"Hey, could someone possibly help me out here?" Eiro asked with a broad smile on his face as he stepped up the stairs after returning from the underground room. And to the Demon's surprise, the desk not too far away from here had a new person sitting at it, a young woman. Instead of a number on the tag around her neck, there was just a small exclamation mark.
"Ah, perfect! So there's multiple of you, that comes in handy. I think I broke mine." The Demon pointed out with a slight grin as he properly stepped back up the stairs, revealing the man from before being dragged up by him. Both of his legs and both of his arms were broken and twisted around in unnatural ways. It would most likely heal after he was just treated with a little bit of healing magic, so it probably wasn't a big deal.
The woman stared at Eiro in surprise before looking down at the 'Exclamation Mark' that he was literally dragging around, "You just took part in the initiation evaluation, right?" She asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.
"That's right." He replied immediately, and the woman slowly stepped up to him before squatting down and checking on the other special member, "I see, then please pour your mana into the tag you were given before and hold it forward." She said, slowly taking off her necklace with her own tag while Eiro did as asked.
The woman tapped Eiro's tag with her own, and then looked the Demon into his eyes, "I welcome you in this organization. I assign you the number 100 due to your... impressive results in the evaluation."
"Awe, just 100? I thought you 'special members' were supposed to be strong enough to be in the single-digit range... Not to mention what I did with that guy." Eiro complained as he pointed at John, but the woman in front of him simply shook her head.
"The highest rank any joining member can achieve is 100. You are obviously strong enough to reach the single-digit range rather quickly. As you are rank 100, you are allowed to either take part in special quests to raise that rank, or you may participate in duels against other members. Just be aware that even if you beat the currently number 1 ranked member, you will not become the new number 1 member. Instead, your prowess will be automatically evaluated through the artifact connected to your tag, and your new rank will be assigned. From now on, it has nothing to do with our possibly biased opinion." The woman briefly explained to the Demon, who just slowly listened and nodded his head. That seemed fair enough. Eiro looked down at the tag and now saw the number '100' engraved into it, before he placed the tag into his pocket, quickly making it disappear in his treasury.
"Got it. Thank you." Eiro replied, and then stepped past the woman, just leaving the 'Exclamation Mark' from before on the ground. Then, Eiro stepped into the center of this room and coughed loudly to get everyone's attention.
"Excuse me! If anyone, truly anyone, within the two-digit range is here, I would love to take part in a duel right now. I'm sure there are benefits to this for you as well." The Demon suggested, and for a moment, it became a bit quiet in this room while people were seemingly trying to evaluate whether or not this would be worth it.
And before Eiro knew it, he heard someone stand up on the top floor. That person walked up to the railing and simply... jumped over it. It seemed like he was using air magic to catch his fall, and proceeded to glide down toward the ground until he stood next to Eiro. He pulled out his tag and held it in front of Eiro, letting him see the number.
"54, huh? Well, good enough. So, where can we fight?" Eiro asked, and the man in front of him slowly glared at him with a broad grin, "Hah, so you're not scared?"
Immediately, the Demon became annoyed. This would be a troublesome encounter. But these were to be expected in an organization meant for those that truly just wanted to become strong. A lot of conceited people would gather here.
"I'm shitting my pants, actually. So let's get this over with quickly so that I can change, alright?" Eiro replied bluntly as he turned around to the female exclamation-mark, "So? Where can we fight?"
"Oi, listen to me when I speak to you! The fact that you turned the number 9 into... that despicable thing doesn't matter to me. I was always far stronger than him anyway, and I am also far stronger than you are. So just stop-"
"And how about you take your own advice, shut the fuck up, and let the mentally sane speak for a second?" The Demon snapped back at the man, this number 54, before the female exclamation-mark started to speak.
"If you go outside, you should be able to see a large red double-door. Enter through there, and you will find a place to hold your duel. There should not be one happening right now, so you can probably start immediately." The woman explained, so Eiro slowly turned away and started making his way toward the door.
And then, he made a choice that would allow him to hopefully get this done as quickly as he needed to. He insulted everyone in the room.
