Going back to the inn, Aki was quite surprised when Mari, who'd gone back ahead because she was bored of the researchers fawning over her husband, told him the adventurer's guild had already sent for him.
Considering it'd only been around six to eight hours since he'd last been there, the man felt like he really didn't want to go, but seeing the smiling faces of the women on the room left it clear that he had no option.
He felt like murdering some people to de-stress, but instead of making trouble he just took his time pampering his daughter and kissing his wife before stepping out, which saved the life of many a hooligan that day.
Reaching the guild, the person that would be testing him was immediately obvious. Not. There was a kimono wearing fox woman, a fashionable old man wearing a tuxedo and a boisterous giant of a man wearing a shining heavy plate.
"Excuse me, I came for my A rank evaluation?" He told the receptionist, observing as the fox let out that she heard him even as she looked at the request board.
"Adventurer Aki, right? I will inform your evaluator." Nodded the standard pretty girl wearing the guild uniform before going through a door on the other side of the counter.
Looking around, the mofu... Fox-kin approached another receptionist and accepted a request before leaving. Magically following her lead him through several alleys before he just sent the thought of apologizing and focusing on the book in hand again.
"Excuse me, could you please ask that lady to stop pretending she's doing something in that room? I'm pretty sure this is part of my test already, but I really don't have the patience to remain alert for so long on the whims of someone else." Aki pleaded to another attendant after half an hour of just standing there.
The man seemed confused, but before he could say anything, the same attendant as before smacked the door open and reported that they were ready for him before leading him to the underground training halls.
When she suddenly rolled forward and looked back to see a grinning Aki playing with a knife, she noticed that no, he did not try to attack her from behind but somehow made her instincts react like he did.
"I take it you're the party's rogue them?" He chuckled.
"I could kill you for this." She icily said.
"I'd rob you blind for it." He shrugged, smirking a bit more at the small eyebrow movement he noticed. After a deep breath she got up, sheated her hidden blades and kept going until she reached one of the last rooms, opening the door to reveal the fox woman from before. "So it was like this after all." He sighed.
"Your test is not a mere tecnicallity, of course it'd not be simple." Calmly said the woman sitting in a seiza in the middle of a sand arena.
"I think you ment it is not supposed to be easy, because this is quite simple. Your request form was practically blank yet the attendant still did the usual, that old guy was ussing magic non-stop and this girl is extra suspicious since there's nothing strange about her. The giant was the only one that really didn't give a shit about me, so i do have to ask wether he has anything to do with this." He explained while counting on his fingers. Which made both women freeze a bit. "You want me to fight or something? Obstacle course, dificult request, i don't really have much more social energy for today, so if possible..." Aki asked, completly uninterested, which made his examiner a bit more pissed.
"Your test is to delve into a A-rank dungeon with our team." Explained the rogue. "Now."
"Only if someone informs my wife and kid, otherwise i don't really mind just straight up failing and getting a promotion from solving a crisis." He interjected.
"That is none of our business. If you don't want to..." She stopped talking as Aki raised a hand and asked for silence.
"Mari? Yeah, my test is going to take some days, could you take care of Clair for me please? Also, here's the image of how my tester looks like, her magical signature and the slave mark she's hiding. Uhum. I'll look into it. Can't promise anything. Love you." He loudly said, completly unafected by the killing intent directed at him. "Go suck on a cactus." He told the rogue, giving her the finger. A multiversal gesture really.
"Enough hostility, we will be going as soon as the rest gets here." Said the kitsune, getting a nod from both.
*****
As the group of five teleported in front of the A-rank dungeon, both the man on a tuxedo and the giant were laughing their asses off.
"So, should i work with you guys, alone or both?" Asked Aki.
"You will go alone on the first two floors and then you will acompany us till the fifth floor before we go back." The swordwoman with a fluffly tail said.
A nod was all that she got back. Then she was caught by surprise as he began to roar, hurting her ears. By a lot. And he did not stop for five minutes. No monster remained unpulled on the floor. Nor did much of the floor itself. As Aki went foward and started killing everything trying to reach the entrance, he ussed the cavern like entrance most dungeon's shared as a choke point, ussing several modifications to the terrain and charged spells to kill all the beasts he'd called over a period of six hours, looting the more valuable corpses while he had the chance and sometimes renewing the taunt effect so that nothing would escape.
This all pretty much maxed out the war crier, singer, battle singer, demonic singer and holy singer jobs one after the other.
