The worst-case scenarios flashed through their mind—the cold faces of the Inquisitorial Tribunal, Balthasar's vicious grin, or the furious, all-knowing glare of the exam proctor. The brief relief from successfully aiding Anna vanished, their nerves pulled taut once more by icy fear.
However, when the figure stomped fully into the room, emerging from the doorway's shadows, Erika froze in surprise.
It wasn't the imposing aura of a high cleric or the grim presence of a Golden Guard. The man wore a deep grey brother's robe, slightly worn, even stained with grease and what looked like energy burns at the cuffs and hem. His sleeves were rudely rolled up, revealing wrists marked by old tool-calluses and a fresh, red mark resembling a minor energy arc splash. He was young, but a deep furrow was permanently etched between his brows, his face bearing the ingrained irritability and exhaustion of someone chronically overworked, dealing with endless petty malfunctions and pressure from above. A bulging tool bag hung from his belt, from which protruded several peculiar calibrators and multi-probe interfaces flickering with unstable energy light.
A low-tier technical brother—the bottom rung of the Sanctum's ladder, responsible for maintaining energy channels and facility operations!
The man didn't even grant the rigidly standing Erika a proper glance, treating them like a piece of inconvenient furniture. His target was clear. He strode directly to the miniature Eternal Circuit in the room's center, dropped into a crouch with practiced ease, and, treating the device like a misbehaving machine, deftly inserted a probe into the hidden interface on the base—the very one Erika had tampered with. Glaring at a palm-sized tablet scrolling with complex data streams, he muttered angrily, his voice thick with the resentment of someone burdened with extra work:
"Knew it! The signal source triangulated right here, this room again! The energy fluctuation log is jumping around like a dying fish! The Silent One protocol's been triggered abnormally in quick succession—the logs are practically clogged with your 'low-level anomaly' flags!" He jerked his head up, finally fixing Erika with a bloodshot, sleep-deprived gaze full of pure reproach, brandishing the tablet now glowing an angry red.
"Well? What in the blazes have you been doing in here? Do you have any idea how much extra burden your constant messing about puts on the maintenance crew, how it drags down our sector's 'Energy Stability' rating? If a critical channel node overloads and burns out because of your reckless fluctuations, do you think you can bear the responsibility?! And when the higher-ups come asking, guess who gets the—"
His tirade cut off abruptly.
It was only at this moment that the harried, low-level brother truly, clearly looked at the "culprit" standing before him.
His initial assumption had been that anyone capable of causing such energy anomalies in a chamber of this level must be at least a full cleric, perhaps even some eccentric high-ranking individual. He had been prepared for a dressing-down or having to grovel while cleaning up the mess—technical brothers were naturally subordinate to the clergy in the Sanctum's rigid hierarchy.
The person standing before him, however, was no imposing cleric.
It was just a lanky youth, their face pale from mental exertion. The eyes looking back at him held a residue of shock and a dazed confusion from his shouting.
A… kid?
How could a kid possibly have independent access to this Mark-Forging Hall? It was against regulations!
The anger and impatience on the technical brother's face froze, morphing into a deeper, more perplexed scrutiny mingled with disbelief. He looked from Erika, back to the still-flickering circuit recording anomalous data, and back again, his frown deepening.
The tension in the air didn't dissipate, but its nature shifted subtly—from simple accusation to a more disquieting puzzle.
"You…" the brother's voice dropped unconsciously, laced with incredulous suspicion, "...who are you? What are you doing here?"
The technical brother's sharp eyes caught the still-"fresh" Auric Mark on the back of the boy's left hand. His eyes flickered, but he wisely didn't comment. In the Holy Sanctum, knowing too much, saying too much, was never wise. He maintained his grumbling, overworked persona, his hands never stopping their inspection of the channel interface, but the thrust of his words shifted subtly.
"Tch, kid, you don't look like… ah, forget it." He lowered his voice, adopting a tone of shared, weary understanding. "Look, if some 'dignitary' threatened you, sent you here to pilfer a core unit…" He sighed, the sound full of the resignation of one who existed to clean up after others' messes. "You know how it is for folks like me. We do the Sanctum's dirtiest, hardest work, spending all day wiping the backsides of a bunch of rule-breaking, reckless fools…"
He sighed again, as if giving up on deeper inquiry, and rummaged in his tool bag. He pulled out a palm-sized, slightly tarnished but structurally intact backup miniature circuit. He weighed it in his hand for a moment, then casually shoved it into Erika's grasp.
"...Take it. It's not like the cost for repairs and 'material depletion' comes out of my pocket, anyway. Honestly, it's because of these clueless types messing things up, and fewer and fewer people willing to do proper channel maintenance these days… tch…" He shook his head, focusing on his repairs as if merely handling a routine, minor nuisance.
Erika held the slightly cool backup circuit, momentarily at a loss. This was unlike any scenario they had anticipated.
