The list of known classes is dwarfed by the unknown ones.

  -WHA Chronicler Benson-

  Cortez paces around my barracks room, not saying anything. I move to shut the door, she shakes her head.

  “This won’t take long,” she says, her eyes don’t meet mine.

  Silence follows. She’s stopped pacing at least, now with crossed arms she taps her foot, deep in thought, still avoiding my gaze. Leaving me a little confused as to why she even came. She’s never been this quiet before. Sure, she can be shy, but this is… extra, even for her.

  “Do you…” I begin.

  “Did you see my messages?” she asks, interrupting me.

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you read them?” she glances over at me before looking away quickly.

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t,” she says.

  “Don’t read them?”

  “Never mind,” she says, turning abruptly and leaving.

  Blinking, I stand there for a few seconds, about to move to close the door when she comes back in. Her eyes connecting with mine. There’s a look in them that I’ve seen from her before, one of wanting, a look that lingers on my lips then traces back into my eyes. Yet, there’s something else mixing with it, hesitation.

  “Do you want to talk or not?” I ask.

  She blinks, then turns, not leaving yet, eyes on the door like she’s debating shutting it and staying, or leaving again.

  Another stretch of silence. The lack of conversation is actually wearing on me. Memories of her covered in blood keep trying to crawl into my head. I push it back.

  “I think we should stop seeing each other for a while.”

  Shit. That hit me like a bag of bricks.

  “Just like that?” I ask. This isn’t the first time she has done this. She did this before, when we were getting too close for her liking. After too many lingering kisses and holding each other through the night.

  She looks me dead in the eyes, “Did you expect a different response?”

  Her eyes mix with cold. A burning in my chest makes my mouth clench and lose the words that I want to say. But yeah, I did expect something else. Though I should have known better. She is still the same Cortez that threw her life away for me. But at this point, she hasn’t realized how she feels. Maybe I was wrong to confess like that. Worry starts knotting up in me. Making me doubt everything. Her eyes finally look away and she moves out into the hallway. Standing just outside the door, her hand ready to close it with her on the outside.

  Without looking back she says, “And Jimmy, if you’re going to go out of your way to confess your feelings to a woman,” her tone changes as her head looks down, still not looking back at me, her hand tightening on the door handle, “Don’t say you think you’re in love with her.”

  The door closes, and she’s gone. Just like that. Leaving me more confused than when she arrived. The way she said think you love her. Fucks sake… that was a good sign though, right?

  Shaking my head, I find my way to the bed again. She will come around, I have faith.

  Opening my interface, I move through the notifications. Get the messages out of the way, then deep dive the rewards and… Witherbrand.

  First ones are from Sergeant First Class Romero.

  [ SFC Romero: Hey shit stain, guess who just got recommended for another week on extra duty for not attending closeout brief...

  I’ve notified your first line and SSG Mwangi. Sending my complaint to the Company Commander. Good luck shit stain. ]

  No surprises there. I send him a quick reply.

  [ SPC Novak: Roger SFC. ]

  Next I open Staff Sergeant Mwangi’s messages. Basically letting me know that he will try to smooth things over with the Commander and to not fuck up again.

  Moving to Cortez’s messages, I pause. She asked me not to open them. Curiosity gets the better of me.

  [ SPC Cortez: Have you lost your mind?

  What the fuck jimmy?

  Where are you?

  Now you’re ignoring me?

  You think?

  You’re such a fucking dickhead.

  Still not replying?

  Fuck you. ]

  It goes on for a few more… very creative messages. Each one like a play by play of how she is feeling. Letting out a sigh, I lay back on the bed. Well, that was… I don’t know. Shaking it off, I swipe the messaging interface away. It’s time. Rewards, then Witherbrand. No more distractions, just dive in. Hopefully that luck stat helps me get something good.

  [ System Notice ]

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  [ Rewards for gate completion issued ]

  [ View rewards now? ]

  [ Yes / No ]

  Clicking yes, the menu opens up, giving the standard fanfare.

  [ Quest Completed: Herb Gathering (F-Rank) ]

  F-Ranked my ass. Whatever. The important part is everyone is alive. Still… Fuck the system.

  [ Overall Gate Performance Rating: A-Tier ]

  A-Tier? That’s insane. Usually we are lucky if we get D-Tier. It must be because we cleared it so fast. That means our reward modifier will be A-Tier. That gets added together with our personal performance rating. I wonder what mine will be since I cleared the quest. I’ve never been the one to clear a quest before. Usually I get D or F rating in that section. People say if you’re the one to clear the quest you get an extra reward boost.

  [ Hunter Individual Performance Rating: S-Tier ]

  S-Tier? I’ve never even heard of S-Tier before. Alphabetically, is it worse than F? I’ve never heard of the system giving lower than F. What the hell is going on? Is the system trying to screw me over?

  [ Extra Reward boost for clearing quest added ]

  [ System Notice: Additional Extra Reward boost added for solo clearing quest ]

  Solo clearing? Because I was the only one who collected the flower… shit. What’s this reward going to be? Sitting up on the bed now, my eyes are glued to the screen.

  [ Luck modifier added to reward roll ]

  [ System rolling for reward… Success ]

  Dazzling light explodes from the text boxes in a strange fanfare I’ve never seen before.

