The man glanced up at me, which meant he had to angle his neck to an embarrassing degree. He was also aware of what was going on, evidenced by his heavy frowning and unhappy features.
“Come in, please.” I said in a respectful tone. I had to do my utmost not to let out a snicker at his grimacing face. There was nothing to be gained from annoying our examiner, so I did my best not to come off as someone who looked down on him due to his midget stature.
“Lord Wrinkle!” Jasmine shouted as she stood from her seat and bowed. Consider me to be officially lost. Was she mocking him or what? Why would she do that while in my home? Before I could begin to think badly about the merchant girl, the midget opened his mouth.
“I’m Wrinkle, the top manager in charge of this outpost. I’m of the Shadow Vanguard rank. My good friend Aurelion had asked me to conduct a Mr. Devil’s examination personally, so here I am.” He revealed.
Is that the best criminal alias that came to your mind? Really? This dude is making it harder and harder for me not to burst into hearty laughter. As for his rank, Shadow Vanguards were the third highest rank, so he was no laughing matter in reality. This was the rank most non-Phenoms and non-combatants plateau at, so he was likely truly competent at what he did.
I could tell that he was weak, so he most certainly didn’t get to where he is by fighting. Likely, similarly to Aurelion- who had the same rank- Wrinkle was good at enriching the drug department head in one way or another, who over the decades began trusting him more and more, thus leaving him control over an entire outpost.
As for Aurelion, I’m starting to get tired of the guy. If I didn’t know any better I would have to think that he has a crush on me. However, I know why he is doing this, and it’s mostly just a misunderstanding.
Broderick was the person who introduced us, and supposedly that’s the first time he did anything like this.
Broderick is a ‘young’ up-and-coming adventurer who is a big name in Braedon, and Aurelion thinks that we are much closer to the man than we are in reality and that Broderick thinks very highly of us, thus we must be some amazing young prospects he has to recruit before others realize how good we are.
The reality is much different, though. Broderick had never seen us fight, he probably doesn’t even know anything about our fighting styles beyond the weapon types we use.
We saved him from the orc horde by leading Marjorie to him in the forest, and ever since then he has been treating me like I’m his best bro and his wives like to chat with my girls whenever we meet, making their relationship very favorable as well. He only introduced us to the syndicate because I asked, not because he thought I could climb the ranks swiftly or anything similar.
“Greetings, Lord Wrinkle.” I said, showing the respect his rank deserved.
He glanced at Jasmine for a while and then asked, “how is it going?” Wrinkle most certainly wasn’t asking how the girl had been doing with life in recent times but about her progress toward recruiting us. Aurelion must’ve called in some favors to have his drug dealer buddy supervise whether his daughter was properly trying her best at seducing me or not.
“I’m working on it.” Jasmine replied wryly, evidently coming to the same conclusion as me.
Wrinkle nodded, “good. I have a very talented belly dancer slave in my employ, let me know if you need some teachings from her.”
Poor girl. I couldn’t help but pity both Jasmine who found herself in more of a pinch than expected, but mostly the sex slave girl who had to bounce on this ugly loser’s wrinkly dick.
Truly, not all slave ladies are lucky enough to have such a magnanimous master like me.
“I’m good, thank you, Lord Wrinkle. I have my own methods.”
“Both I and your father seriously doubt their efficiency. We will talk more once Mr. Devil has started the Trials.”
“…” Jasmine flinched at his statement but could only nod in acceptance.
“Let’s move on. Here is the first artifact. All of the Herald candidates have to touch it too.” Wrinkle said while activating the ring on his finger. A cubic-shaped artifact materialized out of his storage space. I instantly recognized it as the one that’s supposed to check for branding from other syndicates.
Broderick had one of these at home, so I already knew what to expect. We all passed the ‘test’ without hiccups.
“This one shows your level. All Heralds have to touch once again.” He continued once he was satisfied with the results of the first round of examinations.
“Hmm? Level 18. Not bad. I’m starting to understand why he is so hung up about you.” Wrinkle murmured under his breath once he saw my level.
Seraphiel was also level 18, but had less XP than me, so she was accepted as well.
“Good. Finally, this one measures one’s age. Only the Phenom candidate has to touch it.”
I was 25 years old when I transmigrated mysteriously- something I still have no clue about why or how it happened, but you won’t find me complaining- so it should be all good. There’s no way I can fail it. Sadly Broderick only had the branding checker artifact at his mansion, so we couldn’t examine the other two, but unless it malfunctions it can’t think me to be older than 30.
As Wrinkle grabbed the round artifact out of his pocket a holographic display came out on top of it. It showed a number, namely ‘3183’.
I couldn’t help but frown. As a civilian, he couldn’t be older than hundred, let alone be thousands of years old. It must be some other metric. “The ‘Age Measuring’ artifact shows one’s years converted to weeks.” Wrinkle commented as he saw that I was eyeing the thing instead of reaching out for it.
“Oh.” I nodded and grabbed the item. It buzzed in my hand for a moment before once again displaying a number on top of it… However, it wasn’t what I had expected.
“Huh?!” Wrinkle shouted.
<Fuck! This is very bad!> Ayame cursed using the mental link.
“Maybe it malfunctioned…” One of the guards from behind the old executive suggested. freewebnoveℓ.com
After all, the number the artifact displayed for my age was…
7