3-8 The A-Rank Exam

For about the past week, I trained hard with the Guildmaster, Antonio, Andre-san, and the guild instructors I’d asked to coach me before.

And I threw myself into mana-control training.

I worked my ass off, so Physical Enhancement and HP both rose to Lv12.

And my HP jumped straight up to eight million.

On top of that, I spent my days developing and tuning equipment—weapons, armor, magic tools, the whole lot.

I did teleport over to Eri’s place every day, at least.

They’d completed quite a few new sweets too, and Erin never missed a chance to “test” them.

Honestly, even after the escort job ended, would Erin even be able to leave that house?

It worried me, even if it wasn’t my problem.

You could practically feel Team Leader Ed’s suffering.

Day 52 in Another World.

Today was the A-rank exam.

Back in Japan, New Year’s would already be over—around Coming-of-Age Day, probably.

Damn it, I forgot to eat mochi!

Not that there was any mochi here.

Oh—wait. I did have two individually wrapped pieces left over from last year.

They were way past the expiration date, but I had the ultimate skill: Regeneration.

For good luck, I decided to make breakfast a celebratory New Year’s soup.

That classic “Showa-era old man” superstition.

And mochi really did give you energy.

After my morning mana-control training and a light warm-up, I headed to the Royal Capital guild.

The venue felt downright vicious.

Well, no surprise.

If you won here, you’d earn status equivalent to a viscount.

And if you entered royal service, you could even become an actual viscount.

But I was born on Earth—even if it was an otherworld Earth—and I was East Asian, so I wasn’t that interested in noble ranks.

If I had to say, though… I wouldn’t mind buying one of those “duke title certificates” from that certain sea-faring European country you could purchase with money.

It was sold online, so I should be able to buy it even from another world.

Not that the physical certificate would ever reach me here.

A-rank exam participants… at a glance, there were about two hundred.

That meant basically all active B-rank adventurers were here.

And they were going to narrow it down to just eight for the main bracket.

The prelims ran a tournament in groups of about twenty-five.

Today the King and prominent nobles would also be watching.

Even if you lost, if you performed well, you could catch their eye.

So a lot of people were fired up.

There were also guys who’d been past their prime for ages and had no real shot at winning—yet came anyway.

They wanted to sell their wisdom and experience.

Each block had twenty-five people, then split into a group of twelve and a group of thirteen for the first match.

Looks like there were exactly two hundred participants this time.

I ended up in the twelve-person side.

One of the first matches featured a spear user who looked seriously skilled.

I’d dabbled in the spear a bit, so I could tell.

His weapon was a mithril great spear.

The spear howled as he swung it overhead.

His opponent was a heavy warrior.

A massive greatsword sliced through the air with ease.

Even in that bulky armor, he was surprisingly quick.

So he was pretending to be a meathead, but he had skills up his sleeve.

As expected of seasoned B-rank veterans—there were plenty of crafty ones.

I’d better stay sharp.

The A-rank exam was rougher than the B-rank.

The result didn’t depend on whether the opponent lived or died.

Well, if you were aiming to rank up to A, you probably wouldn’t do anything too stupid.

It would affect your reputation later.

Apparently, if you had serious character issues, you might not even get the viscount-equivalent status.

Still, it wasn’t like there couldn’t be a lunatic in the mix.

If I held back too much, I might end up dead by accident.

Fine. I’d go in fully committed.

Even just watching other matches, it was on a completely different level than the B-rank exam.

Every single one of them was a winner of that brutal test—and had kept honing themselves for years afterward.

I was basically a newbie among high-rank adventurers.

Not long ago I’d been E-rank, and before that I’d been in Japan—rankless.

They also looked experienced with A-rank exams.

But so far, scanning the field, I didn’t see any monsters on Antonio’s level.

During special training with Antonio, I’d even managed to forcibly strip off his magic armor.

That could be applied as a kind of debuff too.

At this level, everyone used basic mana reinforcement—Physical Enhancement, mana coating for defense, and so on.

Next up was my turn.

My opponent looked like a wily old fox—about my age, maybe?

The type who wanted to retire with A-rank as a trophy.

But then I froze.

Even though I was ready, the moment the match began, he was already right in front of me.

He used a strange, distinctive footwork.

This guy—

The next instant, I went flying.

Me—someone who wore speed-focused magic armor—getting opened and launched out of position first?!

