94 Raegis (9)

Previously

"What?"

"Huh?" Illya furrowed her eyebrows, before catching herself. "Oh, was I-Forgive me. I tend to mumble a little when I'm surprised. Anyway, you got the role of [Supporter], congratulations."

"And, here I thought you'd get an [Attacker]," She mumbled underneath her breath. For the moment, I decided to ignore it, and more importantly, celebrate inside at how my plan had worked. I swore to myself then, the next time I saw my beloved, I was going to show her a very good time for all the shit she pulled me out of.

"All you have to do as a [Supporter] really is to observe, analyze and lead in whichever exploration you go, with whichever party you find yourself in," Illya chuckled. "I still don't know why they call the most important role a [Supporter]."

"Now, for the little one," Illya said, turning to Raegis. I stopped fondling my veil, and turned around too, only to see that Raegis had an oddly determined look on her face.

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"Oh, looks like you're ready to go," Illya said, wistfully before taking a peek at me. Then, a smirk grew on her old face. "Ah, I see how it is."

Illya waved over to the crystal orb. "The stage is yours."

"Mm."

Without hesitation, Raegis slapped her palm over the crystal orb and focused her energy. With my enhanced eyes, I could see how her aura had spiked in power before she forcefully controlled the sudden rise in aura, focusing it onto her palm and therefore, into the crystal orb. Unlike mine, her process finished much quicker. Illya looked at the abundant, and extremely spiky silver energy inside the orb, and wondered if she'd ever seen such an energy so ready to attack and cut, before.

"Well, it's pretty obvious from the orb but your specification is an [Attacker]," Illya said. "Your role is to be the vanguard and basically, cut down everything and anything standing before you or your party. And, I mean anything."

"Oh, and you get to turn in parts of anything you personally killed."

"Even a human heart?" I joked, but then Illya didn't laugh, only staring at me impassively. The way her eyes were looking at me, it was as if she personally saw an Attacker submit a human heart to the Society. If that was true, I didn't know what was more fucked up, the Attacker for turning in a freaking human heart, or the Society for accepting and even paying the Attacker for it.

I gulped, hoping that Raegis didn't have to turn in my heart in the future.

"I did it!" Raegis fist-pumped, and squealed internally.

Seeing the happy expression from the usually stoic girl, Illya chuckled amused. "Woah there, that's the most emotion I've seen you show in a while."

"Calm your tits, little one," Illya shook her head when Raegis jumped into my stomach, hugging me tightly. "With an aura that belligerent and sharp, I'd have to buy a new crystal if you got anything other than an [Attacker],"

I gave Raegis a light pet on her head, before turning at Illya. "We can be considered adventurers now?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Illya yawned. "Why in such a rush? You girls up for taking a quest already?"

Finally, I could start the second step of my plan, the plan to kill the Demon God and control everything from the shadows.

"Slimes. Slimes would be a pretty good start," I told Illya.

"It'd be the only way for you two to start," Illya snorted. "Unfortunately for you girls, it doesn't really matter how strong you are, if you've just registered as an Adventurer, you're still considered a C-Ranked Adventurer."

"So, you'll only be able to take C-ranked requests. You know, the menial ones."

"C-Rank?" Raegis chimed in.

Illya raised an eyebrow. "So the little one doesn't know about the Society's rankings?" She turned to me. "And you?"

I nodded. "I familiarized myself with them when I first came here."

"First came here?" Illya muttered under her breath. "Anyway, this explanation's gonna be for the young one then. Listen up, because I'm only going to be doing this once. I'm too old to be wasting breath on such basic information."

Illya raised five of her fingers. "There are five rankings for adventurers performing under the Society. It goes from C→B→A→S→SS." She then raised another five of her fingers. "Similarly, monsters, both in dungeons or on the surface, are also ranked in five. They however go from, Low→ Mid → High → Top → God."

"Now, for the monster's rankings, there are different rankings by the many different species crawling about in this great earth but those five are the official rankings."

"And, slimes would be in the Low category?" I asked. I knew the basic adventurer rankings and whatnot from the brief read in the game, but I still had to make sure what I remembered and read in the game was similar here, in real life.

Illya snorted at that. "The only slimes that would be in the Low Category would be something like the Black Slime, a rare variant that spits out poison enough to melt anything below B-ranked, or a Slime King."

"The slimes that you'll be hunting are below Low Category." Illya explained. "This is just a formality so that the higher ups don't complain about the reputation of the Society again. Seriously, they don't care if their privileged sons or daughters get in without having to kill menial slimes but a commoner does it, and suddenly the Society is guilty for letting just anyone in?"

"Madness is what it is."

"I see." Okay that was a stale reply but what else was I supposed to say?! In both lives, I hated getting into politics because there was never one right answer. Only who made the worse, 'wrong'.

"Enough politics," Illya said, then glanced at the both of us. "I can see that both of you are strong enough to take on anything in the Low Category, maybe even Mid, but word of advice."

"If you meet anything above High," Illya shook her head. "Run. And run, and keep running until you're at least a whole city away from it."

I knew why Illya was so scared of monsters beyond the classification of High. After all, the very reason why she wasn't able to show abilities like that in her prime was because of a single monster ranked [Top]. Even the adventurer awarded a platinum badge, the highest award of honor, wasn't able to take on a single [Top] ranked monster.

Fun fact, the monster that halved Illya's power, and perhaps traumatized the old lady of illusions, was a creature that directly served under the moon. That's right, under my beloved. I wonder how Illya would react to such an information.

Oh, another fun fact, Aegis, my King Pegasi, at this moment was nearly a [Top] ranked monster, only it wasn't really an attack-based monster so I couldn't really do anything with it other than running away and maybe trampling on lower-ranked creatures.

Which begs the question, and another question to test. "And, if I meet God?"

Suddenly, the mood turned serious. The lax but ever present smile on Illya's face died. Her eyes showed absolute fear, and her lips quivered to tell me, "Pray."

Illya sighed. It was mortifying to see how strong [God] ranked monsters were since Illya, the Mother of Illusions didn't even dare to imagine meeting such a monster. Her reaction was correct, albeit premature. In the future, after a certain breakthrough, Illya would be able to easily handle monsters of the [God] rank, because in such a distant future, [God] and [SS] would no longer be the end to the world of adventurers.

"All you can do is pray," Illya's breath shuddered, before she tried her best to adopt her lax smile again. "Pray to your god that your death will be merciful, and that your soul manages to slip past their claws."