"H-He had an unfortunate accident yesterday," Mira explained, trying to stop herself from crying again. "H-he's at the hospital now."
"Huh?" Nael's eyes widened in shock. "Uncle got into an accident?!"
He paused, taking on a concerned tone. "Is he fine? Do you need help? I can-"
"N-No, it's fine now," she interrupted quickly, but her voice cracked on the words.
"Then why are you still crying?" Nael asked worriedly, studying her face. "You're still hiding something."
Mira's composure finally crumbled. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks as she buried her face in her hands.
"W-we... we used all our money on the hospital bills," she whispered through her sobs. "The treatments, the healing, the medicines, everything was so expensive... We used all our money... Even... even the Awakening Fee."
"!" Mira's confession hit Nael like a physical blow.
And everything became crystal clear.
The Awakening Fee was substantial - a requirement for participation in the ceremony. Without it, Mira couldn't even step onto the platform, no matter how desperately she wanted to discover her class.
'This...'
Nael knew how important this was to her.
'...They have been saving it for a long time...' He recalled.
Her future, her family's hope of rising from their poverty - it all hinged on today. The crushing weight of her situation was a far greater burden than any Common Class scorn.
She would stay as... Mundane.
'...'
In Arathorne, being Mundane was a sentence worse than death in many ways. Those without Classes were relegated to the bottom rung of society - cleaning jobs, manual labor, street sweeping, waste disposal, and so on. The pay was abysmal, barely enough to survive on. The work was mostly dangerous, degrading, and offered no path forward.
Obviously, finding decent work was nearly impossible, especially for women who had faced even harsher discrimination. Most would end up as tavern wenches, street vendors, servants to the wealthy, or worse... trapped in occupations that slowly crushed their spirits and bodies.
They couldn't own businesses, couldn't join guilds, couldn't even marry into decent families. Society saw them as genetic failures, burdens who contributed nothing of value.
The social scorn was relentless and inescapable. Mundane individuals were treated like walking reminders of what happened when fate abandoned you.
They were the invisible citizens, overlooked in conversations, pushed aside in the streets, their opinions deemed irrelevant. They built the city that the Awakened ruled.
That's exactly why everyone, no matter how desperately poor, scraped together every last copper for the Awakening Fee. Because even the most basic Common class, even a simple Farmer or Labourer, granted you fundamental human dignity. It meant you had potential for growth, for leveling up, maybe even for evolving your class someday.
It meant you were somebody instead of nobody.
"..." Nael remembered visiting Mira's modest home, seeing how her family had sacrificed everything for years. Her father worked brutal double shifts at the shipping docks, her mother took in washing and mending until her fingers bled...
Every luxury foregone, every meal simplified, every comfort abandoned... all for this single moment that would determine their daughter's entire future.
"..." Nael gritted his teeth from cursing out loud.
Because now, in the cruelest twist of fate, that very hope had been their very undoing. The money painstakingly saved for her future had been spent to save her father's present.
Their bid for a better life had been consumed by the desperate need to preserve the one they had.
A single incident. A moment of misfortune. And years of hope crumbled to dust.
The timing was the cruelest part of all — so tantalizingly close to salvation, yet now impossibly out of reach.
"Mira..." Nael extended his hand toward her, intending to offer some comfort, but stopped himself mid-gesture. He realized it would be inappropriate and could be misunderstood.
Instead, he let his hand drop to the side.
'!'
It was then that an idea struck him like lightning.
'What if...?'
He glanced at his old Arconometer on his wrist and tapped its surface, checking his balance. The faded numbers glowed softly: 2307 Credits.
The Awakening Fee was 200 gold sovereigns or 2000 silver crowns, which equaled exactly 2000 credits in the modern banking system.
He had just enough. Barely, but enough.
Nael paused, his mind racing through the implications. This was his entire inheritance - everything his parents had left him. His safety net, his emergency fund, his only cushion against the harsh realities of being an orphan in this world.
'...If I give this up... I'll be left with almost nothing... But if I don't... She won't have a future...'
But looking at Mira's tear-strained face, Nael's doubts were washed away, the decision crystallizing with startling clarity.
"No," he said firmly, causing her to look up in confusion. "You can still do it. I'll help you."
Mira glanced at him with bewilderment, a sliver of desperate hope mixing with her confusion. "W-What do you mean?"
Nael smiled, the expression more genuine than any he'd worn all day. "Don't you know? I have a small inheritance left by my parents. It's more than enough to cover your Awakening Fee. Let's go, I'll pay for it."
"E-Eh?" Mira's eyes widened in shock as she shook her head vigorously. "N-No, I can't accept it! It's your only money. I-If you do it, you will be left with nothing!"
Nael chuckled, finding her reaction exactly what he'd expected. "That's right, and I'm going to use it on you. After all, it's for me to decide what to do with my own money, right?"
Under Mira's complicated gaze—torn between gratitude, guilt, and disbelief—he urged her to stand up.
"I'm going to pay it even if you don't go, so you might as well make use of it."
The words seemed to break something inside her. Mira suddenly burst into fresh tears, but these were different, tears of overwhelming relief and gratitude.
"Now, why are-!"
Swoosh!
Without warning, Mira threw herself at Nael, wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly as if he might disappear. She constantly muttered his name, saying thank you.
"!"
Nael froze in shock, his body going rigid at the unexpected contact. But he didn't push her away.
'...'
Slowly, he brought his hand up and patted her head gently, not saying a word, simply letting her pour out all her fear and despair.
"Hick... Hick..."
"Hm..."
After what felt like an eternity and no time at all, her sobs subsided into shaky breaths.
"..!"
As if suddenly realizing what she'd done, she hurriedly let go of him, scrambling back. Her eyes were wide, her ears and face flushed in brilliant, embarrassed red.
'Cute,' Nael thought to himself, fighting back a smile.
He pretended to look away tactfully, then pulled out a clean handkerchief and offered it to her.
"Come on," he said softly. "Let's go make your dreams come true."
'If fate won't give you a chance... then I will.'