Chapter 59: New Levels

The cool night air hit Rain’s face like a splash of ice water as they stepped out from the narrow drainage culvert into the dark.

Behind them, the low rumble of the closing rift faded into a dull, settling vibration deep beneath the earth. The air out here was clean, smelling faintly of pine needles, wet dirt, and distant exhaust fumes from the city grid, it was a complete contrast to the ozone and blood that had filled the flooded subterranean chamber.

Holt dropped his heavy, bent broadsword onto the damp grass with a muted metallic thud. He sank onto a broad concrete retaining wall, letting out a long, shuddering sigh that shook his broad shoulders. He pulled a dirty rag from his belt and began wiping the grime and dried black monster fluid from his face, his movements heavy and slow. Fen sat down beside him, cradling his right arm against his chest, his face pale under the faint yellow light of a distant perimeter lamp.

"We made it out," Peter breathed, lowering the canvas carrier bag to the dirt. He sagged against the concrete wall, looking like a breeze could knock him over.

Holt looked up from his rag, his dark eyes tracking Rain as the younger man stood at the edge of the clearing, wringing the cold water out of his hoodie sleeves.

"Rain," Holt said, his voice gravelly and stripped of its earlier tension.

Rain turned, his blue eyes meeting the veteran hunter’s gaze. "Yeah?"

"I don’t know what kind of training you’re doing at the academy," Holt said, setting the rag on his knee. "And I don’t care about whatever license tier you’re officially sitting at right now. But if you’re ever looking for open contract work, real field runs, not carrier shifts, you tell me first. I’ve got three regular D-rank slots opening up on the west sector rotation next month. The split is fair, and I don’t run with idiots."

It was a real offer. Coming from a registered D-rank party leader with years of field history, it carried actual weight, the kind of open door most academy students spent two years chasing through guild fairs and regional tryouts.

Before Rain could answer, Peter took a quick step forward, his eyes wide. "I can run carriers for those slots too! I know how to organize the core drops, and I can carry double the weight limit if I use the heavy harness. I won’t get in the way!"

Holt looked at Peter, a tired, genuine smile cracking the dried mud on his cheeks. "Okay, you two. We’ll talk about the carrier logistics when the guild clears our raid report tomorrow."

Rain looked at Holt for a moment, letting the silence settle between them before he gave a single, calm nod. "I’ll think about it."

"Fair enough," Holt said, leaning back against the wall with a quiet grunt. "Get your gear together, kid. We’ll handle the core log with the portal authority."

Rain turned toward the path leading back up the slope. "Come on, Peter. Let me know when you’re ready."

As Rain and Peter stepped onto the dirt trail leading toward the campus perimeter fence, the hushed voices of the three hunters carried clearly over the rustling leaves behind them. ℴℴ𝘮

"Unbelievable," Fen muttered, shaking his head as he winced from his ribs. "Kid gets a direct invite to a D-rank clearing party from a veteran and puts it on pending. Cocky as hell. That’s why nobody helps anybody these days anymore."

"He just saved your life, Fen," Priya’s voice came back, milder, devoid of its earlier sharpness, though she sounded too exhausted to offer a real defense. "He’s allowed to take his time."

"He’s strange," Holt said simply, his voice low and flat, cutting off any further debate. "Leave it at that."

Rain didn’t slow his pace. He kept his hands shoved deep into his hoodie pockets, feeling the solid, cool shapes of the four cores resting against his palms, three smaller D-rank High spheres and the massive, heavy bulge of the Husk Regent’s C-rank core.

Beside him, Peter hurried to keep up, his small canvas bag bouncing against his hip. The moon was high now, casting long, sharp shadows through the thin pine trees lining the secondary access road.

For ten minutes, neither of them spoke. The only sound was the crunch of gravel under their boots and the distant, rhythmic hum of the city’s late-night transit lines.

Rain knew they needed a ride back to the academy and also knew what was ahead of them once they got there. For now, they kept walking until they got one.

****

Thirty minutes later they came down from a good Samaritan’s car who gave them a lift since it was late in the night and he saw that they looked like they’d been through hell. Now the duo of Rain and Peter were inside campus.

"Rain?" Peter said softly, breaking the quiet.

"Yeah."

Peter kept his eyes fixed on the dirt path ahead, his hands gripping the straps of his bag. "I was thinking about the night we met."

Rain glanced sideways at him. "Behind the library?"

"Yeah," Peter said, a small, self-deprecating laugh escaping his throat. "Behind the archive building. I was sitting on those rusted air intake vents because the upperclassmen had thrown my entire semester gear kit into the drainage ditch by the sports field. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning because I spent my last meal credits trying to pay for a replacement ledger. You walked around the corner with those two pork buns in a grease wrapper."

