Chapter 34: A fool’s wish 2

The confrontation didn’t happen where Rain expected it to end.

He’d stopped walking near the archive building specifically because the wide stone promenade there had nowhere for anyone to hide, no blind corners, no chance for this to turn into something worse than words. Corwin, Petrov, and Dax closed the last few feet between them slowly, in no hurry, the kind of unhurried approach that came from three people who’d never once needed to worry about consequences finding them first.

Corwin stared at Rain, his handsome face stiffening as the easy arrogance bled out of his eyes.

"Don’t play stupid with me, thrash" Corwin spat, taking a step closer, his dark navy guild-track jacket swishing with the sudden movement. The silver iron-chain crest pinned to his lapel glinted under the harsh afternoon sun. "You know exactly what I’m talking about. The night we caught you by C dorm back entrance. You had two F-rank skill disks in your jacket."

Rain blinked, his blue eyes wide with a look of mild, entirely genuine confusion.

He didn’t need to fake the initial hesitation. Physically, he really didn’t know what had happened to the physical plastic and glass housing of those two disks. The moment he had touched them at that back entrance, his Synthesis System had simply absorbed their data directly into his core to forge Flash Step, leaving nothing behind. As far as the physical world was concerned, the disks had vanished into thin air while he was dyinh from getting kicked in the ribs.

"Skill disks?" Rain asked, his tone dry, flat, and remarkably even. He gestured casually toward his own chest, then pointed at Dax. "You three jumped me, beat me until I couldn’t stand, and went through my pockets while I was lying in the mud. If there were disks on me, you took them. Why are you asking me where they are?"

Petrov shifted his weight nervously, his fingers twitching over the edges of the digital tablet tucked under his arm. "We saw them fall out of your jacket! We saw them hit the ground right next to you! We only ran because someone was coming down the alley, we didn’t have time to grab them! So where did they go, Rain?"

"I was unconscious," Rain replied, leaning back slightly, his hands remaining loosely tucked in his hoodie pocket. "You three were the last ones standing over me before you bolted. If they were on the ground when you left, and they’re not there now, that’s not my mystery to solve. That’s yours."

Corwin’s jaw worked silently. His face flushed a dark, angry red. "Someone must have grabbed them off you before security got there!"

"Right," Rain said, a faint, mocking smile touching the corner of his lips. He let a brief beat of silence hang in the air, allowing his gaze to wander over to the high glass windows of the administrative hall, as if an idea had just struck him. "Or, wait. Whoever found me lying there brought me straight to the infirmary. If two loose disks were sitting on the ground next to an unconscious student, campus security would’ve logged them as evidence, not left them lying in an alley."

He turned his eyes back onto Corwin, his expression turning entirely smooth and helpful.

"One unaccounted disk is contraband," Rain continued softly. "You know that better than I do, since you’re the ones who were standing over them when they hit the ground. If security picked them up, they’re sitting in an evidence locker right now with an open case number attached. Which means if either of you goes anywhere near trying to claim them, you’re not filing a lost-and-found request. You’re walking straight into a federal contraband investigation with your own names on it."

The statement landed like a physical blow.

Corwin froze. Petrov’s eyes went wide, his mouth opening slightly as he processed the sudden, catastrophic legal exposure Rain had just laid out. It wasn’t Rain who’d have to explain how they came into possession of two discs to campus enforcement. It was them.

For three long seconds, complete silence fell over the promenade. Defeat and sudden, sharp doubt settled visibly onto Corwin’s face. Petrov instinctively took half a step back, his eyes darting toward the administrative building as if expecting enforcement drones to sweep down from the roof right then.

"Shut up!" Dax roared.

The broad, thick-necked boy surged forward, stepping directly past Corwin. His massive hand reached out, grabbing the thick fabric of Rain’s black hoodie near the collar. Dax shoved Rain backward with sudden, violent force.

Rain didn’t fight the momentum. He didn’t tense his core or root his boots to the pavement. He allowed the shove to carry him six feet back until his shoulders slammed firmly against the rough, cold brick wall of the library archive building. He let his head rest back against the brick, his hands staying inside his front pocket, his face completely calm.

"I don’t give a damn about security drones!" Dax growled, leaning in so close Rain could smell the stale energy drink on his breath. Dax’s forearm pressed hard against Rain’s collarbone, pinning him to the wall. "You owe us fifty thousand credits! Twenty-five thousand apiece! That’s the market value of those two discs, and you’re paying every single credit of it, or I’ll break both your legs and throw you over the boundary fence!"

Rain looked down at the heavy forearm resting against his neck, then up into Dax’s bloodshot, furious eyes.

"Fifty thousand credits?" Rain asked softly, raising his eyebrows. "You jumped me, beat me unconscious, and lost track of your own contraband while running from campus security, and now you want me to pay you back for your own mistake?"

