Halina materialized inside the landing area of her chosen quarters. She very quickly left the room, not even deigning to speak to the other chosen. Her emotions were still too raw for that.

The nature of the trial had not allowed for introspection.

Her long year of waiting for her bloodline skill to awaken had left her ragged.

When she arrived at her room she collapsed on her bed and let the great, wracking sobs overtake her senses for the first few minutes. Her grief, anger, and delayed expectations overwhelmed her.

Eventually, she found her way back to life.

Someone was standing in her room.

Gazini stood like a statue over her bed. Halina jerked back to full awareness and almost summoned her equipment, but the look in his pale green eyes stopped her. Grief, regret, and torment lay there. Questions blossomed in her mind instead.

She asked herself.

Gazini’s eyes turned placid once more, almost so quickly that Halina could dismiss her assumption. Almost.

“We need to expedite your training once more,” he said without preamble. “Congratulations on achieving D-Tier, and first place in your Tier.”

Halina, still mentally and emotionally messy from her trial, didn’t respond immediately. Instead she pulled up her Player status.

Name: Halina Berg

Race: Human

Age: 19

Level: 57

Experience: 1,773 (▲200,000)

Class: Shield

Profession: Adventurer

Stats: 325

STR

50

END

50

AGI

20(▲8)

DEX

20(▲8)

VIT

50

CON

50

INT

18(▲6)

WIL

16(▲5)

CHA

14(▲7)

LUK

61

Skills: [Sentinel], [Rebound], [Shield Wall], [Furious Roar], [Totemic Rage]

Equipment: [Tower Shield], [Longsword], [Half-plate]

Achievements: [Dungeon Diver], [Tank], [Retribution], [Player Killer]

Halina was staggered by the amount of experience she had received. D-Tier was an almost mythical concept in the north. Achieving such a thing before she was even twenty years old would mark her as a genius for all time.

Gazini did not allow her time to come to terms with this information.

“You have gained a new skill as well,” he commented. “Good. You will need every talent you have to survive my intended training.”

It still unnerved Halina that the Top Tiers could view her status so easily. It felt almost like they could look straight through her soul and see the truth that lied beneath.

“Is that why I received so much experience?” she asked, avoiding the more difficult questions that were forming in her mind. “Gaining first place in the last trial?”

“The Great Tree does not make her plans or systems known to most,” he said. “She relies on the inferences and ingenuity of her Players to inform the masses. She fosters growth and creativity. You were especially suited to the last round, and so you moved into a position of power.”

Halina opened her mouth to ask more, but Gazini waved a hand and cut her off.

“There is no time. Your stats are too imbalanced to compete in D-Tier,” he said. “We must rectify this before all else.”

Without understanding how she crossed the space between, she found herself in the library of her room. Gazini simply gestured at her books before disappearing. Halina shrugged off her confusion, along with a little bit of irritation and anger.

She had never dealt well with being told what to do.

she thought, a sarcastic tone entering her mind.

She still didn’t understand why Gazini wanted them to balance out their stats. He never explained the process, merely coercing them to obey him whenever one of the chosen showed the slightest sign of insubordination.

He was the most frustrating teacher she had ever had.

She had missed lunch during her breakdown, and her stomach would not allow her to miss dinner.

When she entered the common room of the living quarters, she realized it was the first time she had ever seen all of the chosen of Frigga. Yesterday, a couple of the members Frigga had selected had been missing. Not so today.

Halina was sure Gazini was the reason. Especially after seeing the resentful expressions of the previously missing members.

They were a varied cast, and during other circumstances Halina may have been more interested in learning more about them.

Instead, she was forced into another round of hellish training.

“For the purposes of this training session, I’m going to assume that none of you know about the inner workings of skills, so I’ll apologize in advance if this is not the case,” Gazini said once Halina had arrived. “Pure mundane labor. There are special exceptions of course, but for the vast majority of them there will be no substitute for putting in the work.”

Halina knew about the exemptions at least. Her family's bloodline skill was the perfect example. After Gazini told them all how skills were earned a few theories about how it might not be formed and were discarded almost instantly.

The skill was related to anger, so something involving that was the only thing that would make sense.

If anger was all that it took, Halina would have activated the skill before her Player system itself.

“As such, there are certain skills that I label ‘essential’ and we will be working on developing those skills in all of you tonight,” Gazini continued. “We’ll start with [Charge]. Form up in pairs.”

As he directed them, one of the other chosen asked why they weren’t doing this training with the necromancer’s undead. He didn’t bother to respond, and they reluctantly followed his instructions.

She ended up facing a young man with curly, black hair around her age. His features were broad and strong, with a well-muscled physique. Her honey-brown eyes locked with his dark blue gaze and he smirked.

Halina instantly disliked him.

He adopted a fencer’s stance and gestured for her to go first. She almost obliged him straight away, until Gazini interrupted them.

“Halina,” he said from across the hall. “Use your shield during this training. We’ll try to get you [Shield Bash] as well.”

Her training partner’s cocky grin diminished slightly at this twist. Halina didn’t allow her newfound joy to show. She also used the opportunity to quickly distribute her newly earned stat points, rounding out her build.

The speed of her rush caught both of them by surprise.

She sent him sprawling, nearly five feet from where he had originally standing. Her cheeks colored and she hurried over to help him up. She hadn’t meant to bowl the cocky bastard over, just to give him a jolt. They were on the same team after all.

“Damn, you really pack a punch,” he said as he accepted her help in getting back up, a wry grin replacing his arrogant smile. “Name’s Matias Villegas, D-Tier chosen of Frigga, what’s yours?”

“Halina Berg,” she said. “Sorry, just Tiered up.”

“Ahh, that’ll do it. Went from E to D I’m guessing?”

“Yeah, just after the last round.”

“Well take it easy on me next time. I’m not one of the cusps like most of the other chosen.”

“‘Cusps’?” she asked, confusion finally smothering her embarrassment.

“It’s what a few of us have taken to calling the people like you who were on the verge of Tiering up before the competition,” he explained apologetically before politely gesturing for her to resume her spot across from him. “I’m sure the Aesir chose so many of you for a good reason, but Frigga’s einherjar didn’t have time to bridge the gap with me before the start of the Hunt.”

“Are there really that many cusps?” Halina asked as she resumed her station. “I was a good bit higher level than the few chosen I saw in round one.”

Matias didn’t respond immediately, instead squaring up and making sure she was ready to receive his charge. Once she had planted her feet and nodded back, he launched himself forward. He was noticeably a bit faster than her, and she realized he wasn’t holding back as he cleared the distance between them.

she thought with an inward smile.

Halina was forced back a couple steps when he crashed into her, but maintained her footing. Matias shook his head ruefully when she held up two fingers to him and mouthed ‘two points’.

“Most of D and C Tier are cusps,” he said, finally answering her question now that his attempt at reprisal had been thwarted. “Not completely sure with the other Tiers, and Top Tier can’t have cusps in it anyways. It makes sense from their perspective, though. If all else is equal between the competitors, you don’t pick the one with lower stats. Most of the time, anyways.”

He said the last with a grin and pointed to his own chest. Halina shoved him away and he adopted a mockingly wounded posture but didn’t stop grinning. She couldn’t hold out and a small smile wormed its way onto her face as well. Matias laughed when he saw it and held up a finger right back at her.

“Enough chatter,” Gazini said, cutting their banter short. “Anyone who doesn’t earn [Charge] by the end of the hour trains with my skeletons for an extra hour tonight.”

Mouths of the chosen snapped shut all through the commons area.

They’d all gotten their fill of that treatment already.