Around the six month mark, the snow was falling lightly outside as Prota was trying to do the dishes when John surprised her with a question.

“Prota, do you remember what adventurers are?”

She stopped what she was doing and looked up at him. He usually didn’t say anything without meaning to make a point… actually, scratch that, he said lots of nonsense all the time, but his tone of voice made her think there was something up.

“Yes,” she nodded, waiting for him to continue.

“What are your thoughts on becoming an adventurer?”

Prota looked up at him. He’d been protective, almost overly so, never allowing her to go out to the towns whenever he went shopping. What was this now? Why ask something like this? Was it a test?

“...?”

John saw the confusion on her face and laughed. “There’s no hidden meaning or anything. I’m really curious.”

“But…”

John sighed and sat down. “Well, I’ve been thinking for a while. You know, as much as you might be ok with staying here for another six months you should get used to seeing people,” he said. “I’ll handle everything. You don’t have to talk or interact or anything, so don’t worry about it. I just… think experience on the field will be a lot better than just me and you.”

Prota thought about it. It was true that she’d rather stay alone with John. She wasn’t particularly excited at the prospect of attending this “magic school” he’d told her about but he was adamant that she go there if she wanted to get stronger.

John trained with her, but he was unable to bring out any more potential from within her. He’d taught her everything he could, and that hadn’t been a lot. Her use of fire and ice magic had increased slightly but it wasn’t exactly powerful. Her use of pure mana was decent but John had advised her against using that.

“It’s, uh… not common, from what I’ve heard,” he’d said awkwardly. “I think you’ll get some weird looks if you use that in public. Try… try to avoid using it unless absolutely necessary, ok?”

Zero occasionally tried to help but was often restricted, his words censored by whatever system in place stopped him from saying things. It was frustrating, but it wasn’t a major problem.

She enjoyed her life here, but she hadn’t forgotten what she wanted.

She wanted to be strong enough to beat the demon that had taken her sister. She needed the strength to deserve to be called a “demon.”

“...” she sighed and nodded. If John thought that was what was truly best…

“Alright!” John grinned. “The nearest village is…” he stopped grinning and groaned. “It’s a really long walk away…” His shoulders visibly drooped as he thought of the prospect of carrying Prota all the way. However, he cheered up again and nodded.

“We’ll go whenever you’re ready, Prota,” John said.

Prota nodded and started packing up the few things she had. She still held onto the cloak John had given her the first night they’d met, as well as her ID and the staff as well.

She watched with curiosity as John started throwing things into a small bag again. Like the last time they’d packed up, some of the items didn’t seem like they would fit, but the size of the bag never changed, as if the items weren’t going in at all.

However, at this point, questions would probably just lead to more questions, so she left it alone and prepared for the trip. However, she noted that John’s eyes were shining. They were different from other times; they were the eyes of someone who was truly happy. He’d been going blank less and less, and had started showing true emotions more and more.

