Ardyn Vermont's expression was a masterclass in neutral observation, a mask honed by years of judging threats and weighing truths. Across from her, the imposing and handsome man, Noctar Ville, was a paradox written in flesh and data. Her own appraisal skill, a well-honed A-Rank tool, fed her the same baffling information no matter how many times she checked.
[Name: Noctar Ville
Class: Debugger
Level: 31
Rank: S ]
The class was the key that had initially convinced her. 'Debugger.' It was unprecedented, but it sounded like something a quantum physicist lost in a temporal anomaly might manifest. A skill to fix broken systems or to find errors in reality itself so he could return home.
It was the one piece of his story that fit perfectly, a unique key in a lock no one had even seen before.
But then he'd asked for a 200th-floor apartment.
The request was so ludicrous, so detached from the fundamental reality of post-Emergence Ethron, that it shattered the carefully constructed plausibility of his tale. It wasn't the lie of a desperate man; it was the slip of someone who came from a place with different… architectural parameters.
She watched him now, waiting for him to dig himself out of the hole he'd just created. Ardyn leaned on her desk, her chin resting on her interlinked fingers. Her golden eyes were firmly on Noctar's ice-blue eyes ready to act should he try anything.
Noctar's mind raced, S.A.R.A. running damage control protocols in the background. `A cultural reference point! We need a cultural reference point tied to his established backstory!`
He met Ardyn's gaze, his ice-blue eyes projecting a weary, almost haunted look.
"My apologies. Force of habit. The 'dungeon' I was trapped in… it was a vertical labyrinth. Endless towers. Safety was always found at the highest point, away from the… things… that crawled below."
He let a sliver of genuine annoyance at his own situation bleed into his voice. "I suppose I'm still not accustomed to the idea of being… grounded."
It was a patch. A quick, dirty fix to a critical flaw in his narrative. For a single long and silent second that felt like an eternity to Noctar, Ardyn looked away and on to her keyboard. She continued to type in absolute silence a psychological tactic to pressure more defensive answers from Noctar.
Noctra wisely kept silent. //She's good at what she does. I don't think you'll be convincing her fully anymore.
'How should I have known there aren't high buildings here?' Noctar mentally retorted. S.A.R.A's response left Noctar with no comeback at all,
// If you concentrated with your take instead of the two large melons on her chest, you wouldn't have fumbled. Noctar had no words to say. He was guilty.
After a long stretched silence, Ardyn simply hummed, a non-committal sound that gave nothing away. She could sense the lie, a hairline fracture in his story, but his explanation was just plausible enough to be dismissed as post-traumatic eccentricity.
"The Hunter's Authority can provide transitional housing," she stated, her tone all business again. "We have an apartment on the 8th floor of our residential tower. You would be required to pay a subsidized rent and will likely have a roommate from the hunter corps."
Noctar's stomach sank. A roommate. A complete stranger. Sharing a confined space that is meant to be personal. The idea was a special kind of hell for him. `Absolutely not.`
`// I could always just… reroute some funds,` S.A.R.A. suggested cheerfully. `// The Gaia financial network has firewalls, but they're adorable. Like a child's drawing of a wall. We could be trillionaires by lunch.`
`No,` Noctar thought firmly. `The moment we start illegally manipulating their systems for personal gain is the moment we become the virus. We're here to fix bugs, not create them.` His integrity, forged in the fires of being exploited in his past life, was a line he wouldn't cross.
His silence and slight grimace were answer enough for Ardyn. She slid a metallic business card across the desk. "Your skillset is… unique. The Developers Guild deals with technomancers and system-affiliated awakeners. They might have resources and housing more suited to your needs. Contact them when you're ready to join them."
It was a dismissal. A graceful way to push the problem onto someone else. Ardyn went back to typing on her keyboard her dismissal final.
Noctar looked at her keenly one last time before he leaned over, took the card and stood, giving a curt nod to the beautiful woman. "Thank you for your assistance."
He turned and left, walking away calmly, the door hissing shut behind him, leaving Ardyn alone in the sterile silence of her office.
Her eyes lingered on the space where he had been. Her instincts, sharpened by a decade of weeding out deception and danger, were humming. He had lied. Not about everything, but about something core.
The 200th-floor comment, the way he carried himself, not like a traumatized survivor, but like a displaced king, it didn't add up. An S-Rank was a strategic asset, a potential weapon that could shift the balance of a city's defense. But a lying, unaccountable S-Rank was a walking cataclysm.
She would grant him his leash for now. Let the Developers Guild keep an eye on him should he join them. But she would be watching, too. Ardyn Vermont made a silent vow to herself to find out what the handsome, impossible man named Noctar Ville was really debugging.