Everyone openly glared at Guy the next few hours of travel, even their formerly neutral supervisor. When they took a lunch break, his cohorts approached him for a talk.
“You do realise we're doing poorly, don't you,” the half-elf spoke first.
“I can't decide whether to praise your daring or applaud your stupidity. You outed our blunder, then proceeded to disrespect our supervisor,” Jasmine said with a groan.
The giant man grunted, looking deeply at Guy but having no words for him.
“Are you trying to sabotage our competition?” the swordsman asked.
Guy didn't want to. He didn't want to, but that day he attempted to roll his eyes for the first time he could remember. He couldn't quite pull it off. Curses! He would have to settle for mentally rolling his eyes.
He put a hand to his chest and gasped. “I would never!”
The swordsman nodded. “Of course you wouldn't.”
“No,” Jasmine told him with a sigh, “he was being sarcastic about the competition. I think he couldn't care less.”
The swordsman looked between Jasmine and Guy in confusion. “But…but why?” his eyes wide, he turned a hurt look to Guy.
“Yes, Mr… I didn't catch your name, but why?”
“Oh, my name is Rafe King…” the world froze for an instant.
And like a picture being ripped in two, tears appeared on the tapestry of the world. A pin prick of pain pierced right into his brain, and he almost lost consciousness there and then. Then something in his brain fought back, indomitable, unbreakable. The pain receded, and with it the vague memories of a world without magic.
He blinked, and all he felt was the barest shadow of the pain. The barest shadow, but it hurt way more than the phantom pain of being gutted by Celene in their sparring matches.
He blinked away tears and looked away from the others.
“My name is Guy Wilde. And as to why I ‘sabotaged’ your mission. I just thought it would be a good learning experience. No more than three times was I woken by predators stocking the camp. If I wasn't as light a sleeper as I seem to have become, a few of us would be dead.”
Jasmine snorted. “You just want to use our tents, since you didn't bring one of your own.”
But he was already leaving them to their conspiracies. He needed to get to grips with what had happened in those few moments he'd witnessed the world crack like a mirror. No sign of it remained, not even a hint, but he sure as hell saw the world almost break, and a crack had run vertically through the swordsman too. The swordsman whose name he yet didn't know.
They reached their target location a few hours past noon that day. It was a good pace, according to the not-so-neutral supervisor.
The swordsman cracked his neck.
“Too bad we can't just have a duel, and call it a day, right punk?” the swordsman addressed Guy.
Guy frowned. “Right. Too bad. But rules are rules, I'm afraid.”
“There are no rules about how or what you do after the quest is finished. I'd be happy to mediate the match for you after the allotted monsters are handed over to me,” the supervisor woman said in the most neutral voice she could manage.
She couldn't quite keep her spite for Guy from leaking out. Guy sighed inwards. He had no idea how an attempt at a compliment got him in a pickle like this. A lie! He knew how and why he'd ended up in this pickle. He noticed everyone was looking at him for his reaction to the duel. He shrugged, caring little either way. He definitely found the dual-blade wielder interesting, but he knew the Demon God's Promise had a dual-wielding skill, although it was hardly popular.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Ohhhh, yeah!” the man shouted to the heavens in glee. He extended a hand to Guy, a goofy smile pasted on his face. “Alright, let's have a good one, Guy.”
Guy blinked multiple times, another frown creasing his brow. He studied the young man in front of him, not long past twenty, average height, long brown hair tied in a warrior's knot, ordinary looking, if not babyish face.
The goofy grin fitted him, his boisterous personality, not so much. Guy figured he maybe was biased against loud people.
“Let's have a good one…uh?”
The boy looked at him in confusion, until Jasmine leaned in and told him something.
“Right! Orlandir. My name is Orlandir.”
“Orlandir…” Guy tasted the name on his tongue.
He shook the man's hand and then turned to the supervisor.
“The quarter for this task is decided at the supervisor's discretion, depending on the testee’s strengths and weaknesses as seen in other portions of testing.”
Guy divided his mind into two, already knowing roughly what to expect from this information dump. He extended his aura senses, trying to find somewhere far enough away that he wouldn't clash with the others, and he could still find enough beasts to hunt too. The beasts underwhelmed him, but he supposed a standard test would.
“The four of you will have to bring me twenty-five right goblin ears par head,” she addressed the partied-up group. “You, on the other hand, will have to bring me thirty-five right goblin ears.”
Guy bowed like a knight to a lady, formal and painfully stiff. He was trying to hide his raised brows and wide eyes.
“That's no fair,” Orlandir pouted. “Why does he get to kill more goblins?”
The woman adjusted her, at least according to Guy, already well-adjusted spectacles.
“I took into account that most of the heavy fighting will probably fall on you and Mr Grunter. And lady Jasmine's fire affinity is ill-suited for a collection quest—”
“She likes me more,” Guy grinned at the frowning swordsman.
“That…that is unprofessional!” Orlandir half glared, half pleaded with his eyes, staring unblinkingly at the woman.
The woman looked Guy over, her eyes scanning him from head to toe.
“Your behavior will go on your permanent record.”
“I'd like to read those records. Will there be a description of my good looks in there?”
The woman tilted her head in consideration. “Do you shift your demeanor so suddenly as a way to keep people off balance?You were being so professional the whole way here, even when you discussed the whole duel and everything.”
Guy shrugged. “I don't know how my brain works, but to be honest, who does? I said what I said when I said it because it is truly how I felt. It is a sign of my genuineness.”
“Um-hmm. Get to it then,” she said with a sigh.
Guy turned away without a word, lowering his body in a crouch and raising his hand to the back-placed hilt of his cheap long sword. Before any of the others had said anything to make plans or whatever, he was running, his head lowered and eyes peeled.
****
“What the hell? He didn't wait for us to divvy up the hunting grounds or anything,” Orlandir complained.
“He chose the side of the forest we wouldn't have chosen anyway. And did you see his speed?” Jasmine asked with a worried look in Orlandir’s direction.
Orlandir grinned. “At least he's not a well-connected waste of space. Our duel might be interesting.”
“I am well connected too, and so is Rhea. Are we wastes of space?”
“Look, I saw the two of you, even with all your connections, take all the same standard tests everyone does. That asshole, no matter how good he is didn't even take the six months aura augmentation course. I have to show him just how weak he is.”
“Only I don't think he is weak,” this time Rhea spoke.
“Indeed,” their supposedly neutral supervisor chimed in. “I got a hint of his aura when he ran. I don't know if pushing for the duel was a good idea anymore…”
“Don't worry, supervisor. Even if I can't beat him, I'm confident in gaining his respect. After all, he has had lots of resources thrown into him. All I am I built with my own hands.”
****
It took Guy only a few minutes to reach deep enough into the monster den. He could have found a hundred easily. That was not why he came this deep though. This was a known monster nest, cultivated by the adventurer's guild as a place to allow new adventurers to blood themselves.
There was something that had surprised Guy during his earlier cursory scan of the area. He had sensed, with his aura, multiple hobgoblins, even what felt like goblin mages in the deepest parts of the nest. Just sighting more than three hobgoblins should have been enough to have a high-level team of adventurers swoop down and rain death on the nest. Whoever was in charge of this whole thing was being lax with their duties, an inexcusable act.