Chapter 32 | Two Wives Worries For Their Husband

Chapter 32: Chapter 32 | Two Wives Worries For Their Husband

"Pre-application intent form," he said. "It doesn’t reserve your spot or guarantee anything. But it timestamps your intent to apply and the board is required to hold your file active for six months."

"I’ll file it," Kai said.

The administrator slid him a form.

Kai filled it out standing at the counter. Name. Former family registration. Current address. Intended pathway. Unclassified Gift status. Three dungeon runs required.

He signed it and pushed it back.

The administrator stamped it without looking up.

"Processing time is four to six weeks," the administrator said.

"For a pre-application intent form," Kai said.

"For the pre-application intent form," the administrator confirmed. "The actual application is separate."

Kai looked at the stamped form.

’Of course,’ he thought.

He picked up his copy and left.

=====

On the train home he looked at the assessor list.

Three names without notes.

He searched each one on his phone.

The first Park Juno had a hero agency profile listing him as B-rank, semi-retired, based two districts over. Last active dungeon record: fourteen months ago.

The second Vessa Orin had no public profile. Her name appeared only in a five-year-old news article about a B-rank team that had cleared a regional dungeon chain. No current contact.

The third Han Dori had a profile that loaded immediately. C-rank, recently promoted to B-rank, running independent assessments out of the Eastgate district. The profile had a contact form and a fee schedule.

Assessment fee: 65,000 coins per run. Three runs required.

195,000 coins total.

Kai did the math without concern. He had 228 million.

He filled out the contact form on his phone.

My name is Kai Renmei. I am applying for a hero license through the combat performance pathway. I am unclassified , no registered Gift. I have filed a pre-application intent form with the Vanguard administrative office today. I am looking for a sponsor assessor for three dungeon runs. Please let me know your availability.

He sent it.

He put his phone away and looked out the train window.

The city moved past. People on their way to ordinary things. The morning going on without needing anything from him.

He thought about the pre-application intent form sitting in a processing stack somewhere. Four to six weeks for a stamp.

’This city,’ he thought.

『 The system notes that the licensing bureaucracy is not a coincidence. 』 『 Unclassified applicants are not meant to succeed on the combat performance pathway. The process is designed to exhaust them before assessment. Most give up at the sponsor assessor stage. 』 『 Host will not give up. 』 『 The system is stating this as a fact, not encouragement. 』

’I noticed the difference,’ Kai thought.

『 Good. 』

==========

He got home at eleven forty.

He hung up his jacket and checked the specialty ingredient cabinet — the afternoon rotation needed preparation before lunch.

From the living room: the sound of the physio sheet rustling. Shira was still at it.

From Mira’s room: the audio reader, faint through the door.

He started on lunch.

At twelve-fifteen Shira came to the table.

She positioned herself and looked at her bowl and then at Kai.

"How did it go," she said.

"Pre-application intent form filed," Kai said. "I need a sponsor assessor before I can start the actual application. I contacted one this morning."

Shira looked at her bowl.

"How long," she said.

"Weeks for the paperwork," Kai said. "The assessor will determine the dungeon timeline."

Shira said nothing.

Mira came to the table. She sat. Located her bowl. Picked up her spoon.

Then she wrote something and held it up without looking toward him.

What rank are the dungeons.

"The combat performance pathway minimum is C-rank dungeons," Kai said. "Three runs."

Mira lowered the board.

She wrote again.

C-rank dungeons have a fourteen percent fatality rate for unclassified entrants.

Kai looked at the board.

"Where did you find that statistic," he said.

Mira wrote: I looked it up this morning.

Shira had her spoon in her hand and was not using it.

"The fourteen percent accounts for people who enter without preparation," Kai said. "No combat training, no abilities, no information on the dungeon layout."

You have no Gift, Mira wrote.

"I have abilities," Kai said.

Both of them looked at him Shira directly, Mira toward his voice.

"The Nerve Sense," Kai said. "The Gale Strike Echo. They’re small. But they’re real. I’ve been training them every morning before you wake up."

A silence.

Shira set her spoon down.

"Show me," Shira said.

Kai looked at her.

"The Gale Strike Echo," Shira said. "Show me what level it’s at."

Kai looked at the kitchen. He picked up an empty cup from the counter and set it on the far end of the table.

He looked at it.

He made a fist.

He focused — the way he had been practicing at five in the morning every day since Bond Level 1, feeling for the echo of her Gift in his hands, the compressed wind pressure that returned from her investment.

He released it.

A small burst of wind pressure not a gale, not dramatic, just a focused push of compressed air hit the cup. It slid across the table three centimeters and stopped against Mira’s bowl.

Silence.

Shira was looking at the cup. Then at his hand.

Mira’s hand had found the cup she’d felt it arrive against her bowl. She held it for a moment.

She wrote something.

That’s my Gift.

"A fraction of it," Kai said. "Level 2. It grows when your Bond Level rises."

Mira held the cup.

It comes from me, she wrote.

"From investing in you," Kai said. "The system returns it to me as combat ability."

The table was quiet.

Shira looked at the cup. Then at her own braced arms.

She said nothing.

Mira set the cup down exactly where it had been.

She wrote: The fourteen percent fatality rate.

"I know," Kai said.

You’re going anyway.

"Yes," Kai said.

She lowered the board.

She picked up her spoon.

Shira picked hers up too.

They ate in silence.