There wasn’t even an “out of bounds” rule here.

It continued until you were incapacitated or you surrendered.

I’d run into the exact type Armon had warned me about.

“Listen, Al. You’re strong. Your mana is monstrous. Even in the A-rank exam, you can overpower most people with raw force. But be careful against assassin-types. They have unique footwork and spacing, and they’ll throw weird attacks at you. With your lack of PvP experience, they’re troublesome. If you face one, crush them right at the start. Magic is your biggest weapon, so don’t hold back. You’re facing people aiming for A-rank. A bit of excess will be overlooked. We’ll put up stronger shields than usual so the audience isn’t harmed. If you’re worried, put up your own too. You had trouble with the thieves’ guild. There are B-ranks under their thumb. If you get matched with one, their main goal might be to kill you. If someone feels shady and dangerous, you can kill them. No—better to eliminate them during the match. For what comes after.”

Tch. I’d been stupid.

Was Armon laughing his ass off in the stands right now?

That bastard wasn’t coming in carelessly—he was keeping distance, probing.

That would be his fatal mistake.

You beat a long-range attacker up close, and then you back off to “test the waters”?

Hit-and-away, maybe—but I’d make him regret it.

Regret not finishing me with the first strike.

Sensing the shift in my mood, he widened the distance again.

Where exactly did he think he was going to run—

Inside a cage with no exits?

On my open palm, I deliberately kneaded mana where he could see it.

I could feel my face turning more and more vicious.

And then it twisted into a terrifying grin.

I was thrilled.

I was about to kill this bastard.

Ugh—this wasn’t good.

Maybe I’d been dragged too fast into violence, and the world here was pulling my mind along with it.

Back in the Warring States era, my hometown had been… something like a center of that chaos.

Samurai slaughter had filled the streets with thousands of corpses.

And then men from my hometown took the nation.

How many enemies had the men of my hometown killed back then?

Plenty of our own died too, of course.

But something about it felt imprinted in my bones.

I got strangely exhilarated in moments like this.

Not that I had conquered anything, or killed enemies by the dozen.

But it was like I had no mental taboo against it.

I came from the opposite of a flower-field brain—born in a town that was probably home to the most head-hunting battle tribe of samurai Japan.

Normally they were quiet people, doing nothing but farming in tiny, careful increments.

But when war came, the moment they held weapons—they changed.

Even today, they still proudly displayed mounted-sword techniques and old blades in town.

Even ordinary knife shops had dangerous-looking things on display—like a “horse-cleaving great hatchet.”

Not a hand axe—more like a massive cleaver, so huge the blade of a normal wood-splitting axe looked like a toy.

It was basically like an oversized version of a Chinese cleaver I’d copied and enlarged.

It looked like it weighed dozens of kilos.

And about three-quarters of its entire length was blade.

Who the hell used something like that in the Warring States era?

In my head, it was militia peasants swinging it around.

I should’ve brought a big cleaver or something.

With my current strength, I could swing even a pair of those “horse-cleaving” things like nunchaku.

Maybe I’d make an orichalcum horse-cleaver myself someday.

A town where lots of residents owned their own conch-shell war horns, waxed and polished to a shine, and displayed in their rooms—wouldn’t that be pretty rare even in samurai Japan?

Those things were expensive too.

Wasn’t a normal one around two hundred thousand yen?

How much would a really impressive one cost?

I should’ve bought one and brought it to this world.

Not exactly a great camping item, though.

But if you wanted laughs, maybe it’d work.

It would draw a crowd.

Still, the loudest thing you should really play in a place like that was… maybe a harmonica.

Maybe I’d look for a conch shell here sometime.

Not a monster shell, though.

Anyway.

This old man wasn’t a “proper opponent.”

He was my enemy.

And here, killing him would be no problem.

Come on, old man—let’s start a fight.

My condensed mana swelled as if it were giving off a roaring sound.

I compressed wind magic tighter and tighter, until a terrifying vortex became visible—expanding into a huge sphere.

At last, a vicious wind vortex nearly five meters across was born.

Die.

“I surrender.”

“Huh?”

“I surrender.”

He said it calmly.

“Wha—”

I stood there dumbfounded, absurdly juggling the raging sphere of magic on my palm.

“Winner: Alphonse.”

The referee’s merciless call echoed through the arena.

The whole venue fell silent.

My shoulders started trembling on their own.

So this was how a professional assassin did things.

