SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 219: Inherited Weight

The trees gave way to light.

We broke through the last knot of jungle just as dawn started bleeding into the sky—pale gold soaking into the ocean like spilled tea. My legs ached. My ribs felt like they’d been stitched together by a blind god. But I was walking. Still moving.

Sienna saw us first.

She was halfway down the beach before I could say a word, stumbling through sand and wind like she didn’t care about anything except what was in front of her.

Me.

"Rey—"

I caught her before she collided with my ribs. Barely.

Her arms wrapped around my neck. I hissed softly—pain, not regret—and she squeezed tighter. Her voice cracked near my ear. "You made it back."

"Yeah," I whispered back, "I promised I would."

Camille and Alexis weren’t far behind us. The second Sienna pulled back, they moved in—both at once, arms flung around her like magnets snapping home. Camille made a sound between a sob and a laugh, then punched my arm.

Hard.

"You don’t get to collapse on the ground in front of a camera-wielding cave cryptid just because you missed us."

"Nice to see you too," I muttered, even as Alexis pushed past Camille and started checking my pulse like a paramedic mid-mutiny.

"You’re flushed," she said.

"Jungle does that."

"And you’re dehydrated."

"Nothing a coma won’t fix."

She sighed and shook her head. "Rey, you still are a reckless idiot with no system to back you up in the slightest."

"Technically, I’m only an idiot. I can’t be called reckless if I went over this with Evelyn and Sienna."

Camille grinned. "At least you’re self-aware now."

Behind us, The scarred woman stepped quietly onto the sand, blinking against the morning light like she hadn’t seen it in weeks. Which, to be fair, might have been true.

Evelyn stood just ahead, staff in hand, head tilted toward the sound of our approach. Her blindfold was still tied.

She didn’t move until we were close enough to hear the shift in her breath.

"All four of you here?" she asked.

"Actually there’s five of us," I said.

The word lingered. Camille glanced over her shoulder. Alexis moved slightly to the side. The figure behind us paused.

Sienna turned slowly.

The island dweller stood there, shoulders half-hunched, scars catching the light like calligraphy etched into skin. Her blade was sheathed, for now. Her eyes scanned the group like she wasn’t sure which one might shoot first.

Camille stepped beside her. "Everyone—this is Subject 3830."

The name landed like a dropped plate.

Evelyn’s expression didn’t change, but her voice did. "From NovaCore?"

3830 didn’t respond.

She didn’t need to.

Sienna moved in front of me instinctively, her arm blocking my chest like she could shield me from a ghost.

I stepped around her.

Camille was already explaining—how 3830 had helped them, how she’d been living in a shelter, hiding from whoever she thought might come next. She told them about the ruined camera, the handmade traps, the mechanical hum in the dark.

"She thought we were retrieval," Alexis added. "Government or whatever other organization."

3830’s eyes didn’t blink. She just watched us all like data points.

I moved closer, watching her back.

And I reached for the interface.

My System.

My Scan skill.

Nothing.

The silence behind my eyes was deafening. Still deactivated. Still useless.

I hissed under my breath and lowered my hand. ƒrēenovelkiss.com

Camille noticed. "Trying to Scan her?"

"She’s a Subject. I wanted to know what they gave her."

"You’re not the only one wondering," Alexis muttered.

I took a seat by the firepit, motioning slowly to the side of my ribs. "Camille, if you have a spare mug of hot jungle water, I won’t complain."

She handed me a palm cup. "No mug this time. She only had two and she’s keeping one."

Of course she did.

The camp had settled, but only in the way a lake might freeze while the current underneath still surged—tense, shallow, waiting to break. The fire crackled quietly, but no one leaned in. No one relaxed.

The tension still hung in the air like wet cloth clinging to skin. Heavy. Itched with anticipation.

Evelyn sat motionless, her blindfold unmoving but her posture alert. You could almost hear the wheels grinding behind her calm. She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to.

