Author's Note: Yeah. So this time, the chapter is about 1.7k words long. Yeah. Sounds good to me...

Many thanks to my Editor and Proofreader, Jacob Abraham.

Chapter 16 - Saint.

[David]

"Wait... so, the existence of Saints are common knowledge? " I asked the azure haired receptionist.

She looks at me with a dumb face and rolled her eyes playfully,

"Well, duh. Why else would we be hosting the examination?"

"What examination?" Alice interrupts while Arianne just looks on, trying to digest the conversation.

"The Saint Examination of course~" she explained with a smile.

There's a fucking examination for this shit? I smirked mentally.

"What kind of people are the Saints?" Alice prodded further.

" Well, most of them are usually Otherworlders, but some of them are people like us. They could even be people from another race too, be it elven or beastman.

We conduct the tests starting tomorrow, in the Guild Hall itself. Sometimes the Gods personally choose their otherworldly heroes. There are currently two God factions, The Zeus faction and the Odin faction. Only 8 Saints can be selected at a time to serve their respective factions." Erin added with a slight grin.

"What exactly are the Saints made to do?" Arianne asked excitedly.

On hearing her question, the azure haired beauty drooped her shoulders and replied with less enthusiasm as previously displayed... much less.

"To be honest, I'm not sure of it myself."

"So, why do you respect them other than for the fact that they represent the Godly factions?" I piped in, flashing her a friendly smile.

She blushed slightly, but I didn't miss the slight red flush on her face which caused me to chuckle inwardly.

"W-Well, its because they have a lot of power and help us out when we need their help." she said, averting her gaze.

Looks like this is the best I could wring out of her. Tch. Useless . I need much more information about this whole system if I want to protect her.

I gave her a full smile and thanked her for the information and went towards the exit. It was evening and I was a bit tired too.

Before we were about to part ways, Arianne tugged on my shirt and asked in a small voice, and with a red face,

" Do you always flirt with people like before? "

Oho....

"What flirting?" I asked innocently. An expression of surprise flitted across her face and she replied in a hurried tone,

"N-no its n-nothing !" She said with her face going beet red and ran off to her lodgings.

Alice who was standjng beside me just sighed and nudged me, giving me a playful wink.

"Brother is such a player~"

I sighed lazily and we went back to the Bear Shack.

.

.

.

...

We had a pretty light dinner and soon we were in our room as usual.

"What are you planning to do about the examination?" Alice asked me in a worried tone.

I thought for a while and answered,

"To be honest, I would absolutely LOVE to skip out on the examination but it seems that all adventurers associated with the Guild have to take it. Skipping out would make us stand out a lot.

Besides, there's the problem about Arianne. She knows that we're Saints. She'll definitely know something's wrong."

I let my words remain in the air before starting again,

"Of course, there is a chance that Thanatos too is in the Zeus faction and I have a weird feeling regarding the fact why saints are called on by the Gods..." I said darkly.

"I agree with you about that, brother." Alice replied grimly.

"Well, enough with the anti-social shit, lets get some shut eye while we can. We're gonna be declaring our existences to the world tomorrow." I laughed good naturedly and turned out the lights.

After a while, I heard some shuffling and a voice whispered to me, " Brother, is it okay if I sleep with you tonight?"

I simply smiled and moved to a side and gave her some space. Soon she was asleep, hugging me like a body pillow.

That night, I strengthened my resolve to protect this small existence who brought me comfort just by being by her side.

.

.

.

...

Next day, by around midday, we were back in the Guild hall. The only place where the examination was taking place in Murcel village. All village youths under 30 years and all the adventurers were supposed to take the test. The order of taking the test had already been announced.

The village youths would be the first to take part. Hell, there were even 5 year old kids brought for the examination. After the youths, came the adventurers.

Their order of taking the test would be based on their rankings, from lower to higher, starting from the lowest Copper ranker to the highest Rune ranker.

Currently, there were no Rune rankers in this branch of the Guild. There were only 3 in total and none were in this branch. The Adamant holders, including my party, numbered 6.

