“Again.”
In response to the annoyed voice, I badly wave the practice sword in my hands at the training dummy in front of me.
“Again.”
The voice repeats itself and again, I mimic my previous action of poorly striking the dummy with the sword. A few other students standing on the side start giggling as I do so, while the owner of the voice lets out a deep sigh. I ignore the other students and continue to hit the dummy with poor movements, irritating the instructor watching over me every time I do so.
Right now, I'm attending one of my ‘favorite’ classes, [Basic Combat]. Here, the students are taught how to defend themselves at a basic level, a useful thing for anyone who wishes to travel around in this monster infested world. In my case, it means that I have nothing to learn here. If they taught more unique techniques that had been developed during my death, I would be more interested, but it's all just basic footwork and swings.
As for the reason why my strikes are all dull and lazily done, it's not only because I'm unmotivated, but I want to avoid revealing my actual ability in public. Since I'm trying to avoid gathering attention from any sort of political group, it's best to lay low and pretend to be much weaker than I actually am. So far, it seems to be working well, but the same time, it's lowering my reputation since I am pretty much pushing the boundaries of acting weak.
“Spear, dagger, bow and a sword. The four most basic weapons available, and you can't even swing them properly. Are you sure you're cut out to be an adventurer? It's a miracle that you got past the entrance exam.” My instructor complains to me. I believe his name is Lenard, though I’m not too sure. He wasn’t supposed to be my teacher for this class anyway.
Anyway, as he said, I've already tried the four main weapons used by any combatant, and I purposely used them in the wrong way. Due to this, I'm considered to be the worst student at fighting right now, so maybe I should kind of fix that. Seeing that I have no friends in this school whatsoever, and my skills in combat are weak, I'm sure that I'm currently the ideal target for bullying. Even now, my peers are talking behind my back about my incompetence.
“I’m pretty sure you’ve all been given a list of warm ups to complete, but instead, I see all of you watching a mini-mummy learn how to swing a blade.” A red haired man suddenly appears behind the students watching me, giving them a scare. “Well, what’re you all standing around for? Get going!”
They immediately scramble away, causing the man to chuckle to himself in amusement His name is Avern Welkert, a former [S-Ranked] adventurer within the [Mortal Tier]. He is a [Rogue] that is specialized in using small weapons, but he's famous for his ability to fight against other humans. There are stories of him taking out entire bandit hideouts on his own, killing everyone by targeting their weak points with deadly precision. Though also capable of fighting against normal monsters of the dungeon, he is usually found taking requests to hunt for criminals and bandits, giving him the nickname and title, [Bounty Hunter].
This famous [Rogue] had retired recently from being an adventurer, and is now a teacher at this prestigious school to help train rookies. He's been given a special teaching position where he's allowed to handpick which students he wants to train personally. Unfortunately, I was chosen as one of them, since he seems to have taken an interest in me.
“So you finally decided to show up now, Avern? These are your students that you’ve chosen to teach yourself, isn’t it a bit extreme to start neglecting them after the week first of school?” Lenard says to him in a reprimanding tone.
“Hey, I was pretty busy with other stuff outside the school. Besides, I've already gave them pointers and advice on what to do last week, the kids should be able to do those on their own. ” Avern replies nonchalantly.
“Just remember that you signed a contract to be a teacher at this academy. That means your duties as an educator should be your top priority, so you should be focusing on that more than your ‘hobbies.’”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it. I gotta give the little mummy here her training schedule, so how about you go help the other students with their basic training now?” Clearly irritated by his nonchalant attitude, Lenard stomps away angrily without another word.
“Geez, what’s that guy’s problem? It’s not like I’m doing anything wrong...” Avern mumbles as he watches him go away.
“Anyway, now that he’s gone, I guess we can start with your training.” He says to me casually, as if nothing happened a few seconds earlier. “As far as I’ve seen, you don’t like look you know how to use any of basic weapon right now. The normal thing to do in this case is to have you practice one of them and get used to it, while having you build your strength and stamina. But in your case, I don’t think you need it.” I slightly tilt my head in confusion, not knowing what he meant by that.
“Considering that you’re Hana’s daughter, there’s no way she’d send you here if you weren’t at least twice as capable as the normal student here.” He says with a grin. I was surprised at hearing my mother’s name come from him, but of course, I don’t show it on my face. Not that I can with these bandages wrapping around it.
“So instead of building strength and stamina, or working on how to use a weapon, we’ll start with something nice and simple.” Right after saying that, he disappears from my vision. A shadow flickers in the corner of my eyes, and I immediately react to it by raising both arms in that direction. I barely make it in time to block an extremely fast kick aimed at my head.
“So you can see my movements, huh? Just like your mother, you’re not even close to being a frail little girl.” His eyes clearly reflect joy from learning my abilities. I can tell that he was going easy on me at the moment, due to the strength of his kick. His [Status] was definitely much higher than my current one, there’s no way I’d be able to go against him if he went all out.
