The walk back to the Guild Hall was the most nerve-wracking twenty minutes of Arjun's life. Flanked by a trio of imposing figures who misinterpreted his every nervous twitch as a sign of hyper-vigilance, he felt less like a hero and more like a condemned man on his final march. He clutched Soulfang in his hand, the cold metal feeling like a brand. He'd tried to give it back to Eirlys twice, but she had just smiled serenely and said, "A knight does not abandon his sword, and a chosen one does not abandon his destiny."
He'd given up after that. Destiny was clearly a bully.
As they approached the massive oak doors of the Erdenheim Adventurer's Guild, the whispers started. The Guild Hall was the city's heart, a sprawling, noisy tavern filled with mercenaries, mages, and rogues of every stripe. News, like cheap ale, traveled fast.
"Hey, look! It's Proctor Sorran. He's back from the F-Class exam."
"Who are those with him? Isn't that Seraphina Vulkrane? And the Ice Saint from the North, Eirlys Sivenne? What are they doing with a bunch of rookies?"
"Wait... who's the kid in the middle?"
As their party stepped inside, a hush fell over the raucous hall. One hundred pairs of eyes—suspicious, curious, and battle-hardened—fixed on Arjun. The combined weight of their gazes made him want to dissolve into a puddle. He instinctively hunched his shoulders and tried to hide behind Eirlys's flowing robes.
A grizzled dwarf with a braided beard nudged his companion. "Look at that stance. He's conserving his energy. Not a single wasted movement. That's a master, right there."
His companion, a lithe elf with pointed ears, nodded slowly. "And see how the Ice Saint and the Crimson Spear guard his flanks? They are not his equals. They are his entourage."
Arjun's attempt to hide was, of course, completely misinterpreted. It wasn't cowardice; it was the quiet, unassuming confidence of a man who didn't need to project strength because he was strength.
Sorran ignored the whispers. He strode directly to the massive Quest Board and tore off a sheet of parchment. It wasn't a quest. It was the official Examinee Roster. With a flourish, he drew a thick line through the names of the other nine aspirants. Beside their names, he wrote: PASS – RANK: F.
Then he came to the final name. Arjun Veylor.
He paused for dramatic effect. The entire hall held its breath. With slow, deliberate strokes of his quill, Sorran wrote two characters next to Arjun's name that sent a shockwave through the room.
S-RANK
For a moment, there was only stunned silence. Then, chaos erupted.
"S-RANK?! IS HE MAD?"
"A rookie? Straight to S-Rank? That's never happened in the history of the Guild!"
"It must be a joke!"
A hulking brute of a man, an A-Rank berserker named Grol, slammed his flagon down on a table, splashing ale everywhere. "This is an insult to every adventurer who has bled and clawed their way up the ladder! I won't stand for it!"
He stomped forward, his shadow falling over Arjun. He was a mountain of muscle and scars, easily twice Arjun's size. Arjun felt his soul trying to exit his body via his throat.
"So, you're the S-Rank prodigy, eh, boy?" Grol sneered, cracking his knuckles. "You don't look like much. I think the proctor's gone senile. How about you prove your worth against me?"
Before Arjun could faint, Seraphina stepped forward, her hand resting on the pommel of her sword. Her eyes blazed with a protective fire. "Take another step, Grol, and you'll be testing your worth against the Vulkrane family spear."
Grol hesitated. He was strong, but Seraphina was a noble prodigy with a famously deadly technique.
Eirlys also moved, her voice as cold as the glaciers of her homeland. "Lay a hand on Sir Arjun, and you will find the Goddess's grace... wanting."
The threat was subtle, but every adventurer in the room understood it. Pissing off a high-level priestess meant no healing, no blessings, and no cures for the myriad of magical diseases one picks up in a dungeon. It was a death sentence.
Grol swallowed hard, his bravado deflating. But he couldn't back down now without losing face. He turned his glare back to Arjun, who was currently trying to merge with a wooden support pillar.
"Fine," Grol grunted. "I won't touch him. But he has to answer me one thing. The Sunken Woods... the source of the curse was the Shadow Tyrant's forgotten fortress. Rumor says no one has entered it and returned alive in a thousand years. Did you enter it, boy? Tell me that."
This was it. Arjun's chance. He could tell the truth. He could say he fell in by accident. That he didn't do anything.
He took a shaky breath, looked Grol in the eye, and said, "Yes."
It was the only part of the story that was simple enough to say without his voice cracking.
Grol's sneer faltered. "And... and the guardians within? The legendary monsters sealed by the First Heroes?"
Arjun's mind flashed to the snoring ogre and the weird, floaty wraith things. He remembered the proctor identifying them. He just had to be honest.
"They're... sleeping," Arjun mumbled, his gaze dropping to the floor.
A wave of murmurs swept the hall.
Sleeping?
He put them to sleep? All of them?
What kind of god-tier pacification magic is that?!
Grol's face had gone pale. To defeat a legendary monster was the mark of a hero. To put them to sleep, to pacify them without a fight... that was the mark of a god. It was a display of power so overwhelming that violence wasn't even necessary. He was looking at Arjun not as a rival, but as a primordial force of nature.
The berserker's aggression melted away, replaced by a raw, primal fear. He took a clumsy step back, then another. He bowed low, his massive frame bent at an awkward angle.
"My... my apologies, Sir Arjun," Grol stammered, his voice filled with newfound terror and respect. "I was ignorant. I was blind. Please, forgive my insolence."
Arjun stared, utterly baffled. He had answered two questions with the simple, unvarnished truth, and he had terrified the biggest, scariest man in the room into submission.
He didn't know what to say, so he just gave a weak, dismissive wave of his hand, a silent plea for everyone to just leave him alone.
Of course, the Guild Hall saw something entirely different. They saw an ultimate being, bored by the petty challenges of mortals, magnanimously dismissing a lesser being's foolishness with a single, elegant gesture.
The legend of Arjun Veylor, The Unmoving Mover, The Demon Whisperer, had just taken its first, firm root. And from his office overlooking the hall, Guildmaster Valerius watched the entire exchange, a thoughtful, calculating glint in his old eyes.
"Sorran," the Guildmaster murmured to himself, stroking his long, grey beard. "What in the seven hells have you brought me?"