Assessment (I)

  “GWOOOOOAH!!!”

  The monster’s rugged face contorted to unleash a guttural roar. The large cracks spreading from the right side of its jaw spoke volumes about the damage it took from Cyril’s attack, but that clearly wasn’t enough to bring it down.

  In the wake of that deafening cry Cyril held firm, planting his feet wide and hardened his stance in anticipation. Right when he was about to make the first move a sudden realization from earlier had abruptly come back to haunt him.

  Slowly, he reached a hand behind him, this time moving it around in a series of repetitive motions before finally withdrawing his arm.

  “Eh?”

  Whilst staring at his empty, open palm, the young trainee’s eyes shrunk to the size of pinpricks.

  Wait a minute...I still don’t have a weapon! he shrieked internally.

  With unsteady motions, his neck slowly creaked around to glance at his potential support —both of whom had almost completely tuned out their surroundings at this point.

  Alarmed, Cyril fervently began whipping his head around the battlefield hoping —no, praying for something he could use to defend himself. The two hunters behind him clearly weren’t ready to attack yet so if he failed to pull his own weight now, they were all doomed.

  A cold sweat broke out on his face almost immediately.

  Still, the golem wouldn’t allow anyone present to have the luxury of overthinking because in the next instant the monster initiated a fierce, bloodthirsty charge right for the daring trainee.

  Instantly, Cyril’s paling face ripened with color from the adrenaline rush.

  With no other options, he was on the verge of committing to a possibly suicidal tactic in the next few seconds, but then something happened.

  “Cyril catch!”

  Reacting to the sound, his body spun reflexively to snatch an oncoming object from its flight path. He achieved his objective in a single, smooth motion before speeding off to halt the progression of his towering foe. He fell into a crouched stance, angling his newfound weapon slightly behind him until the very last second. There was no time to examine the quality of the lance Carissa had just thrown at him but regardless of its condition it would just have to do.

  Sensing his approach, the stone golem growled before swinging its large arm down with murderous intent.

  The strike was powerful, but far too predictable.

  Fueled by the entirety of the golem’s body weight, it was a simple, direct lunge meant to crush him on the spot.

  If the fearsome blow connected, he would have little chance of escaping death, yet the boy seemed unfazed. As soon as he was in range, he side-stepped the monster's attack before channeling the entirety of his momentum into a furious swing. The iron lance connected with a loud CLANK sound, knocking the creature’s arm off course and disrupting its balance in the process. Now unsteady, the two-ton mass of rocks wobbled forward as if it had yet to register what had just happened.

  Before it could take another two steps forward, one of the large boulders forming the framework for its disembodied legs suddenly shifted as if it had been knocked loose. Unable to sustain its own body weight, the golem fell to one knee. The large red dots speeding around in what one could only assume to be its eye sockets suddenly stopped once they registered the familiar face of the boy that was mere seconds away from cracking its face again.

  It couldn’t react.

  Leaping off the ground, Cyril unleashed a flurry of stabs, lunges and swings with his borrowed weapon. Chunks of rock crumbled off its floppy head bit by bit, caving to the sheer force of the trainee’s assault.

  “You two I can’t keep this up forever you know!” He exclaimed mid swing.

  He thought he heard Carissa trying to say something, but it was hard to make out anything concrete over all the metal clanks and growls. Despite his ineptitude with magic, Cyril was still a ‘deviant’ that was sensitive to mana.

  The basics of spell casting eluded him but he could still feel the overwhelming surge of built-up magical energy raging at his back.

  “Tch! What’s the hold up!?” he grunted, leaping off the golem’s face to avoid the wild swing. Despite the poor landing, he couldn’t help but shift his head in the opposite direction. What’s taking them so long?

  Once his eyes scrolled over to his potential support, the question answered itself. He saw Carissa tearfully working her magic per Evan’s order, and the man himself was staring him down with a terrifyingly shrewd look on his face.

  “Bastard, he’s doing this on purpose!”

