-Examination-

[A process through which knowledge

and/or ability in specific areas are tested]

The day had finally come, the day of my exam. A couple weeks passed since the Training Hunt, and in total it had been a little over a month since I woke up. The follow up meeting was held the next day, and wasn’t super interesting. We basically verified everything Oroske had written in the report, and got an investigation rolling to find who dug up that old lady’s garden. That same day, Oroske and I scheduled my exam.

Since then, we’ve been training. A lot. He said that I was probably already good enough to pass then, but there’s no harm in getting more practice.

He also told me I should be thinking about what I want my cloak to look like, since I may have different tastes compared to before I died. I had tried on my old cloak a few times since then, and tried to figure out what I would like more. My old cloak was very simple in design. On the outside it was a simple, dark blue jacket with a simple white trim, and the Tsumi Clan emblem on the left shoulder. Inside though, it still had that heavy chainmail. While I wasn’t a fan of how heavy it was with the chainmail, paired with the very thick fabric, I did like how safe I felt wearing it. I put probably too much thought into it, but I found one thing I’d like to add to it, having seen it on many other Hunters’ cloaks; some sort of symbol or design calling back to my name. I had no idea what that would be like, and I mean, some of those design’s people had on their cloaks were very vague.

We arrived at the HQ pretty early in the morning, a little after sunrise. Venn greeted us with her usual smile, and guided us upstairs through the hall to the right. I hadn’t realized, but apparently the hallways on all three floors loop all the way around the building. The second floor had some rooms on the outside of the loop, a handful of offices and the like, but most of them were multi-purpose. Inside of the loop was a large room with padded floors and glass walls so you could see in easily. The glass walls actually extended up to the third floor, and there was no ceiling. “At some point, fighting started becoming very vertical, and the roof was getting in the way, so we removed it,” Oroske explained with a chuckle. Venn guided us to one of the outer rooms, and said the content of my exam would be explained inside.

Upon entering the room, I was greeted by a familiar face. “Ah, Kuro, Oroske, good to see you,” Pyrse welcomed us as we came in, “Please, take a seat.” He gestured to the other side of the desk he was sitting at. “I didn’t expect to see you on the Exam Board, Pyrse,” Oroske said as we sat down.

“Well to be honest, neither did I,” Pyrse chuckled, “One thing led to another, you know?” Oroske just nodded as Pyrse sifted through a stack of paper on his desk, pulling out a smaller stack that was paperclipped together.

“So, did you bring the Navy Cloak training checklist with you?”

“We did, yes,” Oroske had been carrying it in a small messenger bag, and pulled it out, placing the binder on the desk.

“Great, and is it all filled out as necessary?” Pyrse asked as he flipped to the checklist page to verify himself. He scanned through the checklist quickly before continuing, “Perfect! Looks like everything is in order. So, we’ll have you go through the written part of the test first, and then afterward will be the physical test. After all of that, you’ll have an interview with Danfis, and we’ll finalize your inauguration as a Hunter.”

He returned the binder, and drew our focus to the papers he grabbed earlier, a packet that had my name written at the top of the front page. “This packet is the written test, and has some guidelines for the physical portion for you to read through. Basically just telling you what we’re looking for,” he explained as he handed me a pen, “Oroske and I will be here in the room with you, but we’ll stay silent as you take the test. You are free to begin whenever you please.”

I decided to read through the guidelines for the physical portion first. They read as follows;

Navy Cloak Physical Exam:

The physical portion of the test will be done by means of a sparring match between the trainee and their mentor. We are specifically testing the trainee’s understanding of how to fight, how to use magic, and how to apply magic to fighting. If the trainee passes as long as their combat ability is determined to be sufficient enough to take out low-ranking targets. The winner of the match will be determined by the Tsumi Clan Standard ruleset; one clean blow to the chest or head decides the victor. Winning or losing will not affect whether the trainee passes the exam or not.

From the sounds of it, the test was just like the way Oroske had been training me.

I continued reading on to the written exam. It’s guidelines explained what I already knew, that it would test my knowledge on the Tsumi Clan, the Hunters, and what they do. In addition, it explained that there would be a few multiple choice questions, but most of the questions would be free response questions. Moving on to the test itself, well, it was exactly as described. I was able to answer most of the questions easily, the rest either required a bit of thought, or I ended up guessing the answers to them. Such as the question “Why are Necromancers a priority target?” To which, after a good minute or so of thinking, I eventually concluded that it was probably due to them messing with our territory, and that raising the dead is our thing. The test took me about forty or so minutes to finish, and a lot of that time was thinking about how to phrase some of my answers. Thankfully, Oroske and Pyrse were very patient throughout.

