The sun shines down from an angle above, casting long shadows across the courtyard. The area is moderately large, perhaps about thirty yards squared, and the is perfectly flat, well trimmed grass without so much as a flower or a tree to interrupt the pristine lawn.
The only characteristic of note in this current scene is the man leaning up against the wall a few yards to the right of my point of entry. He has short gray hair atop his wrinkled face, but despite his apparent age, he is still quite well-muscled.
"Here for a rank evaluation? Actually, I don't recognize you, is this your first time?" he asks. Why people ask the answers to questions they already know the answer to, I'll never know. Assuming I'm not in objectively the wrong location, obviously I'm here for a rank examination. Honestly, come on!
"Yes, that is correct," I say, keeping my more critical thoughts to myself as I hand over my stamped guild identification, a temporary document until I obtain my actual guild tag, which has material varying based on the guild member's rank.
"Very well then. It says here that you have received the recommendation of a C-grade adventurer, do you have your upfront payment of eight gold?"
"Yes, here," I hand him the coins, which I have already counted out.
After quickly and discreetly checking the number, he says "Everything seems to be in order. Have you been informed of how the ranking process works?"
"No, I have not yet been informed of the exact details. Would you mind filling in that gap in my knowledge?"
Without so much as even a sigh, he goes into a brief explanation of how exactly the process works. "You will be pitted against various monsters, which you will have to fight exclusively with your own equipment and abilities. Each rank up requires beating a variety of vastly different monsters, to ensure that a would-be adventurer is not rated too high because he was lucky in his matchups during the evaluation. Does that make sense?"
"Yes, it does. How many monsters are in each bracket required for the next rank-up?"
"Well, it depends, though it generally increases as the rank does. To be ranked the highest level, S-class, there are nearly thirty different monsters that one must be able to defeat, with no losses tolerated. Anything else?"
"No, I am ready to begin."
"Well, in that case, we shall start shortly. One last detail, you will be charged a varying fee if you kill a monster, try to avoid that for all our sakes. I am a top notch beast tamer, rest assured that I will remove the monster from the fight if you show that you have the ability to defeat it, there is no need to land a killing blow."
"Very well. But if I ever must decide between taking an injury from a wounded, thrashing beast laying crippled on the ground and killing it myself, know what I will choose."
He shrugs, saying "If you want to pay the charge, that's your prerogative. I only would warn you against such behavior if you can avoid it. So, I ask again: are you ready?"
"Again, I am."
Without any further delay, he opens a large door across the courtyard from me before entering into it. He walks out a moment later, with what appears to be a moderately large dog by his side.
"Any new applicant will be placed in at least E-grade, this is one of the three beasts one must defeat to be placed into D-grade. Be warned, this is a fully-fledged monster, it is far more powerful than its appearance would suggest. Now, have at it!"
As soon as he says this, the dog leaps towards me. Gone is its appearance of docility; now, its black fur stands straight up, taking on the appearance of needles. Its eyes have taken on a red glow, and when it bares its fangs, the gleam a metallic silver, their serrated edges razor sharp.
Still, hardly of much concern to me. I have already defeated a C-ranked adventurer, how could I lose to such a creature?
I use wind elemental particles to push myself to the side. I have already switched my primary armament to my new sword, being unable to use magic in battle is a state of being that I willingly gave up the first chance I obtained.
The dog brushes by, only to slam into the wall right behind me. As it stumbles to its feet, I leisurely point my sword in its direction.
"Not a very smart mutt you've got there. Now, are you going to revolve it from battle, or shall I? If you think it can withstand my attack, you've got another thing coming."
The man doesn't verbally respond, however, the dog jumps away from me, its eyes rapidly returning to a normal color and its fur again laying flat.
Neither of us speak as I return to a defensive stance and he leads his pet back through the door they have just passed through.
What he returns with is a creature so far above the dog's league that I really must question why they would make any prospective D-class adventurer's fight the dog at all; after all, I struggle to believe that anyone who could beat this creature would struggle with the dog.
At the man's side is a massive brown bear, covered in rippling muscles. The bear bears no noticeable difference from a basic bear, so I am unsure whether it should be referred to as a monster or just an animal. Well, 'beast' should apply either way, I suppose.
Seeing my somewhat surprised expression, the beast tamer laughs. "Many wonder why we bother with the dog first, the answer is that it is for prospective adventurers' safety. You would be amazed how many lose to the dog, we wouldn't want them to die to the bear."
"Ah, quite thoughtful of you."
"3… 2… 1… attack!"
This time, I don't give my opponent the initiative. Manipulating the earth at the bear's feet, I entrap it in the ground. It manages to pull its paw out of its earthen cage, but by piling dirt onto every paw at once it is soon kept entirely from moving its legs, essentially sealing its fate.
Just for the imbecile of a beast tamer, I shoot a compressed orb of fire through the bear's shoulder, causing it to release a roar of pain and to redouble its pointless struggle. Once the bear shows that it has no hope of escaping, by which point I am only a second away from killing the thing, the beast tamer finally says "That is enough, this will be your victory."
"Obviously. You know, it seems that with a cost of eight gold for the examination, enough money to live in comfort for literal [years], I could at least slaughter the training dummies without worry."
"Well, that is the policy. If you don't like it, you shouldn't have submitted to it. Now, shall we continue?"
The next monster is a wolf of some sort. Its fur is somewhat resistant to magic, though not enough to really give me much trouble.
After the wolf, I am a fully-fledged D-rank adventurer. The fact that twenty percent of adventurers couldn't even manage that much is somewhat surprising - though that surprise does fade a bit when I remember that there are adventurers used for things other than fighting in this world and that these monsters would be quite challenging for a normal, non-magic user.
"Well, I must warn you, the next batch of monsters is quite a bit tougher. Are you ready?"
"Yeah, sure. I'd imagine they are quite tough, by your standards at least."
"Why so hostile? You know, I don't really care. I'll go get the first monster for the rank C examination."