“The other participants are waiting in meeting room C,” Lucy explained. “The exam won’t start for twenty minutes, but please make sure you arrive early. It’s just down the hall.” She smiled at me in her typical, friendly manner.

I attempted to return her smile but it came out as more of a grimace as I sighed and left the reception. Meeting room C was probably near the room where I’d first met Sally.

That felt like so long ago.

I couldn’t believe I’d have to take the exam straight away. I’d only just gotten back from my last quest on the island where the fort had appeared. I hadn’t even slept yet!

I needed sleep, a resupply of food, water, and more potions. I wasn’t prepared at all.

Just focus on one thing at a time. I thought, remembering my mother’s wise words from when I was a child.

When the world seems too much to handle. Just focus on one thing at a time.

So that’s exactly what I did. I left the reception and crossed the foyer towards the hallway on the far side.

Panda jumped down from the reception desk to follow me.

“That was a bit sudden.” He complained. “We didn’t even have time to buy me some new reading material.”

“Your books are probably the least important things we didn’t have time to buy,” I replied irritably.

We entered the corridor and a few doors down I saw the sign for meeting room C. It was one of those typical glass office rooms you’d see inside any modern office building back on Earth.

It had a floor-to-ceiling window with a glass door next to it. Through the window, I could make out a few people sitting around the oval table in the middle.

I took a breath and opened the door.

There were four people already there. They all turned to look at me with expectant gazes. That expectancy soon fell away though, as they realised I wasn’t the examiner.

I awkwardly manoeuvred around the group and took the only available seat, next to a nervous-looking girl.

“Where am I gonna sit?” Panda complained loudly.

“Just sit on the table like you normally do,” I replied.

He shrugged and began trying to climb onto the table. His short, furry legs kicked out behind him as he scrambled onto it.

The girl next to me giggled and put her hand to her mouth. She was a human with teal hair and a round, anime-like face. She was wearing a white robe that hung majestically down her slender body.

“Get that filthy familiar off the table.” A slight, brunet man across the table from me scoffed indignantly. “Don’t you have any manners?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, who the fuck are you exactly?” I replied irritably. He’d picked a bad time to speak to me like that. I was still reeling from my last quest and I was stressed from the sudden realisation that I’d have to jump straight into the adventurer exam without a break.

In short, it was a bad time to fuck with me.

A vein seemed to pop out of the man’s temple – if you could even call him a man, he looked pretty young - as he stared back at me with venom in his eyes.

“I am Jake Millicent, heir to the Millicent line. You ought to be careful how you speak to me, peasant.” He announced, spittle flying from his lips, and I noticed the two other men in the room shrink back slightly. One of them sighed and the other closed his eyes in the way a person does when they have a stress headache.

I, however, had no idea who this little prick was and I had no intention of backing down to some jumped-up pipsqueak who thought he was all that.

Also, did he just call me a peasant? I didn’t know we were in an episode of Blackadder.

“Yeah, sorry mate but I’ve never heard of you. Though I’m pretty sure Millicent is a girl’s name.” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back in my chair with a scowl taking up permanent residence on my face.

Both Panda and the girl next to me laughed. Though she tried to hide it with her hand, whereas Panda very openly laughed and even pointed at Jake as he did so. It was pretty childish, but oddly satisfying to watch.

Jake’s face began to turn a deep scarlet colour as he stared at me with uncomprehending eyes.

“You jest. There is no way that any adventurer in Havar hasn’t heard of the Millicent family.” He bit back, clenching his fists on the table and leaning forward. “I’ll have you know that we are a proud adventuring family, we are nobility. If you apologise now I won’t tell my father about this insult.”

I turned to Panda with a confused expression.

“I thought Havar was socialist,” I said quietly. “Nobles and socialism don’t mix.”

“I don’t think your socialism is the same as their socialism.” He said, obviously trying hard not to out me as an outworlder.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Are you ignoring me?” Jake asked incredulously and I turned back towards him.

“Ok listen,” I said, taking a breath. “Maybe I was a little rude, but I’m not having the best day. That being said, I’m not going to apologise to some wannabe noble whose first threat is to tell their daddy on me. I thought we were here for an adventurer exam, not a playground contest of my dad’s better than yours.” I replied, trying to calm myself with a deep breath that definitely came out as a sigh.

I wasn’t in the wrong here. This dickweed had been rude to me first. But I still didn’t want the aggro, especially when I didn’t understand the politics of this world - even if this guy was an entitled douche.

“Your common is showing,” Jake replied, lifting his chin up and quite literally looking down his nose at me. “You wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss me if you knew who my father was.”

I sighed and placed my hand to my temple. This guy was the absolute worst.

“My father this, my father that, is that all you know how to say? Talk about daddy issues. Maybe you should try fighting your own battles instead of relying on something as ridiculous as your family name. Just a suggestion.” I said into my hand as I shook my head, a sharp pain stabbing me from behind my forehead.

“You underestimate me, peasant,” Jake said, standing up suddenly and slamming his hands on the table. “I have no problem with fighting my own battles, I was just trying to be more diplomatic about this. I’d hoped you’d be intelligent enough to understand the disparity between nobility and commoners… I guess not.”

He drew a longsword from his inventory and pointed it at me. A thin smirk appeared on his lips, condescension ruminating in his beady eyes.

