"Hmmm, it’s said that your name is... Ryuk?"
"Yes."
"Please, we need the full name for you to be allowed to take the test."The man — a middle-aged, averagely handsome, white-skinned man with short brown hair — called out to Ryuk while sitting behind a desk, his hands rapidly clicking on the keyboard.
"Ryuk Knull. That’s the full name..." Ryuk replied, standing behind the counter, a dark cat licking its paw on his shoulder.
"Ryuk Knull?" the man asked, as he turned his gaze away from the monitor to give Ryuk a hard stare.
Ryuk could only smile wryly as he scratched the back of his head.
"Seems like your parents have quite the special naming skills..." the man said turning back to the monitor as Ryuk shrugged.
"I’m sure they must have their reasons."
"Ryuk... Knull. And that is established!" he said, as he took a stamp and slammed it on a card-like plastic paper before he passed it to Ryuk.
"Get into that elevator. It will automatically take you to the waiting queue for you to take the test. If you pass, you’ll be given a return slip with your rank on it, and I’ll help print it out."
"Then we can proceed with things from there..." he said, as Ryuk gave a nod before coming out of the queue, heading towards the elevator.
When he entered, there was no keypad to allow him to input the floor he needed to go to, revealing that it was already established.
He therefore didn’t bother to make any move as he watched the elevator close up with a DIIIIING before he felt himself getting whisked upwards.
"You know, you have quite the slick mouth to get all those ladies to make you skip through many queues and quickly arrive here..." Void said from the top of Ryuk’s shoulder, who grinned with pride.
"Handsomeness is an art too, Void. A good advantage, especially in situations like this..." Ryuk answered.
They had arrived here just in 4 hours and 30 minutes, and Isha had opted to go back to the Pet World.
Bringing a human girl covered in frosty scales would have been suspicious, so he agreed to it.
But Void was tiny, so it could remain on Ryuk’s shoulder with no problem — so far it didn’t open its mouth.
They had met a lot of queues, but with Ryuk’s handsomeness, he had been quickly picked up by the officials — especially the female ones — and had arrived here quite quickly, in just about 30 minutes or so of arriving.
’Putting some stats in Charisma finally starting to show its effect...’ Ryuk thought to himself and then—
DIIIIIIIIIIING!
The sound of the elevator doors opening up rang out as he stepped into a room filtered in white lights.
There were a couple of staff sitting down with hovering holograms at the right, and to the left side was a seat where various other people — men and women — sat down.
Ryuk’s eyes faintly scanned ahead as he found the same card in his hand, but just before he could move towards the seat, he felt a gaze on him. He turned his head to find a staff waving at him.
He walked towards her, as she eyed him for about 5 seconds, before shaking her head, seemingly clearing — snapping — herself out of it, before she stretched her hands to Ryuk.
"Your pre-identification card, please?" she asked, and Ryuk passed her the card as she placed it on a device at the side.
A little whirring from the device, and the card was pushed out, with the lady taking it and passing it to Ryuk.
"You’ll be number 7 to head in just about 7 minutes from now. Please have your seat while you await your turn..."
"Thank you..." Ryuk replied with a small polite smile before he turned to where the others were seated and resumed walking.
"Oh my God..." the lady said when Ryuk got farther, as a head stuck out from the side.
"Wow. He’s really tall... and hot."
"What’s his name again?" the other lady, a green-haired and green-eyed elf, asked, as the first lady turned to her screen.
"Hmm, it says... Ryuk... Knull?" she asked, as their eyes twitched.
"Nope, never heard of it before."
"Perhaps some family’s rebellious young master who changed his own surname?" the green-haired elf asked, staring at Ryuk until he took his seat.
Both of the ladies immediately averted their gaze and focused on their devices.
"Hello." Ryuk greeted the grey-haired man who sat closest to him as he took his seat, and the man turned to look at him, smiling softly.
"Hello, young man. Feeling a bit nervous from the test?" the man asked with a chuckle.
The man was tall too — about 2.5 meters — making both him and Ryuk quite eye-catching due to their height.
One sight, and Ryuk could immediately see that he was a Titan.
Although he held a kind smile, his eyes flickered with a great amount of experience, unlike most Titans, who always had that fiery, battle-hungry look on their faces, which they tried their best to hold down with an emotionless expression.
"A bit," he replied, as the man nodded.
"That’s normal. Many here are like you too."
"Although I would argue that they’re more worried about getting a low grading than the test itself..." he replied. Ryuk turned his gaze to the others sitting to the left, and true to the man’s words, they were visibly nervous — by their tapping feet, rubbing hands, or folding them tightly — while some rocked forward and backward.
The only clear exception was the Titan by his side.
"You don’t look nervous at all, though. Do you not care for the rankings?" he asked the man, who chuckled softly.
"I do. But I’m already used to the pressures from my previous work. Makes it better to hide my nervousness. And if I don’t get a high rank, I can always try to reach for that in the manual way."
"You know... completing more missions and closing more gates to rank up and all..."