Once I had finished, I handed the papers over to Pyrse who set it off to the side. “Very good, while you’re doing the combat section I’ll go over this and grade it,” he explained, guiding Oroske and I back out to the hall, “You have a pretty unique opportunity, Kuro. Due to most of the Exam Board being preoccupied today, Danfis will be the observer for your match.”

Oroske raised an eyebrow after hearing that, then patted me on the back, “Do your best, kid. Danfis can be strict sometimes, so try to impress him, yeah?” I gave him an enthusiastic nod as we proceeded to the arena. Pyrse yelled “Good luck!” as he went back into the office. We had to go a little ways down the hall before we arrived at one of the doors that led inside. It was a little difficult to differentiate between the walls and doors of the dojo, as both were almost completely glass.

We knew before we walked in, but Danfis wasn’t in there yet. There were two black lines near the center of the light beige floor, a couple feet apart. Oroske instructed me to sit on my knees at one of them, and he sat at the other, facing me. “So, how’re you feeling?” He asked me, leaning backwards, supporting himself with his hands behind him.

“Good, there were a couple questions I wasn’t positive about during the written portion, but otherwise it was pretty easy.”

“Good, good. How about physically? Think you’ll be able to win against me today?”

“I feel pretty much the same as always,” I said, thinking about the one time I’ve won against him, “I’ve only gotten one win, and I don’t think I would have that time if Nadred hadn’t shown up to distract you.”

Oroske laughed at that response, “True, true. Though I shouldn’t have let my guard down.” He tilted his body slightly to look behind me, “Well, give it your all. Remember, you don’t have to win, just show that you’re capable of fighting.”

“Exactly,” a familiar voice called from behind me. I turned around to see Danfis, his overall dark appearance contrasting with the bright lights and colors of the HQ’s interior. “I look forward to seeing how you do, I was impressed by your performance before you died. You may start whenever you like.” He folded his arms, accentuating the very large, flowy sleeves of his robe, and had a small smile on his face.

I turned back to face Oroske who had a similar smirk on his face. We stood up at the same time, drawing our weapons. We both opted for swords at the start. He gestured to me, indicating I can make the first move.

I took a second to consider what kind of strategy I would employ. I had to ensure Danfis saw not only my physical ability, but my magical prowess as well.

I decided to start simple and work my way up.

I quickly slashed horizontally with an assertive step forward. Immediately after Oroske blocked, I jumped backwards to dodge his follow-up that I anticipated he’d respond with. I had gotten used to the defense game, reacting to his moves rather than making my own until I saw my openings. Usually Oroske would chase after something like that, but he stayed at his line, only adjusting his stance. I guess this is a test of my ability to fight after all, I thought to myself before making my next move.

I used sen’tur’fer on my feet to launch myself forward, while also coating my blade with selr’ari’fer after I had jumped. I positioned myself so that it seemed like I was going to strike from my left, allowing him to block easily with his right. As soon as our blades were about to clash, I released the selr from my blade, commanding it to go around his block, in an attempt to stun him, even if just slightly. He succeeded in blocking, and I succeeded in stunning him a little, as I saw his body lock up slightly. I used his block as something of a spring board, launching myself with my sword above him, flipping to land behind him. Immediately after landing, I snapped backwards, slashing at his back. My stun didn’t last long enough, however. Just as I was about to strike him, he managed to jump forward and dodge.

I didn’t expect that would be the end of the fight. I pushed forward, chasing after him in an attempt to minimize his recovery window, yet again augmenting my speed with wind magic. I got to him shortly after he landed and began to barrage him with sword blows. Even after all those weeks of training, I still wasn’t able to surpass his speed. What a monster he was, insanely strong and insanely fast. He blocked all of my blows easily, and when I finally faltered just a little, he swung at me himself. Thankfully, I was able to block it just in time. The force of his attack launched me backwards quite a bit, falling towards the ground. Right before my back hit the ground, I was able to recover by placing my hands on the ground and spring boarding off of them. Flipping myself around in the air, I landed on my feet facing him. I had limited time to figure out my next move as he was already chasing me.

I panicked slightly, when suddenly time seemed to slow down, which offered me time to think. There were two main things I needed to think about; how can I fend him off, potentially even win, and what else can I do to impress Danfis? The answers to both came to me at once.

As Oroske got closer, and time returned to normal speed, I prepared to defend. I had no idea if it would work since the room we were in had wood floors, but I attempted a defensive spell using jarou’tur. I kneeled down and placed my hands on the floor, commanding the aether flowing through me to burst in a stone wall. I had to time it just right so that it would catch him and send him upwards. I was a little surprised when I got it just right. His foot had just landed on the spot I was aiming for, and suddenly the aether gathered into stone, and launched up into a pillar. He had a shocked face as he lost his balance and was flung into the air. It lasted only a moment, however, before he switched back to the smile he usually had while fighting, and he regained control.