  In that one instant, Cyril’s body went stiff with shock. Soon after, an overbearing force swept in to remind him of the danger he was in.

  “Watch out!!”

  His body leapt away on pure instinct, spinning around to see a stone-conjured fist inching closer with every passing second. Despite his efforts, using the metal lance to deflect some of the damage only got him so far. There was nothing he could do to negate the brutal force of the golem’s lunge. A last-minute thrust with the borrowed lance hardly made a difference. The weapon snapped in half less than a second later, and then the charging stone fist met Cyril’s bones with a dull grinding sound.

  Energy seeped from his body as bones crunched and blood spewed.

  The force behind the attack—truly inhuman—sent his body careening along the cracked asphalt like a lifeless stone. It bounced and flipped along the road’s gritty expanse until it eventually found rest in the passenger's side of a nearby abandoned car.

  Seconds later, he heard Evan ecstatically utter one final chant before signaling for Carissa to assist him. Even with his downturned vision—now turned crimson — he could still see the space in front of him lighting up with bright orange flashes and deep blue glows.

  The sharp sound of something breaking traveled across the junction’s span, and then his body jerked from the immense force of some heavy weight crashing to the ground. Sensing the battle's end, he chose to surrender himself to the agony coursing through his veins, but not before his eyes slowly drifted to Evan’s imposing figure casually sauntering closer to him.

  Carissa’s panicked reaction failed to capture his attention as much as what the middle-aged magician mouthed next.

  Stepping forward with a cynical smirk, Evan’s lips twisted to silently form the words, "Serves you right."

  “....should be alright now.”

  “Thank...good..ss..”

  The muffled sounds of a conversation beamed into Cyril’s ears. It sounded like a mix of worry and concern, two things he was all too used to hearing.

  As he was about to dismiss it, a sudden neural surge jolted his brain, unleashing a flood of recent memories that filled the gaps from the past six hours.

  “Huh?”

  His torso sprang up, a mix of worry, concern and confusion on his face.

  “The golem!”

  “Kyaah!”

  “Woah!...wait, Carissa?” he probed after calming himself. “Why are you screaming? Wait, what happened to the golem!? And that bastard Eva-gcck!”

  The words had yet to fully form before he succumbed to the fresh sensation of agony erupting from his abdominals. Seeing his reaction, the woman at his side let out a deep sigh of concern.

  “Geez...you’re unbelievable. That’s really the first thing you ask after coming back to life?” she retorted in a fuming tone. Although she was still a bit teary eyed, he could tell that she obviously wasn’t pleased.

  “What do you mean by ‘come back to life’?”

  "We might as well call it that, considering the hit you took a few hours ago. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if you’d make it. You’d better be grateful to the Psionic Enchanters here—etheric powers like mine don’t work on your injuries. Looks like I’ll have to start stocking up on potions again for your sake."

  Carissa placed a strong amount of emphasis on her implication. That was when he finally collected himself.

  Looking around, Cyril noticed that he was no longer in that ruined highway junction, instead he was sitting upright on soft bed in a brightly lit room with sterile white walls, the faint hum of medical equipment filling the air. A heart monitor beeped steadily beside him, its green line tracing each beat. Nearby, an IV pole stood like a silent guardian, the translucent bags swayed slightly as fluid dripped methodically into the tube attached to his arm.

  After taking it all in, he let out a deep, exasperated breath of relief before finally acknowledging the neatly dressed nurse on the other side of his bed.

  “Thanks a lot, for everything.” He said in a slow, gratified voice.

  The woman nodded politely at him in return and, out of respect, swiftly decided to exit the room.

  A terrible silence returned.

  Sensing the subtle buildup of tension in the air, Cyril nervously began surveying the room for no reason in particular. Even with his averted gaze he could still feel Carissa’s amber glare sharpening by the second. Finally resolving himself after a few seconds of futile planning, he slowly turned to face her, scratching his cheek lightly out of embarrassment.

  “Your hair’s gotten longer...” He muttered, the awkward words tumbling out before he could stop them.

