CHAPTER 35: THE GRINDSET

Being a hero was expensive.

Rin sat at his desk, staring at his bank account balance on the center monitor, the number mocking him in bold red font.

Current Balance: 142 Credits

"One hundred and forty-two," Rin said to the room, "I took down a corrupt government official, raided a secret lab, fought mutant goblins, and I can barely afford a large pizza."

[Analysis: Private Investigators are expensive]

[Kira charged premium rates for rush delivery]

[You are financially insolvent]

"Thanks for the recap, really helpful."

Rin leaned back in his expensive gaming chair, which thankfully Leo had paid for years ago, the mansion was paid off so he wasn’t going to be homeless, but the electricity bill for a place this size was astronomical, not to mention food, gear maintenance, and the fact that his tactical jacket had been shredded by a breach creature.

"I need a job," Rin muttered.

[Correction: You have a job]

[You are a D-rank Hunter]

[Recommendation: Go to work]

He sighed, closed the banking tab, and opened his email.

**Subject: License Upgrade Processed**

**From: Association Administration**

**Status: Ready for Pickup**

He was officially D-rank, that meant higher base pay for missions, access to better equipment discounts, and the ability to take assignments without a supervisor breathing down his neck, mostly.

"Alright," Rin stood up, wincing as his muscles reminded him they were still recovering, "let’s go get licensed, then we get paid."

---

The administrative wing of the Association HQ was less cyberpunk future and more DMV with magic.

Rin stood in line behind a guy who was actively vibrating, probably a kinetic energy user having a bad day, and a woman with a literal owl on her shoulder, when he finally reached the front, the clerk didn’t even look up.

"Name and ID."

"Rin Matsuda, E-rank provisional."

The clerk typed, paused, then sighed the sigh of a man who wasn’t paid enough to deal with main characters, he looked up.

"Oh, the portal kid."

"Please don’t call me that."

"Computer says you’re flagged for ’Special Handling,’ hold on." The clerk picked up a phone, whispered something, and hung up, a minute later, a heavy-duty printer behind him whirred to life.

He slid a new card across the counter, it was heavier than the old one, silver-edged.

Name: Rin Matsuda

Rank: D

Class: Specialist (Anomalous)

Status: Active (Monitored)

"Congratulations," the clerk droned, "you can now access the D-rank mission board and the armory’s second floor, try not to cause any more international incidents this week, the paperwork is a nightmare."

"I’ll do my best."

Rin took the card, it felt heavy in his hand, D-rank, it wasn’t much, there were thousands of D-ranks, but it was the first real step out of the newbie zone.

He walked out of the admin wing and immediately bumped into a wall of muscle.

"Watch it," the wall grunted.

Rin looked up, it was Korvyn Thorne, the earth manipulator he’d buried during the exam, Korvyn was wearing fresh gear, looking significantly less crushed than the last time they met.

"Matsuda," Korvyn sneered, "heard you got promoted, congratulations, who did you have to bribe?"

"I raided a Director’s lab," Rin said flatly, "what did you do this week, Korvyn, move some rocks?"

Korvyn’s face flushed. "Careful, you don’t have exam rules protecting you out here."

"And you don’t have a referee to save you when you lose." Rin stepped around him. "I’m busy, Korvyn, go find someone else to posture at."

He felt the spike of mana, earth energy gathering in Korvyn’s fist, but Rin didn’t stop walking, he just pulsed his fracture energy for a fraction of a second, a sharp warning spike that the tracker wouldn’t catch but Korvyn definitely felt.

Korvyn hesitated, the moment passed.

[Intimidation successful]

[Opponent morale: Low]

[He is still salty]

’Let him be salty, I have bills to pay.’

---

Rin met Joy and Tayo in the cafeteria, they were comparing their new licenses like kids with trading cards.

"Look at the shine on this thing," Joy said, tilting her card under the light, "D-rank, we’re basically professionals now."

"Speak for yourself," Tayo grinned, "mine says ’Sonic Specialist,’ sounds like I fix hedgehogs."

"Mine says ’Anomalous’," Rin said, tossing his card on the table, "which is Association speak for ’We think you’re a bomb.’"