I didn’t even know where to put my anger.

Depressed, I stored the spell in my item box.

“One day, I’m going to shove this straight into him. Until then, I’m saving it!”

I muttered to myself.

His smug face was infuriating.

It didn’t feel like I’d won at all.

My excitement for the exam crashed into the floor.

Damn it.

I should’ve blasted him with a flare immediately, no questions asked.

I’d stocked a mountain of top-tier spells at maximum power for emergencies.

But I tried to be fancy—and got played.

I couldn’t laugh at him anymore.

I had to admit it—the pro’s judgment and quick switching were impressive.

This was going to be rough.

Anyone trying to reach A-rank really was a sly old veteran.

With that, our block was down to six remaining competitors.

I got a bye for the next match.

Having the Guildmaster’s recommendation was powerful.

I checked the other matches quickly—truly strong people were still holding back, testing the waters.

To “first-sight kill” A-rank rookies like me.

The match right before mine ended, and the second match began.

For me, I only needed three more wins to take my prelim block.

And then came the main bracket.

My next opponent was a mage.

I stared at him like I was shooting him through, and let my mana surge.

If you weren’t directly attacking your opponent, you were free to activate mana even before the match.

So I stacked buffs aggressively.

I poured a ridiculous, lethal amount of mana into my mithril sword.

Using an advanced application of magic blade, “Flare” flames roared up from the blade.

And then—mana-powered glaring.

Between mages, it was basically a normal pre-match greeting.

My mana was so terrifying it filled not just the arena, but even flooded into the spectator stands.

And I kept raising it without stopping.

I didn’t notice.

The stands were already half in panic.

And there still wasn’t any signal from the referee.

Suspicious, I looked over—only to see the referee frozen too.

When I eased off my mana output, the referee “rebooted.”

Then I walked up to my opponent—who hadn’t moved at all—and the referee said:

“Winner: Alphonse.”

Apparently, my opponent had fainted while standing, and was counted as incapacitated.

Once again, the venue went silent.

Ugh. Two matches in a row, and I’d killed the hype.

That mana should’ve been enough to silence a dragon and force it to retreat.

Damn it—I overdid it.

My frustration was only building.

I put my hopes on the next opponent.

And then…

My win-by-forfeit was decided in spectacular fashion.

As I advanced cleanly to the finals, I couldn’t help feeling like the crowd’s snickers were creeping closer.

Was that just my imagination?

I practically writhed in embarrassment.

No—my chance to restore my honor!

It’s fine, me.

There’s still the main bracket!

The main bracket began immediately.

No break, no introductions.

Of course—this was an Adventurers’ Guild event, pure athletics-brain energy.

My match was scheduled right at the start.

Finally, I thought, a real fight—

And then I ate it right away.

“Dragon Breath.”

So we’re doing that, huh.

I couldn’t believe someone besides me had learned it.

Dragon Breath was nasty.

It was magic, but also physical.

Even a magic shield couldn’t stop it.

You needed a physical shield—and not some half-assed one.

On top of that, for some reason, it didn’t accept dispel.

Maybe because it had the effects of a physical attack.

Or because it activated inside the dragon and, once expelled, it was “recognized” as physical.

But it had one decisive weakness.

It was overwhelmingly powerful and ignored anti-magic effects—but it didn’t last long.

Still, it was strong enough to knock out most opponents.

Almost nobody had it.

Normally only dragons used it, and it required absurd energy—so humans couldn’t use it.

I blocked it easily with an ordinary shield.

Just thanks to my absurd mana pool.

I didn’t even use a high shield.

And then, at last, his Dragon Breath ended.

During that cooldown, I fired back with Dragon Breath at several times his power.

But he seemed to anticipate retaliation—because in that instant, he leapt upward.

He had flight.

Annoying.

No—this was the A-rank exam.

If anything, that was to be expected.

So I didn’t hold back either.

I slammed him with a homing flare mounted on a single-shot missile spell.

It tracked him cleanly in midair, hit, and detonated with a huge explosion.

I’d deployed an all-direction shield, so I didn’t even flinch.

And he…

He was only slightly singed.

What the hell was this guy?

He had to be among the top contenders.

And he probably wasn’t human.

He was way too durable—without even wearing magic armor.

No shield. No barrier.

I appraised him without hesitation, and got this:

“Dragon. Currently in human form.”

What the hell?!?!