  She raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms as a thin smirk played on her lips.

  “And you’ve gotten worse at compliments,” she shot back, her tone teasing but her eyes sharp, searching his face for something unspoken.

  Nervously rubbing the base of his neck, Cyril continued with a little bit more confidence in his voice.

  “It’s been a while since we last saw each other so I had to try something, at least give me credit for that.” he pleaded, his voice carrying a mix of guilt and nervous humor.

  She tilted her head, pretending to consider his words before finally sighing. “Fine, you get half a point—for effort.”

  “Geh—Ahem! Uhm, Miss.Carissa, you do realize it’s possible to be a bit too harsh with your words, right?”

  “Not when it comes to you and your antics. I don’t think I can ever be harsh enough on you about your reckless behaviors, sometimes it makes me wonder if you secretly have a death wish or something.”

  An unpleasant emotion laced her grievous tone, one that sent a gripping pang of guilt through him. Considering things logically, his actions a few hours ago could have very well resulted in his own death, but deep down he knew that if that same situation were to surface again, nothing would change.

  He took the time to consider her words carefully, relishing the silence.

  That was when his eyes remorsefully stopped on Carissa’s figure at his bedside, finally giving him the opportunity to closely examine his school teacher and in many ways, his caretaker. Her hair had a light auburn color and flopped down to her back in a series of delicate curls that seemed to wind and unwind themselves in alternating patterns. She looked no older than twenty but Cyril knew—by way of her own preaching—that she had at least ten years of experience on him.

  The milky white color of skin he’d grown so used to seeing was tainted by scrapes, bruises and the occasional small blotches of dirt, but other than that she seemed to be doing fine. Even the sterile gauze stuck to her cheek didn’t detract from her beauty in the least. He unloaded a silent sigh of relief after confirming she was okay, but the woman in question seemed to have misunderstood the stupidly gleeful expression on his face.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What? What’s all the smiling for? Wait—don’t tell me you think you’re off the hook already; cause you’re not.” She stated brusquely, emphasizing the last word before continuing.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into your head lately Cyril, but trying to play the hero every time you happen to be near a breach is going to get you killed one day, you’re not even a real hunter yet. I’m not sure if you’re aware of this but you’re a D-rank trainee, not a hunter. The limits of “deviant” individuals are often set in stone, there is no overcoming it with hard wor-”

  “Thank You.”

  “Wha-”

  Stunned by the sudden words, she froze for a moment and blinked a few times, unsure if she had heard him correctly.

  Swallowing the shock, Carissa sheepishly tried to compose herself by shifting to a dignified posture, but it only made the streaks of red on her face deepen in response.

  Cyril broke into a series of giggles as he indulged in her futile efforts, much to the frustration of her determined frown.

  “W-what’s so funny?” She stammered in a weak tone.

  “No, it's nothing. It just feels like we haven’t done this in a while that’s all, but I really am grateful to you. Alice asked you to look after me, didn’t she?”

  Her features softened, mellowing out into a pleasantly surprised stare.

  “W-wait you knew?”

  “How could I not know? You’ve been sending me all kinds of weird stuff over the past few months. You’re really bad at being inconspicuous, you know, if that’s what you were going for then it didn’t work at all.”

  He had intended for those words to deliver a playful effect but instead the woman simply stood up before jabbing a finger to his cheek.

  “I-I’m still injured you know!” The boy cried, gently sliding his body further across the small bed.

  “Any more complaints my dear?” She asked in mock innocence, her lips curling into a playful smile.

  “N-None at all...”

  “Good. Now about what happened earlier...”

  Carissa began, eyes faltering as she took a few steps back.

  “.... I’m sure you’ve guessed it by now, but I’ve already been scouted by a subsidiary branch of the Phoenix Guild to work as an enchanter for one of their advance units. I took a break from teaching because of it, which is why I haven’t been in contact with you as often as I’d like. That’s also why I ended up all the way out there with Evan and Derick. We were returning from a joint raid where we cleared an area-type dungeon full of rock trolls and retrieved the dungeon core when a breach opened, and everything started going south.

