SMASH or PASS

The medical ward was a small room with three waiting chairs, a supply shelf stacked with bandages and bottles, and a curtained off examination area in the back.

Two women sat in the waiting chairs. One was cradling her bandaged hand and the other had a purple bruise spreading across her jaw.

Behind the curtain, someone was having a... shitty time?

"Hold STILL."

"It HURTS."

"It’s supposed to hurt. You got bit by a Rank 2 beetle and waited three days before coming in. The infection has had time to set up a whole fucking civilization in there. Hold still or I’ll let it secede."

Rustling, then a yelp, then the curtain snapped open and a woman stepped out.

She was pushing hair from her face with her wrist because her hands had blood on them. Both sleeves of her medical coat were stained from elbow to cuff with old brown and fresh red.

She was young, mid twenties maybe, with a tired look on her face. Her brown hair was tied in a messy ponytail and she wore no jewelry or makeup.

Her eyes swept the room. Two women, one man. The check took about a second, then she looked at me the same way she looked at the other two patients, which was honestly a first in this world.

"Next."

The two women ahead of me looked at each other, then at me, and both waved me forward. I knew the drill by now. At 99/1 ratio, men didn’t wait in lines here. "Reproductive asset priority," Or something, which was a fancy way of saying don’t make the sperm donors wait.

Fucked up? Sure, but convenient as hell too.

Well, for me at least.

I sat on the examination table while she picked up the intake form from the tray without making eye contact.

"Health certification for breeding contract?"

"Yeah."

"Current injuries?"

"Bruise on my left shoulder. Got it sparring."

She looked at the bruise and pressed gently around its edges with gloved fingers. Then she looked up at me.

"This is from a wolfkin."

"...Yeah. How’d you-"

"Claw adjacent impact pattern. See the curve?" She traced the bruise’s outline without touching it.

...Huh.

"Wolfkin strikes follow the natural arc of their extended nails, even during non-combat contact. Sparring, roughhousing, enthusiastic mating gone wrong."

"...The last one." I blushed a little.

She placed her palm flat on the bruise and a faint white glow spread from her fingers. The pain vanished like someone flipped a switch.

She hummed while she worked, low and tuneless, and it was oddly soothing.

"Your wolfkin hits hard," she said, pulling her hand back.

"She doesn’t mean to."

"They never do~" She stripped the gloves, tossed them in a bin, and reached for a stamp. "You’re cleared. Certification approved." She stamped the form, initialed it, and held it out. "Try not to let her break anything important. The breeding program needs you functional."

Got it. No death by snu-snu.

She was already reaching for the next chart when her hand paused and she looked up at me again. "You’re new. I haven’t seen you in here before."

"First time at the guild."

"Ah." She nodded. "You’ll be back. New men all come back in couple of days or so. Usually with worse injuries than that bruise." She let a beat pass before adding, "When you do, try to come in the same day. Not three days later like the beetle genius back there."

"...Deal."

The system fired.

[SMASH / PASS]

[Target: Lirael]

[Tier: Uncommon]

[Species: Human]

[Rank: 2nd (Mid)]

[SP Cost: 35]

[Passive Bonus: +3 Stamina Recovery]

She’s the most expensive one I saw so far.

She was humming again, already reading the next chart. She moved from patient to patient with no wasted motion.

I pressed PASS.

I don’t know why.

[Target: Lirael]

[STATUS: PASSED]

[System path permanently closed.]

Something in the system closed for good, and the notification just sat there, final and clean.

I stood up, and at the doorway I turned back. She was already healing the woman with the bruised jaw.

"Hey... Thanks."

She didn’t look up. "Take care kid."

I left the medical ward and the corridor was quiet, the humming fading behind me.

"...Whatever. Moving on."

◇◇◇

I stopped at Rose’s bakery on the way home.

It was a corner shop three blocks from my apartment, with a faded wheat sheaf painted on its wooden sign.

I’d been buying bread there since my first week, mostly because it was close and the prices didn’t make me want to cry.

The baker’s daughter was at the counter. She had long dark hair with shiny black eyes and milk-like skin. She smiled at me framing a face that was too innocent for this fucked up world. The thin cotton of her apron struggled against the swell of her breasts, each movement sending a soft, heavy bounce through the fabric that made it impossible to focus on anything else.

She had flour in her hair, because she always had flour in her hair. I’d never once seen her without it.

"Oh N-noel! The usual?"

"Yeah."

She pulled a half-loaf from the shelf behind her and wrapped it in brown paper without even looking. When she held it out and I reached for it, our fingers touched. She didn’t pull back fast enough. Neither did I.

The system fired on her, just like I knew it would.

She was 8 SP at Common tier, the cheapest target the system had shown me outside of random strangers.

However, maybe this could be a good chance for...?

I minimized the prompt and smiled at her.

"Are you..." She tucked her hair behind her ear. "Are you doing anything tomorrow? Papa closes the shop early on Restdays. I usually clean up by myself after, and it gets..." She trailed off. "...lonely."

So a nineteen-year-old was inviting a man over while her father was away, in this world, where men were the rarest commodity around. she must have been working up to this for weeks. Her voice went up at the end and her fingers kept fidgeting with the wrapper she’d already finished wrapping.

"Sure... Tomorrow. Around six?"

"Six is perfect!" Her whole face lit up. "I’ll, um. I’ll clean up early so the shop looks nice."

