Cassian walked through the guild corridors with a cold determination that barely masked the irritation bubbling beneath her seemingly calm surface.
Clearly, it is better to avoid baths when Hiro is around.
This idiot obviously does not understand the concept of personal boundaries or respecting other people's privacy.
She arrived at the large reception desk on the ground floor where several uniformed employees were busy handling various adventurer requests as adventurers constantly came and went.
A young woman with brown hair tied in a ponytail looked up from a register she was consulting.
"Good morning, how can I help you this morning?"
Cassian placed her hands on the counter with a gesture that suggested she did not have all day.
"I would like to have my rank officially reassessed because I have made significant progress since my initial registration."
The receptionist nodded with a professional and automatic movement that suggested she handled this kind of request several times a day.
"Of course, no problem at all, we can organize a reassessment today if you are available, but I will need your adventurer badge to confirm your identity in our system before I can start the necessary administrative procedures."
Cassian froze.
Shit.
My badge.
Of course they need the badge.
And of course I do not have it on me because Hiro keeps all our important stuff in his storage ring.
She turned on her heels without a word of explanation and quickly went back up the stairs toward their lodging, trying not to look too hurried or embarrassed by this stupid oversight.
---
Cassian abruptly opened the door.
Hiro was now shirtless in the main room for some reason, probably because he was trying to dry his clothes after being soaked by her vengeful water jet earlier.
Cassian stopped dead in her tracks, blinking.
Nothing impressive to see.
Just an ordinary and rather slim torso.
"I need my adventurer badge for the rank reassessment, they cannot start the procedures without official confirmation of my identity."
Hiro jumped slightly upon hearing her, then turned toward her, trying not to look too flustered by her sudden entrance.
"Ah yes of course, wait a second I will get it for you from the storage ring."
He closed his eyes, then began mentally searching through all the items they had accumulated over their adventures.
Hiro finally materialized the small badge, then handed it to Cassian without commenting on the fact that she had entered without knocking.
She took it without a word of thanks and left as quickly as she had come, leaving Hiro alone with his confused thoughts and the persistent feeling that he had done something wrong again.
---
Cassian returned to the reception desk, presenting her badge to the same receptionist who examined it briefly before nodding with satisfaction.
"Perfect, please follow me, I will take you to the mana measurement room."
They descended several stone stairs that plunged into the depths of the guild building, crossing corridors lit by lamps. Finally, in a fairly spacious rectangular room that contained several magical orbs of different sizes placed on stone pedestals engraved with complex runes.
A middle-aged man with a graying beard and thick glasses stood near the central orb, consulting a dusty register.
"New candidate for rank reassessment?"
The receptionist nodded before discreetly slipping away to return to her administrative tasks on the surface.
The man signaled to Cassian to approach the orb that glowed with a faint bluish light.
"Simply place your dominant hand on the surface of the orb and inject your mana into it in a steady and constant manner for about one minute without interruption or significant fluctuation, the orb will automatically analyze the quantity and quality of your magical energy and then display a letter corresponding to the appropriate rank according to the standards established by the guild."
Cassian approached, carefully observing the orb which was significantly smaller than the dungeon heart she had absorbed a few days earlier.
She placed her palm on the smooth surface, then began to inject her mana in a controlled and measured way.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
The orb reacted immediately by glowing brighter and brighter as the magical energy flowed into its internal crystalline structure.
After a minute that seemed to stretch into an eternity during which Cassian carefully maintained a constant flow without notable variation, a letter suddenly appeared.
C.
Cassian sighed audibly with relief as she removed her hand.
Finally.
It would have been absolutely humiliating to still be stuck at rank D.
The man noted something in his register with a pen that scratched the paper in an irritating way.
"Congratulations, your mana quantity does indeed correspond to the minimum standards required for rank C."
Cassian did not ask how exactly the orb worked or what complex magical mechanisms allowed it to analyze and quantify something as abstract as a person's mana and then classify it into an arbitrary category defined by bureaucrats who had probably never fought a real monster in their lives.
