The moment Cashel selected the option, the system screen glowed brighter.
[Initiating Gacha Pull....]
[Credits Available: 10,000]
[Pulling from Standard Human-Origin Pool...]
Cashel tilted his head. ’There are five men...’ he thought as his gaze drifted around the basement to count them.
’Why is it just one? I expected fifty thousand credits, not ten thousand.’
A soft spinning sound filled his ears, almost like a slot machine. Then the screen turned gold.
[Congratulations!]
[Item Obtained: Physical Enhancement (Rank B)]
[Duration: Null (First-time Pull bonus is in effect...)]
[Item Obtained: Recovery Potion ×3]
[Bonus: Sensory Stabilization and Enhancement×1]
Before Cashel could react further, the enhancement activated on its own. He felt a cool current rush through his entire body. The effects of the green bell faded almost instantly, and his balance slowly returned.
"There is still one more," Andeen said quietly, pulling his attention from the screen back to her. He hummed in response, took his hands off her shoulders, and stepped aside.
"Check it out. I’ll see if anything got broken." He gave her a reassuring look, reminding her that he was an Awakener now and that it would not be so easy to kill him.
That is, if one excluded the fact that he had almost been drugged and probably kidnapped.
Andeen reluctantly made her way out of the basement, leaving Cashel to himself.
Once she was gone, he bent down, picked up the syringe the men had dropped, and rose back up, bringing it to his eyes.
His gaze lingered on the substance for quite a long time, as though staring hard enough would let him break down whatever it contained and understand what it was. But all he saw was a strange liquid.
Heaving a sigh, he tossed the syringe carelessly to the ground and crossed the room to where the old man lay unconscious.
He bent down, carefully picked up the bell, and smiled.
"This will come in handy soon enough," he murmured pleasantly. He quietly summoned his inventory, just as the system had shown him earlier, stashed the bell inside, and dismissed it, but not without taking a glance at the items already there.
The potions and the bell.
And that was it.
"Being broke really isn’t a good thing."
He shook his head pitifully and made his way out of the basement, his thoughts shifting to the family’s finances.
Andeen’s unfair payment schedule was only enough to feed them, cover the car’s maintenance, and pay for charging the battery, which was also a huge expense.
They would have to pay the Awakener in charge of that, and it wasn’t as if Andeen could fly everywhere. She could, but she hated it, and he had no idea whether he possessed any transportation abilities. He was yet to explore all his skills.
And finally, they had to pay for the land that belonged to the military.
A good sum of one hundred thousand dollars exhausted every month.
And Andeen was not a small eater. Sure, she skipped meals, but she ate huge portions of specific foods.
Then there was him...
Cashel paused in the living room and looked up. He couldn’t sense any other person in the house, but he also couldn’t sense Andeen’s movements. Which meant they were gone.
"Andeen!" he yelled, making his way to the kitchen to get a bottle of water. That was when he saw a strange-looking envelope on the counter. "Did she drop this?" he murmured to himself and picked it up.
On the envelope was the military’s symbol: a golden winged eagle surrounded by a green flame. He tilted his head softly, then carefully removed the seal.
He brought out the unnecessarily expensive paper, unfolded it, and began reading.
Halfway through, Cashel’s eyes had already darkened.
Completely forgetting what he had come for, he walked out of the kitchen and marched up the stairs to where he assumed Andeen was.
He found her standing by the window, her gaze fixed on another similar paper. The way her fingers moved across it made it clear the document was in braille.
She raised her head when she sensed him, then her head dropped to the letter in his hands.
Cashel narrowed his eyes. "Were you aware of this?" The official letter requesting he joined one of the two listed organisations for awakeners.
Andeen turned away. For a moment she considered hiding the fact that she was being forced and threatened to hand him over, made to fight organisations just so they could choose where he would be used as a registered fighter. But she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
She turned around and nodded slowly. "I had no idea they would send it this early. General Rain told me it would be dropped tom.." Her voice cracked. "I’m really sorry for bringing you into this..."
"...What?" Cashel’s brow rose in confusion. "No, no. I don’t have any problems with that. I’m asking why they are threatening you for nothing. It doesn’t make sense. You’re one of their strongest."
Andeen looked at him. She studied the look on his face and let out a short laugh. She dropped the paper to the ground and pushed back the strands of hair falling over her face.
"That’s a normal thing within the military. You don’t have anything to worry about."
He was very concerned, because this was exactly the same thing he had faced with the military in his past life.
It only confirmed that civil servant organisations would remain corrupted and unfair.
He let out a deep exhale and opened his mouth to speak when she cut him off immediately.
"Why are you alright with what they want to do to you?" Andeen suddenly asked, a frown on her pretty face and wrinkles forming on her forehead. "I don’t want you to have anything to do with them."
Cashel smiled. He crossed the distance between them and gently pinched her forehead outward. "I’m used to all that, and I don’t intend to join the military."
’Never again.’
He added the thought silently and kissed her forehead.
"Put a call across to your superiors and the leaders of the other organisations they want me to join," he smirked. "Tell them I have a huge number of demands if they want me, and if they can’t provide them, I will remain a non-affiliated Awakener."
"Oh, and add this: their budget should be nothing less than one million dollars"