  “That Evan guy, he’s from the Phoenix guild too?” Cyril probed, eyes going wide.

  Carrissa gave a slow nod, allowing the gesture to settle.

  “Then he’s probably related to Marcel, right?”

  “Seems to be the case—well for a bit more context, apparently, he’s Marcel’s newly appointed instructor slash bodyguard. He was appointed to guard Marcel after your little scuffle six months ago. I know he didn’t seem particularly impressive just now, but he’s a B rank magician. None of us were in the greatest condition after dealing with all those trolls but he still managed to bring down two golems by himself.” Carissa explained empathetically, her voice soft yet firm.

  She sharpened her eyes as if to fuel the weight behind her words, then exhaled deeply before speaking again.

  “Look Cyril—I don’t agree with what he did earlier, in fact I might even resent him for it but what I don’t want is to see you holding a grudge. He did that out of spite but there’s no point in even thinking about taking revenge on someone like that, not when he has an entire branch of the Phoenix guild backing him up. You probably don’t need me to tell you that either after what happened with Marcel.”

  The boy’s head drooped a little, craning down ever-so-slightly as if it had been struck by some unseen weight. It was a common occurrence whenever people came face to face with the harsh little thing they called “Truth.”

  His fist reflexively tightened out of Carissa’s view, but he managed to suppress a certain emotion before raising his head.

  “I know, Carissa. I’m a little reckless sometimes but even I’m not stupid enough to go after any member of that clan, especially not now. What about you though? Are you sure you want to accept their offer that easily?” he pressed, posing the question with a determined gaze.

  Smiling a little, she nodded.

  “It’s not exactly official yet but I think I might take them up on the offer. Not everyone in that guild is despicable you know, I’ve met some great people there, the upper echelons are just a bit.... tainted that’s all.”

  Cyril scanned her expression with a scrutinizing gaze, and then nodded to himself as if he was sure of something.

  “If you’re comfortable there then that’s all that matters, just try not to slip up too bad again ok—Ow!” He reeled from the blunt sensation of something flicking his forehead.

  “I don’t want to hear that from you, of all people. "Even when you’re not in school anymore, you still have that cheeky attitude. Just remember, I’m the older one here, kid."

  Her affirmation was meant to be bold, but by the way her student was giggling the boy didn’t seem to be taking it seriously at all.

  “Sure, I’ll remember that.” He answered smoothly, his tone light with a hint of sarcasm.

  “Good. Now that we’ve had this little talk, I think I’ll go rest for a bit. The enchanters here worked their magic on you—literally — and I hear you recover fast so you might still be able to catch the final assessment.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be out in no time.” Cyril responded, flexing his bandaged right arm.

  Carissa rolled her eyes as if to say “Oh Please” and made a few steps towards the large sliding door. The sound of metal scraping faintly against its track echoed through the room, followed by a low, resonant thud as it settled into place.

  “Oh, one more thing—your scar...” pausing with one foot just beyond the doorway, she pointed a finger at his nose bridge.

  Cyril froze instinctively, staring at her with a lustrous gaze.

  “...Its faded quite a bit. You’re looking a lot better now.”

  An awkward smile slowly crept across his face, dulling his vocal cords and reducing his communicative abilities to a series of fervent nods.

  The woman smiled upon registering that reaction, then she said her goodbyes before pacing down the hallway with a satisfied look on her face. Behind that same stainless-steel door, Cyril had decided to let himself indulge in a moment of respite. The day hadn’t exactly panned out like he had hoped, but at least things were finally looking up now.

  Out of boredom, he lazily reached for the small remote by his bedside and turned on the Tv overlooking his bed. The monitor flashed on with the press of a button—speckled with static —but still clear enough for him to make out what was going on.

  The small screen showed a girl—likely around his age—walking through rows of barred onlookers. Camera flashes lit up the scene as waves, cheers, and praises followed her every step. The text on the screen was unclear, but it seemed to mention something about her admission to Babylon city, as well as her B rank evaluation.

