Chapter Text
"My Name is Rico Martin."
The lady at the magic assessment table pushed up her glasses and typed a few things on a laptop she had nearby. After finishing her work, she looked up at Rico, "Thank you Sir. I will now need you to step inside the chamber. It will, as you are already aware, assess your magic level and what rank you are."
Rico just nodded at the lady, he had already been through this process several times before, as it was necessary for soldiers before being given a license to hunt the magic beasts that were trying to rip humanity into shreds. Rico began stepping into the chamber, but was stopped by the lady at the desk.
"Sir, if you could please drop your weapons before entering the chamber." Rico did as he was told and carefully laid all four of his weapons on a nearby wall. He stepped fully into the assessment chamber, knowing full well what was about to happen. The chamber created some lights, made some science-y noises, and eventually came to a calm stop. Rico stepped out of the chamber and waited for the same confused face that always awaited him after these assessments. Of course, when he looked towards the lady at the desk, she wore the exact expression Rico had expected.
The lady considered her words carefully, "It... says that you are F-rank? Would you try stepping into the machine one more time for me-"
Rico interrupted her. "Sorry, that shouldn't be necessary. I can promise you that I am, in fact, F-rank." He walked back over to his weapons and picked them up one by one and placed them where they belonged on his body. His Sword went into his sheathe on the left of his hip, the Katana went into the right hip sheathe, and then both the Long Bow and Guandao went onto his back. Most people when they saw Rico with his four weapons figured him to be insane, for not only would carrying many different weapons be completely unpractical, it would also heavily weigh you down and get in your way while fighting. Rico however, felt no heaviness from the weapons and never had any problems while fighting with them. His unit used to swear to him up and down that Rico's secret magic power was, 'the ability to carry 1000000 weapons at once' and that he wasn't tapping into his full potential by just carrying more than one.
The desk lady’s eyes seemed to dilate as she realized who this man in front of her really was. “I am…” it looked like her heart tightened at the thought of him. “So, very sorry about what happened.”
Of course. Everyone had heard about Unit 22. The unit that was attacked by the strongest evil force humanity had seen yet, and was completely wiped out by it. Save for one singular F-rank soldier who was spared. Rico was used to hearing thousands of apologies for the loss of his unit. He always appreciated them of course, it was far better than hearing how ‘lucky’ he was, or how he should be ‘grateful to the gods’ he was saved. Still, the word sorry barely felt like a word anymore with how much everyone said it to him.
Rico smiled. “It’s… well it’s not fine per say, but…” his smile turned faker and faker with each word he said. “I’m alright now.”
The lady cleared her throat and typed some final notes into her laptop. She tried to look at Rico, but ended up having to look a bit to the left of him. Rico couldn’t tell if it was because she felt terrible for him, or because it was hard to look at a failure without feeling like a failure yourself. The lady pushed up her glasses once more, “That is the final bit of legal business that must be done, you will of course have to attend the rally to officially be a soldier again.”
Rico nodded at her and thanked her for her time before walking out of the office he had been stuck in for the last hour or so.
After about 5 minutes of walking, Rico finally found the waiting room where people were waiting for the rally to start. He looked around and saw a bunch of fresh faced young adults waiting restlessly for the rally to start.
Rico could tell exactly what rank all of them were based on their current energy level. The kids who looked like they were on cloud nine were obviously the ones who were riding the high of finding out they were a high ranking magic user, probably A or maybe even B rank. The kids who looked a bit nervous to be there were the C or D rankers, probably unsure if they should even still be doing this. Finally, the kids who looked like they didn’t even care were rather S rankers, or E rankers for the exact opposite reasons.
Rico looked around for someone more his age, and found one gruff faced man, probably around 45 or so. Older than him, but once you’ve got the face of a soldier, your age doesn’t really matter.
Rico walked up to the older man, “Excuse me, you wouldn’t happen to know when the rally is starting would you?” The older man looked back at him and said firmly, “15 minutes.” Rico thanked him and began walking to the bathroom, now knowing he had enough time to refresh himself.
After doing his business and washing his hands, Rico looked in the mirror. He didn’t really care about his looks, but figured it would be smart to at least try to look nice before they took his photo for his new soldier's badge. His last one looked absolutely rancid; if he had a dollar for every time he was made fun of for it, he'd probably be able to buy a new car.
When he looked in the mirror, he saw the same 30 year old man he saw every day. Brown eyes, neck length messy black hair that was barely styled to keep it out of his eyes, eyebags from sleepless nights, and a prominent scar that slashed right though his right eye and went down to his left cheek. He had no idea what to fix, he looked just as shitty as he always did.
With that useful trip to the bathroom, Rico sat in the waiting room and awaited the rally’s start.
Only a bit longer until he could finally go back to the only life he knew how to live.