The network they were still developing came in handy once again for their last mission, as they were contacted by somebody they did an extermination mission for with a similar job. There was a Gold mission to kill a large group of monsters that had started terrorizing two cities on a low-population world and the Hall Master in charge of the area contacted Beth to handle the mission. Well, he contacted Sera, but that was largely the same thing, at least to Beth's mind, and forget whatever Blood said about it being vastly different.

The mission was simple; kill all the monsters. The execution was, as always, far more complicated, which was alluded to in the mission brief. The monsters, it turns out, were not just randomly wandering around in some field somewhere. No, that would have made the whole thing rather simple and easy, and Beth and her team didn't ever do simple, apparently. The monsters were buried underground, accessed first through a rift in the ground, then a long series of tunnels, then a series of three massive caverns before the place where the monsters made their lair. The monsters had no kind of timetable for anything they were doing; they were just living their lives, their miserable and pathetic lives, but they were just living them as they could. They could come and go as they pleased, when they pleased, and the distance into their home and from it didn't matter. That turned into inconvenience for Beth's team, but that was the way of things, with the Wayfarers always suffering to get the job done.

The trek was also full of beasts, despite the presence of the monsters, the place just teeming with opponents varying wildly in level from the double digits into the high three hundreds. The underground, as usual, was just crawling with life of all kinds, most of that being beast life, though there were some animals down there as well, shocking as that was. It wasn't really of any concern to them one way or the other, just in that it wasn't all that easy to get through the beasts to the monster nest, certainly not without the monsters realizing something was happening and coming to investigate. That turned into a running battle through the underground tunnels, not very circumspect, and that attracted even more beasts, as well as more of the monsters. Not something the group really appreciated, but they had been prepared for such a thing; always assume that fighting would lead to more fighting, especially in the underground, where beasts and monsters were often thick as flies.

A hundred monsters might sound like a lot to some people, but for Beth and her team, it was just another day. Killing all one hundred was really the challenge, as, if the monsters realized they were on the losing side of the fight, they would flee, unlike most beasts, even at higher levels. That was another big pain in the ass with groups of monsters, as monsters would absolutely run away and come back to fight another day, and even one monster on the loose could be considered a plague. There were a few ways to counter this tendency, including ambushes and some tracking skills and equipment, but the best way was still to hit them hard and fast. Killing all the monsters before the monsters could decide to run was also a very viable strategy for their group, especially with the speed at which the team could move, including their ability to teleport quite long distances.

Cleaning up the monster den took close to a week, most of that time spent hunting down the stragglers to make sure they had cleaned everything up. It wasn't a random hunt, after all, but was an extermination mission, meaning everything needed to be eliminated to complete the mission. That wasn't a problem when it concerned either monsters or beasts, though it might have been a bit concerning if it was issued for people, though that did happen from time to time. Beth distinctly recalled the mission, certainly beyond a Gold mission, that had Tazeen and Baelvyr entirely wipe out a sizeable group of people. Not exactly the most pleasant of experiences, but even by the time she had witnessed it, she had been hardened enough to barely wince at the brutality of the fight, or rather, of the slaughter they had carried out. She herself was already many times over a manslayer by that point, having killed no few number of bandits and criminals, though the team more often had to capture rather than kill these days.

Beth took note of all the kills, making sure to track that they got every single monster before they reported back to the Hall Master. Once the mission was confirmed complete, she breathed a bit of a sigh of relief; traveling to various places and meeting new people hadn't been that bad, but it was another thing that had started to feel a bit like a chore. Now that they were on the other side of it, they could get their tests scheduled and done and join Bjorn among the ranks of Gold Emblems. Those tests, as well, could be conducted at their home Hall, which is where Beth took the team now that their monster hunting was finished. The group, now six, since Val had joined them, though she had been mysteriously delayed just long enough to get out of the last mission and any delves underground, returned to Earth and rented a suite in the main building of Beth's home Hall. Beth's sisters and the others were out, though Neph did return to take advantage of Beth being in one place for a while and make use of her gate for a few objective weeks of power-leveling. Likely she would do her next rebirth soon and then spend some time getting some fast and easy levels, aided even further by the time compression in Beth's gate, before she rejoined Kim and the others.

They took a couple days to just relax, as well, especially with Val with them now, Beth letting Blood spend some time with her girlfriend, though the wolf was recalcitrant to talk about it or be thankful for the break. Beth went and stopped by the old neighborhood again while they were relaxing, having not been by in person in well over a year. Her parents and Zack were still the same as always, though with some new general levels and skill levels under their belt, and Zack had fully organized the town guard into a much more well-regulated force. The town had also completed several more constructions and done some reorganizing, leading to them having the proposed hotel and spaces for rent available. It was much as Beth had predicted; with two powerful but not overwhelming dungeons nearby, the town had quickly become a popular spot for people to gather experience, train, and gather materials. The CRA was close enough that it was convenient, but the town charged less for lodging and catered more to the adventurers that were interested in the dungeons than the CRA, meaning they still got plenty of people staying and spending coins on not just housing, but food and armor as well. Several of the people in the neighborhood had taken to crafting and they had a number of leatherworkers and a couple smiths that all worked together to provide solid leather and scale armor, which sold quite well.