"You don’t have to-"

"I want to."

I paid my sixty copper and walked out with the bell jingling behind me.

She gave me a shy little bow that makes her cleavage bounce enticingly.

I felt slightly guilty looking back at her innocent smile.

But...

I cannot be weak.

I will do anything and use anyone if I have to.

◇◇◇

The Baron’s estate was in the nice part of Brannock, near the Sovereign Wall approach.

Baron Vellmont’s place was a three-story townhouse with a small walled garden and the family crest on the gate.

I’d lived in the servants’ wing for my first two weeks after arriving, then moved out because the Baron’s seven daughters kept finding excuses to visit my room after midnight... and their mothers.

Helena opened the front door herself. She’d changed into a darker dress with a black neckline, and her hair was down.

She only wore it down at home. The sapphire pendant sat centered at her throat.

"You came~"

"You told me to."

She led me to the dining room, where the Baron was already seated at a table set for three.

Baron Vellmont was mid-fifties and graying at the temples, one of the maybe thousand men in this city who’d kept their status through wealth instead of combat ability.

He smiled as he looked at me like an investor reviewing a portfolio that hadn’t performed yet.

"Noel. Glad you could join us."

"Thank you for having me, Baron."

"Please. Sit."

I sat.

◇◇◇

The food was way better than anything I could afford on three silver a month.

Roast meat with vegetables and bread that made Rose’s shop look like a charity kitchen.

Helena sat too close, and her soft knee found mine under the table within the first five minutes. I didn’t move. Neither did she.

The Baron talked about the academy. He had connections on the admissions committee, a recommendation letter prepared, and a guarantor form already signed. He also had a couple of daughters that needed a partner, an estate that needed a male heir, and plans that had been running since the day he took in a male orphan with weak mana.

None of it was said out loud. It was all in the food, the wine, and the letter, for now...

"The entrance exam has a written part and a practical," Helena said. "The written tests mana theory. The practical is a live mana output demonstration."

"My mana output is terrible," I said.

Helena’s knee pressed harder against mine. "Father, didn’t you mention you’d written that letter?"

"Ah, yes." The Baron reached into a folder beside his plate. A sealed envelope and a separate form. "The academy recommendation and the guarantor signature. I took the liberty of preparing both."

He slid them across the table to the space between me and Helena instead of straight to me, so I’d have to reach past her.

’Tsk, this sneaky old man...’

I reached past her. She smelled like something floral. Expensive.

"Thank you, Baron. I appreciate the support."

"Of course. We take care of our own."

I turned that phrase over while I chewed. I wasn’t a guest here, and I wasn’t really a ward either. I was property being maintained for future returns.

The Baron sipped his wine. "The academy will require an entrance fee," he said. "Fifteen gold. Equipment costs vary, but you should budget another eight. Textbooks are provided by the institution but the supplementary materials run five gold." He said the numbers with a deeper meaning as he looked at me.

Fifteen gold for the entrance fee alone....

I had eight fucking silver to my name.

The gap between those two numbers was the gap between my life and the one the Baron was offering was clear.

"We can discuss the funding at a later date," he said. "There’s no rush."

There was absolutely a rush, since the deadline was in two weeks, and that old fucker knew it.

He kept the conversation relaxed because the pressure was the point. Everything I needed was sitting right there, prepared and waiting, with strings that ran straight through his daughter.

Helena refilled my wine glass. I hadn’t asked. She hadn’t asked if I wanted more. She just poured.

"The academy is wonderful~" she said. "Father’s friend on the committee says they restructured the curriculum this year. More practical courses and less theory."

She looked at me sideways. "You’d do well in the practicals, I think. You’re more of a... hands-on learner."

The Baron nodded along like his daughter wasn’t flirting with me at his own dinner table.

"The academy provides dormitory housing," he continued. "Though students who prefer private residences may keep them." He paused. "Helena mentioned your current apartment has some... maintenance issues."

"The ceiling leaks."

"Precisely. A dormitory would be an improvement. Or..." He let it hang. "You could move back to the estate. Your room is still available."

Helena’s knee pressed harder against mine under the table, then she moved even closer and her butt was almost resting on my...

"I’ll think about it." Not really.

"Of course. No pressure." The Baron smiled. He was damn good at smiling while applying pressure.

I ate the food, said the right things, and left at nine. Helena walked me to the front door and kissed my cheek, her hand resting on my arm.

"Goodnight Noel~"

"Night."

◇◇◇

I walked home through dark streets.

The Patchwork was quieter at night. Most of the catkin were indoors, and a pair of rabbitkin women sat on a stoop sharing a pipe. One of them watched me pass without saying anything.

The wall was a black line against the sky, cutting off the stars at the horizon.

Somewhere beyond it the world was supposed to be beautiful. Floating islands, crystal mountains, all the shit the expedition posters at the guild promised to anyone brave or stupid enough to go outside.

The best contracts on the quest board all involved going out there, so I’d have to see it eventually...

Tonight I was just going home to a wolfgirl.

Fenra was on my bed, curled in a ball with her tail wrapped around her nose. She opened one eye when I came in, confirmed it was me, and closed it again. Her tail gave a single lazy wag.

"I’m back."

Wag. Wag.

She shifted to make room without fully waking up. I took off my shoes then lay down, and she pressed her back against mine, warm and soft.

Sleep came to me eventually.