The morning air was sharp.
Marie stood just outside the job board terminal inside the Assoziation's Sector 7 staging facility, clutching a datapad that listed no available group assignments. Again.
Word had spread faster than she expected.
Just two days ago, she had been part of Group C-8. Now, not a single beginner team would take her. Dominik hadn't even looked her in the eye when he submitted the request to replace her. She wasn't angry—at least not at him. He was just the first to say aloud what the system had made clear from the start: she didn't belong.
Her Awakening hadn't granted her a class or even an understandable skill. Glück des Echos sounded poetic and mysterious, but after multiple dungeon runs and zero impact, it was starting to feel more like a cruel joke.
No damage. No support. No system-acknowledged contribution.
No one wanted to party with someone who couldn't prove her value.
So she adapted.
"You a Porter?"
The voice snapped her out of her thoughts. A short woman in dusty armor stood nearby, two heavy duffels at her feet.
"Yes," Marie answered quickly. "I'm free. Gate F-16?"
"Yeah. Just carry and stay quiet. Don't fall behind."
Marie nodded and hoisted the duffels onto her shoulders.
She wasn't here to fight anymore.
She was here to carry.
Porter work was the bottom of the system food chain. It paid just enough to buy another day's food and recharge the access bracelet for gate entry logs. No XP. No chance for contribution credit. No system feedback of any kind. But it kept her close to Gates, and maybe, just maybe, she'd learn something watching others who actually mattered.
The next five days blurred together.
She followed squads through wet tunnels, scorched caverns, moss-covered ruins. She lugged loot bags, sorted mana stones, and cleaned blade-edges. Once, she was nearly trampled by a wounded bear-like creature that broke formation. Another time, she slipped in monster ichor and spent the rest of the run soaked in its sickly green stench.
No one asked her name.
To them, she was just "Porter."
Sometimes she heard the whispers when they thought she was out of range.
"Isn't that the Unknown girl?"
"Yeah. The one who couldn't even trigger a system message."
"Dead slot."
Marie pretended not to hear.
But each time, it carved a little deeper.
She tried to join another group. She submitted her data, such as it was—no stat growth, one passive skill of unknown effect. The Assoziation interface flagged her as high-risk, low-reliability.
Two groups rejected her on sight.
The third didn't even respond.
By the end of the week, she stopped applying.
Her credit balance dwindled. Between housing, food, and gate access fees, she had less than 500c remaining. Barely enough for a week.
She considered selling some of her equipment—but most of it was standard-issue junk from her school registration. Worth pennies. And she needed it just to look like a combatant. No group would hire an unarmed Porter.
At night, she returned to her apartment and stared at the status screen.
Still the same.
📈 STATUS WINDOW – MARIE WILLIAMS
🏷️ NAME: Marie Williams
🎂 AGE: 15
📍 RANK: F (835 Points)
💰 CREDITS: 470c
ATTRIBUTES:
• STR: 110
• DEX: 120
• CON: 105
• END: 100
• INT: 130
• WIS: 0
• PER: 110
• CHA: 60
• PSI: 0
• VIT: 100
PASSIVE SKILLS:
• Glück des Echos [F]
ACTIVE SKILLS:
• None
BUFFS / DEBUFFS:
• None
No XP gain. No shard messages. Nothing.
She hadn't seen a single system response in nine days.
She could barely afford to keep hunting. But what else was there?
Go back to school? She'd never be accepted again. Not after being officially classified.
Apply for a civilian job? Not before sixteen. Not without a parent or a sponsor.
So she stayed.
And carried.
Two days before her sixteenth birthday, Marie sat on the loading ramp outside Gate F-22. Her muscles ached from hauling three full duffels for an aggressive scout team who didn't tip. Her stomach growled. She had eaten nothing but ration paste and water all day.
The afternoon light cast long shadows across the plaza. Voices echoed from the far end—another group celebrating a clean boss kill. Laughter. High-fives. Mana stones being tallied.
Marie didn't look.
She just stared down at her hands.
They were calloused now. Her nails broken and uneven. Dried blood clung to her knuckles from where a crate had caught her skin.
She opened her system again.
Still nothing.
The screen blinked patiently.
Waiting.
So was she.
But there was nothing left to wait for.