"If any of you pathetic weaklings think you can beat me, then come to the building with the large red double-door. I will be there all day." Eiro announced, and then turned his head to the side to look at John and make him follow him again. And while Eiro stepped out of the building, he heard that it was getting rather noisy in there, as plenty of people were falling for Eiro's words. This was easier than he thought, if all of those guys were this easily angered. Luckily, judging from the two that Eiro knew of, this even translated to the 'Letters', so as long as he got strong enough, he should be able to practically slide through that.
And luckily, he could kill two birds with one stone using this tactic. By killing the other members, he not only rose in rank within the organization, but he would also gather experience so that he could level up and get stronger while he was fighting.
Glad that this was the case, Eiro pushed open the red double-door that was described by the woman from before. And in front of him, all that Eiro could see was a staircase, leading down into another space. It was large and open, and seemingly quite perfect for things like duels, as the ground, walls and the ceiling were easily manipulated through earth magic, meaning that the terrain could be changed however someone wanted. Well, this would definitely come in handy during the fight as well.
And so, Eiro and the Wind-Mage from before made their way into the center of the dueling area, while the Demon commanded John to stay by the sidelines.
The Wind-Mage took out his tag and held it toward Eiro, "Come on, will you? Let's get this over with quickly, I have a reservation for Dinner tonight."
"Hm... what bad luck, guess you won't be able to enjoy an excellent last meal." The demon replied immediately, but the mage in front of him just scowled while Eiro got out his tag as well and copied the man's actions.
The man poured his mana into the tag and then tapped it against Eiro's while he had his mana poured into his own. And just like that, the number on the two tags simply disappeared.
"We have ten seconds. Get ready." With a slight scoff, the mage turned around and stepped away to get a bit of distance between him and Eiro. He got out a small wand out of his pocket and stared at the Demon.
But weirdly... after six seconds, the mage already attacked with a broad grin on his face, "Tricked ya!" He exclaimed as he held his wand forward, and nearly instantly a specific spell appeared. Eiro was surprised to see this, really. Sure, this man seemed rather skilled with magic, and not particularly unintelligent, but he still didn't expect to see that he was capable of casting spells instantly. For that, a simple 'Tricked ya' was simply far too simple.
Either way, it seemed like this spell in particular was one that compressed a large amount of air into a small space and then shot it forward like an arrow at an incredibly high speed. It didn't require a lot of mana and was hard to avoid, so the only weak point of it was that the magic circle was rather complex, making this all even more surprising.
At least that's what Eiro thought at first, but then he noticed the carvings on the man's wand. They were the same sort of weird, ancient runes that Eiro had seen on all of the artificial artifacts. It was probably a special wand that allowed him to instantly cast this spell in exchange for some more mana. Eiro read that this kind of thing was possible, in theory at least.
Either way, this spell was troublesome in more ways than just one. On top of being so fast, a short moment after impact, it would suddenly expand all the air back to what it was before nearly instantly, shredding away everything around it instantly. So if it pierced someone's body, it would do incredibly amounts of damage.
But luckily, Eiro immediately realized all of this and was able to react adequately. And that was by simply shifting his body a bit to the side before the mass of compressed air hit him. Sure, it was fast and hard to avoid if you had a bad reaction time, but considering that Eiro's intelligence was at 300 and his intelligence-stat ability increased the speed at which he could process information considerably, Eiro was able to avoid the attack just barely, and it hit the wall behind him.
"Ah, that so? Good to know?" Eiro replied as he held his hand forward and immediately started to create another spell as well. One that was based off of the one that this mage just cast, albeit a little bit more advanced.
The whole time, Eiro analyzed when the shots of this spell would come in and kept his distance to have a slight bit more time to react to the shot.
But it didn't take long for Eiro to finish his spell either, and that was just at the time when some of the other members of the organization entered the building as well, following the Demon's suggestion from before.
They came just at the right time to notice the lack of air as dust, loose leaves or paper and even some cloth from the members' clothes was pulled in toward the magic circle in front of Eiro, having immediately collected all of the air in the room, and even a little bit from outside that caused the door to be quickly pulled shut with a loud slam.
Without anyone beside Eiro being capable of even seeing it, the spell shot forward and pierced the side of the mage's body.
The half of the corpse that was still intact hit the ground and the Demon turned toward the other members, while the number 67 appeared on his tag.
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