Prota thought that she like him a lot more when he was happy.

~~~

“...you want to sign up? Kid, where're your parents?”

John’s eyebrows twitched in annoyance. He’d completely forgotten his physical appearance had changed to that of a young child. He’d done it on somewhat of a whim earlier, but since the only person he’d been with was Prota he’d forgotten he was posing as a twelve to thirteen year old child.

“Are you sure you should be here? Did you get lost?”

“Look, can you just put the applications through?” John said, trying really hard not to punch the man in the face. Prota stood to the side, watching nervously, more so that John would lose his temper than anything else, but in the end the man ran the papers through and indicated for them to wait to the side.

John and Prota were in a small town closest to where they’d been, which had still been half a day’s walk away. After resting in a nearby inn for a night, they’d gone to the adventurer’s guild to register. It was then Prota had found out about John’s lazy and somewhat unintelligent nature.

She had assumed they were going in with a plan, but no such thing existed. In fact, John had done zero research about anything involved with signing up, and that included the fact that small children were typically not among the people that registered to be adventurers. However, it was too late to do anything about it.

The room was full of adult men and women, mostly looking like they were in their twenties or thirties, but a certain applicant caught John’s attention. A boy stood silently in the corner, emitting a somewhat strange aura that he couldn’t put his finger on.

The boy had shaggy gunmetal hair, but his face was covered by a black mask that covered everything but his piercing gold eyes. A pink nine tailed fox rested on his shoulder, and he wore a strange blade on his black.

“...dangerous?” Prota whispered, seeing John’s look.

He almost jumped at her question, so intently had he been looking at the boy. He looked at the small girl sitting beside him. He hadn’t noticed it, but she was very good at reading his emotions.

If that was the case, then she likely knew his true feelings most of the time… He didn’t know she had already set out to see his eyes shine as much as possible.

Finally, a woman wearing an adventurer’s guild uniform stepped out.

“Sorry about the wait. I’m Catherine, the leading manager of this branch. Everyone, please follow me to get your mana cores checked.”

John cursed under his breath. He knew how to get Prota out of this situation, but he’d completely forgotten about himself…

She went on to explain the procedures of being an adventurer as they went on towards a room at the end of the hall. How one could make money accepting quests from people, clearing monster dungeons, and how harder quests for more money could be earned through ranking up. John rolled his eyes.

“This is all cliche,” he muttered under his breath, but no one but Prota heard it. “Did the author even bother to make a new system?”

“And here we are!” Catherine said as they entered a room with a singular orb. “Please put your hand on the orb.”

She gave out instructions as the men and women went up and placed their hands on the orb, the color changing depending on who it was. John wasn’t sure what each color represented, but he could put it together as Catherine would announce each applicant’s level out loud. They would then leave the room to wait in the next room. After a long time, the room was pretty empty, and it was Prota’s turn.

[Stop feeding mana into the orb when I tell you to stop.]

Prota looked at the message in confusion, then looked up at John, but he just nodded as she stepped forwards. He probably had a plan for a reason. The orb started glowing as it drained mana out of her, changing color as it absorbed more and more mana.

[Stop.]

She focused as she cut off the flow of mana from her body to the artifact, and the colors stopped shifting.

“Hm… a B class mana core… very good for someone so young!” Catherine smiled. “Have you considered applying to Scholaris?”

“Something like that,” John shrugged, answering for her.

“Now… John Char?” Catherine called out, and John stepped up, inwardly shaking.

He wasn’t sure what would happen, because he wasn’t from this world.

He really hoped it would be the same thing that happened to Prota; it would drain mana out of his body until a certain point, then he would stop feeding mana in and he would be classified as a B class core. However, his plan was thrown out the window entirely as the orb simply refused to glow.

“...an error?” Catherine said with a frown. She looked up at John, then back down at the orb, as if that would fix things. “Sorry, can you try again?”

John nodded, but he was starting to sweat. An error? He didn’t want to attract attention, but…

He placed his hands on the orb again, and still nothing happened.

She frowned at him. “Even people classified with no mana core cause some form of glow… maybe it’s broken. Do you know what class you are?”

“...B class?” John shrugged, lying through his teeth.

“...” she looked up at him and lowered her voice. “How about we don’t report this one to the association, ok?”

John didn’t know what that meant, but if he could get out of an awkward situation he was good with that. He nodded. Catherine smiled and made a note on her noteboard, and called the last person in the room.

“...Fate?” she said uncertainly as if she unsure she was reading the name correctly. John had been heading out, but slowed down to see what would happen next.

“...” the boy silently placed his hand on the orb, which began to glow normally, but quickly shot through all the colors the other applicants had received and then kept going. The fox on his shoulder appeared to be amused, although that may have been John’s imagination.

“...!”

Catherine stared in amazement as the orb started shaking, then fizzled out after glowing a brilliant gold. John was confused at everyone’s reaction until he heard what the classification was.

P-please wait in the next room while we prepare for your test.”

Fate looked up and met John’s eyes. There was a burst of tension as the two sized each other up, both hiding secrets they didn’t want the other to see.

“Character Profile,” John whispered, and a screen popped up.

[[Redacted]

[Redacted]

[Redacted]

…more

Attributes: [Protagonist] }

Unseen by the boy known as “Fate,” John grinned.

“Hm… what kind of protagonist will you turn out to be?”