I looked up at him and lifted a single eyebrow.

“Panda, what do the Adventure Society rules say about fighting among members?” I asked monotonously.

I was sick of this guy. I’d happily put him in his place, but I didn’t want to lose my membership either. Also, I was a bit worried about the acidic nature of my powers.

I’d never fought someone who I probably could kill, without killing them. I didn’t want to kill this guy; I just wanted him to shut the hell up and back off.

“I think the rules state that duelling is ok.” He said, scratching the back of his head absently.

“Your pet is right,” Jake said, placing his foot on the table and leaning forward in an embarrassing pose. “Duels are allowed by the rules of the Society. Do you accept?”

I stood up and felt a smile begin to tug on my lips.

“It’s your funeral,” I said, summoning my bow.

Jake stared at me for a moment and then tipped his head back and laughed. The two other guys in the room joined in, laughing as well. One of them even slapped the table. It was all a little over the top in my opinion.

“You’re an archer?” He said, struggling to breathe through his intense laughter. “All that tough guy talk… and you’re only an archer?” He laughed, lowering his sword as his face contorted.

His two friends laughed along with him. The girl who was sat next to me, on the other hand, didn’t show any sign of emotion at all.

It was a little creepy. Something about her bothered me, but at least she wasn’t joining in with the three stooges.

“Hey kid, do me a favour and shoot this little prick, in his little prick,” Panda said, pulling out his bamboo pipe and lighting it up.

I was almost certain that this was a no-smoking area, but it didn’t matter right now. I nocked an arrow and began charging my Soul Shot.

“Um… Kaleb. Isn’t that overkill?” Panda said, immediately changing his tone as he recognised what I was doing.

I ignored him. I knew what I was doing. Besides, I only charged it a little bit.

Jake looked up at me, his laughter stopping abruptly. His eyes focused and locked onto me like pinpricks as his sword began to glow.

“Call it, Reggie.” He said, not taking his eyes off me.

The guy who had been laughing so hard he’d slapped the table looked up, still giggling slightly.

He was a thick-set, stout man with closely cropped hair and a small scar on his lip. He stood up and lifted a single arm in the air.

“Ok,” he began in a soothingly baritone voice. “When I drop my arm, the duel begins. A winner will be decided when one of you either can’t fight anymore or surrenders.”

I nodded, still keeping my gaze firmly rooted on Jake. I would end this farcical duel in a second. The little prick would never challenge me again.

I mean, who looks at a panda climbing onto a table and gets annoyed? Absolute sociopaths, that’s who.

Jake nodded too, still staring at me as his sword began to glow brighter. It reminded me of the attack Sally had used in her fight during the goblin king coronation quest.

Though it was a far cry from anything as powerful as she could do. She was a silver-ranked catonid bodybuilder. Whereas Jake was a skinny rich kid with an inferiority complex.

“That’s a big sword,” I said slowly. “You trying to compensate?”

The vein on his forehead grew larger, I was worried it might pop and spay rich-kid goop all over me. His face turned a deeper shade of scarlet and he gritted his teeth.

“Reggie, start the damned match already.” He snarled as his sword shone even brighter. “I need to put this peasant in his place.”

Reggie nodded at us both and threw his arm down.

Jake charged forward, screaming for some reason, and I released my arrow. It soared across the room, impacting him in an instant.

The arrow tore through his sword hand and smashed through the glass wall at the back of the room. The glass shattered and everyone jumped in unison.

It seemed that they had all underestimated me.

Jake’s sword fell to the table with a loud clank. The glow he’d put into it vanished instantly and it went back to its former, dull appearance.

He looked down at his hand in shock. His face went pale as he registered what had happened.

His hand was lying on the table near his sword and pumps of blood shot out of his bubbling wrist like they were on a timer dictated by his heartbeat.

“My hand…” He whimpered, looking between his wrist and his severed hand in disbelief. “What happened to my hand?”

Everyone in the room looked at me as I dismissed my bow and sat back down in the chair like nothing had happened.

Reggie and the other guy stared at me with open mouths and even the girl next to me looked shocked.

The door burst open and something that looked like a WWE wrestler in a cat cosplay burst into the room.

“What the fuck is going on in here!” She snarled, slamming the tip of her oversized, black blade into the floor, and slicing the carpet.

“Hi, Sally!” Panda said, waving with his free hand as smoke curled and twisted in the air around him.

Sally ignored him, marching further into the room. The two guys and the girl next to me all shrank back into their seats as, what I could only assume was, her magic pressure forced them down.

I couldn’t sense it, having no mana myself, but I could tell that was what was happening. She was a force to be reckoned with at the best of times, but especially when she was mad.

She looked at the shattered glass and then at Jake who was still whimpering and looking between his severed hand and his bleeding wrist.

Then her dark blue eyes landed on me and I felt a tingle in my soul. It was only slight, but I could feel it. Was this what mana sense did? Was Sally trying to exert her ferocious mana pressure on me?

My Usurper skill prevented people from being able to force me into submission with their monarch-based soul manipulation skills. I wasn’t sure if what Sally was doing counted as that, but either way it wasn’t going to work on me.

“Kaleb, explain,” she said.

“He challenged me to a duel so I disarmed him,” I replied, struggling to keep in the laughter as the rest of the room stared at me with horrified expressions.