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Beth's parents were doing quite well for themselves as well, as they not only were de facto in charge of the town, but they also had a business in selling lodgings and buying and selling beast parts. There might have been a bit of a conflict of interest there, but the town was well-run and happy, so they basically got away with it. It wasn't like they were in charge of what was left of New York or anything, either, so Beth was also far less concerned about them getting involved in some kind of graft of any significance and her maybe having to show up later to ask them some pointed question. Speaking of pointed questions, she did ask about the neighbor kid, James, though saying kid was a bit misleading at this point, as James was definitely into what used to be considered middle-aged and, seeing as how he hadn't really leveled all that quickly, he was looking more his age than many of the other 'kids' from the neighborhood.

After a day, or even maybe two, it was finally time to get their Gold Emblems and get moving on to bigger and better things. They were quite confident, apart from Bjorn, who already had his Emblem, and Kris, who was just a nervous person by nature. They had a slightly larger and more varied panel overseeing their testing this time as well, considering many of the original Senior Enforcers had moved on; Jaq and Baelvyr were still there, but John, Navere, Elana, and Lyrissa had all now moved on. The years they had spent on Earth, while involving a lot of work, were technically a vacation, as they had all come off of doing some very hard and trying labor in the years before. Tazeen was still around as well, but he was involved in some things that he couldn't step away from, even for Beth and her group's tests. That meant that Baelvyr was supplemented by a number of other Platinum or higher members to review, which only elicited a raised eyebrow from Beth.

The written exam was easy, if not downright tedious, and took them only a couple hours, all of them completing it at the same time. The next part had to be done one at a time, with each of the four of them facing the panel and answering a slew of questions, ranging from questions about their history and experiences, to things about their personal ambitions and why they were looking to upgrade their Emblems. The questions this time were a lot more thorough and long-winded than what Beth had experienced, which she supposed was only to be expected for such a serious upgrade as becoming a Gold Emblem. The interviews were quite long, and Beth was glad that none of them really needed that much sleep these days, as the interviews dragged into the night. That wasn't all, either, as after the interviews they still had several more things to get through, the biggest of which was the testing of their combat capacities.

It was a familiar scene for Beth, and all the rest of them, as they took over the arena floor in the wee hours of the morning. Luckily, there weren't all that many people trying to use the floor for duels and training, so they weren't really displacing all that many people for their testing. The format was going to be simple, as they had a number of testers on their panel and they each had to fight one of them for a certain amount of time. If other panel members weren't satisfied with the results, they could challenge those results and also duel the prospective Gold Emblem to test their combat capabilities. The combat test wasn't weighted quite as highly for Gold as it would be for Platinum, but the person seeking to join the ranks of the Senior Enforcers still had to prove their mettle before they could obtain the emblem.

Kris was made to go first, which was likely for the best, as she would get very nervous just waiting around, far more nervous than the other three. Her test was fairly standard, and Kris wasn't very impressive, but more than held her own against the Platinum Emblem that was testing her. There was some quiet discussion between the examiners, a discussion that Baelvyr didn't really participate in but just listened to, but in the end they gave Kris a pass. That didn't mean she was immediately a Gold, as there was one more part, but that was all the hard stuff out of the way. Blood went next and rather impressed all the examiners with her speed and skill, and the discussion was shorter and sharper for her than for Kris. She was given the green light without any challenge after just a minute, and then it was Sera's turn to perform. The dragon was more impressive than Blood, though likely only because taking an extremely powerful hit and shrugging it off had a more impressive look than just dodging the hit. There was little debate over Sera's performance after the five minute fight, the panel giving her the approval to continue to the last piece.

Finally, it was Beth's turn, and the second most powerful of the examiners, after Baelvyr, was set to test her. When she gave Baelvyr a glance as they got ready to start, he just gave her a little nod, which basically everybody there caught. It wasn't the most subtle of gestures, but nothing Baelvyr did was very subtle, to be fair. The examiner Beth was facing, a minotaur, though not the one Beth had met years ago in one of the Chinese branches, gave her a bit of a questioning look before signaling for them to begin. Beth started a little slow, fighting the man with just her weapon and passive skills working, but he started pushing her. Hard.

In response, she started burning her buffs much more strongly, slightly pushing back the minotaur, who clearly had a lot of points in Strength. He was surprised for only a moment before starting to pelt her with earth and rock spells, summoning tons of sharp stones to pierce her or just distract her while he swung on her with both his hammers. Beth wondered if maybe he would be getting a couple lessons from Baelvyr for having come all this way to help participate in the tests, but she had to shake off the thoughts and refocus as he redoubled his efforts to crack her defense. Beth increased her own power output, matching him strike for strike, which also greatly surprised him, if the look on his face was anything to go by as Beth pushed him back even with his current level of applied strength.

Beth was like a wall, a very aggressive wall, as nothing the examiner did could really punch through. Not only that, he seemed to be using basically his full strength to fight her, other than deploying his Presence, but he was still getting pushed back more often than she was. It had the other examiners talking amongst themselves, clearly quite impressed with her display, especially as she was matching a respected Platinum Emblem, known for his vast strength and overwhelming attack power, blow for blow and even beating him in direct attack. It was clear just a couple minutes in that she was a pass, and a pass with flying colors, but the examiner pushed it to the absolute limit. Not because he was unsure of her, as he admitted later, but because he was having quite a bit of fun and found her to be a more than worthy challenge on the field, enjoying dueling someone that could counter him so powerfully, and at his own game at that.

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