  Then, the screen shifted to a full screen aerial view of an eerily vacant city intersection with a strange, glowing circular object in the distance.

  The text captioned in bold read: “Area-type dungeon—Ba’als Labyrinth—Floors one and two have been selected as the testing site for the hunter association’s final assessment.”

  Morning arrived on the 22nd of July.

  The sun had just barely climbed its way up to the horizon’s peak after routinely dismissing the remnants of dawn. Cascading rays of light showered down on the metropolitan nation state of Babylon city, peeking between its high-rise buildings and shooting past alley corners. Given the time and day, one would normally overlook the mesmerizing scenery since it was the peak of rush hour, but strangely enough; that didn’t seem to be the case on this fateful Friday morning.

  In fact, a certain young man posing boldly atop the roof of a commercial skyscraper seemed to rather enjoy watching the gears of nature turn. The incessant honking, creeping lines of traffic and even the occasional swears were nowhere to be heard— truly a rare occasion indeed. Seizing the moment, the boy surrendered to his whimsical nature, gazing at the City's skyline on little more than a whim.

  Babylon city wasn’t that much different from a typical metropolis, save for a few key features here and there. The relatively young nation state featured an impressive eighteen districts evenly distributed within its four comprehensive sectors—each named in the honor of its motherland, the nation of Great Britain.

  The United Kingdom was the first nation on Earth to experience the advent of Ragnarok. One of the earliest gates to appear—a so-called Genesis Gate—chose the city of London as its landing ground. When the first wave of invaders emerged, it marked the beginning of a brutal war against otherworldly forces that spanned a full decade of warfare. During this time, London became a battlefield, and as more deviants began to appear, the city's position was reinforced as a stronghold.

  Eventually, the Genesis Gate was cleared after a full decade, but the vast influx of manpower, brilliant minds, and cutting-edge equipment that had gathered to aid in the conflict reshaped the city. No longer just the London of old, it evolved into something far greater. Thus, the foundation for what would become Babylon City was laid.

  As Ragnarok continued, Babylon City's influence expanded, eventually consuming more than a third of what was once London's metropolitan territory.

  However, in the present day, due to certain circumstances, Babylon was forced to renounce its status as part of British territory and establish itself as a landlocked, sovereign state, sealed off from the outside world by a towering, nigh-impregnable barrier forged from reinforced steel and concrete stretching across its borders and reaching more than two hundred feet tall.

  At a glance it might have seemed like an isolation tactic but in reality, it was actually much closer to a quarantine. In reality, Babylon city was a hotspot for breaches and in some rare cases, dungeon breaks. Nowhere else in the country was prone to such supernatural phenomena.

  The two hundred feet wall was erected simply to give the surrounding territories a false sense of security. The idea was that if a dungeon break did happen inside the city, the wall would help to mitigate its effects through isolation.

  While it was true to a certain extent, that notion could only go so far.

  Anyone with real knowledge of the dungeons was able to see right past that facade because if any of Ziggurat’s high-ranking dungeons were to ever instigate a dungeon break; it was going to take a lot more than a big concrete wall to stall the chaos.

  That was where the city’s second anomaly came in.

  Looking around, Cyril’s eyes lazily traced the formation pattern of a few scarcely placed structures resembling iron towers. They had a compressed, conical shape and fanned out all over the giant metropolis, blinking with brazen blue lights that seemed to merge with the mornings backdrop.

  The ‘towers’—as they were simply called—didn’t exactly stand out much in the daytime. Even if a tourist or foreigner were to witness their operations at night, their blinking lights would only warrant a comparison to something like a cell tower at best.

  That was fine since they were designed for efficiency and not beauty or aesthetic. These towers were exclusive to the city of Babylon and they were the main reason behind its rise to prominence as a global superpower.

  On paper, their function sounded simple enough to replicate, but no nation on the planet has even come close to achieving such a thing thus far, because the towers operated in the realm of dimensionality and not physicality.

