Chapter 91: Anomaly Protocol Quest to Enter the Academy

Chapter 91: Chapter 91: Anomaly Protocol Quest to Enter the Academy

"That’s not an answer."

Rei didn’t look at me.

She kept her eyes on the far wall of the training room, expression unreadable.

"I know. It’s what you get for now."

She stood in one smooth motion, brushed imaginary dust from her combat pants, and held out her hand.

"Anyway. This is how we’ll be training from now on. Give me your phone."

I unlocked it and passed it over without comment. Rei entered her number with quick, precise taps, saved it under her own name with no embellishment, and handed the device back.

"Have you been in contact with Saber or Ruby?"

"No."

"That’s good."

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"I don’t know."

She tilted her head, braid shifting.

"I’m just glad you aren’t currently stuck in an awkward position between multiple women. Especially Saber. That blind girl, if she ever properly understood your true worth, would kidnap you herself."

"She was the nicest of the three of you," I said.

It was true.

Saber had been patient in the simulation when the rest of the team dynamics were already fraying.

"That’s how the really scary ones act," Rei replied.

"You’ll understand later. Also, get ready."

"For what?"

"The academy entrance exams begin in twelve days. We need to raise our compatibility if we’re going to participate as a functional pair."

I frowned.

"Why are you going with me?"

"I want to."

"It isn’t a fixed team format, is it? Gianna said there would be interviews."

Saying Gianna’s name out loud after kissing Rei still felt like stepping on a bruise that hadn’t finished forming.

Rei noticed, of course she did, but she didn’t comment on the flinch.

"The early rounds include evaluations and interviews," she said.

"The final round is a race through a controlled real dungeon. Support and primary move together. Timing, coordination, and compatibility all get measured under pressure. That’s the part that matters."

I stood as well, rolling the residual stiffness from my shoulders.

"Okay."

Rei stepped in without warning, both hands coming up to cup my face. Her palms were cool. Her eyes moved across mine as if checking for something she hadn’t found earlier.

"What is it now?" I asked.

"Nothing. You just looked free for a second. Keep that. We’ll be increasing the training hours. Including late-night sessions."

"Don’t get cocky after kissing."

"Your repulsion is attractive."

She released me, collected her bag, and walked toward the door. No backward glance this time. No final sharp smile. Just the sound of the reinforced door sealing behind her and the sudden return of the training room’s empty acoustics.

I remained standing in the middle of the mat, phone still in my hand, her new contact sitting cleanly in the list beside Gianna’s muted thread and Jenna’s private line.

Twelve days.

Compatibility.

A real dungeon race.

Is it time for the academy?

The system chose that exact moment to chime.

A larger window unfolded across my vision, denser, more formal than the usual quest pop-ups.

The border carried a muted silver sheen I hadn’t seen before.

[Main Quest Type: Spatial Transition & Network Calibration]

[Difficulty: S]

[Objective Parameters]

Clear the Sector Academy Entrance Examination.

• [Status: Pending Registration — Level 21 Requirement Met]

Elevate Secondary Target (Rei Lawless) Favorability to 40.

• [Status: 19 / 40 — Structural Openness High]

Reconcile with Primary Anchor Candidate (Gianna Everheart).

• [Status: 60 / 100 — 7-Day Distance Protocol Enforced]

[System Directive]

The Host’s current operational efficiency is severely degraded by internal emotional friction and external S-Rank chemical containment. To optimize core stability before high-intensity Raid deployments, the Host must break through current performance caps, stabilize the existing network, and anchor the Lawless family’s raw blood signature.

[Rewards on Completion]

• 1,000 Succubus Points

• 1× Silver Roulette Ticket

• 1× Golden Roulette Ticket [CRITICAL CLASS MUTATION ITEM]

[Failure Penalty]

• Accelerated core fragmentation risk across all linked targets.

I read it twice.

Then a third time.

The first two objectives made a brutal kind of sense. The academy exam was already on the calendar. Raising Rei’s favorability aligned with every recommendation the system had been pushing since the night Gianna walked away.

But the third objective sat on the screen like a contradiction that refused to resolve.

Reconcile with Gianna.

I let out a slow breath that was almost a laugh and spoke to the empty room.

"Didn’t you try so hard to push her out? Why do you want reconciliation now? What the fuck are you playing at?"

The system did not answer immediately.

When it finally did, the tone was the same flat, optimizing register it always used when it had decided moral framing was irrelevant.

[Earlier recommendations prioritized reduction of destabilizing emotional dependency during acute fragmentation risk.

[Current diagnostics indicate primary-anchor integrity remains higher than projected.]

[Complete severance would produce greater long-term instability than controlled reintegration under improved Host regulation.]

[Objectives are concurrent, not sequential. Progress on secondary target does not nullify primary-anchor value.]

"So first you offer to erase the feelings. Now you want me to fix the relationship."

[Correct. Conditions have updated. Host refused essence removal. Primary anchor residual remains active. Optimal pathway now includes stabilization rather than excision.]

I stared at the third objective until the text began to feel personal.

A week of enforced distance still running. A woman who had asked me not to call unless something was actively on fire. And a system that had spent days framing her as inefficiency only to turn around and list reconciliation as a formal success condition for a Golden Roulette ticket.

I dismissed the window without accepting or rejecting anything.

The quest remained active in the background regardless of my opinion.

Twelve days until academy entrance.

A secondary target who had just scheduled night training and spoken about taking me away from the people currently restricting me.

And a class that kept rewriting the definition of "optimal" every time I refused one of its cleaner solutions.

I picked up my bag, left the training room, and walked the quiet corridors toward the exit.

Rei’s number sat in my phone like a door that had already been opened from the other side.

When I reached the research lab, a familiar figure stood at the entrance.

"You’re here."