"You shut your mouth!" Petrov hissed, stepping up beside Dax, his voice trembling with a mixture of anger and panic. "You don’t get to talk back to us! You’ve got no family, no guild, no backing!"

Corwin walked up slowly, his composure returning as he smoothed down the lapels of his dark navy jacket. The momentary panic had passed, replaced by a cold, spiteful resolve. He stepped in close to Rain, reaching out with one finger to tap hard against Rain’s chest.

"Fifty thousand credits," Corwin said, his voice dropping into a harsh, cruel whisper. "You have one week to put fifty thousand credits into my account, or bring us two fresh F-rank skill discs. If you don’t, I will personally make sure you don’t survive your first practical field evaluation. We’ll make that fellow thrash you hung with last night look like he got off easy."

Corwin nodded to Dax. Dax gave Rain one final, heavy shove into the brick wall before letting go of his collar.

The three of them turned on their heels, stepping back out toward the center of the promenade, confident they had crushed whatever pathetic resistance he’d tried to put up.

"Wait," Rain called out.

The three stopped. Corwin turned his head back over his shoulder, a sneer gracing his lips. "What? Realized you don’t have a week?"

Rain pushed himself off the brick wall, standing upright. He smoothed down the front of his dark hoodie, his breathing completely even.

"I don’t have fifty thousand credits," Rain said plainly. "And a student with no guild backing can’t earn fifty thousand credits in a week through normal campus assignments. You know that."

Corwin scoffed. "Then you’d better start selling your internal organs."

"Or," Rain continued, his voice steady, carrying clearly across the quiet stone courtyard, "there’s another way. I can work off the debt."

Corwin turned his whole body around, his eyes narrowing as he re-examined Rain. Beside him, Petrov and Dax exchanged a quick, sharp look. A slow, greedy smirk began to spread across Corwin’s face, pulling at the corner of his mouth like a trap springing shut.

"Work it off?" Corwin asked, his tone dripping with newfound amusement. "You want to work for us?"

"I don’t have the money," Rain repeated smoothly, looking Corwin dead in the eye. "And I don’t feel like getting jumped in dark alleys every three days. If you want your fifty thousand credits, give me a way to earn it."

Corwin let out a short bark of laughter, shaking his head. "Look at that. Somebody knows how to be practical when its ribs are on the line." He wiped a hand over his slicked-back hair, his eyes glinting with dirty calculation. "Alright. We might have a few special assignments that need an extra body. Meet us behind Dorm Block A tonight at nine o’clock. Don’t be late, or the interest doubles."

"Nine o’clock," Rain agreed flatly.

Corwin grinned, satisfied, turning around and waving a dismissive hand over his shoulder as the three of them strolled off down the promenade toward the upper-class quarters.

Rain stood alone by the archive wall, watching their backs disappear around the corner of the building.

The moment they were out of sight, the flat, passive expression on Rain’s face vanished. A small, satisfied smirk touched his lips.

’Hook, line, and sinker,’ Rain thought quietly to himself, turning back toward the main path to Basic Combat.

He walked with long, easy strides, letting his mind unpack the entire exchange.

Every word out of his mouth during that confrontation had been calculated. He hadn’t stood his ground out of foolish pride, nor had he offered to work off the debt out of fear. From the moment Peter had broken down under the library archway the night before, Rain had been mapping out the logistical realities of Peter’s situation.

Peter was trapped in an informal debt trap maintained by three guild-backed bullies who forced him to steal cores from independent D-rank rift clearings. Rain couldn’t simply go to the academy administration; without hard physical evidence, three probationary members of the Iron Vane Guild would easily laugh off the accusations of a penniless, orphaned first-year. Nor could Rain simply beat Corwin, Petrov, and Dax into submission in the middle of campus. Not only was that not smart, but he wasn’t sure he could take all three of them and didn’t want to play stupid games and win bitter prizes.

"Even if I win it’s still a loss," Rain thought for one reason. He’d be drawing unwanted scrutiny to his own powers and his hidden abilities.

The only way to break the trap was from the inside.

Rain needed to get inserted directly into the exact same illegal rift-harvesting pipeline that Peter was trapped in. By offering to work off a fake fifty-thousand-credit debt, Rain had handed Corwin’s crew what they believed was absolute leverage over another helpless target. They thought they were acquiring an extra disposable tool to expand their quota theft.

In reality, they were inviting a wolf directly into their small, fragile livestock operation.

Rain knew his own position at Crystalpeak Vanguard Academy. His viral survival video from the C-rank rift had brought him a surge of attention, but fame meant nothing without official backing. After the veteran hunter Warrick had betrayed him and left him for dead in the mud, no legitimate guild, no official expedition team, and no academy instructor was going to authorize an unranked, independent student like him to enter real D-rank or C-rank rifts through official channels anytime soon. The safety regulations for low ranked first-years like him were airtight.

