After Red Hound finished his briefing, Bureau employees moved through the gymnasium and began distributing tablets to every awakened person.

The room gradually quieted as dozens of men and women settled into folding chairs arranged across the polished floor. Fingers tapped against glass while officials moved between the rows, answering questions and making sure everyone understood the instructions.

Luke studied the first question on his screen.

What desire drove you to enter Powerforge Online?

The wording looked simple, but the explanation behind it had unsettled much of the room. According to the awakening response team, skills did not transfer into reality at random. Each ability appeared to be connected to something buried deep within its owner, shaped by an ambition, obsession, fear, or desire strong enough to influence how that person behaved inside the game.

Using those abilities reliably in real life required understanding the conditions tied to them. Everyone had been instructed to answer honestly, even if that meant revealing something they had never admitted to anyone, perhaps not even themselves.

A broad-shouldered man sitting two rows ahead had been staring at the same question for several minutes. His thumbs hovered above the tablet, but he still had not typed anything. Beside him, a woman wrote a few words, deleted them, and started over for what had to be the fourth time.

Farther across the gymnasium, someone quietly asked whether participation in the training project was mandatory.

"No," a Bureau employee replied. "You can withdraw at any point."

The reassurance did little to calm anyone. Several people exchanged worried looks, while one man pushed himself out of his chair, muttered that he needed air, and headed toward the exit. Another remained seated with his face buried in his hands.

Their hesitation made sense to Luke. Some people entered games to escape their families or jobs. Others wanted money, fame, revenge, or a place where no one could look down on them. Writing those desires down meant handing them over to the government and admitting they still mattered.

His own answer came easily.

[I entered the game world to become strong enough that no one could bully me and to gain the experience I needed to protect Lauren.]

Luke read the sentence once, then paused with his thumb above the screen. Everything he had written was true, but it left too much unsaid.

He had hated being powerless long before meeting Lauren. He remembered lowering his head, swallowing his anger, and allowing stronger people to decide what happened to him. Powerforge Online had given him a place where effort mattered and weakness did not have to last forever.

At first, becoming stronger had been enough. Then Lauren entered his life and gave that strength a purpose.

He added another line.

[Now I want to keep growing stronger so I can stay beside her and protect the people who matter to her.]

Before submitting the answer, his thoughts shifted to Lauren’s daughters.

Luke had never met them in person. He knew their faces from photographs, but not how they spoke, what they were like away from hero work, or whether they would accept him standing beside their mother. Lauren had lived an entire life before meeting him, and her daughters were a huge part of it.

Since they mattered to her, they mattered to him too.

Maybe one day he would need to protect them. Lauren’s desire could eventually pull all of them into something far more dangerous than a ruined café or a strange awakening incident, but Luke had no way to know what waited ahead. He could accept that uncertainty more easily than the possibility of failing her when she needed him.

After pressing the confirmation button, he watched his answer disappear beneath a message confirming that it had been submitted for evaluation.

The man ahead of him was still struggling with his response, typing several words before grimacing and erasing them again. Luke leaned back and released a quiet breath.

His own desire felt straightforward. He wanted strength so no one could control or humiliate him again, but more importantly, he wanted enough of it to protect Lauren and remain at her side.

Thinking about her drew his attention toward the chair beside him.

Lauren held her tablet between both hands. She had already finished, which surprised him, though the pressure of her fingers against the edges suggested the answers had not come easily.

A troubled look remained on her face as she stared at the completion screen, almost as though the questionnaire had forced her to admit something she would have preferred to keep hidden.

When she noticed him watching, she turned.

"Luke..." Lauren whispered, leaning closer even though the gymnasium was quiet enough for him to hear her. "I may have two conditions for activating my powers."

He blinked. "Two?"

She nodded, and his attention dropped toward the tablet in her hands, though her answers were no longer visible.

"That’s good, right?" he asked.

Lauren pressed her lips together. The faint color already rising across her cheeks made him suspicious.

That expression usually meant trouble.

After checking the officials moving between the rows and the awakened seated nearby, she leaned close enough for her hair to brush his shoulder. Her breath warmed his ear.

"One of my desires is obvious," she whispered. "I want to protect my daughters."

Luke nodded. Protecting them was probably the strongest desire she had.

"The other one is more troublesome."

The way she remained close sent a nervous pull through his stomach. "What is it?"

Her blush deepened before she answered.

"A part of me truly wanted to do naughty things with you while we were inside the game," she whispered. "So I think at least some of my powers may be connected to you."

Luke forgot to breathe.

Heat rushed across his face and down his neck. Before he could answer, Lauren straightened, placed both hands neatly over the tablet, and turned toward the front of the gymnasium with the composed expression of someone who had said nothing unusual.

The color in her cheeks ruined the act. It also made her look even more innocent, which only made the confession worse.

For a moment, Luke wondered whether he had misunderstood her. Then she glanced at him from the corner of her eye, and the amusement there confirmed everything.