Chapter 30: Getting Rewarded with Credits!

Rain walked back inside the facility and returned to his room. He dropped down onto the edge of his bed, breathing easily, just as the door clicked open.

The middle-aged nurse from the previous morning stepped inside carrying a tray of morning vitals, only to freeze dead in her tracks. She stared at Rain, who was sitting up in gym shorts, his t-shirt slightly damp with sweat, his face bright and full of color.

"What on earth..." she muttered, nearly dropping her blood pressure cuff. "Where were you? You aren’t supposed to be out of bed without a physical therapist!"

"I went for a quick workout in the courtyard," Rain said plainly, offering a warm, sheepish smile. "I needed to stretch my legs."

"A workout?" the nurse repeated, her eyes dropping to his casted leg, then rising up to look at his torso. She blinked, her brows furrowing in genuine confusion. "When you arrived here a week ago, your chart had you listed as severely malnourished with low muscle density. You looked like a gust of wind would blow you over."

She walked closer, setting her tray down as she inspected his shoulders and arms. "You look... visibly thicker. Your shoulders are broader. How is that even possible in seven days?"

Rain gave his shoulders a small shuffle, chuckling softly. "Good hospital food, I guess."

The nurse narrowed her eyes at him, clearly not buying it, but she let out a long breath and picked up her chart. "Unbelievable. Your vitals are better than most active D-rank guards. The head physician reviewed your morning bone scans an hour ago. The bone density in your tibia looks to have quadrupled since Tuesday."

"Does that mean I can be discharged today?" Rain asked eagerly. "I’ve missed a full week of classes at the academy, and I really need to catch up,"

"Pending a final walk-test by the senior healer this afternoon, yes," she said, shaking her head as she made a note on her clipboard. "You’ll be cleared by four o’clock. But please, for the love of heaven, sit still until then!"

"I will," Rain promised warmly. "Thank you!"

She gave him one last suspicious look before gathering her tray and exiting the room.

Once she was gone, Rain brought up his updated profile.

----

[Host Profile]

[Name: Rain]

[Level: 8]

[Experience: 0 / 900]

[Status: Awakened]

[HP: 130/130]

[Mana: 14/14]

[Strength: 19]

[Agility: 15]

[Endurance: 19]

[Intelligence: 20]

[Skill Slots: 2/2 (1 FUSED, 1 EMPTY)]

His Strength was at 19, his Endurance at 19, his HP holding steady at 130.

Rain pushed himself up from the bed and walked over to the small private bathroom off the main room. He turned on the light and stepped in front of the wall mirror, looking at his own reflection properly for the first time since entering the rift.

He stared.

The pale, hollow-cheeked kid who used to struggle to lift a forty-pound equipment bag was gone.

Standing in the mirror was a young man who looked notably healthier and more grounded. His posture was upright, his shoulders held broad and straight. His chest had filled out, the faint outline of defined upper pectoral and core muscle visible through his dark blue t-shirt. His jawline was cleaner, sharp without looking gaunt, and his eyes carried a bright, steady clarity that replaced the perpetual tiredness he had carried for years as an orphan.

’Stat growth doesn’t just sit on a digital screen,’ Rain realized, raising his right hand to flex his arm, watching the dense muscle in his forearm contract smoothly under his skin. ’Strength actually builds muscle fiber. Endurance builds bone density, lung capacity, and structural tissue. My body is physically changing to match the numbers.’

He leaned against the sink, looking at his broad shoulders with a small, self-aware laugh.

"Well," Rain whispered to his reflection, a warm smirk touching his lips. "At least I’m finally starting to look less like my problems."

By three-thirty that afternoon, the discharge paperwork was signed, the heavy plaster cast on his right leg was removed, and Rain was sitting on the edge of his bed in his regular clothes. His hoodie that has now seen better days and his shoes and pants.

The door pushed open, and Nyra stepped inside.

She was back carrying a small paper bag from a bakery down the street. When she saw Rain standing on his own two feet, testing his ankle flexibility without a crutch in sight, she stopped in the doorway and shook her head.

