The old man smiled at us and then disappeared into a room behind the desk. After a few minutes he came back with 2 wooden badges. They both had our “names” printed on them, along with an F.

“With these you can accept F ranked missions. I’d recommend you start with something simple, like goblin subjugation.” There was another labyrinth in this country as well. The only difference was that this one was well maintained by the guild. Adventurers would often go in and kill the daemons within as jobs. Goblins could be found in the area around the labyrinth as well as the first couple floors.

Unlike the one that was controlled by my father, this labyrinth was far more dangerous. However, since the daemons were regularly killed, the danger of daemons raiding nearby villages was much smaller. Even if they were attacked, adventurers would rush to the scene in order to minimize the damage. Most of these adventurers were taken care of by these villages and treat them as a second home. When they’re attacked, whether it was by daemons or soldiers, adventurers would risk their lives to protect them.

“Thank you.” We both thanked him simultaneously, and went to check the mission board. The mission board was a board that listed every mission there was. It wide, and each rank had their own section. We walked toward the empty looking F section. Most of the adventurers were of around D or E rank.

We looked at the list and decided to take on the goblin subjugation like he had suggested. I took the mission page to the old man to confirm which mission we were taking, as Lux waited nearby.

“We’ll be doing this mission.” I handed him the paper that read ‘Subjugate 10 goblins.’ “Alright. You simply need to collect the right ear of the goblin once you kill it as proof of death. Good luck and be safe.” He accepted it and gave me a reminder that we needed to be careful. Not that 10 goblins would ever pose a real threat to either of us.

When I turned back I saw a few adventurers clustered around where Lux had been standing a few moments ago. She was quite beautiful, and attracted the eyes of many when we walked in. Most female adventurers were already with another party and weren’t interested in joining others. It seemed that in my short absence they decided to make a move. I started to walk over, but stopped when I heard their conversation.

“Come on Babe, we’re C ranked. Ditch that loser and we can get you promoted quick.” The leader of the 5 adventurers was the closest to her. I wasn’t exactly mad, per say. But it didn’t feel nice to watch them hit on her the second I walked away.

In response she simply laughed. She laughed for a couple minutes before calming down and said, “I’ll go with any of you can hurt him in the slightest.” They turned around and looked at me.

“Heh heh. That’s easy.” As they turned to run at me a voice shook the guild. “No fighting! If you’re to do something then take it outside.” It was the old man. They walked outside, and were going to wait for me come out. It was clear that they intended to do more than just ‘hurt me slightly.’

Lux cheerfully walked up to me and whispered into my ear. “Make an example out of them.” She was nice and kind to others, but apparently had a zero tolerance policy when someone tried to belittle me.

The last time she was hit on by someone, she didn’t mind at all and simply ignored them. That was because they said nothing about me. This time they went as far as to make fun of someone who she thought was important. That’s the type of person she is. Sometimes I think she cares about me more than herself.

I sighed and pet her head as a response. She simply smiled and followed me a few steps behind as I went to the door. The second I stepped out, there was a punch flying at me. In response I caught the fist and threw him into one of the others.

I took a look around to assess the situation. There were 2 to my right, 3 to my left, including the one I tossed over. The leader was one of the ones on the right. Apparently what I did pissed them off more. I wasn’t going to kill them just because they’re arrogant. But that doesn’t mean they would escape unscaved. Before I knew it there was a smile coming across my face. It had been a while since I fought someone besides Lux.

“KILL HIM!” The leader shouted. Yea, I pissed them off. This time all 5 of them rushed at me at the same time, armed with their weapons. To blatantly try to kill me in the middle of the street in broad daylight was quite audacious.

With their speed, it was unlikely that I needed to draw Oblivion. I was going to teach them a lesson. That’s right, it was teaching. When they were within a few feet of me, I sent out a kick towards one, landing it on his chest, then dodged out of the way of the rest of them. The one I kicked was just lying there in pain. He wasn’t going to move for a couple weeks.

I rushed toward one of the others, and grabbed onto his arm, and into a nearby wall. The other 3 were shocked, but quickly regained their composure and attacked me seriously. The first one to reach me was met with a punch to the gut. He spit up some blood and then crumpled to the ground. The leader closed in next. I sent a kick to his leg, shattering his femur. He fell on the ground, grabbing his leg. The last one of the bunch tried to run away. I caught up to him and grabbed him by the neck, and slammed him onto the street. I heard some cracking, but wasn’t sure what bones had been broken. He didn’t die at least. The C ranked adventurers were quite disappointing for the amount of talk they did.

Lux skipped over, and hugged my arm. We left the injured party on the ground for others to clean up and made our way to this country’s labyrinth. It was located about an hour north of the city. An hour by foot that is. Once we were out of the city and out of sight, we brandished our wings and departed at a rapid pace. It took about 5 minutes for us to get there.

The area outside of the labyrinth looked almost the same as the one in Justitia. There was a cave, and an area around the cave that was void of any type of life. No plants, trees, animals, or people could be seen around it. That was until a group of 4 adventurers walked out. There were two guys and two girls. The guys were mostly covered in a lustrous armor. One of them was about my height and the other was slightly shorter. The taller one had a shining blonde hair and green eyes. The shorter one had auburn hair, and hazel eyes. Both of them had fair features.

While the girls were both wearing lighter armor and had two daggers each strapped to their waist. They both had the same red hair, the same violet eyes, and were the same height. Moreover, they looked exactly the same in every other respect.

They paid no attention to us as they walked by. Lux and I just waltzed into the labyrinth and quickly found some goblins. They were slain before they knew what they had encountered. Both of us were a force to be reckoned with. Her control over her magic was amazing to say the least. I had the advantage when it came to swordplay, and raw magic power. But when she used magic, she manipulated it in ways I would have never thought possible.

She killed 5 instantly by just creating a ball of light that seeked out the goblins and tore through their bodies. We needed the corpses to take the ears off, so we couldn’t make them disintegrate.

After collecting the 10 ears, we left the labyrinth. We lazed around to kill some time. There was no way they would believe us if we showed up after 15 minutes with the ears, when it took an hour alone to walk there. After a couple hours we returned to the guild and turned in the ears. We were given 50 copper coins as commission. “So you’re back safe and sound, eh? That’s a relief. I’m sorry that those punks gave you two some trouble. But it seems that they’re going to need anywhere from several weeks to several months to recover.”

“Thank you.” I left it at that. There was no reason for me brag about how I beat up some people that were far below me. I turned away and took Lux back to the mission list.

We repeated the process a number of times, and it turns out that none of the other adventurers went out of their way to bother us. After about a week of mindlessly doing simple missions, we were promoted to E rank adventures. We were given new badges that were iron instead of wood. Mine read “Dusk: Rank E.”

The E ranked missions posed no more of a threat than the F ranked ones. The only major difference was that the commission was now 1 silver per mission instead of 50 copper. So we once again did nothing but these mind numbing quests for about a week before we got our promotion to Rank D adventurers. This time the badge was a copper color, but read the same text, except for the Rank.

Lux and I were bored out of our minds. So we started to train while we were killing time in between missions. Every other mission we would switch between swordplay and magic. After another week had passed by, we were discovered. We usually trained in a forest outside the labyrinth, were very few people traveled through.

However, this time we got lazy and decided that it would be a great idea to just train outside the labyrinth. It was late at night and the stars had long since been shining. That night was sword night. As we were sparring a group came out of the labyrinth. Since we were both engrossed with the spar, we didn’t notice they were coming. They witnessed the exquisite light that the swords gave when they collided. It was the group that we passed when we first went into the labyrinth.