He disappears again from my sight, but this time I didn’t see which direction he went. Instead, I see the shadow below me unnaturally change, showing that he was currently behind me. I quickly jump sideways and narrowly dodge a straight punch from Avern, who was again, impressed by my reflexes. I think he’s broken in the head or something, who would test an eight year old girl by attacking her!?
As I think this, he continues striking at me with several different kicks and punches, and I was barely keeping up with them. At the same time, my body was slowly accumulating damage from blocking his attacks, and my reactions starts to dull, causing me to take a few hits from him. Eventually, my guard breaks completely, leading to him grabbing my arm and throwing me over his shoulder.
“...bully.” I say while glaring at him from below.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about~! I’m just testing the limits of my precious student so I can determine how much I can push her!” He replies with a playful tone in his voice, while giving me a mocking grin as he stares down on me. I seriously hate this guy.
“Well, in all seriousness, I didn’t actually expect for you to be this capable in combat. Seriously, what kind of eight year old kid are you? Although I held back a bit, you were still able to keep up for three minutes. Which is dramatically better than what any of your current colleagues are capable of.” Realizing that I just publicly displayed my current [Status] through fighting him, I look around in a hurry.
“Don’t worry, no one was watching. For insurance, I even casted a spell to prevent them from noticing. As long as they weren’t concentrating on trying to watch us, they wouldn’t be able to see our fight.” I let out a sigh of relief upon hearing that.
“I have no idea why you’re trying so hard to hide your abilities, but I’m not going to pry about it. In the future, we’ll have your lessons separate from everyone else, if that’ll relieve you.” I nod in reply, happily agreeing to his suggestion.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Good to see that you’re cooperating. Anyway, get up from the ground already. I’m going to be personally mentoring you now.” He grabs my arm and forcefully pulls me up, making me stand on my feet.
“Earlier on, I said that I wouldn’t be training you in weapons yet. Right now, I’m going to teach you how to fight with your bare hands first.” I feel a chill run down my spine, and I jump back to create space away from him.
“Don’t try to run, this is only your first lesson, after all…” His voice suddenly resounds next to me ear, and I slowly turn my head around.
“!!!!” A silent scream resounds from inside of me, and throughout the lesson, Avern taught me hand-to-hand combat through direct combat experience.
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[Basic Combat] class was over, and I was dragging my aching body to my next class, [Basic System Study]. Although I have a general idea of what the [System] was, this class apparently goes deeper into the subject. This includes talking about the changes it went through in the past, different functions of the [System], how it differs from world to world, and more. The books I've read only gave a brief description and no specifics, so this will be an interesting class for me.
The classroom was full of students by the time I arrive. They were all chatting away about the previous class, comparing each other’s weapon stances and physical qualities. After a few minutes, the teacher finally arrives. Upon her entry, the chatter in the classroom died down as she sets her books down on the front desk.
“Welcome back, everyone! How were your weekends?” She immediately asks the class. Several students enthusiastically reply to her, talking to her more casually than the other teachers.
Her name is Avin Talia-Garde, but the students just address her as Talia. She is from the [Valkyrie] race, originating from the world called [Heaven]. They're a nomadic race with a long history, and they seem to enjoy traveling between many different worlds. They never seem to age past adulthood either, so there are many people of that race who have lived thousands of years. For this reason, it's not uncommon to see them being mentioned in the history of other worlds.
In fact, I actually recognized this particular [Valkyrie] as soon as I saw her. Her appearance is something I’d never mistake for anyone else. Blond hair as luminous as the sun, eyes as bright as the sky, even her wings looks as if they were as soft as clouds. Although her name is now spelt differently than before, she hasn’t changed very much from the past. Her personality seems to have become a bit more outgoing though, which I think is better than her old one.
“So before we start, I just want to make sure that you all know some general knowledge about the [Guild], because they will play an important role in your future careers as [Adventurers]. Any volunteers to answer first?” Several hands quickly raise up, and Talia quickly picks one at random.
“Saena, can you explain the [Guild]’s ranking system?” She asks.
“Yeah, sure! So, um, everyone knows that the [Guild] is the go-to place for [Adventurers] to make a living, but, when they go there for the first time and apply, they’ll have to take a test or something to determine their abilities. Their results with give them a [Lettered Rank], which is a way to like, show how strong you are. From the worst to the best, an [Adventurer] can be ranked from [D-Rank] to [S-Rank].” The girl’s way of speaking annoyed me slightly, but she manages to give a somewhat vague answer. If this was a test though, an answer like that would definitely be considered ‘wrong.’
“Nice try, but you’re missing a lot of things there. Does anyone want to explain further?” Again, hands are raised and Talia picks another one, a boy this time.