Anyway, it is not like it is useful for me.
The man then led her into another much larger room that looked more like a training arena than an administrative test room.
"Even though your mana quantity meets the required standards for rank C, we must also evaluate other aspects of your abilities before officially validating your promotion, notably your practical combat capabilities in simulated situations."
The test area was not particularly crowded that morning with only two or three other adventurers training in distant corners.
Another examiner appeared from a side door, a woman of indeterminate age with short black hair.
"The combat test is relatively simple in concept but potentially complex in execution depending on your personal combat style and your strategic adaptation ability."
She gestured toward the center of the arena where five metal orbs the size of a human skull floated in a circular formation about three meters above the ground.
"You must destroy at least one of these five flying orbs to pass the test and obtain your official promotion to rank C, which may seem easy in theory but is in practice more difficult than it first appears because the orbs are not static and passive targets."
She approached slightly, crossing her arms.
"The orbs move in a random and unpredictable manner, they constantly change speed and direction without a predictable pattern, and they have physical and magical resistance calibrated specifically to match level C which means they will not break easily under weak or poorly executed attacks."
Cassian listened attentively while observing the orbs which were already starting to move slowly in lazy circles.
The woman continued her detailed explanation.
"Each orb has been programmed with a distinct combat behavior that reflects different strategies you might encounter in the real field, one favors direct frontal aggressive attacks by charging straight at you without detour or subtlety, another prefers to attack from behind in a sneaky way by waiting for you to be distracted by something else, a third is extremely fast and elusive and favors constant evasion rather than direct engagement, a fourth flies very high to stay out of reach of most melee attacks and only attacks from a distance, and the last is a complex mix of the four other behaviors that randomly alternates between all these strategies to be as unpredictable as possible."
She stared at Cassian with an evaluative look that was clearly trying to gauge if she had understood the implications well.
"Do you have any questions before we begin the official test?"
Cassian frowned slightly.
"How am I supposed to identify which orb has which specific behavior if they all look the same externally and they move constantly in an apparently chaotic manner?"
The woman smiled slightly as if she had been expecting exactly that question.
"That is precisely your role to discover it for yourself by observing them carefully and analyzing their movement patterns during combat, that is an integral part of what we evaluate during this test, your ability to quickly read a complex tactical situation and identify priority threats without us spoon-feeding you all the answers in advance."
Cassian nodded slowly.
Of course.
Obviously they will not make things easy.
But honestly she was not particularly worried about this test which seemed almost tailor-made for her specific skills.
I have spent the last few nights desperately trying to hit a mosquito that dodged my attacks with frustrating agility.
It is literally a test made for me.
---
Meanwhile, Hiro was sitting on the soft couch in the living room, absentmindedly navigating through the translucent interface of the system that was only visible to him.
He was examining the various available quests and the notifications he had ignored over the past few days due to lack of time or attention.
"Where is Cassian?"
Lena's voice made him jump slightly.
He looked up from the bluish screen floating in front of him to see Lena standing near the living room entrance with her slightly tangled hair suggesting she had just woken up.
"She went downstairs to have her rank reassessed."
Lena slowly approached the couch then sat down next to him without asking permission, and almost immediately she rested her head against Hiro's shoulder in a gesture of comfortable familiarity that suggested years of natural physical closeness.
Hiro stopped what he was doing by mentally closing the system interface, then he automatically raised his hand to gently stroke Lena's light brown hair in a repetitive and soothing movement he had done hundreds of times before.
A quiet and comfortable silence settled between them for several long seconds where neither felt the need to fill the space with useless words.
Then Lena suddenly said in a strangely small and vulnerable voice that did not resemble her at all.
"I feel transparent now."
Hiro completely froze in his stroking movement, his hand suspended motionless in Lena's hair.
Where did that come from?
