After about a 10 minute walk, Austin arrived in front of the massive Crawler’s Association HQ.
The building towered over its surroundings, dominating the landscape, however its size was dwarfed by its purpose. This building housed the regulating body for all Crawler activities in this region of the U.S, and there were undoubtedly thousands of personnel inside.
"Just act natural, I’m just some dude who recently got stronger, that’s all." Austin repeated this mantra as he nervously approached the sliding glass doors marking the entrance to the building.
He looked up at the large digital clock dominating the foyer, it read “Thursday, 11:39 AM.”
"Guess that means I was asleep for 3 days in that hospital…" Austin realized he hadn’t checked the date since he had been awoken by Dr. Jacobs earlier that morning.
"Earlier this morning…" he continued to bewilder himself. It had felt like much longer to him, but since it seemed time didn’t pass in that pocket dimension it really had only been a couple of hours since he had awoken.
Shaking off all of these thoughts, Austin approached the central desk, where a single young lady with tired eyes sat.
“Welcome to the Crawler’s Association, how can I help you?” The words came out of her mouth like they had been rehearsed thousands of times before.
“I, ummm,” Austin stammered. He may have been stronger than he was a few days ago, but he certainly was no better with people. “I want my Crawler rank to be re-evaluated.” He stated, with as much authority as he could muster, as he handed over his identification card to her.
The woman perked up a bit at his statement, she then looked at the card he handed her and typed something into her computer.
She looked at him and spoke with a hint of laughter behind her words, like she thought he was playing some hilarious joke, “Alright, what rank are you currently?” She asked, her tone almost patronizing.
“I’m unranked currently, a 1-Star Conduit.” Austin said, embarrassment creeping in.
“Young man,” She began, “You do know that if you are evaluated and your rank hasn’t changed the Association will have to charge you a fee, correct.” She was no longer hiding her discontent with what she must have considered a waste of her time.
“Y-Yes, I’m aware of the consequences.” Austin stammered, knowing all too well the price he’d be charged should his rank remain unchanged.
The woman reached across her desk and picked up her phone, spoke quietly into it, and placed it back on the receiver.
“Someone will be down shortly to evaluate you.” After these words were spoken, it was like Austin no longer existed to her, she simply turned back to her computer and ignored him.
Austin went and sat down on one of the couches in what seemed like the waiting area, and after a brief wait a burly man in a black suit approached him.
“You the kid who wants to be evaluated?” The man said gruffly.
“Y-yeah.” Austin responded in a meek tone.
“Follow.” The man barked, turning on his heel and walking away without checking to see if Austin was complying with his order.
The two of them entered a large, open room that looked like a basketball court save the goals on the wall. As they entered, the door slid closed behind them and the man walked over to a weapon rack next to a large button on the wall.
“What type of fighter are you?” he asked.
“Melee.” Austin responded.
“Catch.” The man said as he tossed a wooden practice sword, about the same size as Austin’s new longsword at him.
Austin caught it without any difficulty thanks to his newfound stat increases and took up a combat stance, already knowing what was to come.
As the gruff man pressed the button, a training dummy popped out of the floor.
Austin had a bewildered look on his face, “Where’s the robot?” He asked out loud.
“You don’t look like you’re worth it, so first you gotta get past this test.” the man replied, matter of factly.
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Last time he tried to get evaluated, he had to fight a humanoid robot that tracked scores such as how hard he hit, how many times it hit him, and other things like that.
Apparently this time, he wasn’t worth the trouble.
“The dummy is rigged with sensors, hit it hard enough and you can fight the bot.” The man retorted, seemingly already bored.
Austin sighed, readied himself again, and charged the dummy with all the strength he had.
The gruff man’s eyes popped open, “That kid’s way faster than he looks... “ he muttered to himself.
When Austin’s sword collided with the dummy, it’s head exploded in a shower of stuffing and cloth, leaving the suited man speechless.
"Wow. I invested all my bonus points into strength, but I had no idea it was this much!" Austin was amazed with himself, and a little bit prideful.
“You- umm- I- uhh.” The man was stammering just like Austin had at the beginning of this. Their roles were now swapped, and Austin was reveling in his newfound position.
Without saying anything else, the man looked down at the tablet he had with him, which was likely linked to the sensors in the dummy, and was further baffled. He pushed a button on it and the door slid open behind him.
Two men wearing what looked like janitor’s outfits hurried in and removed the wrecked dummy, and the gruff man stalked over to Austin.
