Chapter 95 Credit Returned

Lucas challenged his own rescue score before the medical seal finished closing the cut across his shoulder.

He filed the objection through the public board rather than a private team channel, forcing every broadcast crystal to preserve his exact wording.

The wording had been rehearsed, which the committee noticed and could not penalize, since a prepared statement still carried the truth.

’Lucas could keep eight thousand points by doing nothing, yet the idiot picked today to become ethically expensive for fate.’

Damien watched from Team Sterling’s recovery rail while Mina rebuilt her independent anchors and pretended not to listen toward the western platform.

"The record credits me with directing routes I did not see," Lucas said, holding his injured arm still beneath a medical strip. "Certification would falsify the actions of all three teams involved."

The score chair leaned toward him through one pickup crystal, smiling carefully while national comments climbed behind the board.

The smile stayed fixed through the entire objection, which made it the most honest expression in the room.

"Emergency scoring consolidates influence across connected rescues, which may assign leadership through indirect contribution," she replied, touching the appeal dismissal field.

"Then show my indirect contribution before asking me to own their work, since I entered the central street after Damien called the danger," Lucas answered.

’That sentence just stabbed the committee and handed me the handle, damn, Lucas really does understand cameras when honesty becomes useful.’

Quillon arrived beside the score table carrying yesterday’s ledgers, Mina’s living sensor and a national warrant authorizing immediate arithmetic review.

"The student has disputed a benefit," the auditor said, placing the warrant over the dismissal field. "Which removes your finality clause until the source transaction receives examination."

Mina closed her tool case and walked down from the rail, leaving Damien little choice except following before somebody converted her anger into property damage.

"The same rune removed twenty percent yesterday and reassigned command today," she said, setting the caged sensor beside the board. "Compare both outgoing trails before it eats another result entirely."

The black structure pulsed when Lucas’s score opened, revealing one thread that ended beneath his name despite carrying no timestamp from his lane.

The thread was the same shape Mina had seen in the sensor, which meant the rune was copying work across both days.

’The machine did not ask whether Lucas wanted the credit, it just found the protagonist field and dumped stolen work into the nearest clean space.’

Quillon layered initial calibration over the following rescue allocation, then marked identical subtraction curves through his pen.

"Both transactions remove witnessed performance before relocating benefit toward a favored record," he said, turning the comparison toward the chair. "Which makes jurisdiction an administrative excuse for the whole thing."

"You cannot establish intent from two anomalies during active competition, Auditor," the chair replied, pressing both hands against the table edge.

"Intent belongs to investigators, while subtraction remains available to anybody who passed childhood arithmetic," Quillon answered, tapping the living rune once through its cage.

’Quillon has waited twenty-three Chapters to insult a national committee with basic math, which must feel incredible after the academy board made the man whisper.’

Rhea stood among the first-seed teams with her greatsword across both knees, watching the evidence screens rather than Lucas.

She had not once looked at the golden boy since the hearing began, which was the closest Rhea came to taking a side.

"Return the stolen points or remove every score from both days," she said, loud enough for three nearby crystals. "Since selective trust makes this whole tournament useless to everyone."

Vivienne entered the hearing record through formal team authority, attaching her relay data and every spoken warning from the collapse.

"Lucas contributed one barrier plus a voluntary rescue, while command remained divided between four people whose calls appear on footage," she said, highlighting each timestamp.

Isolde supplied the scoring-light reaction, proving the Correction tower redirected danger before Lucas reached their route rather than after his intervention.

"His arrival helped preserve lives, though the catastrophe had already selected our square as payment for his opening," she said, closing the chemical report.

’Nobody here wants to punish Lucas for helping, which means the truth can survive without turning Lucas into the villain this time.’

The chair requested a private recess, but Quillon invoked the student’s public filing and kept every crystal active during deliberation.

Lucas crossed toward Damien while officials argued beneath muted wards, his coat finally carrying dust across one white sleeve.

The dust had been there since the previous day, which made the coat the only honest record of what Lucas actually did.

"I did not request the route credit, though your expression suggests that fact provides limited comfort," he said, stopping outside easy saber distance.

"The machine choosing you remains the larger problem," Damien replied, watching his face for recognition. "Especially when people keep dying near whatever opens doors in your path."

Lucas looked toward the caged rune, then back at the board where his name held points attached to voices he never heard.

"You believe the scoring fault follows me rather than merely benefiting my team," he said, lowering his voice without leaving public range. "Which explains several months of your odd decisions about me."

"I believe arithmetic keeps arriving before your explanations, so I plan around the numbers," Damien answered, refusing the system truth sitting behind his teeth.

’Lucas is close enough to see the outline, but giving the golden boy Fate’s Favorite would tell the mechanism exactly how much Lucas understands.’

Lucas flexed his injured shoulder and failed to hide the pain, another ordinary human mistake his earlier luck would have cleaned before cameras noticed.

The pain stayed on camera for the full broadcast, which made it the most believable thing Lucas had shown the country all year.

"Then keep the records available when this tournament ends," he said, returning toward his team. "Since I want to know what else carries my name without my work."

’That request could help us or feed fate a better defense, damn, honest Lucas may become harder to predict than the golden puppet ever was.’

The score board reopened after nineteen minutes, posting revised command shares across every rescue participant.

[Day Two joint-route credit corrected]

[Lucas: voluntary barrier and marshal rescue]

[Team Sterling: Correction identification, route command and destruction]

[Other teams: extraction credit restored]

Day One reopened next, returning the portion Mina’s living rune proved had been removed while leaving the remaining sabotage dispute under investigation.

[Team Sterling Day One score restored: 9,920 → 11,904]

[Unresolved variance retained under audit]

The public rankings moved Team Sterling from seventh into third, two hundred points behind Lucas’s first-place team and thirty below Rhea’s second.

[Audit quest complete]

[System Points awarded: 4,000]

[System Points: 29,000 → 33,000]

’Third place after two days of sabotage, close enough to bite first, which should make whoever built that rune considerably less comfortable.’

Lucas’s corrected score lost 6,300 points, dropping his team below Rhea for nine seconds before legitimate rescue credit settled them back into first.

He received neither golden recovery nor hidden sponsor bonus, with no sudden public gift beyond applause for returning what never belonged to him.

The applause lasted longer than the recovery would have, which was the first time the crowd had rewarded Lucas for doing nothing at all.

The missing reward bothered Lucas more than the lost points, visible through one glance toward the empty air where fortune usually answered him.

Mina carried the living sensor back toward paired storage while Quillon walked beside her, both arguing over whether its hunger counted as evidentiary change.

Damien opened the Day Three course map after dusk, expecting a remembered vault route beneath the northern service stair.

Nothing came back except a white pressure behind his eyes and the clear knowledge that a page had once occupied the missing space.

’The vault route is gone, completely burned, so tomorrow I enter a lethal course with no original answer. One enemy knows I used to have it, and that person is close.’

[Foreknowledge loss confirmed]

[Original Day Three vault route: permanently unavailable]

[Foreknowledge Integrity: 63% → 62%]

He folded the official map around Mina’s current notes and carried those instead, since tomorrow belonged to choices the novel had never supplied.