As he was flying through the air, I sent bursts of sen’ari towards him, in an attempt to weaken him. He blocked most of them, but one blade sliced into his shoulder, knocking him off balance as he fell towards the ground. I once again chased after, getting to him as he landed on his feet. I swung at him the same way I did earlier to bait his blocks, and as soon as I saw him prepare to block that first swing, I quickly switched from my sword to my scythe. I had to use Demon Sheath while I was running toward him, and couldn’t actually activate the spell until I saw him commit to blocking.

The pole of my scythe connected with his sword, just under the blade. I then flipped the scythe, using the curve of its blade to pinch Oroske’s weapon, and swung hard. His sword flew out of his hand, leaving him defenseless. Before he could summon another weapon and defend, I swung my scythe in such a way the blade was right behind his neck. “Alright, you win,” he said, raising his hands in defeat. In order for my victory to meet the actual rules of the match, I swung the scythe as though I was beheading him. Thankfully all of my weapons had the enchantment placed on them to make them safe, so I didn’t actually chop his head off.

“Victor; Kuro!” Danfis declared from the edge of the room while applauding. We walked towards him, and he closed the distance as well. “I’m impressed, Kuro. Even when he holds back, Oroske is a tough opponent. I declare you have passed your exam, congratulations.”

“Wait, holding back?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, it’s my personal rule that I don’t use techniques I haven’t taught you while we spar.” Oroske explained, “That said, you used one of those techniques by yourself anyway, I was surprised.”

“Really? What technique?”

“I’ll tell you later, when it comes time to actually teach you it.”

Danfis chuckled before speaking, “Well, all that’s left is your interview. We’ll hold it in my office.”

He guided us out of the training room, and up to the third floor. He took us to a large set of double doors, on the corner where the city plaza was. The inside was almost like another hall, but much wider. The walls were lined with packed bookshelves, and in the middle of the room there was a long table with several chairs on each side. At the back of the room was a desk with a large chair, and a window looking out over the plaza.

Danfis pulled two of the chairs from the large table up to the desk before sitting down in the big chair on the other side. He gestured to Oroske and I to sit down.

“This brings back memories,” He started after we sat down, “It was only a few months ago we had your first interview. Pyrse handed me the results from your written test while you two were fighting, you did well enough to pass, only missing a few questions. All of which I’m sure are due to Oroske not teaching those parts.” He gave Oroske a hard glare before continuing, causing Oroske to nervously laugh, “But he’s right, they’re not that important.

“So, there are just a few questions I’d like to ask you. First, why would you like to be a Hunter?” Danfis began the interview proper.

I took a moment to think about it. It wasn’t something I put much thought into until now, if I was honest. It just felt like the natural thing to do. After some thinking, I thought of one good reason, “I feel like it’s the best shot I’ve got at getting my memory back. From what I’ve been told, there’s about fourteen years of my life just… missing, from my memory, and I’d really like to get it back.”

Danfis nodded, “A good, personal reason, very good. Next is a question of understanding and consent. This is a dangerous job, and your life is at risk during even the simplest Hunts. Do you understand and are you okay with the fact that at any minute you could die?”

I barely had to think about this question. “Of course. I’ve died once, what’s dying again? Even with the risk of not being able to come back, if I have a chance of learning about my past, it’ll be worth it.”

“Very good. And finally, will you take the Hunters’ Oath? Do you promise to protect our realms, their people, and to uphold the balance between life and death?” He asked me, with a very serious look in his eyes.

“I do.”

He smiled softly, “Then congratulations, and welcome back to the Hunters.” He stood up and offered his hand out to me. I followed and shook his hand. “Did you wish to change up your cloak at all?”

“I had a couple ideas,” I responded. It took me a bit of thought, but I did think of something I’d like to add.

“Great, Venn can process the request. We host ceremonies every month for people getting new cloaks, which will be in about a week. For now, go take a break, you’ve been hard at work the past couple months since you woke up, you deserve it.” Danfis explained, “You’re free to head home.”

Oroske and I got up and started walking out of Danfis’s office, when he suddenly spoke up again, “Hang on, Oroske. Mind if I talk to you a bit?”

“Ah, of course,” Oroske said, then turned to me, “You can go on ahead to home, or you can wait for me, whichever you want to do.” I nodded as he kinda pushed me out the door. I decided to just wait for him in the lobby, while I talked to Venn about the changes I wanted made to my cloak. I couldn’t help but wonder what Danfis and Oroske were talking about.

After sitting down it finally hit me. I finally earned my Navy Cloak again. I wondered what kind of adventures would come next.