"You’re a freak, you know that?" Nyra said, walking over and tossing a warm cinnamon roll from the bag onto his tray table. "Doctor told me ten minutes ago you walked three laps around the physical therapy clinic without a brace."

"I heal fast," Rain said with a smile, picking up the warm pastry and taking a bite. "Mmm. This is really good. Thanks."

"Don’t get used to it," she muttered, though she looked genuinely relieved to see him fully mobile. "So. You’re officially a free man. What’s the plan?"

Rain pulled the velvet pouch from his hoodie pocket and set it down between them on the bed. The red Bone Widow core rested inside, radiating its faint, steady warmth through the cloth.

"First thing," Rain said plainly, looking her in the eye. "We need to go sell this and split the proceeds fairly."

Nyra frowned, her posture immediately stiffening. She crossed her arms over her chest, stepping back half a pace. "Rain, keep it. You took the worst hit in that chamber. You drove the spike in. You need the money for your academy tuition way more than I do. I didn’t come visit you every day just to get a payout."

"I know you didn’t," Rain said gently, his voice soft and completely devoid of judgment. "I never thought that for a second, Nyra."

He picked up the pouch and held it out to her.

"We entered that rift as a team," Rain explained patiently, holding her gaze with steady warmth. "Dane, Toby, Maren, you, and me. We all fought that thing. You drew its attention when it was right on top of me. If you hadn’t stabbed its leg, I’d be dead under three tons of basalt. We survived it together, so we split the loot together. That’s how it works."

Nyra stared at the velvet pouch in his hand. Her lips parted as if to argue, but seeing the quiet, absolute conviction in his eyes, her shoulders slowly sagged. A sudden flash of deep, quiet sadness passed over her face, softening her sharp features.

"It’s just..." Nyra whispered, looking down at the red fabric. "It’s so strange. Out of five people who walked into that gate, only the two of us are standing here right now. I barely knew Dane. I knew Toby for a couple of hours that we waited for warrick to gather the rest of you. And now they’re just... gone."

Rain lowered his hand slightly, his expression growing quiet and respectful. "I know. It doesn’t feel right that we got out and they didn’t. But the best thing we can do for them is make sure their sacrifice wasn’t wasted, and that we take care of the people they left behind."

Nyra let out a long, slow breath, wiping a small speck of dust from her eye before looking back up at him. She gave a single, tight nod. "Yeah. Okay. You’re right."

She gestured toward the door. "Come on. I know a guy in the lower market district who trades in high-grade boss cores. He’s a crook, but he’s a reliable crook who doesn’t report transactions to the guild tax boards."

"Lead the way," Rain said with a smile.

They left the hospital grounds together, stepping out into the bright, bustling streets of the city center.

Nyra led him to a beaten-up, olive-green utility transport vehicle parked two blocks away, a boxy, loud six-cylinder rover with rusted side panels and a cracked passenger mirror. It looked like it had survived three different rift overflows, but the engine turned over with a deep, healthy roar when she turned the key.

Rain climbed into the passenger seat, strapping himself in as Nyra navigated through the heavy evening traffic, leaving the polished glass towers of the high-tier guild district behind and descending into the crowded, narrow streets of the Lower Market District.

The Lower Market was a sprawling, chaotic hive of open-air stalls, narrow alleyways, and heavy iron-framed storefronts. The air here smelled of fried street food, ozone, diesel exhaust, and the sharp, metallic tang of raw monster hides hanging from butcher hooks. Independent hunters, scrap merchants, and low-tier contractors shuffled along the stone sidewalks, bargaining loudly over crate loads of core fragments, broken armor plates, and all sorts of things.

Nyra parked the rover in a narrow alley behind a reinforced steel storefront marked with a rusted sign reading Gideon’s Salvage & Core Exchange.

They stepped inside. The shop was dimly lit, the air thick with pipe smoke. . Behind a heavy, reinforced glass counter sat an old man with a thick grey beard, wearing a heavy leather apron and a pair of magnifying loupes pushed up onto his forehead.