Lena continued without lifting her head from his shoulder, her voice gradually becoming more tense and loaded with emotions she had clearly been holding back for a long time.
"I have the impression that I am losing more and more space in your heart with each passing day and that soon there will be nothing left of me in your daily thoughts and emotional concerns."
Hiro panicked internally while desperately trying to understand why this subject was surfacing so suddenly now when everything seemed to be going well between them just yesterday.
Why is she saying that?
What changed?
What did I do wrong?
"I am afraid you will forget me completely and I will become just a background presence in your life that you barely notice, Lucia and Cassian are taking up so much space now with their problems and constant needs that I am gradually disappearing into their shadow without anyone realizing it."
Hiro shook his head vigorously even though she could not see it.
"No Lena that is absolutely not true, I see you as my family and you will always be incredibly important to me no matter how many other people join our group or how much time passes."
Lena suddenly straightened up to look him directly in the eyes with an intensity that made him lean back slightly against the back of the couch.
"Then become my family."
She paused with heavy meaning.
"In the other sense of the term."
Her face drew dangerously close to his.
"I have loved Hiro for so long that it physically hurts sometimes when I watch you talk to other girls or when you smile at someone else in that particular way you have, I want to be the one you look at first when you wake up in the morning and the one you think of when you fall asleep at night."
Lena moved even closer by placing her hands on Hiro's shoulders to stabilize herself, gradually forcing him to lie down on the couch under her weight that pushed him inexorably backward.
Lena was now literally on top of him with her hands firmly placed on his bare chest, her fingers slightly clenched as if she was clinging to something precious she refused to let go.
She murmured against his neck in a hoarse voice loaded with repressed emotions.
"Stop treating me like the nice little sister who cannot do anything wrong and finally start treating me like something more serious and more adult, because if you continue like this much longer I am going to end up kidnapping you and locking you up somewhere just for me where no one else will ever be able to find or reach you."
Hiro had completely lost control of this situation that had derailed so quickly that he had not even had time to realize what was happening before being trapped under her.
How did we get here?
What am I supposed to do now?
Lena lifted her head slightly to look him in the eyes with a raw vulnerability that violently contrasted with her usually strong and confident behavior.
"You have to give me more love and attention before I completely lose my mind, because as long as I am with you I can endure anything and even share your affection with others if it is necessary, but only if you really acknowledge me and stop seeing me as just a friend or a sister."
She leaned even closer until their faces were only a few centimeters apart.
"Right now Hiro, before I do something irreversible and jump on you without even asking permission because I will not be able to hold back anymore."
Several dozen black crows had gathered on the outer window sill and were watching the scene unfolding inside with a fascinated attention that would have been comical in other circumstances, their little heads tilted to the side and their bright eyes fixed on the two humans as if they were watching a particularly interesting movie at the cinema.
Lena turned her head slightly and immediately noticed the audience of crows who were observing without any apparent embarrassment.
Something in their insistent gazes made her deeply uncomfortable.
She suddenly got up from the couch letting Hiro finally breathe normally, then she quickly walked to the window and closed the thick curtains with a sharp gesture that completely blocked the view of the voyeur crows.
The atmosphere had slightly cooled because of this bizarre interruption, but before the moment was completely lost Hiro straightened up on the couch and extended a hand toward Lena.
"Come here."
His voice was lower and more serious than she had ever heard it before.
Lena slowly turned around with an expression that oscillated between hope and apprehension.
Then they both saw Lucia standing half-hidden behind the wall separating the living room from the kitchen, her face completely impassive and her golden eyes fixed on them with a disturbing intensity.
She was not even really hidden, rather she was not even making the effort to pretend she was not there spying on them.
Hiro and Lena jumped violently upon seeing her appear like a ghost.
Since when exactly has she been there?
How much did she see and hear?
Lucia said in a perfectly monotone voice devoid of any emotion.
"Act as if I am not here and continue what you were doing, it was getting really interesting just before those stupid crows interrupted the crucial moment."
