Chương 26

Isn't she also supposed to be a famous-ish talent? Alex pursed his lips— what's with all these talents I'm running across lately? He supposed it was only two instances in the past few days, but still. Awakened world's pretty small, I guess. Her arms were crossed, and she gave him a glance as he approached.

"You're the Aegis Selector?" he said, to confirm—he'd deduced who they were mostly based on their body languages and the quality of their gear. And she clearly wasn't a candidate; she seemed far too self-assured. According to the email he'd gotten, he was supposed to check in with the Aegis Selector when he arrived at the rift, to finalize their agreed-upon roles once inside the rift.

"Yes," she said succinctly. After a silence—he was expecting her to say something else—"Wait here," she said.

"We'll talk once the last person arrives." She went back to looking off into the distance. Fair enough. He was a little surprised the Aegis Guild had her as the person running this evaluation. He'd expected someone a decade older, at least—she didn't look any older than the people she was evaluating. Although he didn't doubt she'd have any difficulty maintaining her authority; they both seemed slightly scared of her. He was a little disconcerted, if only because of the dual responsibilities placed on her.

Since this rift was run as an Evaluation rift—and therefore an unconventional rift—it wouldn't be tackled by a standard 5-person party. It'd be split up into two halves, the Guild's half, where she'd presumably be testing these two candidates, and also the fillers' half, which would belong to Alex and the final arrival. With two smaller parties, the chances something went wrong were higher. An unconventional rift typically had a backstop, an overqualified Awakened who'd step in if anything went wrong.

She was this group's D. A. contact, as well as the Guild's evaluator, as well as the emergency backstop—which felt like a lot to put on a relatively new Awakened. But the Templar warrior and archer, who'd also seemed about his age, were clearly capable. A lot of these 'noble' talents had been training for Awakened life since they were kids. If she was selected for the task, it felt safe to assume she was a similar case. It's probably just nerves talking.

He liked having a clear idea of what he was getting into, and a clear plan of approaching it. And while he was slightly unsure about the idea of potentially leaving his life in a stranger's hands—especially a stranger who couldn't have had that much more experience than him? —his life was ultimately in his own hands. He felt a little tingling in his stomach, but he wasn't that nervous. Bring on the rift. He breathed in the cool morning air, and smiled.

They were in the countryside, up north, with few people and cars around. They all waited in silence. The minutes ticked by. He'd arrived fifteen minutes early, and they ticked by one by one. The two candidates were talking to each other softly; the wait didn't seem to be helping their nerves. Clarissa St. Clair seemed a little perplexed. Five minutes ticked by. He studied the rift itself—a vertical crack in reality about a dozen feet high, shining with mana-blue light; it suffused the air around it with mana.

It was fenced off and guarded by two D. A. officials in suits, who were mostly there to make sure the public didn't accidentally wander in. Can't imagine it's such a risk out here, Alex reflected. Maybe a few teenagers might try breaking in on a dare. He checked his own phone— 11: 08am. Surely this person's going to show up. You needed five people to enter a standard-sized rift—D. A. regulations—unless you were given special permission to solo.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. And with how rare these Evaluation rifts seemed to be, he assumed you wouldn't waste a chance to get in one. A few more minutes passed, Alex could almost feel the increasing nervousness of the two prospective Guilders, a mage-guy and a warrior-girl. Clarissa St. Clair went to talk with the D. A. officials; she now had her phone pressed to her ear.

"Okay," she said. A pause. She didn't seem pleased.

"Okay," she said again.

"But you can clear us anyway, right?" Another pause.

"But that's ridiculous," she said.

"I'm Level 31, why wouldn't I be able to handle it?" A silence as she listened. Level 31 was quite a bit higher than he'd expected; Alex was surprised. She's well into E-rank? She covered the speaker, looked directly at Alex.

"You said your name was Alex?"

"That's right," he said, wondering what this was about.

"Bring out your rift gear?" she said. He did so—his mana-boosting sapphire ring and his sword.

"Including armor," she said, with a little impatience.

"This is it," he said. She seemed taken aback. Then—"Are you serious?" she said. She muted her phone. You realize you're endangering your own life, and the lives of your teammates. If you aren't responsible enough to come prepared, you're not ready to take on a real rift. People die in rifts." At his expression—"And don't give me, ' it's my first rift,' that's no excuse."

"Wait, so you're kicking me from the rift?" He did kind of understand where she was coming from, but he felt a bit speechless— surely this is a bit much?

"I didn't say that," she said.

