Looking at the maid with silver hair handing the box to her young master, a boy who wore apparently new casual clothes, and that weren't from a bad quality either, it seemed like he was trying to hide his own status, but did a bad job at it.
But what happened next left him surprised.
Instead of opening the box and taking out his weapon like he expected him to do, the boy just grabbed the whole box and the maid was the one to make a step forward.
" Boy, do you want your maid to take the entrance exam too ? "
While he didn't wanted to hit such a beautiful girl and make a bad impression, he knew he would be forced to do it if the man didn't changed his opinion, which was why he had to ask about it, trying to dissuade him from it.
" Well, not really, but she will be the one to fight. "
" .... "
Clenching his fist at the absurdity of the situation, he let out a loud sigh as it seemed that the greenhorn didn't understood the rules of the adventurer's guild.
" You know, if she's the one fighting, she's the one who will get her admission in the guild, not you, because you didn't fought for it. "
" Even if she's part of my power ? "
Hearing his answer that formed a genuine question, he could feel the headache coming in, was he such a protected son ?
" Even if your family raised her for or with you or something, if it isn't your own power, and you use a borrowed one, you won't be able to get in the guild's rank. "
Deciding to explain more properly his thoughts, the boy still seemed somewhat confused as he raised his hand in front of him.
" Cards "
' Cards ? Do he want to play cards and win against me or something ? '
Feeling exasperated as he seemed he was dumber than what he let appear, what appeared next had his jaw drop.
A complete white cover, a book floating in the air, that formed from nothing but a small light, was now hovering in front of the boy, as if waiting for further instructions.
' Fuck me, a magic user ? And he have a grimoire at that ? '
" Mariane, I'll summon you back immediately. "
Hearing the name of the maid for the first time, everything was going a bit too fast to understand properly the words that came out from the boy's mouth.
" I understand, master. "
And listening to the voice of the wolfkin woman, he almost got flustered as he never expected it to be so soft, but without letting him a chance to grab ahold of the situation, the boy kept speaking.
" Mariane, return. "
What happened the next instance was just magic.
The woman, which could make a grown man like him feel shy about his previous encounters who were nowhere as good as she was, turning into rays of lights, surprising him as he closed his eyes.
" Fuck, what- ? "
A veteran like him, being flashed like that, he was definitely took by surprise, but as soon as the light dimmed, he opened his eyes to see a sight he never thought he would in his whole life.
The presence of the woman disappeared, along with her whole body, as if she was never there in the first place.
Turning around to face the boy, this one now had a rainbow colored card inside of his hand that he lifted earlier, and as if he knew it was bound to happen from the start, he didn't even looked surprised.
" That's what I meant, by she is part of my power. "
With the words that came out of his mouth, he still couldn't believe it.
Was the card he was holding on really the woman that he saw earlier ? Or was it a tool to seal someone in ?
Not knowing what was happening, he tried focusing his eyesight on the back of the card that he was holding, trying to detect the secret of such an artifact, and he quickly saw that there was scribbles on the back of it that looked like someone wrote something.
But the more he focused on it, attempting to read what was written, he could feel a headache coming in, what appeared to be letters started to move on their own and his eyes became weary from staring at the ever changing words that he couldn't read.
In the end, he closed his eyes, immediately feeling relief once the strange feeling stopped, but after such an event, he knew that it would be better to not try what he just did again.
" ... You, what's that card ? Did you sealed her in ? "
When he opened his eyes again, he avoided to glance at the item in the hand of the young man and instead choose to look at his dark brown eyes.
" Sealed her in ? Well, I guess it would look like that, but that's not how it works. "
" Then what is it ? "
Almost raising his voice as his own wariness and curiosity weren't contained in it anymore, he felt like he was going crazy about the secretive young man.
" Like I said, it's part of my power, so I won't describe much of it, but this card is my maid, and one of my summons, like a mage could summon golems, you know ? "
The more he listened to the man's explanations, the more confused he became.
" ... You're telling me that she's someone you summoned, and it works like a mage summoning golems ? Do you think I'm dumb maybe ? "
After he calmed himself, he asked, obviously suspicious about such a 'power' that was never heard of.
But at the same time, it wasn't like there wasn't any special case before.
Someone capable of reading minds, someone that could lift objects around with just a thought, someone that would prevent disasters by reading the flow of time, there was all kind of people possessing special abilities like that.
They were all called special skill holders, and while he could accept the fact that the young man was one of them, it was just never heard of, to be able to summon other people.
" Do you want me to call her back and ask if she's sealed against her will or something ? If you can't trust that, I don't know what to tell you either. "
Staring at the man, he could see that although he was thinking, his eyes weren't wavering, showing that either he was an extremely talented liar, or he was telling the truth, and at that point, he was also leaning towards the last one after all of that.
" ..... "
Staying silent for a long moment as he was reorganizing his thoughts, he ended up sighing one last time as he gave up.
" Alright, let's say that she's your summon, and that she can fight for you, then how many summons do you have, how many can you call at the same time, what about their strenghts and for how long they can stay summoned ? "
Although he said that he wouldn't reveal much about his powers, he had no choice but to ask to assess his fighting prowess and give him an appropriate rank, as he already decided that accepting a special skill holder into the adventurer's guild was the best initiative to take.
" Currently, I just have her, it takes a really long time to create a card with my power, so I'm not sure about how many I can summon at the same time, but I'm sure that five would be the least I could. "
" Also, I'd say that the fighting power of the card can vary, but currently, she's able to kill a wolf easily, as for how long they can stay summoned, I'd say about infinitely if they don't die, but even so, I could just resummon them after a week or so. "
' .... What kind of absurd power is that ? '
Hearing the words coming out of the man, he could tell that this one wasn't telling him everything, and he wasn't going much into the details either, but the fact that he could still summon a party of seasoned adventurer's just by himself was the strange part.
Five people capable of killing easily a wolf by themselves wasn't that weird, even he could kill a wolf with two fingers, but the fact that they were all summoned by the same person and could 'live' indefinitely even if they were summons was the scary part.
And he wasn't even sure that he could summon more, five was just a number he gave him like that probably, what if he was to create an army of adventurer's ?
With a shiver running down his spine, he decided what rank to give him.