned Heroes.

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The Seven Deadly Sins went on to destroy the entire Church of Astera before returning to receive their reward. Afterwards, King Ralph and all who escaped with him were made wanted all over the continent, the Heroes included. 

That was just how much power the Adventurers Guild held. It could destroy a Kingdom and the Church of a God in a single day with a few words and some rewards. Lone felt a chill go up his spine upon hearing this.

It wasn't a chill of fear, no, but of excitement. 'Another tangible goal! Finally! Now I have four things to do! One: Figure out everything there is to learn about Foxkin, golden ones in particular. Two: Study as much magic as possible in The Academy. Three: Beat the shit out of Clicker. Four: Get more famous than the Seven Deadly Sins via the Adventurers Guild!'

"Oh," Lone's expression suddenly changed to one that was slightly worried.

"Something wrong?" Fosco asked.

"Did any of the summoned Heroes die?" Lone said with a somewhat hopeful expression.

"Hmm? Not that I heard of. They all escaped." Fosco was a bit curious as to why Lone cared, but he saw Lone smiling and wag his tails a little bit.

"... What a... pity. People that go against the Guild should obviously be punished, right?" Lone questioned with a new, serious expression.

"Of course," Tobias answered with a firm nod, trying his best to not star at Lone's fluffy tails swishing about.

After that, Lone continued talking to the two Halflings and soon, twenty minutes had passed before Lone's group found themselves in a large and grand hall.

All sorts of races were busily moving around in their battle equipment. Buying potions and tools, looking at mission boards, receiving rewards for quests. It was a very lively place almost no different to the Glowing Goblet Inn Lone's group were staying at.

One thing in particular bothered Lone though. "Why are there a few Humans here?"

"Ah? You don't know?" Fosco asked in disbelief.

Lone looked at the Halfling with a confused face so Fosco took it upon himself to explain.

"Humans are allowed in most Demihuman cities so long as they're Adventurers. That's why almost everyone becomes an Adventurer. However, the requirements are different for each territory. For example, to enter Everlast as a Human, normally you'd need to be at least a Silver-plated Adventurer or with someone trusted who has a silver plate," Fosco said with a proud expression on his face.

He turned to look at Lone who was still very confused. It was only after Lone spoke that Fosco had realised his mistake.

"Silver plated?" Lone asked with a befuddled and lost expression on his handsome face.

While Lone and Al'ka's group waited in line, Fosco took the time to explain to Lone's group that in the past year, thanks to the suggestions of Pride, from the Seven Deadly Sins group, the way Adventurers were ranked was now different.

Instead of basing one's rank off of power like before, it was now classified based on merit. There were fifteen new ranks all of which had a material assigned to them. Every Adventurer on the continent had to return to a nearby Guild to get reassigned their ranks.

The new ranks were: Wooden, Copper, Iron, Bronze, Steel, Dark-Steel, Silver, Gold-Silver, Gold, White-Gold, Adamantine, Ruby-Red, Emerald-Green, Sapphire-Blue and Diamond-Clear.

This was handled fairly thanks to an item the true Guildmaster had commissioned to be created from The Academy. This item allowed all of the Guilds to use a special orb that read into a user's past actions and it classified their rank based solely on their merits as opposed to their strengths before giving them a relevant plate.

"Ah, that explains why I didn't know. My group have been in a Dungeon for the past year, so we missed the change and recall," Lone explained. 'Well, looks like it'll be far easier for me to boost my fame here... '

"Ah, I see. Well, yeah, this orb, it can detect if you've done bad or good things and calculates your rank based on that. You get far more points for accomplishing good things, so most Demihuman countries have started using that to judge the character of Humans," Fosco said.

Al'ka, the High Elf, then added, "However, every Human that gets allowed entry gets monitored fairly heavily to ensure no kidnappings or other crimes are committed."

"Makes sense," Lone replied.

It was at that point that Lone's and Al'ka's groups were finally at the front of the line, so Al'ka stepped up to talk to the receptionist.