We finally make our way all the way down the stairs and arrive at what appeared to be an underground gym.

"Those are the new affiliates, huh, how lovely" An unnecessarily muscular man says this when he realizes we are in the place, he was bald with a neatly trimmed mustache, his arm alone was already almost the size of my entire body.

How can I put it... Just by looking at him you can tell that this person is strong, probably even Kent would find it difficult to face him head on.

"Let me introduce you girls, the one you see is the master of the guild in the city of Ancas, Victor, he will be your instructor for the test to see if you are able to pass" Says the attendant with a wide smile on her face.

"Nice to meet you, my name is Medaka, Medaka Ainvel"

"And mine is Mio, nice to meet you too"

"Oh I see you are polite girls, as Lisa already told you my name is Victor" Victor gives us a gentle smile, seeing him like this he just looks like a friendly uncle from the neighborhood.

We greet each other and go to the center of the court to take the test.

 

Victor then takes a small hourglass from a bag that was on the floor and shows it to us.

"So let's get started, the purpose of this test is simple: attack me while the sand in the hourglass is falling. Depending on my assessment of you I will decide your ratings"

"Rating?" I don't remember anything like that written in the contract.

"Lisa, Didn't you explain it to them?" Victor casts a questioning look at the attendant who seems to be named Lisa, however she just scratches her head and says "oops, I forgot".

Victor gives a little sigh and starts to explain.

He then explains to us that the ranks are actually quite simple, the guilds are decentralized organizations that are all over the continent that give legal and institutional help to mercenaries and merchants, apparently this is as close to a rule of law as this world gets.

With that said, to encourage mercenaries to improve and maintain good conduct they rank them by classes, specifically first, second, third, fourth and fifth class, from highest to lowest respectively. The higher your rank the more benefits and priority you gain in guild matters and your name becomes better known thus getting more customers.

"Do you understand everything?"

""Yes"" We both answer at the same time.

Lisa takes the hourglass and goes to the corner of the court and turns it over starting the count.

Victor then leaps backwards as if to confront everything I know about gravity and lands on his feet on the other side of the court.

"Attack me whenever you want."

"Eh? both of us?" Says Mio with a confused expression on his face.

"Don't worry child, I'm not too old to lose to you yet"

I look at Mio and start talking.

"We haven't fought in a real fight together until now have we? This is a great opportunity to test our coordination" I say giving Mio a smile.

She then smiles back without saying anything and draws her sword from the sheath on her back.

So far I haven't used magic since the time with the goblins, but I don't think this guy is going to get hurt. Well, anything I can do to resurrect him in the end~

"[Fire Beam]" I hold out my hand and a magic circle appears, from inside the circle flames appear in a beam shape, moving at high speed towards the target.

Victor notices the attack and stares, but before he can dodge it the beam reaches him and explodes.

Kaboom! An explosion occurs and the place where Victor was standing fills with smoke.

"Haha very good girl, so you were a mage, huh" Victor appears, but his clothes have been destroyed by the explosion leaving his biceps showing. You can see some cuts on his body but nothing too deep.

"Pay attention to the fight" Mio runs and appears behind some smoke saying this and strikes Victor with his sword.

Victor this time manages to defend himself using his arm as a shield but ends up being pushed back.

Mio then gives a boost by following him and starts giving him several blows, each time she tried to cut him with her sword Victor stops the blow with his fist making the sound resonate throughout the place.

In the end Mio kicks Victor in the stomach making him fly, Victor hits the wall leaving a mark on the spot and ends up falling to the ground.

"Did I overdo it?" Says Mio tilting his head in doubt.

"Very good! You guys are much better than I imagined, now then let's start fighting for real" Victor says after getting up pulling some debris from his body.

What is this guy made of?! Although I could probably do the same thing...

Victor rips off the rest of his remaining shirt leaving his entire top showing.

"Then it's time to have some fun!" He then jumps up dodging Mio and appears in front of me trying to punch me.

I activate [Boost] and catch his big body in the air throwing him to the ground.

"Your idea wasn't bad, but you should have seen better who you were facing, were you full of openings just because you thought I couldn't defend myself?"

"Who is testing who here?" Says Victor who is still lying on the ground.

Lisa comes near us and shows the hourglass in her hand, all the sand has already gone down to the bottom.

"Eh, I'm sorry but I think the time is up."

In the end we didn't even get to test what Mio and I can do together...

"So, what was the result, did we pass?"

"You're kidding, right?obvious that you have passed" Victor jumps up from where he was lying and stands up

"That's all, we hardly fought at all"

"Normally, to pass a person just has to show they know at least the basics of how to behave and know how to fight or support, not go out destroying the training center!" Says Lisa interjecting while putting her hand on her head.

After our "little exhibition" I look to the sides. There are several parts of the gym that have been blown up or with debris from what happened.

"I think we went a little overboard"

---

A few minutes have passed and we go back to the front desk.

"Congratulations, as of today you are officially mercenaries!"

Lisa hands us our cards, both are red and have our names on them and underneath it says "First Class Mercenary".

"Is that right? We just registered."

"If someone told me that there would be two little girls who could become first class mercenary right when they walked in I would think that person is crazy" Lisa says while huffing and then explains.

"But that's beside the point,in those cases I bully a bit the reckless kids who think this is a joke to make them give up right away, but since you guys don't even care I wanted to see what you were capable of"

"So that's why we fought the guild master right away?"

"Yeah, usually the one who does the physical test is me" Lisa says this while flexing her muscles trying to show off.

Before I know it someone comes up to me and Mio from behind putting us in his lap as if we were babies. I didn't feel that the person had bad intentions so I just let them.

"Oh, look who's here, Medaka-chan and Mio-chan. Come, come let's have some fun~"

"So it's just you"

Apparently the person who grabbed us is Marina, she was panting and there was a smell of alcohol coming from her mouth but the feeling of being in the arms of a beautiful woman is not bad.

Marina leads us to the guild door on her lap taking us somewhere.

"So I'll see you guys later" Lisa says this saying goodbye to us.

Mio and I said goodbye with our hand as we were forcefully carried.

---

(POV change - Lisa)

I say goodbye to those children after they were taken away by their mother (?).

Monsters.

That's all I can say about those two.

Some time passes while I am attending to other mercenaries but I can't get those two out of my mind.

At first I thought it was just a spoiled noble girl and her maid but I got very angry when I saw that they were not just that.

Frankly, who would have thought that they were so strong? I shudder at the thought of what would happen if it had been me who had been hit by that explosion.

"Thank you very much, come again"

I attend to the last customer of the day and close the guild.

"Look who's here, huh. Another great day at work today!"

Victor approaches me as we were closing up. He is as cheerful as ever, huh

"Why are you still shirtless? That's disgusting"

"It's not like I can find a store easily in town that sells clothes that can obscure those MUSCULES!"

He begins to strike various poses while showing off his body.

When he finishes, Victor makes a serious face and starts talking about why he approached me.

"Those girls, you gave the top rating to both of them didn't you?"

"Of course I did, I had no rating other than first class after what I saw"

"It's a shame they chose to be mercenaries at that age, with that talent they could have become excellent knights and court mages or something greater"

"It is none of our business why they decided on that profession, I am just a clerk and you are just a guild master from this remote town"

Victor looks like he wants to say something more but nods his head in agreement with me.

We then go to a nearby bar and start drinking together.

"I wonder what will happen from now on with those two..."
I say this while drinking to get these thoughts out of my head.