Chapter 95: The Price of Every Point
Before touching the feed bin, Jin checked Glitch’s bruised shoulder one more time. The lizard sagged against him, all loose weight and exhausted trust, like he had used up every bit of strength he owned and now considered being carried Jin’s problem.
[Shoulder — Deep Contusion]
[Skin: Intact]
[Joint Function: Normal]
[Compensation: Minimal]
[Status: Stable — Tender]
Nothing had changed since extraction. The bruise was deep, ugly, and painful when pressed, but otherwise painfully normal. There was no broken skin, and the joint moved through its full range without catching. Beneath it all, the injury was healing no faster than it should in an ordinary Grey Rock Lizard.
Jin finally breathed out.
That detail mattered more than every other result put together, and he could never explain why.
"You’re hurting, but you haven’t gotten worse," he told Glitch. "Those aren’t the same thing. You’ll figure that out."
Glitch sent back the firm belief that soreness was fictional and Jin had invented the entire concept.
Then Jin fetched the feed bin, and the shoulder stopped being the worst part of the evening.
He emptied everything onto the floor because he needed the full picture, and seeing it laid out made the situation harder to ignore. Closed, the bin had only been a shapeless worry sitting in the corner. Once the feed was measured and separated, it turned into numbers, and numbers did not care how badly he needed them to be different.
Jin divided the remaining supply between six containers.
The first held tonight’s recovery meal, a portion that could not be reduced. A beast came back from a day like this and recovered properly, or he didn’t.
The second was for tomorrow morning before deployment. Two smaller containers became field meals, one meant for around the third hour and the other for the fifth, while an emergency portion was sealed on its own and immediately declared nonexistent unless something went wrong.
The last container was tomorrow night’s recovery meal. A 3-Star body could not work for six hours, receive nothing afterward, and stay healthy. Eventually, it would start consuming itself.
Six portions.
He took some from the fifth and added it to the second. After staring at both, he returned nearly all of it, then moved a scoop from tonight’s meal into the emergency container.
Glitch looked at him.
Jin put the scoop back.
The calculation worked. That was what made it so infuriating.
With this plan, Glitch could remain deployed for six hours without being pushed into danger. He would eat enough, drink enough, and finish tomorrow in reasonable condition, with even a little margin left. Doing so would also consume a terrifying share of everything they had.
Jin rested back on his heels, facing the six tidy containers. He had done what he always did: optimized the problem, found the cleanest division, and pulled every last bit of value from the available resources, the same way he would work around a drop table or calculate a boss timer.
None of that changed the final amount.
Zero stayed zero, however neatly he arranged the path toward it.
There was no clever solution here. Planning could not erase a shortage, and Glitch was alive. A living beast had minimum requirements; talent did not lower them. Data Appraisal could tell Jin, with awful precision, exactly how much Glitch needed, but it could not create even one gram of feed.
Across from him, Glitch had followed the growing number of containers with increasing excitement. More containers clearly meant more meals, and there was no reason to question such flawless logic.
His tail had begun sweeping the floor. He pushed himself upright on his uninjured side, and the bond filled with the bright eagerness of a beast watching someone prepare a feast.
Jin said nothing as Glitch studied the portions. The lizard’s gaze moved from one container to the next until, slowly, he noticed the problem. The number of meals had increased, but the portions had shrunk. Nothing had been added; the same feed had only been divided into smaller piles.
What lay on the floor was everything.
And everything was not much.
Glitch’s tail went still.
He turned toward Jin. Through the bond, beneath the fixation on food and all his usual drama, he reached the worry Jin had kept buried since the Sync. It had never gone away. It sat under every decision, quiet and constant.
Glitch did not ask for another serving, and he left the sealed emergency portion alone. When Jin handed over the recovery meal, Glitch lowered his head and ate without complaining once.
For Glitch, that was close to a sacred vow.
"Yeah," Jin murmured. "Thank you."
He tried every proper option before accepting that none of them opened. The student resource system covered almost everything and helped with none of this.
His scholarship included an Iron-feed allowance, issued once each month. The next payment arrived on its assigned date, with no early claim option, no advance, and no hidden exception. Jin read the terms twice, searching for some opening the way his father had taught him.
There wasn’t one.
Meridian was a school. It did not operate on personal favors.
Emergency nutritional assistance existed for registered beasts facing medical danger, so Jin worked through the requirements carefully. Glitch failed to qualify because he was stable.
That was the exact word the system wanted. Stable. The policy was designed for beasts in immediate collapse, not for one whose feed would run out before an assessment ended.
He could also buy additional feed.
Jin compared his available Credits to the price of one month of Iron-grade formulation and felt the difference hit hard. He had the amount someone from the Outer Ring on scholarship might reasonably possess. It was more than nothing, and nowhere near enough.
The Sync had burned through two-thirds of a month’s supply in a single night. Every day after that had continued eating away at what remained.
The Rustwater loot was safe inside the Engine, but none of it could be sold without raising questions he could not answer. A support-talent student from Shelter 7 could not stroll into a Meridian resource counter carrying corrosive glands and coins from a dungeon he had never officially entered. That would not look like a normal transaction.
It would look like a confession.
Going to his family for money was even less acceptable. Elena would somehow produce Credits they did not have, taken from food, medicine, or the underground hours she was already working.
Lucian crossed Jin’s mind and was dismissed almost immediately. Passing one assessment together did not make Glitch Lucian’s financial responsibility.
At last, Jin found one final entry buried beneath a subsection on field assessment scoring. He read it once, then twice more.
[Field Assessment Performance — Merit Awards]
[Deployment results exceeding qualification thresholds may award Meridian Resource Credit.]
[Redeemable for: beast provisions, medical supplies, training facility access.]
Jin stopped moving.
It was not enough to fix everything. He checked the award scale and found the rewards were limited: a strong field-assessment performance could earn several days’ worth of standard feed. It would not cover a month or end the shortage.
But it could buy them a few more days.
That changed the problem, and it also made it worse.
The safest way to complete a six-hour deployment was to conserve Glitch’s stamina. Merit credit, however, depended on score. Better scores came from taking on difficult work, and difficult work consumed the same energy their remaining feed had to restore.
The loop closed as soon as Jin followed it through. To reduce the shortage, he had to spend more food. To protect the food, he had to avoid earning anything, and if he earned nothing, the feed still ran out before the assessment ended.
Waiting carefully would not save them.
Jin rubbed at his eyes, then messaged his family before he lost the ability to pretend he was functioning normally.
Jin: Day three done. Paired assessment. Passed strong.
Elsa: STRONG? Details. All of them. Immediately.
Elena: Are you eating? Is Glitch eating?
His eyes returned to the six containers arranged across the floor.
Jin: We’re both eating, he sent.
For tonight, that was true.
He said nothing about his arms, which had carried another person for an hour and had been complaining ever since.
Arthur: Good. Rest.
Jin switched off the light and lay awake in the darkness, repeating the same calculations until there were no new ways left to arrange them.
The answer never changed.