"At least you’re a cool bomb," Joy offered. "So what’s the plan, we celebrated, we rested, we got the plastic, now what?"

"Now I need money," Rin said, "I have exactly one hundred and forty credits, if I don’t take a mission today, I’m eating ramen for the rest of the month, and not the good ramen."

Joy winced. "Right, the investigator fee, okay let’s hit the board, D-rank missions pay way better, base rate is like what, two thousand?"

"Plus hazard pay," Tayo added, "and we keep the monster cores, if we get a good haul, we could clear five grand easy."

They headed to the mission terminal, the D-rank board was different, no more "Rat Extermination" or "Lost Cat in Dungeon," these were real threats.

**Mission: Rock Golem Suppression**

**Location:** Olympia Quarry

**Threat:** High physical resistance

**Pay:** 2,500 Credits

Mission: Sewer Drake Nest

Location: Katutura Drainage System

Threat: Poison, enclosed space

Pay: 3,000 Credits

"Drakes in the sewer?" Joy wrinkled her nose. "Hard pass, I am not smelling like sewage for a week."

"Rock Golems are tough," Tayo noted, "my sound waves bounce off them unless I hit the resonant frequency perfectly, might be slow."

Rin scrolled down, he was looking for something specific, something that paid well but played to their strengths.

His eyes caught a listing near the bottom.

Mission: "Clean-Up" - Sector 9 Industrial Zone

Type: Breach Creature Elimination

Details: Remnant biological experiments escaped during the Volker Raid

Threat: Variable, artificial mutations

Pay: 1,500 Per Head (Bounty System)

"That one," Rin pointed.

Joy read it. "Cleaning up Volker’s mess, again?"

"It’s a bounty system," Rin said, "pay per kill, we know how these things fight, we fought them in the warehouse, they’re fast, aggressive, but fragile, if there’s a pack of them..."

"We could make bank," Tayo finished, "and nobody knows how to fight them better than us."

"Exactly, plus," Rin lowered his voice, "it’s Sector 9, near Fiona’s training spot, I need to swing by there anyway."

Joy gave him a look. "You’re still training with her?"

"She knows things about the tracker that I need to learn, just trust me."

Joy sighed. "Fine, but if she tries to crush me into a ball, I’m making her sad, like clinically depressed."

Rin accepted the mission.

Team Leader: Rin Matsuda (D)

Members: Joy Castellanos (D), Tayo Okonkwo (D)

Mission Status: Active

---

Sector 9 was still crawling with Association patrols, but the perimeter around the industrial zone was porous, the "Clean-Up" mission was basically the Association outsourcing the grunt work of hunting down the stragglers that fled when the lab was breached.

Rin, Joy, and Tayo moved through an abandoned shipping yard, the sun setting casting long shadows between the rusted containers.

"Keep eyes up," Rin ordered, his voice low, "these things like verticality, they climb."

"Got it," Tayo said, his hands hovering near his sound emitters.

Rin focused on his internal energy, the tracker was dormant, he needed to practice what he’d learned in the kitchen, burst control.

He didn’t keep his fracture energy active, instead he held it in a state of readiness, just below the surface.

Scritch.

Sound of claws on metal, above and to the left.

"Left side!" Rin shouted.

Three breach creatures, the weird bipedal cat-things with too many teeth, launched themselves from the top of a container.

Tayo didn’t hesitate, he clapped his hands together, amplifying the sound into a concussive blast, BOOM.

The creatures were knocked out of the air, tumbling to the ground.

Joy hit them before they could recover, her eyes flashed pink, Terror.

The creatures froze, their enhanced aggression short-circuiting as their brains were flooded with primal fear, they huddled against the container, hissing but unwilling to attack.

"Rin, you’re up!" Joy called.

Rin moved.

He didn’t charge up a massive blast, he sprinted forward, and just as he reached the first creature, he pulsed the energy.

On.

A blade of purple void formed around his hand for exactly half a second, he slashed, the creature’s head separated from its body.

Off.

The blade vanished before the tracker could register the output spike.

He spun to the second one.

On, slash, off.

Second kill.

The third one tried to run, overcoming Joy’s fear.

Rin pointed a finger.

On, a needle-thin beam of fracture energy shot out, piercing the creature’s skull, off.