The exam had already commenced. All the examinee had to do was, walk towards a Giant colorless crystal ball and place his/her hand on it. If the person was a Saint, the crystal would turn Blue and if not, it would show no reaction.

There were more than a hundred people assembled here, but then again, Murcel was one of the bigger villages.

While the two girls were busy chatting away with Jeslie, I made my way towards Erin who was standing in a corner and watching the proceedings carefully.

"Not gonna take the exam?" I asked her casually.

"Not really..." She murmured.

"Why not?"

"Guild staff are the first to take the exam and I'm standing here, so you can guess what happened." She said dejectedly.

"Are you sad that you weren't chosen?" I asked her quietly.

"Not really. I never expected it anyway" she replied cheerfully.

I gave her a small smile, not out of pity, but rather, out of a slight bit of admiration I felt for the girl.

Suddenly, a small question popped in my mind. A small nagging question that had been there in the back of my head even since I heard anout the Examination.

"Say, Erin... How often are the exams conducted? "

" Hmm? Oh Saints are chosen every 20 years."

I knew it. This wasn't the first time this shit was happening. Now I knew why Erin had known about Otherworlders.

I grimaced slightly. Erin caught my expression and asked,

"Is there something wrong?"

Tch. Why is she poking her head into my business. Normally I would have told her off but...

"Well... I think I may have a small fever. Take my temparature?" I asked innocently , casually clasping her hand and bringing it to my face.

I watched in all humor as her face went red and she excused herself to escape me.

I chuckled on seeing her expressions.

The examination was progressiong slowly. 3 hours had passed after the commencement of the examination. All of the people wjo had participated till now, failed. Some had gone back home while the majority of the others were standing around and watching the examination in progress.

Another 2 hours rolled by and it was finally our turn. Out of the 6 Adamant rankers, my party was the most powerful. The rest of them were only around level 30-35 while my party was in the 50-70 level range.

Pretty big difference if you ask me...

All the Adamant rankers preceding us, failed. People had slowly started trickling out when Arianne's turn came up. She looked expectanly at me. I gave her a reassuring smile and she walked towards the crystal.

She placed her hand on top and slowly concentrated, her usual cheery demeanour interuppted by a look of concentration.

The round colorless crystal started pulsating and turned bright blue, and screamed shrilly, stunning all the people standing around watching us,

"SAINT CONFIRMED!"

The talking crystal stunned me. The whole Guild hall erupted in clamor. Voices everywhere. Some of excitement, some of joy, some of envy, some of anger and some of lust on seeing the red headed beauty.

The Branch chairman who was a frail looking old man with wrinkled yellow skin and his friendly seeming eyes glittered in excitement as he drew a deep breath and bellowed in a voice unfitting of his age..

"Arianne Wolfe, Adamant ranker has been declared as the first Saint from the Guild!"

She turned and grinned at us as she made her way towards us. Alice gave her a full blown smile while I chuckled.

Next it was Alice's turn. The same procedure was repeated .

"SAINT CONFIRMED!"

"Alice Walker, Adamant ranker, has been declared as the second Saint from the Guild."

Alice had a silly grin plastered on her face when she walked towards us. She smiled at me and motioned for me to take the test. I looked around to see if anybody was left but unfortunately, I was the last person standing.

By now, all eyes were looking at me expectantly. I walked towards the big ass crystal and placed my hand on it. The crystal started pulsating violently. I started to panic. I had found a small change in the crystal. It had turned bright red before reverting back to the normal blue.

Silence filled the entire Guild hall until the crystal finally screamed, "SAINT CONFIRMED!"

I could feel the sweat rolling down my back as I finally relaxed.

The old man nodded at me and bellowed,

"David Walker, Adamant ranker, has been declared as the third and final Saint from the Adventurers Guild in Murcel village"

The whole crowd erupted into cheers as I walked back to my group with a small smile touching my lips .

Author' Note: If you liked the chapter, leave a comment or give me your thoughts. If you liked the fiction as a whole, R&R it or follow it if you want.

Thank you for reading my fiction and sticking with me even though I suck at writing( I think?)

KingD out.