Reincarnated As A What?

Chapter 17 - The Test - Part 1

Then When I arrived the next day it was the day for the test. Supposedly then ran them every weeks due to the high number of applicants. From what I had heard people from all over Sinmar came to the Capital's only guild in order to apply before going to guilds in their more local area. after all the test was only held in the capital.

I entered the building and it was virtually impossible to walk around in. The lower floor and most likely the upper floors were packet tightly with people. Everyone was squashed against one another like a complete corona virus nightmare. It was particularly uncomfortable as half of the people were dressed in rock hard steel armours, some had weird fantasyesque style over functionality spiky parts and a variety of odd styles that just didn't seem as practical as your typical steel armour set.

The mass of people were all waiting for the testing session to start, as they didn't know where they would be taken to do it, that was until a tall slender man with a monocle and dressed in a strange robe slightly roman toga style, walked down the stairs.

"Alright everybody here for the adventurers exam follow me."

He then walked seemingly effortlessly through the crown of people. It was hard to tell if he was pushing them out of the way or they were simply just trying as hard as possible to avoid him. He then left the building and the stampede began. Nobody could afford to lose track of him so they had to swarm and get out as fast as possible. I was almost swept up in the crowd without even having to attempt to follow them. I was washed out and onto the street where they became slightly more sparse and continued down the streets.

After a good 10 minutes of walking around the streets we left the city into the Rapero Plains. At this point following him was easy as we could spread out over a much larger area and still see him. We walked and walked and it continued for a huge amount of time. We were walking for a good couple of hours before coming to a stop. A couple of people had given up after the first hour of walking. Obviously I wouldn't as I had become used to walking for a good 8 hours everyday for almost a week straight in order to get places.

"The testing sight is another 12 hours walk from here so if you're unwilling to walk that distance then you can return to the city now, however you will not be awarded any rank. Not even of an E class." There was outrage by many individuals, it seemed that the more heavily armoured individuals and those with the flashy, heavy impractical armour were the main ones complaining. After all we had only been walking for 2 hours. I could have done that easily in my previous life. So now with a decent speed stat and having had significant practice 2 hours was nothing. I had become used to taking in the featureless flat grasslands as entertainment. Often you could see a lizard or a funny shaped rock. That would make the trip.

We continued the walk with a few more people giving up. We had lost very few people as they knew it was the only way to become an adventurer, and many of these people had dedicated their lives in readying themselves to become adventurers. So out of the probably 100 adventurers only 7 had left overall. Maybe there were a few more to begin with or a few less but I imagines it was 7 or so percent of them that had left.

We reached the end of the 14 hours walk only losing 4 more people. As despite a 14 hour walk being a truly arduous task for even the fittest of people wearing heavy armour, they were determined enough to keep on going. They'd rather be an E rank adventurer than not have any rank at all after all.

Then once we arrived it was an area of clearly artificially planted trees. The area was still dry and the grass was still yellow along with the flat otherwise treeless landscape. In other words, the trees definitely weren't naturally growing there, at least they had not been naturally planted their by the wind or whatever. The sun started to set over the horizon just as we had arrived and right there nested amongst the trees was a campsite.