Three kills, three seconds.

[Tracker Status: Dormant]

[Energy spikes detected: 3]

[Duration: 0.5s each]

[Status: Green]

Rin stood over the bodies, breathing steady. "Clear."

Tayo whistled. "Dude, that was clean, you didn’t even glow."

"Trying a new technique," Rin said, snapping a photo of the carcasses for the bounty confirmation, "efficiency over power."

"That’s three kills," Joy calculated, "four thousand five hundred credits, not bad for thirty seconds of work."

"Let’s keep moving," Rin said, "I need rent money."

They spent the next three hours sweeping the yard, it was a grind but a good one, they fell into a rhythm, Tayo flushed them out or knocked them down, Joy stunned them with emotion, Rin executed them with surgical bursts of fracture energy.

They cleared fifteen creatures in total.

"Twenty-two thousand five hundred credits," Tayo said, looking at his phone as the bounty confirmation came through, "split three ways, that’s seventy-five hundred each."

"Solvency," Rin breathed, "sweet sweet solvency."

"We should head back," Joy said, wiping sweat from her forehead, "it’s getting dark, and I don’t want to be here when the real nocturnal stuff comes out."

"You guys go ahead," Rin said, "I have to meet someone nearby."

Joy’s expression soured. "Fiona?"

"Yeah."

"You sure you don’t want backup?"

"She won’t talk if you guys are there, it’s fine, I’ll catch a ride later."

Joy hesitated, then nodded. "Be careful, and text me when you’re done."

"I will."

---

Rin walked deeper into Sector 9, toward the warehouse Fiona used, he checked his account balance on his phone, the bounty money had hit.

**Current Balance: 7,642 Credits**

He felt a weight lift off his chest, he could pay his bills, he could buy ammo, he could maybe even afford to fix his jacket.

He reached the warehouse, the door was unlocked.

Fiona was inside, sitting on a crate in the center of the empty room, she was tossing a small metal ball in the air, catching it with a gravity field that slowed it to a stop inches from her palm.

"You’re late," she said without looking up.

"I was working."

"I saw, breach creatures." She flicked her wrist, and the ball shot toward him like a bullet.

Rin didn’t dodge, he pulsed his energy, on, creating a small angled shield on his forearm, the ball deflected off it with a spark and embedded itself in the wall, off.

Fiona smiled, it wasn’t a nice smile. "Better, you’re getting the hang of the pulse."

"It works," Rin said, walking over, "cooked noodles with it, killed monsters with it, tracker hasn’t made a peep."

"Good, because you’re going to need it." She hopped off the crate. "Volker is in jail but the ecosystem is rebalancing, you created a vacuum."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning Volker controlled the black market for modified monsters in this city, with him gone, the Architect Collective is going to move directly to secure his assets, or..." She looked at him. "They’re going to liquidate his loose ends."

"Am I a loose end?"

"You’re a candidate, Thorne offered you a deal, you haven’t accepted but you haven’t refused, you’re in the gray zone." Fiona started walking around him, analyzing. "But today, I don’t care about politics, today we fix your biggest weakness."

"My finances?"

"Your range," Fiona said, "you fight like a brawler, up close, personal, that works for goblins, it won’t work against a C-rank emitter or a sniper."

"I have the beam."

"A straight line, predictable, easily dodged." She raised a hand, the air in the warehouse grew heavy, dust motes stopped floating and slammed to the floor. "Fracture energy ignores physics, Rin, stop trying to shoot it like a bullet, make it behave like fracture."

She clenched her fist, gravity multiplied by ten.

Rin’s knees buckled.

"Don’t fight the gravity," she commanded, "cut it."

Rin gritted his teeth, burst.

He didn’t push against the weight, he visualized the fracture energy as a blade, not of matter but of space, he slashed upward.

The gravity field snapped.

The pressure vanished instantly, Rin stumbled, gasping.

"Better," Fiona said, "but you’re still thinking like a human, stop thinking about laws of physics, you are a glitch in the system, act like one."

Rin wiped sweat from his eyes, he was tired, he was sore, but he felt the power humming under his skin, responsive, waiting for the next pulse.

"Again," he said.

Fiona grinned.

The grind continued.