Chapter 13: Fighting Maniac
"What do you want from me?"
Sasha asked Rumi, feeling irritated by her formal way of speaking. She would avoid people who talked like that as much as possible. It wasn't like she hated it, she was just fed up with people who talked to her like that, nobles use that kind of talk to hide their true intentions and she hated nobles.
That was why she would get irritated whenever someone talked to her formally. It reminded her of all the encounters she had with pesky nobles.
"I need your help with assessing that man's strength," Rumi said, pointing to Raymond. "to see if he is fit to be a porter."
-Bang!
Sasha banged her fist on the table and snarled at Rumi.
"The fuck? You woke me up just for that?" she pointed at mercenaries who were drinking by the side. "Have one of these shitheads do it."
One of the drinking mercenaries was enraged when he heard that. He stood up from his chair and broke the wine bottle he was holding and pointed it at Sasha.
"Who are you calling a shithead, eh?"
Sasha grabbed his hand and twisted it behind his back. She kicked him in the bum causing him to lay sprawled on the ground.
"Not you, shithead."
'You called him shithead again.' Rumi screamed in her head.
But the man seemed to be too drunk to realise it as he got up from the floor and started drinking again as if nothing had happened.
"As you can see Miss Sasha, most of them are drunk while the others are outside," Rumi pointed out, and then she got closer to Sasha. "Moreover, that guy seems like a noble, so it's probably for the best if our best mercenary oversees the test."
Rumi said with a smile.
Sasha's face fell when she realised she had to deal with yet another noble. She decided then and there to make the test as hard as possible.
Rumi gestured towards Raymond and Sasha found her eyes widening when she looked at Raymond. There was something strange about this guy, she could tell at a glance– he was not what he seemed to be.
He looked like a harmless guy with a small smile plastered on his face with his body full of openings for a sneak attack. But due to her years of fighting with tough guys and working as a mercenary, she could feel it in her bones there was something off about this guy. Her instinct was screaming at her to tread carefully while her fighting spirit was ignited by his presence.
She wasn't called a fighting maniac for nothing, she would challenge people all the time and if she ever came across a brute she would not let him off until one of them won, that was how much she was obsessed with brutes, sadly she had never come across anyone who could push her to the limits.
Be that as it may, she would keep her guard up while dealing with him. She carefully approached the duo and introduced herself.
"Hi, I am Sasha."
Raymond narrowed his eyes at her, due to his sharp senses he could feel there was something amiss with this girl, so he decided against giving his full name.
"Hello, I am Ray and this is Jasmine."
Jasmine was already registered with the guild so there was no point in hiding her name, moreover, it was a common name so he didn't feel it was a problem. Jasmine looked at her master curiously, Raymond signalled with his eyes to keep quiet.
"So you are the one who needs to be tested, hmmm? Not bad, at least you look manly enough."
She laughed remembering the last time she tested someone. He was also a noble; moreover, he was a son of one of the dukes and looked like a tough guy. By the time she was done with him, he was almost on the verge of crying.
Rumi brought them to the first floor where a room was specifically built for the purpose of training. Its floor and walls were fortified with specialised strengthening runes.
The room inside was enlarged using spatial runes and looked big enough to host a few thousand people.
'This mercenary guild sure is rich.'
Raymond thought. To keep spatial runes running one needed a large amount of mana stones. It also had many specialised equipments for training, Raymond also found some puppets which were designed to assist in training people.
"Alright, listen here. You need to carry one of these bags and run around this room for at least…" Sasha said thinking for a while. "20 times."
Rumi gasped upon hearing the number.
"Miss Sasha, isn't that too much, he is not even at the level of E-rank mercenaries," she whispered to Sasha.
"Hmph, don't tell me how to do my job. I know what I am doing." Sasha brushed off her concerns and raised her eyebrows at Raymond as if asking him to challenge her. But Raymond simply nodded and went to pick a bag that was neatly lined up against the wall.
The bags had units written on them neatly showcasing how much each one weighed.
Raymond picked up a bag weighing 100 KG and felt it too light for his liking. After all, he was being tested here, so he had to give it his all. So he started trying out all the bags until he reached the last one which weighed 10 tonnes.
Jasmine's face twisted into worry when she saw that, she approached Sasha and glared at her.
"Miss Sasha, what is the point of this test? Why are you making him carry that much weight?" she asked angrily.
Sasha smirked at her.
"If he wants to be your porter then he should prove himself to be strong enough to carry some weight and run at top speed," she saw him lifting up the bag of 10 tonnes as if it was nothing and tying it on his back.
"There will be many such occasions where he might have to run for his life while carrying something heavy. He won't be a good porter if he abandoned everything and ran at the first sight of trouble, now will he?"
Jasmine though wanted to argue more when she saw Sasha pointing towards Raymond, she turned around to see her master getting ready to run. He didn't seem to be in too much trouble so she shut her mouth and watched on curiously.
Rumi had a sinking feeling in her stomach but she thought she was only imagining it and announced the start of the test.
"Miss Sasha, please watch carefully. Mr.Ray, you can start running anytime now."
Raymond nodded and bent forward to take his running stance. He planted his feet into the ground and took off running leaving behind two small craters where his feet were before.
-BOOM!
There was a loud sound of something breaking and all the windows in the room shattered, tiles on the roof started to break apart and fell to the floor like raindrops.
Rumi fell on her butt in horror. Jasmine gasped and grabbed a nearby pillar to stand steadily. But Sasha though, she was smiling and finding it very hard to control herself from laughing out loud maniacally.
Soon Raymond stopped in front of Sasha and smiled at her.
"Well, how did I do?"
Sasha felt her cheeks flushing at the thought of what would have happened if he crashed into someone at that speed.
