How I Accidentally Built a Kingdom

So I spent the next few minus filling out the required forms to be able to become an adventurer.

You know, the basics, name, age, magical affinities, weapon of choice, etc, etc.

Obviously, I hadn’t been completely honest about the magical affinities, apparently saying ’all of them’ wasn’t something people did.

Once I was done with the forms, the receptionist took them back and read through them until her eyes suddenly widened.

"You have an affinity for earth, fire, and wind?" She asked, looking quite shocked.

I had only picked those, because they tend to be the ones I used most of the time, shadow magic I only used on... special occasions.

"Is that a problem?" I asked, I don’t know why she was so shocked, we had spent weeks sparring in their arena, and I had used most of those elements in all of our sparring matches.

"I had heard from some of the adventurers that you had multiple affinities, but I didn’t really believe them," she answered. "No there’s no problem, but you’re still going to need to go through the test though."

"A test?" I had no idea there were any tests involved in the registration process, and I have to admit that at that time the entire process was starting to become a bit... irritating.

The thought that maybe just paying the entrance fees wasn’t all that bad even flew through my mind.

"Yes," she nodded. "You need to spar with one of our instructors, and survive for more than a minute, then you are officially an adventurer."

Seriously.

That was their big test.

It was no wonder that the adventurers I had my little... run in with at the Forest Flute were such weaklings.

I mean seriously, only survive two minutes, what kind of test is that?

The only thing I could think of was that this test was essentially just there to piss me off.

"Fine," I sighed again. "Let’s just get this over with."

"You can make your way over to the training arena, I’ll go and call for the instructor," she said as she scurried out from behind the massive desk.

I watched her make her way to the back of the room for a while before Erick and I started to make our way to the arena again.

"This is such a massive pain in the ass," I mumbled when we reached the door to the arena.

We pushed through the doors, to find that there were a lot more adventurers training in there than there ever was when we spent our time there.

As soon as we stepped onto the arena floor, most of them turned to look at us.

Some of them stopped training completely and just stared at us.

"What the hell?" I asked. "Do we look that bad?"

"I think they just recognize us," Erick laughed.

"Why?" I asked as I turned to him. "It’s not like we did anything big when we were here."

"Actually..." Erick drifted off for a few moments. "I heard that those adventurers you beat up were actually some of the top adventurers in the city."

"And then there were our training sessions in the arena that caused quite a bit of a stir."

I almost didn’t even hear that last part.

"Those assholes were top adventurers?" I asked, stunned that the guys who looked like they couldn’t fight for their lives were considered top adventurers. "They must have been really drunk that night."

For some reason this caused Erick to burst out laughing again.

I was about to ask him what was so funny when the doors opened behind us again.

"So, you’re the one I’m supposed to test today?" I turned to find an impressively large man standing behind me, looking me up and down.

"Apparently so," I answered, I have to say, the man was pretty big, he looked like those massive bodybuilders from Earth, except that almost every inch of visible skin was scarred in some way.

Which honestly only made him look more menacing.

"The name’s Brody," he said, reaching out for a handshake.

At least he had better manners than most of the people he tested.

Now you might be thinking that I hired some of those people he tested as mercenaries, but you should also know that that was after some thorough... testing.

"Daniel," I said, shaking the massive meaty hand.

"Now then, Daniel," Brody said. "Let’s get down to it, shall we?"

"Sure," I answered.

Brody walked past us, heading deeper toward the middle of the arena.

"Go easy on him," Erick whispered from behind me as I started to follow Brody.

At that time I couldn’t understand why he would say that I needed to go easy on Brody, I mean the man was as big as a bus. And sure I had developed some skills since I started training with Cat and Julia, but Brody had probably been fighting his entire life, the man had tons more experience than me.

My goal was simply to survive the required minute, get my identification, and get the hell out of there, I would worry about the quota missions later.

"Pick the weapon you want to use," Brody called over his shoulder, pointing toward the same rack of wooden weapons we had used all those months ago.

I walked over to the rack, and found my favorite wooden sword still there, it even still had the scorch marks from Cat’s fire on it.

I couldn’t help but smile as I thought about the weeks I had spent sparring my beautiful wife in this arena.

After picking my sword, I made my way over to where Brody stood waiting, apparently he didn’t use any weapons.

But I mean if you had hands the size of his, you didn’t need any weapons.

"Are you ready?" Brody asked, settling into a pretty fancy battle stance.

"Yeah," I answered, settling into my very own battle stance.

As soon as my word landed, the mammoth of a man charged at me.

There didn’t seem to be any plan behind his charge, it just looked like he planned to use his size and apparently speed, to overwhelm me.

I thought that maybe he was just testing the waters, moving recklessly to see if I would be frightened by his sudden charge.

A few feet before he reached me he covered his fists in some sort of stone layer, which kind of impressed me, however it would have impressed me even more if he had covered his entire body with it.

I calmly stepped out of the arc of his first swing, not making a move of my own yet, I wanted to see what he wanted to achieve with that test of his after all.

I ducked and weaved out of two more of his swings, still not making a move.

But soon I realized that his reckless charge, and furious swings didn’t seem to be a test, it seemed to be his battle style.

I couldn’t help but frown at that.

That was probably the most stupid style I had ever seen, and it explained why those ’top’ adventurers of them only knew how to throw punches.

’Fine,’ I thought. ’I might as well end this quickly.’

As another meaty stone covered fist made its way toward my head, I ducked beneath it, and stepped inside his guard. I twisted my sword around, thrusting the wooden hilt into his abdomen with all of my strength.

Which seemed to have increased a bit since that time I kicked the man through a door.

The moment the hilt made contact, I could hear all the air leaving Brody’s lungs, his feet lifted off the ground while his body folded over my arm like hot plastic.

I removed my arm, and jumped back a few feet, preparing for my next move, but...

The only thing I saw was the whites of Brody’s eyes as he slumped to the ground, out cold.

I looked at the massive mountain of a man laying there unconscious for a while, wondering how in the hell he could be used as an instructor.

"So..." I said, turning toward the receptionist that stood next to Erick with a slack jaw. "Does this mean I’m an adventurer now?"