"Nyra," the old man grunted, barely looking up from a mechanical core-scaler he was cleaning with a rag. "Thought you were dead. Heard your run on the ridge went sour."

"Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated, Gideon," Nyra said coolly, stepping up to the glass counter. "We have a high-purity C-rank boss core. Unrefined. Fresh harvest from a high-risk rift."

Gideon paused, his oily rag stopping in mid-air. He pulled his loupes down over his eyes and looked at Rain, then back at Nyra. "A C-rank boss core? From an independent run? You got a provenance seal?"

"No seal," Nyra said plainly. "Private salvage. Clean title. Take it or leave it."

Rain set the velvet pouch on the small steel tray beneath the glass partition. Gideon pulled the core out with gloved hands, turning it under a high-intensity ultraviolet lamp. He tapped the surface with a small silver tuning fork, listening to the deep, resonant ring that echoed through the crystal.

"High density," Gideon murmured, his tone shifting from dismissive to sharp and focused. "Bone Widow, if I had to guess by the red hue. Unblemished center node. I can give you twelve thousand credits for it."

"Eighteen," Nyra snapped instantly, leaning her hands against the counter. "Don’t bullshit me, Gideon. A clean C-rank boss core is worth more than that and you know it. You’ll refine it and flip it to a crafting squad by tomorrow morning for triple what you’re offering."

"Fourteen," Gideon countered, squinting through his loupes. "I’m taking all the risk holding an unsealed core from a collapsed gate."

"Eighteen thousand," Nyra said, her voice dropping into a hard, non-negotiable register. "And you cover the transfer fees."

Gideon stared at her for five long seconds, then let out a raspy laugh and shook his head. "You’re a ruthless little vulture, Nyra. Fine. Eighteen thousand."

He pulled up a digital transfer terminal on his side of the glass. "Where am I routing the credits?"

Rain raised his hand slightly. "I don’t have a digital bank account yet. Route it to Nyra’s card for now."

Gideon raised an eyebrow at Rain, but he didn’t ask questions. Nyra tapped her black contractor card against the terminal reader.

BEEP.

[Transaction Complete: +18,000 Credits Transferred.]

They stepped back out into the cool evening air of the alleyway.

Nyra looked at her terminal screen, then turned to Rain. "Alright. Nine thousand is yours. But first, we’re fixing your lack of basic civil infrastructure."

She led him two doors down the street to a small, brightly lit comms shop with rows of sleek digital smartphones displayed under glass cases. Within twenty minutes, using a small stack of physical credit notes from her own pocket, Nyra helped him purchase a sturdy, mid-tier dark-grey smartphone with a reinforced casing and a prepaid data plan.

From there, they walked across the plaza to a small, independent credit union that served lower-tier contractors. Rain presented his academy identification card and his newly registered phone number. Ten minutes later, he walked out holding his very first digital banking card, a simple silver plastic card bearing his name and an account balance of 9,000 credits, transferred directly from Nyra’s card.

Rain held the sleek smartphone in his hand, feeling the weight of the silver card in his pocket.

Having nine thousand credits in a verified account, nearly enough to wipe out the debt that had hung over him since the day he turned eighteen, felt almost unreal.

"How does it feel to be an official member of the economy?" Nyra asked, leaning against the side of her rover with a warm smirk.

"It feels... strange," Rain admitted, looking at the screen of his new phone. "This is more than I’ve ever had at one time in my whole life."

"Well, get used to it," Nyra said, tossing her keys into the air and catching them. "You earned every single credit. Come on, I’ll drive you back to the academy before the gates close."

The drive up the winding mountain road toward the sprawling grounds of the academy was quiet and comfortable. The sun had set completely, leaving the sky dark and filled with sharp, glittering stars.

Nyra pulled the boxy green rover to a smooth stop twenty yards from the tall, ornate iron gates of the academy campus.