Rain remembered the night clearly. The rain had been drizzling, turning the gravel behind the library into gray sludge. Peter had been curled up like a starved dog, shivering in a thin summer jacket.

"You sat down on the wet vent next to me," Peter continued, his voice dropping an octave, quiet and thoughtful. "You didn’t ask why I was crying. You didn’t ask who took my stuff. You just handed me one of the buns, sat there in the dark, and listened to me complain for forty minutes about how much I hated the academy."

Peter stopped walking, forcing Rain to pull up a few steps ahead.

Rain turned around, his blue eyes calm as he looked at the younger student.

"Whatever happened to you after that night," Peter began, his gaze searching Rain’s face, taking in the dried blood, the torn hoodie, and the complete absence of fear that seemed to hang around him like an armor. "It’s like you’re a completely different person now. You aren’t the guy who sat on those vents anymore. I mean, you’re still nice to me, but you’re different, Rain. You just fought a C-rank boss with bare hands and didn’t even flinch when it started screaming."

"I flinched," Rain said quietly. "I just didn’t stop moving."

Peter looked down at his boots, kicking a small stone across the gravel. "Put me on, Rain. Please. Teach me whatever you found. Tell me what skill you’re using or what training you’re doing. I don’t want to be the guy who sits on the air vents anymore. I want an edge. I need an edge."

Rain stared at him for a long moment. He saw the genuine desperation in Peter’s face, the same raw hunger to survive that Rain had felt when Corwin’s crew had backed him into the alley behind the C-dorms. But he couldn’t give Peter the system. He couldn’t transfer interface windows or attribute points.

Peter let out a nervous chuckle, deflecting, shifting his shoulders as if to shake off his own vulnerability. "I mean, maybe you just got lucky with your growth curve, right? Maybe it’s just the physical conditioning. Honestly, that Krav Maga elective you take is probably doing way more work than I give it credit for."

Rain looked at him, genuinely curious. "Why didn’t you pick a combat elective when you enrolled?"

Peter’s shoulders sagged. He was quiet for a second too long before answering.

"Because the clerk at registration practically talked me out of it before I even finished reading the list," Peter said, his voice tightening. "She said if I failed a combat module, I’d lose academic standing, and losing standing meant my grant got extended, and every extra term adds a fifteen percent penalty on top of whatever I already owe. I heard all that and just panicked. I picked core logistics because it sounded safe. No live sparring, no physical output grading, nothing that could blow up in my face."

He kicked another stone, harder this time, sending it skittering off into the dark grass.

"And it still blew up in my face anyway," Peter said, his voice cracking slightly. "I spent a month getting pushed into drainage ditches and extorted by Corwin’s crew regardless. I gave up the one thing that might’ve actually made me stronger, and for what? I still ended up exactly where I was trying to avoid. I think about that a lot, actually. If I’d just taken the risk back then, maybe I’d have something real to show for these two and a half weeks besides bruises and a mountain of debt."

Peter paused, something shifting in his face as he looked at Rain. "Wait. You’re the same F-rank classification I am. How did you end up in Krav Maga?"

Rain turned back toward the path, taking a slow step forward. "Same thing happened to me at registration. She told me the exact same risks, probably read off the exact same card. I told her I wanted a real baseline, not four years of paperwork classes, and she warned me once, then processed it anyway."

Peter blinked, catching up to walk beside him. "She just let you?"

"She warned me," Rain said. "She didn’t stop me. Nobody’s actually standing in the doorway keeping F-ranks out of the hard classes, Peter. Most people just hear the warning and talk themselves out of it before they ever reach the terminal. You’re not the only one who did that. I think most of Class C probably did."

Peter didn’t say anything for a few steps, his jaw working like he was chewing on something he didn’t like the taste of.

"That’s worse, somehow," Peter finally muttered. "If someone had actually stopped me, at least I could be mad at the system instead of myself."

They reached the crossroads where the path split toward the lower tier dormitories. The C-dorm towers rose up against the night sky, dark blocks of cheap concrete with a few flickering yellow windows scattered across their faces.

"I’m heading to C-4," Peter said, stopping at the junction. He looked at Rain, his face earnest. "Thanks, Rain. For everything tonight. Not just keeping me alive down there."

"Get some sleep, Peter," Rain said. "And wash those hands. Monster fluid sets like glue if you leave it overnight."

"Yeah," Peter said with a small, tired grin. "Night, Rain."