Chapter 67: Five Days to Kill One Boss
Chapter 67: Five Days to Kill One Boss
He moved through the sequence quickly, tapping the cup, rag, and spoon in order. When Jin corrected him halfway through, Glitch reversed direction instantly. A bright spool rolled across his path as a distraction; he noticed it and ignored it. When he reached the fragile bowl, he stopped his strike at the last moment and touched it with one careful claw.
Marrow’s expression did not soften, but it changed.
Glitch was not merely obeying. He was reading Jin’s intent, adjusting his force, and making decisions without needing every detail explained.
"Good," Marrow said. "Now show me a combat skill."
"Harden."
Arthur placed an old metal storage plate on the table. It was thick, dented, and sturdy enough to survive years in the Outer Ring.
Jin gave Glitch a precise instruction.
Only his foreclaws darkened. The scales tightened until they resembled stone, while the rest of his body remained unchanged.
Glitch struck once.
The plate jumped against the table. A deep indentation appeared in its surface, but the metal did not split. Jin had deliberately kept Glitch’s true limit out of view.
Marrow leaned closer. "He localized Harden."
"Hardening his entire body wastes stamina when only his claws need protection," Jin said. "My Appraisal helps me estimate where the force and defensive load will fall, and Glitch concentrates the skill there."
"A support talent used for combat optimization."
Jin shrugged. "Support-classified doesn’t mean useless in a fight."
Marrow sat back.
"I’ll be plain. You are not stronger than most of our combat applicants. Many will arrive with better talents and Bronze- or Silver-quality beasts. Based on raw potential, you and your beast will begin near the bottom of the class."
"I know," Jin said. "I’m not asking Meridian to pretend Glitch is the strongest beast in the room. I’m asking for the chance to prove we can keep up."
For the first time, the corner of Marrow’s mouth moved.
"That is a better answer than most applicants give."
He entered something on his terminal.
[Practical Combat Placement Petition: Provisionally Approved]
[Initial Placement: Regular Combat Program — Provisional]
[Requirement: On-Campus Physical Assessment]
[Assessment Period: First Seven Days After Arrival]
[Failure Result: Transfer to Standard Mixed Curriculum]
[Scholarship Status: Unaffected]
"You have seven days after arrival to prove yourselves in person," Marrow said. "If you fail, you enter the Standard Mixed Curriculum. Either way, your scholarship remains intact. Don’t waste the opportunity, Astor."
The call ended.
For one second, the family sat in silence. Then everyone released the same breath.
"Redstone still offers better combat resources from the first day," Arthur said. It was his habit to voice the difficult part before allowing an easy decision. "You understand that?"
"And a company would decide where Glitch fights for years afterward," Jin replied. "Redstone might give me better resources, but I would spend years paying for them with my freedom."
He glanced at the confirmation page.
"Meridian houses and feeds me, provides for Glitch, gives us a fair chance at combat placement, and won’t throw the cost back onto you if I have one bad month. The extra resources aren’t worth the contract."
Arthur held his gaze for a moment. "You’re certain?"
"It’s Meridian."
Arthur nodded. "Then accept it."
Jin pressed the confirmation.
[Meridian Beast High School Scholarship: Accepted]
[Enrollment Confirmation Complete]
[Initial Transport: Covered]
[Departure from Shelter 7: Five Days]
The room reacted in three directions at once.
Elena’s pride turned almost immediately into concern. "Five days? What do you own that’s fit to take? You need proper clothes, bedding—"
Elsa punched the air, then rounded on the screen. "Five days? That’s nothing. Who decided five days was enough?"
Arthur simply leaned back. The tension he had carried since buying Glitch’s egg finally left his shoulders. Their gamble now had a destination and a future.
Glitch had understood none of the discussion and cared about even less—until Jin crouched and explained that Meridian provided a monthly beast-food allowance.
Glitch sat straighter. His eyes brightened. He stared at the enrollment notice with sudden respect, as if higher education had finally revealed its purpose.
"Yeah," Jin said. "I thought that might interest you."
Late that night, after the apartment fell quiet, Jin lay on his cot and studied the confirmation notice glowing on his phone.
Five days to pack, prepare, say goodbye to the three people who mattered most in this life, and leave for a shelter he had never seen.
Then the harmless puzzle-game icon flashed over the notice.
[Rustwater Drain Exploration: 63%]
[Area Boss Available: Rotmist Salamander]
[Digital Avatar: Corrosion Resistance Active]
[Recommended Strength: Rank 1 Novice, 4-Star]
[Current Avatar Strength: Rank 1 Novice, 2-Star]
Jin studied the final two lines.
Two full Stars separated Glitch from the recommended strength, and the creature regenerated while poisoning the air around it. Charging into its arena now would waste a life and teach him little.
He was not going in tonight.
Five days meant five days to study the route, gather materials, farm the enemies he could defeat, and search for an advantage large enough to make the impossible merely unreasonable. If he failed to find one, the Salamander could wait.
That was the disciplined answer.
Unfortunately, Jin had never liked leaving a dungeon unfinished.
He had five days to pack, say goodbye to his family, and prepare for a new shelter.
More than enough time to kill one boss.
Probably. Jin’s first preparation for leaving home was to send Glitch to his death.
The digital one, specifically.
The real Glitch was three feet away on the blanket, fully alive and asleep on his back with all four legs in the air, blissfully unaware that a copy of him was about to be fed to a 4-Star monster for research purposes.
Around that quiet corner, the apartment had become a staging area for a departure nobody had quite processed yet.
"You are not bringing three blankets," Jin said.
"You’ve never lived anywhere colder than this room in your life," Elsa shot back, forcing a second blanket into his bag. "You have no data. You can’t make an informed decision about cold you’ve never experienced. That’s science."
"Meridian provides bedding."
"Standard bedding. What if it’s thin? What if it’s scratchy? What if you freeze in a strange shelter because you were too proud to pack a blanket your sister gave you—"
"One blanket," Jin said. "We’re negotiating down to one."
Elena moved through the room with a folded list, adding the small things Jin did not own but would need. Arthur sat at the table calculating what they could afford without touching the food money, his pen moving carefully down a very short column.
Jin saw the worry beneath their activity—two people trying to prepare their son for a new world using the budget of the old one.
"Meridian covers the important things," he reminded them. "Bedding, meals, transport, and borrowed training equipment. I’m going to school, not the wasteland."
"You’re going with something," Elena said. "You’re not entering that place with an empty bag as if we couldn’t manage it."
He let the matter go. They could not buy him much, but they could refuse to send him with nothing. That refusal was its own kind of love.
What he could not tell them was where most of his attention remained.
The Engine still held a Moderate unsynchronized growth load, including Corrosion Resistance for Glitch’s real body, behind a button Jin could not afford to press. A Sync would make Glitch desperately hungry, and the food capable of supporting it waited at Meridian, five days away.
For now, both the real Glitch and his avatar remained 2-Star.
The boss at the bottom of Rustwater Drain was still 4-Star.
Jin could not overpower it, so he would have to learn his way through it.
He set three objectives before entering the dungeon: record the boss’s attacks, determine how its regeneration worked, and find something in the arena capable of narrowing the two-Star difference.