Anna was sitting with her back against a tree. Brock was sitting on a rock beside her, and Ryker was sitting on a branch above them with a very loving bat on his shoulder.
The four of them were in front of the dungeon where the incident happened, except it wasn't an unranked dungeon anymore. It was an F-rank now and that meant it required an F-rank officer to watch the entrance. A man with whiskers was sitting at a desk with a tablet, a bored expression on his face.
A cold wind blew.
"It's chilly," Ryker said.
"Maybe you should pour some of Liv's blood on your face," Anna sarcastically suggested. She still wasn't happy about the bite mark.
Ryker knew she was upset.
"I needed ice magic," he responded.
"Why not use stone magic?" Anna retorted, pointing at Brock, "Drink his blood instead."
This made Brock choke. Ryker started to laugh, and Liv turned back to her human form to also laugh.
"No disrespect to Rul but I don't want a man biting me," Brock's face had turned a shade of green as he imagined the scenario.
"I could still meet a vampire girl and she could definitely bite me..." the golem added, stroking his chin in thought.
"What about an arachne?" a feminine voice came behind him.
A tall woman with white hair and four brown eyes that gleamed under the faint sunlight was approaching them, wearing a white uniform with a crest of a serpent, her posture exuded an amount of elegance.
Brock almost lost his balance and fell off his rock. He was trying not to stare at her but she was a magnet for his gaze.
"You must be my 3 O'clock applicants," she smiled. She had fangs too but a different shape than vampires.
It took Brock a solid minute to find his tongue.
"H-hi I'm Brock," he extended his hand, which she gently took, "And this is Ryker, Anna and Liv," he pointed at each of them.
"Pleasure to meet you, I'm Elara and I'll be your examiner for the day."
Her gaze lingered on Liv.
"You can't enter the dungeon if you're not an applicant," Elara said to Liv, her tone was gentle but firm.
Liv's expression hardened, "I'm just here to support."
"Alas the guild does not permit unauthorized persons in the vicinity during a trial," she looked at Ryker who was about to protest.
The group gathered in front of the dungeon gate, a swirling vortex of black and green energy.
"Your F-rank exam is simple," Elara's hands were clasped behind her back.
"There is a combat aptitude, a problem-solving aptitude, and a simple capture."
Entering the dungeon, a familiar sight welcomed Ryker and Anna. But it wasn't a sunny grassland, instead, it was now dark and gloomy. The whole dungeon had undergone a reconstruction. The cavern that Anna and Ryker had fallen into was gone.
"You will need to capture a goblin alive. Then you'll have to kill an orc. Finally, you have to break free from a trap. A simple test that ensures you are fit for F-rank."
Ryker was feeling weird. On the one hand, he experienced a traumatic event. He nearly died here, but the memory of biting Anna and the adrenaline from fighting was exhilarating, an addictive cocktail he wanted more of.
His new mother's messages still replayed in his head.
You're not allowed to use space magic until my say so.
"You'll all split up and capture a goblin and return here," Elara simply sat down in the dead grass. Her four brown eyes were following each of the applicant.
Brock dashed north, Anna took the east, and Ryker went west. He had to be conservative with his mana because his core was still only Iota. Anna and Brock were a step higher at Delta. They had been empowering their cores with mana crystals but Ryker didn't have a core until the incident.
"It would be much easier to find a goblin if I could fly," he said to himself.
He was running through the grass, searching for any signs of the green critters when a noise came from a bush a few feet away from him. His claws extended, a new weapon he was still getting used to. Hiding behind a rock, he stalked the noise.
Poking its head out from the bush was a single goblin. It was a simple looking creature with pointy ears and green skin. It wasn't paying attention to him as it was eating a berry. It was alone.
Crouching like a predator, he charged. The green monstrosity picked up its rusty dagger as a defense. But in one swift motion, he slammed the grotesque to the ground.
With the dagger falling out of his hand, the goblin was now helpless.
He could kill it with his claw and be done with it. But this wasn't a dungeon; it was a trial, and it required him to capture it. They didn't bring any nets, any ropes. They only had their hands and their magic.
Grabbing the goblin by the throat, he lifted it. The monster was struggling and tried to scratch his arm away but Ryker's grip was stronger.
Memories of the orc's hands gripping him made his claws twitch.
Feeling the relaxed grip, the goblin bit his arm. He dropped the creature with a gasp as he flung it away. The monstrosity sprinted into the fields, trying to escape.
In an act of desperation, Ryker cut its leg with his claw. Blood was gushing from the goblin, that is, it was dying. An idea popped into his head. A cruel savage one.
"Fuck me," he said.
It was so barbaric but it was necessary to capture the critter alive. He didn't have healing magic, but ice magic was in his repertoire, and freezing was a form of preservation.
Limb by limb, Ryker sliced off its appendages carefully and froze the stumps so that the goblin doesn't croak from bloodloss.
He used as little mana as possible to freeze the bleeding. The monster's whimpers became muffled groans of pain, its thrashing subsiding into pathetic twitches, a thin layer of ice keeping it alive.
Grabbing the goblin by its neck, he walked back to Elara. He was the last one to arrive.