"And it's—what you're doing isn't technically against the rules. It's just selfish. If you were better prepped, I might've been able to make the case to the D. A. that you could be solo in your half of the rift—then we could've been granted an exemption to go forward with four. But you clearly aren't."

"Look," said Alex, feeling slightly annoyed— I get it, you've made your point.

"I'll sign a waiver. I'll take responsibility, say I knew the risks. We can go forward with it as is if we have to." He was saying it because the idea of losing this chance suddenly felt very real in his mind—and it was a chance he very much literally couldn't afford to lose. He'd invested so much into gear he'd probably be forced either to go into pretty insane debt, or be forced into a Guild.

"That's not something I'll have on my conscience," she said.

"If I advocated for that, it'd be on me." He was starting to contemplate the idea his chance was vanishing before his eyes, when she said, "But until this is sorted," she said.

"You should have about an hour to retrieve your armor. And next time, come prepared."

"I don't have armor," he said.

"I told you that."

"Why not?"

"Because a set of armor's four times what I had in my bank account?" he said, unable to hide his exasperation. He was expecting her to tell him something like, then you shouldn't be delving in the first place, but she was silent." Oh," she said. A pause, and the situation suddenly felt awkward. The two prospective Guilders glanced at each other.

"Well," she said again.

"I—that's fine, then." She was visibly embarrassed.

"One second." She was back on her phone, talking to whatever Delver's Association official was on the other end.

"— Send someone?

"she was saying." ETA?" He felt like he had a pretty clear understanding of what just happened. He didn't really care; he understood she'd meant well. As long as he could actually delve, hopefully lucratively, it was whatever. A few minutes passed—" That won't work for me," she said." It's way past—let me put you on hold."

"So," said Alex to the Guilders, to break the awkwardness—"You guys from around here?"

"Yeah," said the guy, in a slightly hoarse voice.

"I'm from Huntington, you?"

"Mineola area," he said. I… could've chosen a more interesting topic. The girl offered her answer, and they lapsed back into a tense silence. Alex's eyes flickered to Clarissa, " thank god," she was saying.

"Okay." Clarissa turned back to them.

"Great news, guys." She was looking more toward the two prospective Guilders than Alex.

"All the Association's available agents are in the field, but I called in a favor. A replacement's coming in." She glanced at Alex.

"He'll be your teammate for the rift. He should be here in less than half an hour—he's in Echelon's development program. I'm one of his peer mentors—he's a local, so he happened to be in the area."

"Cool," said Alex.

"Should work." She quickly looked away. He was even less nervous for the rift than before, which was a plus, he supposed. All this unexpected stuff surrounding it had punctured that; he was hoping for a few aspects of the rift to go his way—for his half to be distributed with at least three or four treasure chests, hopefully. Ideally he'd be able to make it to the final boss encounter as well. The final chest was supposed to have the highest chance of higher rarity items, which were far more valuable.

But even making it to the final boss would likely be pretty difficult. He wasn't an expert, but this was a two-star rift, and he was under-leveled and undergeared. And he'd be tackling it in a team of only two. His assumption was, whether he'd even have a chance depended on who his teammate was. So he wasn't unhappy about the fact that he'd be getting an Echelon Chosen teammate as a replacement.

Echelon was a world-class Guild, and the 'parent' Guild of the Aegis Guild; to his understanding it was of a similar tier to the Templar Guild. If this person was anything like the Templar Chosen—well, two of them anyway— Things might actually be looking up. We'll see, he supposed. Don't want to get too optimistic just yet.

There was also the question of how he and his teammate would split the loot—he'd accept 50/50, but he could see a more well-geared, and maybe more entitled Chosen demanding a higher split if they felt they'd contribute more. Which he'd pre-decided he'd reject upfront. 50/50, or we'll go it alone. He also had a few concept for Skills and mana manipulations he wanted to try once in the rift—cycling and other ideas. He turned his mind to that as he waited, and before long the car bearing his teammate arrived.

A guy stepped out and grinned a very white grin.

"Hey there!" he said. At least one of the prospects seemed to recognize him.

"Sorry for the wait," he said sheepishly.

"I was sleeping when Clarissa called me. Which of you's my teammate?" Alex's expression had frozen. He consciously unfroze it.

"Alex," he said.

"Nice to meet you."

"Beckett," the guy said, and they shook hands.

"Pleasure's mine." And all Alex could think was— if I guessed what would've happened today from the moment I left my house, you could've given me a thousand guesses—ten freaking thousand—and I wouldn't have landed on this. It was tired_killua.