Rain unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the passenger door. He stepped out onto the paved driveway, turning back to look at her through the open window.

"Nyra," Rain said softly. "Thanks. For today. For everything."

Nyra rolled her eyes playfully, though a small smile touched her lips. "Hand me your phone."

Rain blinked, pulling his new dark-grey smartphone from his pocket and handing it through the window. Nyra tapped the screen rapidly, added her personal contact number, tagged it under ’Nyra’, and handed it back to him.

"Now you have my number," she said coolly, shifting the rover back into drive. "Don’t go dying in any more C-rank rifts without calling me first. I need someone to help me split the loot."

"Deal," Rain laughed.

Nyra gave him a short, sharp nod, tapped the accelerator, and drove off down the winding mountain road, the red taillights of her rover disappearing around the curve.

Rain watched her leave, with a wide grin. He turned around, holding his phone in his hand, and stepped toward the academy gates.

Before he could reach the pedestrian turnstile, a dark blue luxury sedan parked in the shade of a large pine tree nearby flashed its headlights twice. The rear door swung open, and an older man stepped out into the cool night air.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, wearing a dark grey trench coat over his polished silver-and-black White Tiger uniform. His hair was iron-grey, cut short, and his weathered face bore a clean, neat line of stubble along his jaw.

Captain Arthur.

"Rain," Arthur said, his deep, gravelly voice cutting through the quiet evening air as he walked toward him.

Rain paused, stepping off the sidewalk to meet him halfway. "Captain Arthur. It’s good to see you standing up."

Arthur let out a short, dry chuckle, stopping three feet away with his hands tucked into his coat pockets. "I should be saying that to you. Last time I saw you, you were unconscious, covered in black blood, with a broken leg that looked like a bent twig. Seeing you walking around on two feet eight days later is a hell of a thing."

"I have a good recovery rate," Rain said warmly, offering a respectful nod. "I wanted to thank you, Captain. The nurse told me you personally paid for my hospital room and my treatment. You didn’t have to do that."

Arthur waved a heavy, gloved hand dismissively. "Don’t thank me for doing the bare minimum, kid. What happened to your party inside that gate was a disgrace. Warrick was an unvetted, greedy piece of trash who should have been flagged by guild compliance months ago. You and that girl pulled off something incredible down there, and the least White Tiger could do was make sure you didn’t wake up with a medical bill you couldn’t pay."

’Warrick. Unvetted? Well, guilds typically would deny responsibility if any of its party members were to be involved in a slander of any sorts. So I can see why Warrick suddenly is "Unvetted",’ Rain thought staring right at Arthur.

The captain looked at Rain closely, his sharp grey eyes searching the boy’s calm, peaceful face.

"I’ve been watching the news boards," Arthur added, leaning his hip slightly against the fender of his car. "Most young men who go through what you went through would be shouting from the rooftops, filing lawsuits against the guild, or demanding public compensation. You’ve been completely quiet. You haven’t made a single bitter statement to the internet of which I believe you know you have strong supporters ready to rally behind you,"

Rain offered a small, plain smile, looking toward the distant, lit windows of the academy dormitories. "Dwelling on what Warrick did won’t fix my leg or bring Dane, Maren and Toby back, Captain. I just want to get back to my classes, finish my studies, and focus on getting stronger. Bitterness doesn’t help anyone."

Arthur stared at him for a moment, then let out a long, appreciative breath that misted in the cold night air.

"You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, Rain," Arthur said sincerely. "A rare thing in this business. Most hunters lose their minds the second they taste a little bit of power or survival."

He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a gold-embossed business card bearing his personal direct line, and handed it to Rain.

"If you ever need a recommendation, a clean contract verification, or a quiet word with the guild board, you call me directly," Arthur said plainly. "Is there anything else I can do for you right now before I head back to headquarters?"

Rain looked at the gold-embossed card in his fingers, then looked up at the older captain. A gentle, warm smile touched his lips.

"Actually, Captain," Rain said softly, his eyes bright with quiet purpose. "There might be one thing."