While it was not like every monster he'd killed was rank 10, the were still a few that were. Those mostly got defeated by their brains exploding, giant holes appearing on their bodies the moment they appeared, or by each other when Aki controlled the less resistants.
That left four A-rank adventurers quite flabbergasted. The man in front of them acted like he had a bottomless mana pool and an endless supply of whatever he decided to throw at one monster or the other. Which was actually very rare since he basically raised the dead and controlled the living to CC the strong opponents while he played a wordless song and threw spells from the entrance, not once asking for help as he destroyed the monster horde he'd made himself.
"You might want to actually go suck off a cactus." Said the old man to their rogue, who was unable to do much but glare at him.
"Think we could take him?" Asked the Fox kin after using a spell to muffle their conversation.
"If we had a prepared terrain, consumables and got him by surprise? We'd have a good chance. I don't see this mad man ever letting an opponent have such advantages though. I felt it when I teleported us, he could have resisted. I don't want to figure out if he could have trapped us in the spell." Shrugged the old man as he looked at the young man being protected by red, giant mantisses.
"So he's got a lot of wind, mind, space, life and light magic besides the fact that he has been keeping a familiar spirit active and using some kind of berserker skill to get stronger with time while constantly regenerating huge amounts of mana. That we've seen till now." Pointed out the red haired paladin.
"Oh, don't forget the fact that using too many times your mana pool is usually toxic enough to just make anyone with a weak soul go insane or just plain dead." Comented the mage.
"Everyone agrees to try and be nice?" The giant locked eyes with the expressionless rogue.
"Only if he doesn't go too far." She mumbled, really not being ussed to being treated like this.
*****
The next day.
"Nice to meet you all, I am Clair Augustus Sunstride. Thanks to some circunstancies i have skipped three years when enroling and will be your classmate from today onwards." Curtsied the black haired doll of adorableness and magical destruction, causing a ruckus over her looks, introduction and what she'd done to enter an older class. Nodding to the teacher after silence was established, she slowly walked to an empty seat by the window, greating the girl seating besides her and taking out her notebook and pen out to take notes on the class.
And she really did all but the last part, instead ussing an illusion to read up a romance book and taking notes on words she did not understand. She didn't specially enjoy the book itself as much as the idea of what should really be happening and the feelings that the author wanted to pass on, which was really hard sometimes, but she really wanted to discuss the book her mother had recomended for her.
As for the class...
"Miss Augustus, this question shaw be for you." Smiled the teacher while pointing to the board. She'd not been the only one to ever try the illusion trick.
Dissapearing with the book and walking over to the board however, Clair solved the equation in question and pointed which route would be more efficient to use it for.
She did make sure to take her time and even ask a question about her formula though, her father had made sure she understood how bad it was being the teacher's pet these travel days, so she tried to downplay her intellect.
And she thought these tipes of characters were cool.
After the first period, the girl sitting next to her was friendly enough, a baron's daughter apparently. It was her that informed Clair that status as the daughter of a new A rank adventurer and child priest put her quite high in the students' hierarchy.
She was aparrently not beholden to specially respect anyone below a marquis heir according to their convoluted imitation of what high society looked like. It was pretty life-like, sure, but they were still children.
It was only around the third period, practical magic lessons, that she even met someone of a duke's family, but there were surprisingly little 'accidents' if the glares and observant gases could even be counted as such. She just introduced herself as their classmate, curtsied with the battle skirt she wore and went away with the boy having barely registered her presence thanks to one of the enchantments on her.
Maybe she'd be able to have one of those fantastical 'normal school lives' her father told her about.
Or so she thought until several girls surrounded her after classes were done for the day. They didn't want to bully her, no, but it seemed like she'd gotten a following just from being cute and polite.
Incidentally, boys mostly ignored her thanks to an enchantment. Girls would still flock at her for information on her personal life and shiny accessories even if there was something of the like for them as well though.
Even though they were only twelve years old...
"Are you considering marriage already?"
"Where did you get that butterfly hair pin?"
"Your shoes look so comfortable and cute!"
"What products do you use to make your hair so silky?"
"Your hands are even softer than mine somehow!"
They were practically carrying her away when Mari came, thinking the worst until she actually heard the pleading and gossiping.
It seemed her daughter was so cute she was basically adopted as the grade's pet, because most girls seemed quite pained at the fact she was taking her away and telling them they did not have a house in the capital they could visit yet.
This led to her receiving several lunch and tea invitations instead, with some counts' daughters offering to house them while they looked for a property to buy.