This illegal back door, corrupt, dangerous, and run by three arrogant bullies, was currently his only open ticket into active rift zones.

Rain reached into his pocket, his fingers brushing against his cold, bare palm as he smiled softly to himself.

The C-rank rift had nearly torn him apart, but it had also shown him the potential of his system, raised his stats, and transformed him from a helpless kid into a combatant capable of moving faster than some eyes could track. He didn’t just want to protect Peter; he wanted the monsters inside those rifts. He wanted the XP, the raw cores, and the combat experience that only real, life-or-death pressure could forge.

Corwin, Petrov, and Dax thought they were exploiting a desperate, terrified victim. They had no idea they had just handed the keys to the vault to someone actively looking for a reason to break down the door.

’Nine o’clock at Dorm Block A,’ Rain thought, his eyes gleaming with dark, quiet amusement as he turned the corner toward the outdoor training arena. ’Let’s see what kind of work you’ve got for me.’

He’d made it to where he was headed after five minutes of walking.

The outdoor training grounds for Basic Combat were vast, covered in crushed grey gravel and surrounded by high, reinforced steel netting.

Dozens of heavy wooden striking posts, iron dummy frames, and mounted steel practice plates were arranged in neat rows across the yard. Forty first-year students stood gathered in a wide semicircle near the central observation platform.

Instructor Tenski stood on the platform, his heavy arms crossed over his thick chest.

He was a hulking, scarred man in his late forties as Rain remembered seeing him from the first time wearing a sleeveless leather combat vest that showed off arms crisscrossed with old combat scars. His short grey hair was cropped close to his skull, and his sharp eyes scanned the arriving students like a veteran guard inspecting raw recruits.

Rain stepped onto the gravel field quietly, slipping into the back row of students just as the heavy brass bell above the gate chimed two o’clock.

"Listen up!" Tenski’s voice boomed across the yard, rough and gravelly like grinding stones. "We’ve had our fun the last week and so on. We’ve done spar matches and built camaraderie. So I’ll tell you this now, if you came here looking to learn flashy high-tier sword forms or dramatic martial arts to show off to guild recruiters, turn around and walk back to the dorms right now!"

He stepped down from the platform, his heavy combat boots crunching firmly against the gravel.

"What I teach in this class is Krav Maga," Tenski said, stopping in front of the front row. "Before the Great Fracture, before Mana seeped into our world and tore open the first gates, Krav Maga was developed in the old world for soldiers, police, and civilians who found themselves in close-quarters life-or-death situations. It had no rules. It had no forms. It had no artistic scoring. It was designed for one single purpose: neutralize a threat as fast as humanly possible using minimal movement, maximum violence, and total efficiency."

Tenski slowly walked along the line of students, his cold eyes locking onto anyone who dared to fidget.

"When the Fracture happened," Tenski continued, raising two thick fingers, "the nature of combat changed, but the fundamental reality of close-quarters survival did not. Modern Krav Maga retains every drop of that old-world philosophy, but it integrates the single greatest variable of our era: Mana."

He stopped in front of a heavy mounted steel practice plate, a three-inch-thick slab of solid armor-grade steel bolted to an iron support pillar.

"Pay attention, because this is where ninety percent of first-years fail," Tenski barked. "In modern close-quarters combat, your physical body is merely the delivery mechanism. The sequence of a Mana-augmented strike follows three strict, non-negotiable phases: Stance, Channeling, and Transfer."

He held up one finger. "Phase One: Stance. If your body is not correctly grounded, if your center of gravity is half an inch off, if your feet are misaligned, your internal Mana pathways become choked. A weak stance creates a weak circuit. You cannot channel Mana through a fractured base."

He held up a second finger. "Phase Two: Channeling. Drawing Mana from your core, guiding it through the primary nerve lines in your torso, and concentrating it at the striking point of contact, your knuckle, your elbow, your palm, before impact."

He held up a third finger. "Phase Three: Transfer. The physical discharge of that compressed energy directly into the target upon impact."

Tenski turned to face the steel practice plate.

"Watch my feet," Tenski ordered.

He dropped into a low, compact base. His feet shifted slightly on the gravel, widening his stance until his hips sank four inches, his back straightening into a line of absolute, grounded stability. It wasn’t an elaborate martial arts posture; it was compact, rooted, and immensely dense.

Rain watched every micro-adjustment of Tenski’s boots, his sharp eyes absorbing the exact distribution of weight between the instructor’s heels and the balls of his feet.

Tenski didn’t pull his fist back for a long, dramatic punch. His right hand simply snapped forward six inches in a short, brutal palm strike against the center of the three-inch steel plate.

BOOM!