The technical brother, still not looking up, offered one last, muttered piece of advice, his voice so quiet it was almost to himself, yet clearly meant for Erika's ears. "Right, well… it's not the first time I've 'misplaced' a spare part. This one was meant to replace an older model. You can have it. But listen, kid…" He finally lifted his gaze, giving Erika a quick, meaningful look. "Don't be a fool and hand a fully charged circuit straight over to whatever cleric put you up to this. Keep some of the energy for yourself…" He looked pointedly at Erika's thin frame. "...Otherwise, when you're drained, body broken, and tossed aside, guess who has to come and clean that up too? Got it?"
The words were framed as a complaint about his own workload, but the hint of clumsy, well-hidden concern tucked within them struck a chord in Erika.
He hadn't exposed Erika's identity. He hadn't demanded the truth. He had even "provided" a motive and the "stolen goods" for this fictional theft, deftly defusing a potentially disastrous situation using the unspoken rules understood by those at the bottom.
Erika tightened their grip on the circuit and murmured, "...Got it."
The technical brother said no more, concentrating on stabilizing the channels disrupted by Erika's earlier actions. The only sounds in the chamber were the faint clinks of tools and the low hum of settling energy.
Looking at this stranger covered in grease and grime, Erika felt a complex mix of emotions. In this brilliant yet merciless Holy Sanctum, they seemed to have stumbled upon someone who, while not an ally, was another soul subtly navigating the cracks in the system—a faint, unexpected echo of their own struggle.
He looked down at the backup circuit in their hand. A vague plan began to take shape. This thing might be more useful than he'd thought.
The technical brother had just tightened the last interface when an inconspicuous square runestone on his belt vibrated violently, emitting a stuttering, harsh red light. He snatched it up with a grunt, his eyes scanning the message, and a curse ripped from his throat.
"Goddamn it! The energy channels at East Gate Watchtower Three are reporting an overload fault again! Have those gate-blocking idiots been plugging their personal anima-devices into the defense matrix to siphon power again?!" He surged to his feet, his tool bag clattering.
He gathered his gear hastily and, before leaving, shot a final glare at Erika. His finger jabbed pointedly in their direction—or more precisely, at the backup circuit in their hand.
"Remember what I said, kid! Get smart!" he urged, his voice tight with urgency. "Don't end up a corpse without knowing why, and drag me out of bed in the middle of the night to clean up your mess!"
Without waiting for a response, he stormed out of the chamber, his heavy footsteps and grumbled complaints fading swiftly down the corridor. "...Not a moment's peace... short-staffed and playing nursemaid... this bloody job, I swear..."
Silence reclaimed the chamber, broken only by the low, steady hum of stabilized energy flow. Erika stood alone, the cold weight of the backup circuit stark against his palm.
He didn't linger. Tucking the circuit carefully into an inner fold of his robe, they swiftly departed. Back in his own small, spartan temporary quarters, with the door locked firmly behind him, the world finally felt quiet.
Exhaustion slammed into he. He collapsed onto the hard pallet, his body feeling like a sack of loose bones. The mental drain was far heavier than any physical fatigue. Eyes open, he stared at the familiar-yet-alien, meaningless patterns on the ceiling. The events of the day crashed over he in a disorienting flood:
The High Priest Hongbo, displaying the severed head of a black-clad cleric and those disturbing experimental images within the great cathedral; Cecilia's inhuman predicament and the enigma of the Energy Feedback.
Balthasar, with the blindfolded sister in tow, callously extinguishing a Mark before the crowd, and later, the crushing grip on his wrist, the scornful inspection, the verdict of "too weak."
Wolfgang's severe warning, Kaelen's loaded hints, the terrifying implications of "paired assignments" and "backup batteries."
The fractured, panicked sound of Anna's plea for help, and his own heart-pounding, desperate gamble—"summoning" the Silent One under immense pressure to orchestrate cross-examination hall cheating.
And finally, the grimy, cursing technical brother who, against all odds, hadn't exposed them, but had instead given him a backup circuit and a vague, gruff warning...
Conspiracy. Threat. Fear. Struggle. Humiliation. And a thread of undefined, faint kindness from a stranger... It all swirled together into a sickening churn, making his head throb, his temples pulsing with a dull ache.
he raised their left hand, gazing at the Auric Mark. It was a key to power, a shackle of bondage, the cold scale by which the likes of Balthasar measured their worth.
"Too weak..." they whispered to the empty room. The words were seared into their mind, a brand alongside the Mark.
he knew, with a certainty that settled deep in their bones, that he could no longer drift passively, surviving on luck in the cracks between competing powers. he had to understand this world's rules faster, grasp greater power—whether to uncover the truth, to protect Anna, or simply to... live with some semblance of dignity in this brutal world.
His fist clenched. The Mark grew warm against his skin. The chaotic turmoil within began to harden, replaced by a chill resolve.
When the sun rose tomorrow, he would have to move.