I climbed out of the Capsule and returned to the front of the Mercenary Guild in a huff.

“What the hell was that?!” I roared.

Unexpectedly, Amber was waiting for me on the other side of the door and jabbed her finger at my chest, “No, no, what the fuck was that?!! Didn’t you say you didn’t have any memories?!! I call bullshit!!”

I blinked at her, feeling a little surprised by how pissed she looked.

Ges grinned at me from the side, “Don’t take it personally lass. That last wave was basically the Silver test but cranked up to twice the normal difficulty… Which I guess would basically make it a Gold test. She tried to do that difficulty before but well… Let's just say it took her a while to pass that by herself.”

Amber glared at me, “And yet you managed to kill all twelve of them?! And you have no memories?! Bull fucking shit!”

I raised my hands in a placating manner, “Ok, I don't know how I did it either, but it just felt natural to me.”

She wrung her hands through her hair, “Arrgghh!! Tell me if you're actually some renowned Mercenary before losing your memories or something! I can at least accept that!! No wait… If you were I'm sure we would have heard of you! Just who the heck are you?!”

I shrugged but that only seemed to piss her off more and she kicked at the wall angrily.

I looked at Ges, “Is what I did bad?”

He raised an eyebrow at me, “You really have no idea how ridiculous you were?”

“Err… No?”

He tapped his screen with a finger and a hologram popped up showing the ship I used to complete the test alongside a list of its specs.

He gestured to the hologram, “This is the ship you used to complete the test.”

I nodded, wondering what he was telling me this for.

He swiped his finger across, “This is the ship that you would be flying if you were taking the Gold test normally.”

The hologram of the ship in front of me switched to another one where I immediately noticed it had anti-missile countermeasures and they even had torpedoes and a long range railgun as part of its armaments as well.

This one was definitely leagues above in terms of capability as compared to the ship I was flying before.

Amber then grabbed my shoulder with a hand and started shaking me, “This!! This is what I’m talking about!! Leaving out the fact that you even managed to take out twelve enemies with that lousy ship in the first place, what were those moves to avoid those missiles?!”

I blinked at her, “Umm… I mean… Isn’t that normal? I don’t have any anti-missile flares or even lock on scramblers… So I just made use of the asteroids and other enemy ships as shields to avoid the missiles?”

She rolled her eyes, “Oh yeah, sure. Maybe you should also add in the fact that you’re also dodging the other enemy ships shooting at you while shooting back at them at the same time. Are you sure you’re human?”

“Err… Last I checked… I guess?”

“And do you not find the fact that you could calmly deal with a situation where you’re outnumbered twelve to one no weird at all?! Even a veteran Merc might be panicking or thinking about fleeing instead of trying to fight back!”

…

Ah… I see now…

I got so used to the fact that this is more like a game than real life so I was treating it as just another stage I had to clear.

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And since it’s a game, I had the misconception that there was no way I would be given an impossible stage and there would be a way to clear it somehow. Which was why I didn’t panic and simply sought a way to ‘clear’ the level.

But well… There’s no way I can say that I only managed to do it because I thought that I was playing a game can I?

What should I say then?

Oh yeah… Let’s just say something Mercenary-like?

I grinned at her, “Hey, in that situation where I could not run away and panicking wouldn’t help me. Wouldn’t it be better if I just take the risk and either go out in a blaze of glory before perishing, or I somehow come out on top despite the odds anyway.”

Amber furrowed her brows at me, “You’re crazy.”

I was about to say something else but her lips curled up into a feral smile before leaning close to my face, her breath tickling me, “I like crazy.”

Without waiting for an answer, she straightened herself and strutted away, giving her hips a noticeable sway as she went back to settle on the couch.

Ges laughed, “Hahaha! Well, I for one have no problem signing you up as a Merc. Like I said though, best I can start you off with is a Silver rank but if your skills in that test were not a fluke you should reach Gold rank in no time. I think we can also just skip the close combat test since this is enough to warrant the Silver rank alone. Unless… You want to subject yourself to that for some reason?”

I raised an eyebrow at him, “What’s in that test?”

He started tapping on the terminal again and displayed a few humans dressed in basic combat gear to appear as holograms, “You’ll just be put in a building with a number of enemies like this and you have to defeat them. The number of enemies is dependent on the rank.”

“I’ll pass on that. Though I’m wondering if I have to take this test every time I want to rank up?”

“Nah, ain’t nobody got time for that. We operate on a points system for each quest you pick up. Once you reach a certain threshold then you’d just advance up the rank automatically.”

“But you just said that there’s a Gold rank test?”

He nodded, “Because there’s different types of points for quests. You have the Combat Points which you get from getting bodyguard, bounty hunting and other such quests; Transport Points for ferrying people and goods around; and the Misc Points for anything that doesn’t fall in these two categories. You need to reach the threshold for two out of three of these points to advance automatically but if you only fulfil one, you can take the test to advance instead of just taking quests in those other categories to advance to the next rank.”

I guess since the type of quest Mercs can take is dependent on their gear, you can’t expect them to just take delivery quests using a fighter ship and vice versa.

“Got it. So do I need to sign anything? Is there some proof of being a Merc or whatever I will get?”

He gestured to the terminal, “Nope. Once you're registered to the system, that's it. When people scan your ID, they will see that you are affiliated with the Mercenary Guild.”

That easy huh? I guess that's future tech for you.

“So can I take jobs now?” I asked.

“You're a registered member of the Mercenary Guild now. You can just access the quest board from your personal terminal and take quests directly from there.”

I lifted my arm and tapped on my SC, bringing up a holographic screen in front of me.

I was just about to ask him where I could access the quest board when I noticed there was now a new button at the bottom of the screen with the words “Mercenary Guild” on it.

When I tapped on it, the screen changed to show an entire list of quests and the rewards for their completion.

Ges whistled, “That's some high tech stuff you got that lass. I would ask where you got that but I don't think you remember huh?”

I gave him a wry smile before scrolling through the list, trying to find a quest that I can take.

That was when Amber came up to me again and leaned on my shoulder, “Hey, if you don't mind, I can be your wingwoman for your first quest. I'll even settle for just twenty percent of the rewards no matter what it is.”

“Why though? I doubt it would bring you any benefits to help a newbie like me?” I asked.

“Call it an investment. And if you dare to call yourself a newbie after that crazy shit you just pulled, no one can be qualified as a newbie anymore.”

Ges scoffed, “That's just a fancy way of saying that she wants to ride on--”

Amber threw something at him which hit the Merc square in the face before he could finish his words, causing him to topple back from his chair and onto the ground unceremoniously.

“Shut up, nobody asked you, old man!”

She then turned to me, “Don’t listen to that old fart. It’s nice to have someone to guide you right? Come on, it’s a real good deal right? Just take me along~”

…

I will just say that I agreed to it not purely because of the fact that she was hot…