“Like what Sena just said, the [Guild] ranks the [Adventurers] that apply, but they also rank the commissions they receive and the [Dungeons] that have been discovered. The commissions are given ranks so that [Adventurers] have an idea on the difficulty of the task. These ranks help serve as a ‘Minimum Requirement’ for [Adventurers], in order to prevent reckless people from taking them. [Dungeons] are also given a ranking, and like the commissions, the ranks given are used as a guideline to how strong an [Adventurer] must be before being able to tackle them.” He explains the rankings in more detail, filling in what the other girl left out.
“Very good, Corde. You missed one point though, the [Tier] levels of the [Guild] rankings.” Talia says, and turns to the electronic whiteboard behind her. On the board, she writes a hierarchy of the [Ranks] and [Tiers].
“As you know, the rankings from the guild range from [D-Rank] to [S-Rank]. But these ranks are put into different [Tiers] as well, due to the large difference in strength with [Dungeons] and [Adventurers] from different [Worlds]. They look something like this:”
Tiers | Rankings
Titan Tier D Rank C Rank B Rank A Rank S Rank God Tier D Rank C Rank B Rank A Rank S Rank Legend Tier D Rank C Rank B Rank A Rank S Rank Immortal Tier D Rank C Rank B Rank A Rank S Rank Mortal Tier D Rank C Rank B Rank A Rank S Rank
“Every [Tier] uses the same ranking, but a person ranked from a higher [Tier] will be considered as someone stronger than a person from the lower [Tier]. For example, a [D-Rank Adventurer] from the [Immortal Tier] is more powerful than an [S-Rank Adventurer] from the [Mortal Tier].” Talia explains.
“Teach, how strong do you have to be to reach the [Titan Tier]?” A student suddenly asks.
“Raise your hand next time if you want to ask a question, Grove. To answer your question, it is a [Tier] made for hypothetical purposes.” The class was confused at this response, so Talia begins to explain further.
“The [Titan-Tier] was made with the thought of [World Heroes] in mind, and where they would’ve been ranked if they were alive today. To explain in an easier way, think of the old [Hero] and [Demon Lord] of Sykerion. I assume you all know the story?” I freeze in place as soon as I hear this.
“You mean the one about the mythical hero, Thoth?”
“Yes, that’s right. At the time, he was able to reach the maximum level at a very young age. On top of that, he hit the limit for his base stats and skills. Imagine if he wasn’t restricted by the previous [System], and was alive in this day and age. With his talent, his strength and abilities would be far beyond the normal [Adventurer], no?” Some of the students nod at the thought of this, agreeing with the teacher. “The same goes for the [Demon Lord], if he was alive now, he would also be as powerful. The [Titan Tier] exists as an estimate of power if warriors like those weren’t restricted by the limitations of the [System] in the past.”
“So it’s practically impossible to reach that tier unless you’re a dead legend?” A student asks as a joke.
“Of course not! Although no one has actually reached that tier yet, it’s still in the realm of possibility. The amount of power to be considered a [Titan-Tier Adventurer] is beyond imagination, but I’m sure that with the current [System] and the amount of worlds there are, surely someone with that kind of strength must appear soon.” I can feel an invisible arrow just blinking over my head, as if screaming; ‘Right here! There’s a guy right here!’
“Anyway, back to the lesson, [Adventurers] aren’t the only thing judged by [Ranks] and [Tiers]. Both [Dungeons] and [Worlds] also have their own rankings as well. For a [Dungeon], their rank is given based on the [Monsters] that spawn in them, and the environment that makes it up. Whenever a new [Dungeon] is discovered, the [Guild] will release a [Quest] to have professional [Adventurers] explore it and return with information about it, allowing them to determine the [Rank] of the [Dungeon]. Also, in the future when you all become [Adventurers], please remember to never explore a [Dungeon] on your own, even if you match or exceed its [Rank].” Emphasizing the ‘never,’ Talia urges the students to prioritize their safety first and foremost.
“Usually, when a [Dungeon’s Rank] is given, that doesn’t mean it requires a single [Adventurer] of that [Rank] to explore it. The [Dungeon Rank] is used as a reference for what the average [Rank] of a party of six [Adventurers] should be. This means that if a [Dungeon] is ranked as [B-Rank], then the recommended average [Rank] of a party between six people should be the same.”
“So that means a party can either have six [B-Ranks], or three [A-Ranks] and three [C-Ranks]?” A student asks.
“Correct. A party like that will have a decent chance to survive the [Dungeon], as long as they don’t do anything careless and progress slowly.” I have to commend the people who thought of this system, since it was really impressive. I would have never imagined humans creating an organization like this in the past, even though there weren’t any [Dungeons] back then. But this system would have been somewhat useful in determining the strength of your allies and enemies, which will allow for more precise planning when it came to war.
“I will now be passing out a sheet of the local [Dungeons] near our area. We’ll spend the time reviewing them to try and have you guys get used to learning the aspects of a [Dungeon].” The rest of the class was spent on this activity, and I manage to learn the name and geography of the five closest [Dungeons] to this city. I can see myself going to one of these in the near future, so it’d be useful to learn about them now.