  The towers established a dimensional grid over the entire city that was able to predict, direct and even block the formation of gates for a certain period of time, among other things. It was a fitting piece of technological innovation for the city that spawned the most gates in the entire world. However, it also meant that anywhere outside of this city would have a much smaller chance of encountering—and, more importantly, counteracting—any gates that did appear in their vicinity.

  Shaking off his lethargy, the teenage lad indulged himself in a few stretching motions that sent his bangs swaying with each twist, turn and stretch. Finally, his posture straightened with a snapping sound as he performed one last lateral twist with his hips.

  Save for the faded scar stretching across his nose bridge, his appearance made him look no older than sixteen, but given his attire— which was mainly composed of an iron breastplate strapped to his chest, loose fitting pants and bracers strapped to his forearms and shin—made it clear that he was in no rush to go anywhere.

  Such an appearance was already out of sync with the backdrop of concrete walls and high-rise constructs, but what really made him stand out was the object he was carrying. It was a sword, of all things, neatly tucked against his back with the hilt poking out just enough to reveal a few engraved carvings that seemed to glow faintly in the dim morning light.

  “Oh, there they are.”

  Forming a thin smile, he shielded his eyes from the rising sun and aptly focused his vision on the peculiar sight swirling down below. Then, with reckless abandon the boy casually propped himself over the building’s ledge and broke into a free fall as he dived head first towards the unusually empty intersection.

  He didn’t seem to spare much thought for the shrinking distance between him and the hard asphalt, nor the ever-increasing momentum carrying him there because at the last second his entire body was abruptly rotated along a 180-degree angle just in time for him to kick off the building’s outer wall and perform a few mid-air somersaults before finally coming to a hard stop.

  The result — A near perfect landing.

  Save for the few cracks spreading around his feet, the execution of those maneuvers was almost flawless considering the fact that he had just survived a ten-story fall. His landing had brought him a few meters outside the bounds of the empty intersection, and naturally, the small gathering of people stationed there all cocked their heads in confusion.

  His eyes drifted up to meet the collection of perplexed gazes and baffled stares peering down at him, all practically begging for an answer as if to say “what was all that for?”

  As soon as the implications of his actions had settled in, the boy smiled awkwardly, then sheepishly rose to his feet with a crooked expression.

  “Good Morning. My name is Cyril Severin, I’m here for the association’s final assessment. Sorry about that, I’m kind of bad with directions...”

  The clumsy introduction seemed to have lifted some of the confusion in the atmosphere, inciting a few different reactions. Among the few other people in front of him, some chuckled, more tsked and others feigned indifference. Within his earshot, Cyril heard another boy who was dressed similarly to him mutter something along the lines of “How can someone get lost on an empty city block?” before he wandered off a bit further down to join the larger chunk of the group.

  However, his ears had also been made privy to another kind of reaction; amusement.

  “Heh-Heh-Heh, well you certainly know how to make an entrance Cyril, I’ll give you that.” A sweet-sounding voiced spoke up from behind him, Cyril quickly turned his body towards the source but couldn’t seemed to find who was speaking.

  “I’m right here.” She said, openly inviting him to lower his gaze.

  “Ahh...you are...eh?”

  Cyril stood there slack jawed; it had only taken him a second to pin her identity after registering the pair of deep cerulean eyes staring up at him. There was hardly any need for the girl to introduce herself—he already knew who she was. He had seen her on TV just a few days ago, and now, here she was, standing before him in the flesh. She was the daughter of a noble English household with a lineage stretching back centuries—one rooted, of all things, in swordsmanship. Her bloodline was steeped in tradition, yet in this day and age, families across the country that had demonstrated exceptional valor, particularly in the last century, were known by a different designation.

  They were called Origin Clans.

  Second chapter of the day—two more to go.

  Tues/Wed/Thurs/Fri, starting next week.

  500 followers, I’ll drop an extra chapter. Hit 1,000 in two weeks, and I’ll do a mega-release with two bonus chapters.

  —CosmicSlime