Chapter 67| Proximity Quest III

Chapter 67: Chapter 67| Proximity Quest III

Sera was already at the table when he arrived.

Grey hoodie. New one or a rotation. It was impossible to tell anymore. Oversized. Still doing its work with impressive commitment.

She pushed his coffee across when he sat down.

"You moved seats this morning," she said.

Zane looked at her.

"How do you know that," he said.

"My thermal sight," she said simply. "It’s always on. I can see through walls Zane. The heat signatures in that classroom were visible from the east wing corridor when I passed." She picked up her cup. "You moved one row back."

He drank his coffee.

’A-rank passive Sigil,’ he thought. ’Always on. She sees heat signatures through solid surfaces. She walked past the classroom and saw exactly where everyone was sitting.’

"What the hell," Zane said. "Stalker."

Sera looked at him with complete calm.

"I just happened to glance," she said. "No hard feelings."

"You glanced through a wall," Zane said.

"Like I said I have a passive Sigil," she said. "I can’t turn it off. Everything in my line of sight registers whether I want it to or not."

"Yeah," Zane said. "I believe that."

The tone of his voice suggested he believed approximately 60% of it.

"By the way I just wanted a better angle on the board," Zane said.

Sera looked at him with the settled expression.

"Sure," she said.

She stole a fry.

He let her.

The cafeteria ran its noise around them. Zane ate and thought about proximity accumulation and two meter constraints and 54 minutes out of three hours.

’Afternoon session,’ he thought. ’Same seats, she’s already beside me now. Two and a half hours if the geometry holds.’

’That gets me to the target,’ he thought.

’Naturally,’ he thought.

『 The system notes your afternoon session calculation. Accurate. 』

’Stop reading me,’ Zane thought.

『 Still the system’s function. 』

The afternoon session ran from 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM.

Same classroom. Same seats. Maren beside him now, one row back from where he’d spent the previous five weeks. She settled in without comment. Opened her notebook. Looked at the front of the room.

Zane sat beside her.

The system ticked.

『 Proximity accumulation: active 』

Instructor Vael started the session.

Zane took notes. Maren took notes. The session ran for two and a half hours around them with the specific texture of an afternoon class. Slower than morning session, the room carrying the accumulated weight of a full day, everyone present but some more present than others.

At 3:15 PM Maren slid her notebook slightly toward him without looking up.

He looked at it.

She’d circled a line from Vael’s notes and written a small question mark beside it.

NSA classification assessment — output ceiling vs registered rank discrepancy = practical implications.

He looked at the board. Looked at the circled line.

’She’s asking what happens when your practical output doesn’t match your registered rank,’ he thought. ’Which is extremely relevant to exactly one person in this classroom.’

He wrote in the margin.

I think registered rank is the baseline. Practical output above registered rank triggers reassessment. Below it — nothing happens unless flagged by an instructor.

She read it.

"You’re actually smart, you know". She whispered. Staring at zane directly from the back seat.

"Thanks for the compliment". Zane whispered back, glancing backward for two seconds before facing the board back.

Her eyes moved back to the circled line briefly.

Then she wrote one more thing in the margin beside his answer.

So if someone’s output consistently exceeds their registered rank — the NSA gets involved.

She underlined it once.

Then looked at the board like she hadn’t written anything.

She read it. Nodded slightly. Went back to her own notes.

The system ticked.

『 Proximity accumulation: 2 hours 41 minutes 』

At 4:30 PM the session ended.

Students packing up. The classroom emptying with the specific relief of a building that had run its full daily programme and was done.

Zane packed his notebook.

Maren packed hers beside him.

『 Proximity accumulation: 2 hours 51 minutes 』

『 9 minutes remaining to complete objective 』

’Nine minutes,’ Zane thought.

He looked at his bag. Took slightly longer than necessary to zip it.

"Let’s walk back together?" Maren said.

He looked up.

She was already standing. Bag over shoulder. Not looking at him directly. Just asking the way she asked things that had become routine enough to not need ceremony.

’She asked...,’ Zane thought. ’She asked first.’

"Yeah," he replied.

They walked ou.

The corridor. The stairwell. The ground floor.

『 Proximity accumulation: 2 hours 58 minutes 』

The main building entrance. Outside into the late afternoon campus. The east courtyard visible through the path between buildings.

『 PROXIMITY QUEST — COMPLETE 』

『 Proximity accumulation: 3 hours 00 minutes 』

『 Reward: Familiarity +5% bonus on next genuine exchange with Maren 』

『 System Note: She asked first. The system notes this. You should note this too. 』

Zane walked beside Maren through the late afternoon campus.

’She asked first,’ he thought.

’Yeah,’ he thought. ’I noted it.’

They walked in comfortable silence through the east courtyard, past the low wall, toward the dormitory buildings. The campus settling into its late afternoon rhythm around them. Lights coming on in the academic block, the practical complex dark, a few students moving between buildings.

The girls dormitory entrance came into view.

A small cluster of students near the gate. Some sitting on the low bench outside, some passing through. The specific social gathering point that appeared outside every dormitory entrance at this hour.

One of them clocked Zane and Maren approaching together.

Then another.

A voice from the bench. Not loud, just carrying.

"Are those two dating? Haven’t seen them together before."

Maren kept walking with an unchanged expression.

Zane kept walking using his side eyes to peek at maren.

She was somewhat giving into the statements her expression felt lightened.

They reached the gate.

Maren stopped. Turned to him.

"Thank you you... for escorting me," she said, stuttering for a bit. Formal enough to be funny. "Sorry for my tone, just don’t mind and it looks like you’ve navigated here before."

Zane looked at the gate. Then at her.

"No problem," he said.

’I definitely have a profound memory of navigating here before,’ he thought. ’For entirely unrelated reasons and wouldn’t want to recall.’

The gate opened before either of them could say anything else.

A girl emerged from the girls dormitory in casual wear. Fitted crop top with shorts, the specific build of someone whose proportions had made an executive decision and gone with it. She had small boobs and significantly large ass and hips. The kind of figure that announced itself without trying.

She looked at Maren.

"You’re back," she said. "Let’s go practice that thing we talked about." Then she glanced at Zane. "Hi." Then back at Maren. "Is this your boyfriend."

Maren’s face went fully red.

Not slightly. Fully. The specific red that Reed’s lovebirds comment had produced and this was doing worse.

She opened her mouth.

Closed it.

"See you Zane," she said.

She grabbed the girl by the arm and dragged her back through the gate before she finished the sentence.

"Chill Maren.." the girl’s voice carried back through the gate "I haven’t even introduced myself yet.."

The gate closed.

Zane stood outside the girls dormitory alone.

Looked at the closed gate.

Then at the students on the bench who had watched the entire thing with varying degrees of interest.

He turned and walked back toward the main building.

’Girls,’ he thought.

The system surfaced.

『 System Note: Her face went red before she could answer. The system considers this meaningful data. Just noting. 』

’I noticed,’ Zane thought.

『 Good. 』