SSS Awakening : I can Adapt to Everything-Chapter 17: Gate Training Facility

Hide walked to the door and a robotic hand presented itself in front of him. The screen had a message that read.

[Please Place your Exterminator Ring to Verify]

Hide lifted his arm with the ring and placed it on the screen. The screen glowed green and the doors hissed open automatically. Revealing a desk with a cute lady and two guards with her. He stepped in and walked to the counter.

The lady stood up and bowed down. "Welcome to the Public Gate training facility 7. How can I help you?"

"Uh... I am here for..." Hide was lost what to say. He had never been to a gate training facility ever before and faced with the question he could not think of what to say.

’Should I just say I want to kill calamity beasts? Uh, no that sounds weird.’ He was lost in his thoughts when the lady cleared her throat and looked at her monitor.

She smiled and started. "So, as I can see you are a recently awakened Exterminator. Mr. Hide Volter. Am I correct?"

"Yes"

"Can I please see your permit, or entry card." she asked.

Hide reached into his pocket and pulled out the card that Kai had given him. He placed the card on the desk and pushed it towards the lady.

She took the card and nodded, then sat to do some entry into her computer.

The guards were looking at him and he looked back at them, they were wide man in a grey uniforms with and insignia of number 7 on their chests and the expression of someone who had been here for very long time and expected to keep doing so until they retired or died.

The lady was done with her entries by that time and then handed the card back to hide with a smile.

"General access, two-entry permit," she repeated, stamping something in a ledger that Hide had not expected anyone to still use. "No affiliation on file. Are you solo?"

"Yes," Hide said.

The lady picked up a radio and keyed it without breaking eye contact. "Front desk. Need a Helper at Gate One. Unaffiliated, solo entry, first visit." She set the radio down and bowed once again. "Someone will be with you in a minute. Wait by the inner door."

Hide followed to the inner door, he was led by one of the guards and waited there.

He counted forty seconds.

Then the inner door burst open.

The person who came through it was still adjusting his lanyard with one hand, holding a clipboard with the other, and reading something on that clipboard while walking, which was why he didn’t see the small barrier step at the door threshold and caught his foot on it hard enough to pitch forward two full steps before catching himself on the wall. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

The clipboard hit the floor.

Several papers slid out from under the clip and fanned themselves across the entrance hall in a quiet, graceful arc.

The young man — maybe nineteen, thin, with a mess of brown hair and a Facility 7 Helper badge that still had the plastic protective film on it looked at the papers on the floor, then at Hide, then at the papers again.

"That," he stammered with a smile, "happens less than it looks like it does."

He crouched and gathered the papers with the speed of someone trying to establish that this had been resolved and should not be discussed further.

"I’m Toma," he said, standing back up, papers in hand, lanyard now backwards. "I’m your Helper for today. And tomorrow if you come back. Since you have a two-entry permit." He flipped the lanyard around. "Welcome to Gate Training Facility 7. First time?"

"Yes," Hide nodded.

"Great, yeah, I can tell. Not an insult. Most first-timers stand exactly where you’re standing and look at things the same way." He gestured toward the main floor beyond the inner door. "Come on, I’ll do the walkthrough on the way in. There’s a lot but I’ll keep it efficient."

He held the inner door open as Hide walked through.

The inside of the dome was larger than the outside had suggested.

The whole place was divided into five different zones. There were countless machines and guards around each one of the five zones. The zones were covered with indestructible glass membranes.

And within each one of these glass Zones there was a swirling black, purple, green and red mass of energy. Constantly eating and releasing weird particles.

"Those..." Toma pointed, looking at Hide’s gaze and started. "Are condensed Mana particles. They are small for now, but in a month they would turn into life stones. Life stones as you are familiar with are used for awakening process."

Hide nodded, having learned a new fact, then walked further down the corridor.

Toma walked alongside Hide and talked.

He talked the way some people breathed, continuously and without apparent effort.

"Okay so, rules first. No weapons drawn outside the designated zones, that’s just basic. Don’t approach the gate glass without clearance, even if the zone looks empty, especially if it looks empty. If you hear the alarm tone — the low one, two pulses, then stop what you’re doing and find a staff member immediately. The high tone means leave the floor. The continuous tone means you’re probably already having a bad day."

"Understood,"

"Equipment can be borrowed from the Inner armory with your permit card. Though you will have to pay a security amount for each one. Armour, weapons, basic support gear. The staff are pretty fair about it." Toma checked something on his clipboard. "You haven’t registered a talent or class ability on file."

"No," Hide said.

"That’s fine. We get a lot of that. Some people prefer not to register until they’re affiliated with an agency." He glanced sideways at Hide. "I won’t ask."

He thought about something and then suddenly his face lit up. "Oh I almost forgot. You are not affiliated with any agency and you awakened recently. So, most probably you don’t have the basic understanding about the gate structures and Rank system. Also about the Calamity beast ranks."

"Yes, I don’t know much." Hide admitted.

"Great..." Toma cheered up and showed Hide to a rest area. This place was like a cafeteria where there were a lot of people eating and resting.

They walked to an empty seat and sat down. "Uh, so as a helper I am supposed to tell you everything before we proceed with the actual thing. So, let’s start with the basics."