“You destroyed the sensors before they could get an accurate reading of how hard you hit the thing…” he began. “How- according to our records, you didn’t even qualify to be a 1-Star. How the hell’d you get that strong since your eval a couple of months ago.”
Austin looked sheepishly at the man. He didn’t want to reveal the ability that Daniel had given him, so he gave a generic response. “I had a good teacher.”
It was technically true, and it wasn’t like the man was accusing Austin, so he let it go at that.
“I guess you get to fight the bot after all…” he muttered, returning to the observation area by the door.
“I’m ready.” Austin called out, re assuming his stance from before.
After the man pushed a button on his tablet, a humanoid form, about the same size as Austin, dropped from the same place that the dummy had.
The second it hit the ground, it charged at Austin, but to him it may as well have been taking a leisurely jog.
The robot that was so terrifyingly strong to him a few months ago when he tried this was now within his reach, and Austin was not going to pass up this opportunity for some small revenge against his past weakness.
He dashed forwards, parrying the haphazard blows the robot flung his way as he passed it. Just as he had done with the ants, he charged until he was behind the robot and struck at its exposed back.
It wouldn’t be as easy as it was with the simpleminded insects. When Austin went to strike, the robot’s torso pivoted and thrust its own sword out to parry.
When it met Austin’s full force strike, a loud crack resounded, and both of the swords splintered at the force. Austin didn’t let this stop his momentum, however, and spun. Using the shattered practice sword’s pommel as a bludgeon, he bashed the robot hard on its head.
He swung quickly, following each blow up before the robot had a chance to act. Each blow cracked its casing slightly, and after the fifth, the robot stopped moving entirely.
“Enough!” He heard the gruff man call out from the other side of the room.
“It’s been a while since someone trounced the bot so thoroughly…” he muttered to himself as he approached Austin.
Austin had a wide grin on his face as the man walked over. He tossed the destroyed remains of the sword to the ground next to him and turned towards the suited man.
“Mr. ummm-” He looked down at his tablet, “Mr. McKenna, please proceed back to the waiting area that I retrieved you from earlier, a representative will be out with your new Crawler card.”
“What rank will I be?” Austin asked excitedly, briefly forgetting about the secret that he wanted to keep.
“I-um-I’m not at liberty to say.” the man responded, looking nervously down at his tablet. All traces of his gruff persona from before were gone by this point.
Austin sat in the same spot he was in earlier when a tall man with red hair and a bespoke gray suit approached him.
“Mr. McKenna, I am Johnathan Young, head of the monitoring division here. I’d like to ask you a few questions before we give you your new identification.” A calm, cold voice from the man froze Austin in place.
"Did they figure me out?" Austin thought, beginning to panic.
“Until recently, you were not eligible to become a Crawler,” the man began, “A few days ago, you registered as a porter for an independent raid party lead by one ‘James Anderson.’ The raid went poorly, and you were the only survivor. After you awoke at the hospital, you came here and are suddenly several times stronger than previously. What did you do, young man?”
The question sent a chill through Austin’s already icy body. “I-um-I-uh.” He stammered for what felt like the millionth time today.
“Could it be perhaps that Mr. Anderson’s group allowed you to kill monsters in the dungeon to get stronger?” He threw Austin a lifeline, and he wholeheartedly grabbed onto it.
“Um, Yeah” Austin began, “Mr. Anderson would grab monsters and have me kill them as we went through the dungeon, he said he liked me and it was an ‘investment in a future member’ or something like that. When we reached the boss room, the group fought but were all killed, but they weakened the boss enough that I was able to attack it from behind while they had it distracted and finish it off.” Austin concocted this story rather quickly, but he hoped it would hold up to scrutiny.
“I will choose to believe you, for now. Mr. McKenna, your current abilities would place you at a 2-Star Crawler rank, but due to your seemingly amazing growth potential, we will place you at 3-Star right now.”
Austin couldn’t believe his ears, not only had his lie worked, but he was now a 3-Star Crawler, far beyond what he had hoped for.
Young continued, “Good luck, Mr. McKenna. I hope I don’t have cause to investigate you further.” as he finished speaking, he handed Austin a small plastic card with his new identification on it, and spun on his heel to walk away.
“Thank you!” Austin called out earnestly after him.
He exited the building and headed towards home. He truly was tired now, but his steps were lightened by his ecstatic mood.
"I’m gonna sleep for the night, and find a raid group tomorrow!" He thought eagerly. ‘I can’t believe I’m a 3-Star, groups will be falling over themselves for me to raid with them!’