I followed the crowd to the lift that brought us down to the basement floor.

I didn’t even know the Bunarfs had made a basement floor as well...

We got out to what looked like a relatively big and empty hall that reminded me of a certain animated show’s dangerous room.

Everyone was gathered in the middle of the room so the hooded girl and I joined them, mixing ourselves together with the crowd.

There was a distinct mix of both humans and other worlders though it was quite evident that there were more other worlders than humans here.

I’m already kind of surprised that there’s humans here because I thought we were only hiring other worlders right now? Maybe these people were exceptional enough for them to be exempted from that?

As soon as we were all gathered, the door at the other end of the hall slid open and a very familiar elf appeared. She was sitting sideways on her staff and using it to float into the room like a witch.

Wait... She can ride on that staff like that? Why have I never seen her do that before? That’s cool.

I wonder if I could do that too? Then again, I could just use Kris’s ability to fly around... Though it does have the caveat that I have to be constantly adjusting my gravity around to fly in a specific direction.

Almost instantly, the crowd around us started to get noisy, more specifically the group of guys who I recognised where the same ones who bumped into me earlier.

"That’s the elf mage, isn’t she?"

"Yeah, I saw videos of her. Avatasia I think her name was... She’s awesome."

"You tell me... Those boobs are huge as fuck boi."

Several heads turned to look at the group of guys but none of them paid them any attention.

I also only just realised this but... Almost everyone else here is a woman... I wonder if that was just a coincidence or by design?

"Everyone~ Thank you for coming!" A voice spoke up, which I belatedly realised did not belong to Ava.

I turned back to see Maylene appearing beside the elf, the bunny girl’s presence having been completely overshadowed by the buxom elf earlier.

Also... I’m not sure if I’m imagining it... But Ava seemed to be looking around like she’s looking for something?

"First of all, congratulations on getting this far! This will be one of the final tests that we will be conducting to determine if you are suitable to work under Qi-- Ahem... Under our Mortal God!"

She almost said my name, didn’t she...

Maylene quickly covered up her blunder and waved towards us, "All of you might not know me but I’m Maylene! I work under our Mortal God as part of his support team! Beside me is the mage, Avatasia! Nice to meet you all!"

Ah, I see what they’re doing here... I’m guessing they intend to make the bunny girls a permanent part of the support staff which also includes doing the administration work. After all, aside from my Guardians, there was practically no one else that could occupy that role.

"Now for the first test! We all know that the most important thing that a Guardian needs to do is to protect our Mortal God! So one of the tests we will have you take part in is a combat test!"

Hmm... I kind of expected that but how are they going to test this? Surely they aren’t going to tell us to fight each other or Ava, right?

Right as I was thinking of that, a large portion of the wall to the side slid open and what I can only call a robot stomped into the room.

What the heck is that?!

The robot then fully revealed itself and it was designed to have a large squarish body with two giant arms coming out of its sides while its feet were short and stubby. It had no head above that torso but I could see what I assume to be cameras that were meant to act as eyes for the mech planted at the top of its torso.

If I had to give it a name, it looked like an assault mech that came from a specific hammer and war franchise.

Maylene gestured towards the robot proudly, "You will be fighting against that today! We will evaluate your performance based on how well you deal with that!"

Wait, wait, wait! Is that a mech?! Did you girls manage to create an assault mech?! What the heck?! Isn’t that a pretty big engineering achievement?! Is it really alright to show this off and use it as a target dummy here?!

Hmm? Oh wait... I think I recognise this ’mech’... This is one of those mining machines that the Bunarfs were using to mine ores back in the rift.

They just made some changes to it by giving it bigger arms and armour plates to turn it into some kind of assault mech.

That’s not to say the mining mech wasn’t impressive of course, because I was certainly surprised to see them the first time.

Also, this thing isn’t autonomous, there’s a Bunarf inside its torso piloting it right now. At least... That was the design of the mining mechs so I assume it was the same thing.

The assault mech stomped up to Maylene’s side to stand beside her, prompting the small bunny girl that looked like a doll compared to the mech to start slapping at the mech’s side proudly.

"Alright!! Anyone wants to go first? I’ll have you know this mech was proudly assembled by yours truly!! If you can’t even stand your ground against it, you’re not worthy enough to join!!"

The guy who had bumped into me earlier stepped forward and jerked his thumb at his chest, "It’s just a clanker! Come on! I’ll show you what I can do!"

The guys’ friends cheered and egged him on.

Huh... I’m guessing that he has some kind of pretty incredible power for him to be that confident in this test.

Everyone else took a few steps back, giving the guy space as he cracked his knuckles to stand in front of the mech.

Both Ava and Maylene also moved back towards the wall, letting these two have the entire floor to themselves.

The assault mech gave a whirring sound as it started up and stood menacingly in front of the guy.

Honestly, now that I know that it was basically a mining mech with armour plates slapped on it and given bigger arms, it’s not that intimidating anymore.

I was wondering what that guy’s skill was as he rolled up his sleeves and assumed a boxing stance.

Hmm... Maybe he has super strength as well? Considering he’s planning to fight the mech with just his fist after all...

Maylene then raised her hand, "Start when you’re ready!!"

The guy let out a yell, "Take this!!!"

He punched his fist forward, aiming it at the mech’s torso.

I was expecting it to hit but the mech moved with surprising speed as it reached out its hand and caught his fist before he could hit it.

He only had time to realise his attack was blocked before the mech swung its other fist and smashed it into the guy’s side.

I winced as the guy was sent spinning away like he was doing a cartwheel before slamming into the wall.

He stayed on it for a second before slowly sliding down to collapse in a heap.

I spotted some of the other candidates actually looking quite satisfied that the guy got his ass handed to him.

One of his friends immediately jumped forward, "Fucker!! Me next!! I’ll show you!!"

He pulled out a double edged sword and charged at the mech, leaping high up into the air in an attempt to bring his blade down on top of the mech.

Unfortunately, the mech already saw him coming and swung its fist at him, smacking him out of the air.

The guy ended up flying towards his friend and smashed into the same wall at the same spot before crashing down on top of the first guy, also completely knocked out.

The last two guys weren’t as eager to charge forward and even took a few steps back instead, clearly in no rush to test themselves against the mech.

In fact, it looked like everyone else was also hesitant in jumping in at this point.

That was when Ava slowly got off her staff to move towards the centre of the room.

"Ara, ara? Is that all we could expect from you? If you are going to be Guardians, you cannot falter and cower in the face of another big threat, you know?"

The people around me hesitated.

The cloaked girl looked like she wanted to step forward but Ava suddenly lifted her staff to point directly in my direction.

"You. The divinely handsome one there~ Go ahead and give it a try~"

She already spotted me huh...