Sienna was beside me, but her focus was elsewhere. Her hand rested on my thigh like a tether, like she could stop me from standing if she needed to. Or maybe like she’d lunge forward first, if it came to that. Her gaze was locked not on me—but just beyond.

Subject 3830 hadn’t sat down. Not even a shuffle toward the fire.

She stood there, half in shadow, half in the pink-blue wash of morning. Close enough to be part of the group.

But not in it.

Not really.

And she was watching.

Not the group.

Not the fire.

Me.

Her gaze wasn’t curious. It wasn’t wary. It was surgical. Methodical.

She tilted her head slightly, then back. Her eyes moved not with wonder but precision. Her pupils tracking motion. My posture. The way my ribs strained slightly when I breathed. The tight clench of my shoulder. My grip on the strap of my satchel.

I knew that look.

Not because I recognized her.

Because I’d made that face before.

The tiniest muscle twitches. The adjustment of weight from one foot to another. Blink patterns. Vein dilation.

This wasn’t curiosity.

It wasn’t suspicion.

It was an assessment.

Not of what I was—but of what I could do.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose slowly, almost respectfully.

She wasn’t guessing. She wasn’t observing.

She was scanning.

I turned, slowly, meeting her eyes.

Then I said it aloud, my voice low but steady.

"You have Scan, don’t you?"

Camille’s head turned instantly. Alexis’s followed half a second behind.

3830 didn’t respond.

She didn’t need to.

Her only movement was the brief flick of her gaze—to my left arm, where Sienna’s ribbon still fluttered faintly in the breeze. Then to the bruising under my shirt, the pack by my hip, the favoring of my left leg.

And I understood.

I knew the order of operations. Vital signs. Movement compensation. Environmental stress readout.

"She’s doing it right now," I said louder, not to her—but to the others. "She’s reading me like a dossier."

Evelyn’s brow furrowed beneath the edge of her blindfold. One hand flexed slightly around her staff.

Alexis leaned forward, confused. "What’s the problem? People read body language all the time. Lie Detection, Pattern Recognition, Social Engineering. It’s not like she’s—"

"—reading my skills," I cut in. My voice was sharper now. "Jobs. Abilities. She’s using something like Scan."

Camille drew a slow breath. "She’s not just a Subject. She’s one of the enhanced ones. The post-3811 line."

Sienna’s brows pulled together. "That means she—"

"—has a Job Title," I said.

The words sat between us like flint on dry stone.

I looked up at her again.

Subject 3830 stared back.

And for the first time, something flickered behind her mismatched eyes.

Not hostility.

Not paranoia.

Recognition.

Her expression didn’t shift much, but it was there. A subtle tightening around the jaw. A narrowing of her working eye. Like something she hadn’t been sure of had just clicked into place.

She stepped forward.

The group stilled as one.

Even the fire seemed to hold its breath.

Her bare feet moved across the dirt with the kind of silent certainty that only came from long, hunted years. She wasn’t careless. She wasn’t threatening. She was... confirming.

She stopped in front of me. Not too close. But closer than I wanted her with a blade strapped to her thigh.

Her voice, when it came, was hoarse and low. Like it had to pass through too many broken pieces to get out.

"What’s your name?"

I hesitated.

"Reynard."

She tilted her head again.

A pause.

Then, quieter. Heavier.

"Last name."

It was like the wind died.

No one moved.

Sienna turned her head slowly to me. Camille’s jaw tensed. Alexis’s eyes were fixed on mine.

Even Evelyn sat straighter, hands curling just slightly on her knees.

I swallowed.

"...Vale."

The sound of it felt sharp in my mouth.

The blade in her hand didn’t rise—but her fingers closed around it tighter, like she needed to feel the weight of it just in case.

Her stare cut right through me.

Then, flatly. Coldly:

"That better be a coincidence."

My lungs didn’t move.

Her hand twitched once on the hilt of the blade.

She stepped forward one more pace. The tip of the knife dipped just slightly—not raised, not threatening. But there.

"It better be a coincidence," she said again, voice harder now, "that you have the same last name as Hugo Vale."

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