  [ Legendary Item Rolled ]

  Legendary… holy shit. I stand on my bed, eyes blinking fast. Legendary? No fucking way.

  [ Congratulations on… ]

  The text box hangs there, the fanfare disappearing slowly, purposefully. Until it starts to turn from blue… to red.

  [ System Error… Cannot receive Legendary item from a Green Classified Gate ]

  [ Downgrading Reward ]

  [ Rerolling… ]

  Rerolling? I slump down to the bed again. I should have known it was too good to be true. This red text. I’ve seen it before. It always shows up to try and fuck me over somehow. I wonder what it is. Something strange pops up next to the black and red text box. Another black text box, this one with golden writing. Just like the custom Respec on Death one had.

  [ Petitioning for exception… ]

  The red writing responds.

  [ Rejecting Petition… Success ]

  The golden one begins again, then the red one, alternating over and over again. Like they are having some kind of pissing contest over the reward. I’m not sure which will win it, but I think the golden writing is going to bat for me.

  With no end in sight, and repetitive texts showing up, after five minutes, I pull up my status interface. Looking at the class and highlighting it. A text box with information on it pulls up.

  [ Class - Witherbrand ]

  [ Hewn from entropy itself, the Witherbrand’s skills specialize in converting Wither Charges into decay. ]

  Decay? Wither Charges? These are all unfamiliar concepts to me. I’ve never heard of classes that use decay or Wither Charges. How do you get the charges? I try to click it for more information, but there isn’t any. Moving to my bookshelf, I pull out the UWO Field Manual. It has a section on common classes. Flipping the massive tome of regulations and mostly outdated information, I find the classes section.

  No Witherbrand. So it’s a rare class then. That’s good, right? Decay though, that’s the opposite of what I’ve trained for my whole life. I don’t think I could have gotten a worse class choice. It’s fundamentally different. Is the magic channeling going to be different? How does it work? Fuck.

  Looking over the golden letters and the red are still measuring their proverbial dicks over the reward. Maybe my innate skill from the class will tell me more. Shit, what about my level five skill? We get new random skills or passives every five levels from our class. Will I get an extra skill because of it? Or will I lose out since I’m already level seven. Also, what was that about rolling for skills during the Respec on Death? It said I retained one skill. I hadn’t really given it much thought until now. What skill did I keep?

  My hand moves through the interface slowly. Intentionally. Carefully. Moving to my skills section, I pull them up. My eyes hang on the second skill, my stomach knotting. No…

  [ Skills: ]

  [ Respec on Death ]

  [ Triage ]

  [ Brand of Withering ]

  [ Whispering Decay ]

  My hand swipes through the screen, closing it, then opening it. Again and again. Dread evolving into despair in my chest. The thing that has defined my life’s trajectory. The skill that has helped shape who I am. My healing skill… it’s gone. Respec on Death, it took my healing skill. Why couldn’t it have taken fucking triage? I can be a medic without triage, sure I won’t be as good, but what the fuck is the point of triage if I can’t use healing? I’m supposed to be getting stronger, not weaker. Triage was already a shit roll for a skill when I hit level five. A healer can’t be a healer without healing. There’s a reason it’s the one skill that all Healer Class start with. It is our core skill.

  My eyes sink low, my heart lower. How am I supposed to do my job? Anger starts to bubble up from the despair. Strangling it.

  “Fuck!” I yell, slamming my hands down, grabbing the UWO field manual and chucking it against the wall.

  Standing, I pull at my hair. Jaw rippling with anger, curses flowing from my mouth.

  “This is so fucked,” I growl.

  I want to scream more, I want to break everything in my room, I want to slam the wobbly ass chair against the wall… but I slump against it instead, lost for words. The anger being torn back by my slowly growing resolve. I’m not a child. Stop acting like it.

  It hurts, it really fucking hurts. But I’m still alive, everyone else survived too. Get a grip. Distracting myself, I pull up the skills again. Clicking on Respec on Death.

  [ Error: Unauthorized ]

  How am I unauthorized to view my own skill? This is horseshit. Fine. Moving on. Let’s see what this Brand of Withering does.

  [ Skill: Brand of Withering. ]

  [ Usage: Allows the user to place a decay effect onto a single target. ]

  [ Effect: Deals damage equal to 1% of target’s lifeforce per use. ]

  [ Duration: Each brand lasts until consumed by activation or removed. ]

  [ Activation: Once brand is placed on target, roll for activation occurs every second, chance of activation increases with each failed attempt. ]

  [ Cost: 1 Wither Charge per brand. ]

  [ Unique Passive: Allows the user to obtain Wither Charges. Maximum charges based on current level x 1 ]

  Roll for activation occurs every second? What’s the beginning chance of activation? How much does the chance of activation increase by each failed attempt? That’s so fucking ambiguous. Also, none of this explains how to get Wither Charges. Wait… I’m level seven. Meaning I can only have a maximum of seven Wither Charges. So, my max potential output of damage when fully charged is… seven percent.

  What am I supposed to do with seven percent? This class. I have a feeling that it might be useless. Especially for someone as low level as me.

  Something strange draws my attention. The red and gold entities seem to have stopped fighting. Both of the boxes suddenly disappear. Based on the next box I see, I don’t think the golden one won the argument.

  [ System Rerolling Reward… ]

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