'Fucking hell, I would have turned into a meat paste for sure.' she thought inwardly.
"What!! You finished running 20 laps?" Rumi shouted in disbelief, it hadn't even been a minute since he started.
"Of course, I wouldn't lie when I am being supervised by a B-rank mercenary."
Raymond said oblivious to his surroundings but when a tile piece fell on his head he looked around to find the half destroyed room.
"Eh?" He scratched his head in embarrassment.
'Damn! That felt good.' He wasn't actually embarrassed, he was actually thrilled to let loose like that. But he had to at least act like he didn't cause damage to the room intentionally.
"Well, Miss Rumi if you don't believe me I can run once again," Raymond said, hiding the smirk that was threatening to form on his face.
"No, no, no. It's fine, I believe you." Rumi quickly shook her head in terror. She was convinced that he was more than strong enough to be a porter. She wanted to end the test right now.
"Alright, you have passed Mr.Ray, you can be officially assigned as her porter by the guild–"
"Nuh-uh, that won't do. That was just a test of his speed, now we will test you on your attack power." Sasha interrupted.
"Ah! Miss Sasha that wouldn't be…" Rumi trailed off when she saw Sasha glaring at her to shut up.
"Now come on, what are you staring at?" Sasha grabbed his hands and led him to a pillar that had a puppet tied to it.
"See this puppet? You just need to punch it with all your strength, it will give your evaluation based on the impact." Sasha informed and casually punched the puppet in the stomach.
Instantly the puppet's eyes lit up and opened its mouth.
*Pathetic!! You need an extra Oomph in your punch.*
Sasha's lips twitched in anger.
'Fucking puppet.'
She plastered a smile on her face and instructed Raymond to punch the puppet.
Raymond nodded seriously and stepped in front of the puppet.
He was contemplating whether to let loose as he did previously. If he did he was sure he would end up destroying the guild let alone this room.
He decided to control his power and just punch it with the bare minimum power to pass the test.
He clenched his fist and swung it towards the puppet but soon he realised a very serious problem.
He didn't know how powerful he was, how much he needed to control precisely, but it was already too late, he saw the puppet's stomach shredded to pieces by the air pressure before his fist even reached it.
*Danger!Danger!! The force is too much for me to ass–*
-BOOM!
Before it could complete the sentence it was destroyed by the air pressure and the pillar behind it disappeared into dust. Raymond's fist didn't find any purchase as he stumbled to keep his balance.
The entire room shook due to the impact of the force and the spatial runes started crumbling.
"Nooo" Rumi and Jasmine screamed in horror when they saw the spatial runes getting destroyed. They would be shredded to pieces if they were inside the room when it was destroyed.
Sasha found her breath stuck in her throat, her cheeks flushed bright red in excitement.
'What a brute.' She took a ragged breath and took out her sword. She couldn't hold it in anymore when she saw that punch, she had to pounce on him and fight till one of them won. As for spatial runes, she knew about the safety runes of the room which would kick in when the room was about to be destroyed.
She circulated her mana and her sword turned bright red emitting scorching hot waves. The entire room's temperature increased all of a sudden due to the heat.
"Master!!! Watch out." Jasmine cried out.
"NOOO! Sashaa," Rumi shouted at the top of her lungs.
Raymond bent backwards just in time to avoid getting slashed by the sword.
"Oy, oy, what happened to you?" He asked Sasha.
'I knew it, there is something wrong with this girl.'
Sasha ignored his voice and increased her mana output causing the flames to spill out of her sword. She swung the sword once again at Raymond.
For others in the room, it might have been too fast to react but Raymond felt like he could take a walk in the capital city before the sword reached him.
He grabbed the sword making sure not to let it touch his new dress and snapped it in half. Instantly the fire died down and Sasha fell face first into the ground.
She jumped up and pushed out her mana to unleash her aura field. She was smiling like a lunatic all the while she was fighting.
Raymond had enough of her and disappeared from his spot, he reappeared behind her. He entered her aura field like a hot knife through the butter and got out of it just as quickly when he saw his clothes catching on fire.
'Damn it! I forgot about my clothes.'
He snuffed out the small fire that had just started to form on his clothes and snapped in Sasha's direction.
"Oy, enough with your pathetic display of power, if you have the guts shoot it all towards me."
That seemed to rile her up even more, as she directed her aura field to morph into a fiery tornado leaving her back exposed.
Raymond took advantage of that moment and appeared behind her and gently chopped her on the neck to knock her out.
But the fire tornado headed towards Raymond's previous location and crashed into the wall where the spatial rune was already damaged.
The room shook and started to shrink down at a speed visible to the naked eye. But before anything could happen to those inside the room, safety runes kicked in and teleported them outside the room. Raymond took hold of Sasha preventing her from falling to the ground and suddenly found himself outside the room.
He was instantly tackled by Jasmine who threw herself at him and started fussing over him.
"Master, are you alright? That demon didn't do anything to you right?" She glared at Sasha angrily. But Sasha was knocked out cold to notice it.
Rumi got up from the ground in a daze.
'What the hell just happened?'
"Miss Rumi, what is wrong with this one?" he pointed his chin towards Sasha who was now sprawled on the ground. "I tell you, she is not right in the head."
Rumi felt embarrassed about what Sasha had done, after all she was the one who asked her to oversee the test.
"Mr.Ray, I am sorry for what happened. You can come tomorrow to do your first mission, meanwhile, we will think of a way to compensate you for what happened today." She bowed at them both sincerely.
Raymond nodded and left the guild with Jasmine while attracting curious gazes from the mercenaries who were gathered outside the guild due to the sound of destruction coming from upstairs.
Even though they were drunk, they knew when to run in case their life was in danger.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone