A clang rings out from my arrow hitting Roderick's armor on his thigh. He stops his movements immediately and looks down where he was struck before looking back up at me.

  “Well ill be damned, i never thought you would actually land a hit on me!” Roderick laughs before continuing

  “Where did you learn that last move, Ren? I've never seen anything like it!”

  “To be honest it was just a last minute hail mary that only worked because i got lucky and the fact that i only had to hit you once, not actually beat you” I chuckle

  “But wait didn't you say I had to land a hit on you to pass? If you didn't think I could do it, why was that the test?”

  At this time Sarah raises her hand

  “I should probably explain, the test is just for us to gauge your combat skills. the rule of passing if you land a hit is simply what Roderick tells people to make sure they give it their all. Of course, landing a hit on a B rank mercenary like him does leave a better impression so its nothing bad.”

  I curse myself for falling for such a cheap ploy, if i had known that from before i would have just dodged and shot my arrows until they were all gone then politely surrendered! Instead now I made a scene for absolutely no reason! It doesn't help that Nox who has been silent this whole time feels the need to break out into laughter in the back of my mind.

  I feel a headache coming on and rub my temples while sighing. Roderick walks over and gives me a huge slap on the back.

  “What are you sulking for, you landed a hit on me! I'm a B rank you know, we should be going to get a drink and celebrate! Oh wait, you're still too young to drink.”

  Suddenly Sarah interjects while giving Roderick a side eye.

  “Roderick, stop trying to infect others with your bad habits.”

  Then turning to me she goes on to say

  “ You did well all around, especially in that last test, with these results we should be able to start you off at D rank, of course that is dependent on the guild masters approval.”

  “See? D rank! Your skipping both F and E ranks” Roderick laughs as he heavily slaps my back

  We head back inside to finish registration, Sarah is gone for a few minutes while she confirms with the guild master then she stamps an iron plate with my information and hands me my mercenary license. She also explained a few uses of the license outside of allowing me to accept job requests. Mainly the card allows entry to any city that has a guild branch without paying the entry fee but it also lets me stay at the lodgings in any guild buildings for extremely cheap Though it is only for up to a week at a time. Mercenaries travel a lot for jobs so this allows them to be more willing to take on long jobs away from their usual place of residence.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  I decided against staying at the guild building since I would only be able to stay for a week anyway. Bidding farewell to Roderick and Sarah I put away my license and moved onto finding a place to stay for a while. I'll start looking for jobs tomorrow.

  [Back in the Agnalog mountains]

  “Lord! I found bodies!”

  A soldier yells to alert the Earl who makes his way over to the soldier. They just found the shield bearer and swordsmans bodies. The Earl is quite shocked when he sees the tight grouping of arrows jutting out of the shield and the one that made it through caked in dried blood.

  “The bodies haven't rotted much, it must have been only a couple days ago at most.” The Earl mumbles

  “They appear to be bandits Lord”

  “Yes but the question is, who killed them? If it was mercenaries or soldiers they would have reported it.”

  “Perhaps the bandits had a falling out and killed each other?” the soldier looks up at the Earl and suggests.

  “Perhaps, but my gut tells me it's something else.”

  “Lord there's another body over here!”

  “Lord, there's one over here too!”

  Shouts begin to ring out as the soldiers discover the other bodies until a soldier approaches the Earl.

  “Lord your going to want to see this”

  The soldier directs the earl to a pit about 100 yards behind a large rock formation; in the pit were dozens of bodies at different stages of decomposition.

  “This must be where all the people who went missing ended up” The Earl says as he sighs before turning to the soldier.

  “Burn the bodies”

  “Yes lord!”

  He then went to investigate the other bandits' bodies. Eventually he makes his way to the final two bodies, the first swordsman and the one who wielded the short sword

  “Hmm, they were all killed with knives or arrows except one of them who was killed by a sword. Furthermore all of the valuables are gone as are some of the weapons…

  He suddenly picks up the short sword.

  “This seems to be part of a set, but one is gone”

  Turning to his soldiers he issues his new orders

  “We will finish the investigation here and continue investigating the path to Arbourne, except you” he says as he points to one of the soldiers

  “Take this sword and go back to Oldenwald and Inform Ser Grian to investigate if anyone passed through the city with a similar sword”

  “Yes Lord!”

  The soldier receives the sword and wraps it in cloth before mounting his horse and beginning the ride back to the city.

  “I hope he can be found, someone this skillful would be of great use”

  Apparently he has concluded that one person took out the bandits, which of course is not wrong.