~~~

Everyone was waiting for the test to begin, but for some reason, they were all stuck inside the waiting room for at least an hour. Many of the applicants were understandably nervous, save for three people: Fate, who stood silently in a corner, Prota, who didn’t really fully understand what was going on, and John, who was incredibly bored. He had spent the first fifteen minutes thinking about Fate, then quickly grew bored of that and grew increasingly frustrated as the minutes ticked by. However, the person that entered the room explained the wait.

“Hello, everyone.”

The candidates looked up at a man with a long blond ponytail and fancy glasses. He wore a dress shirt and a pinstriped vest, and a monocle hung on his right eye. A sword hung by his side, and while he looked graceful he gave the impression of someone dangerous.

“I am Elfin Ring, the head of the adventurers. Pleased to meet you,” he said with a bow.

“Woah, head of the adventurer’s guild?”

“Isn’t that a big deal?”

“Is there something going on?”

He waited patiently for the murmurs to die down, and then spoke up again.

“I have been informed there are some… interesting candidates today.”

Once again, the crowd started whispering, but this time the man cleared his throat to silence the sound.

“I will not be saying who these people are. For this reason, you will be called out one at a time to take the test.”

John grit his teeth at that. “...Zero, can you handle it?” he thought.

“...maybe,” he heard his counterpart say.

“...I was going to help Prota with the test…” John thought, frustrated.

His heart started pounding. Something was going to happen.

~~~

John had grown excited for a few minutes, and then his excitement quickly died down as he was forced to wait again.

“...got any twos?”

Prota shook her head. “Go fish.”

They’d been waiting for so long that John had had the time to teach Prota how to play the simple game known as “go fish,” and they’d been killing time by monotonously asking each other for cards back and forth. The other applicants couldn’t help but marvel at how calm the two were.

“Do they not know who that man is?”

“He’s one of the most powerful S class mages…”

“I’ve heard he’s actually an SS class…”

“Who do you think he’s here for?”

“Probably that Fate kid…”

They all looked at John and Prota and shook their heads. “...are they so relaxed because they’re so young?”

As time passed by more and more people disappeared from the room, and John and Prota had no idea whether they’d passed or failed. John, to be completely honest, couldn’t have cared less about the other applicants. They could have been dead for all he cared. He was just bored out of his mind, waiting for his turn to come.

“John Char.”

Catherine came through the door and announced his name, indicating him to follow her.

“Ah, Prota. Come on,” he started, but Catherine stopped him.

“I’m sorry, but only one of you are allowed through at a time.”

“...look, I sort of wanted to watch her test in case anything went wrong…”

Catherine was about to say something, but Elfin appeared behind her without a sound and took over.

“Are you saying she’s in danger without you? You know, if she can’t do the test on her own what makes you think she’s fit to be an adventurer?”

John looked up carefully at the man. He was quiet, almost reserved, but John could tell.

He was a walking powerhouse of mana and combat prowess. He wasn’t someone to be taken lightly.

That got John excited. He took another look at the man, this time somewhat more analytically.

The question he’d asked seemed to be more like a test and less like a question. The only thing was, what kind of answer was he looking for…?

John stuck his hands in his pockets and glared.

“It doesn’t matter what she’s fit to be. She can decide that for herself. But… I want to decide certain things for myself as well.”

Elfin looked at John carefully, and a small smile appeared on his face.

“Interesting. You’re nothing like the other boy. But… I suppose if everyone was the same, the world would be rather boring. Very well.”

The tension in the air grew as they stared into each other’s eyes, not willing to pull away or give in. It was almost a battle of wills, a sort of unannounced match, and both sides were unwilling to give in.

“I’ll test you myself, and if you pass…”

“I’ll offer you a deal. If you can beat that other boy, then… I’ll let you watch your sister’s test. How about it?”

John grinned and stuck out his hand. “Deal.”