The caravan came to a stop at Blood Trial Outpost, as the rookies began to step out. After Privilege Day, everyone seemed to have returned, except three people. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Rena Ironcrown, Arnold Garrison, and Roman Rings.

The news about the clash in Citadel City had spread across the outpost, and the only thing they’re hopeful about is Roman and Arnold surviving whatever that they’d go through out there.

And for Rena, Master Norman was already organising a search team to go in search of her... That’s actually if she returned after Privilege Day.

When Master Norman informed Sylvester about the clash, they had doubts about interfering in the matter, not wanting to engage in any conflict with the Steel Emperor.

It would only take a slight effort to take down the entire outpost, it hadn’t been long that Sylvester came to realise that they would be left alone in any trouble they found themselves in.

The Mayor of Citadel City sent a message to him and warned him not to accept the Emperor’s daughter in their community, that they aren’t in support of it. And of Roman and Arnold returns, they should be cast out.

Sylvester couldn’t believe they had came from having great hopes about the future to going back to being a weak ass community with no potential for growth again.

He was sad and... Depressed.

But what more can one expect from a low-tier community sitting at the edge of a valley?

Sylvester ordered Master Norman to back down and focus on what they’ve got left, but Master Norman had refused.

He hadn’t refused openly, but in his mind. That’s why he was trying to bring up a secret team to go find Rena, at least. And maybe if they were courageous enough, they would figure out a plan to save Roman and Arnold before the Steel Emperor gets to do anything crazy.

But at the moment, the main course of Blood Trial Outpost is the rookies getting to start life after Privilege Day. Over twenty percent of them had turned down their return, not wanting to return as fully authorised Entrants, and for the ones who have...

They aren’t to be referred as rookies or newbies anymore. They are to be addressed as every other Entrant out there, and at least even if one needs to point out that exact exact status, they are to be referred to as New Entrants instead of newbies or rookies.

It was the beginning of something big.

It was the beginning of their lives.

******

The Badlands Teleport Station was quieter than Rena had ever seen it.

Most of the Privilege Day returnees had come back hours ago, the wave of excited and nervous rookies flooding through the arrays in the morning and early afternoon, heading back to their communities with renewed purpose or heading to the exit arrays to quit entirely.

By the time Rena stepped off the array, the station staff were already doing their end of day counts and the waiting areas were largely empty.

She was almost certainly one of the last ones back.

The attendant at the check-in desk looked up when she approached, noted her number against the returnee list, and stamped her BSP registration without ceremony.

"Welcome back, Entrant," he said.

"Thank you," Rena said, and kept walking.

She did not head toward the caravan bays where the community transports were lined up waiting for returning rookies. She had doubts that Blood Trail Outpost’s caravan would be somewhere in that row, Master Norman probably would have led the rest back to the outpost.

She was not going to Blood Trail Outpost.

Perhaps not yet.

She crossed the station’s outer courtyard and went straight to the private vehicle bay on the eastern side, where she had arranged a plan for a purchase before leaving Diamond City.

Her mother had transferred the funds to her account without question, and Rena had converted the dollars to Gold at the Diamond City teleport terminal before stepping back through the array.

Fifty thousand Gold sitting in her BSP currency account.

She had spent just over five thousand of it on the vehicle.

It was parked in bay fourteen, exactly where the dealer had said it would be. Not a caravan, not a transport wagon, not any of the group vehicles that most Entrant communities used for long distance travel. It was a single-seat open-cabin runner, low and fast, built on a Mana-powered engine that the dealer had described as the best available at this price range in the Frontier market.

Rena ran a hand along the side panel as she approached it. The body was a deep grey, the frame narrow enough to move through terrain that a caravan would never manage, and the Mana tank was full.

She opened the door and got in.

The seat was well fitted and the controls were laid out simply, which she appreciated. It was similar enough to the vehicles back in the real world that the adjustment was minor, the main difference being the Mana gauge where a fuel indicator would normally sit, and the terrain adaptation system built into the wheels that allowed it to handle unpaved ground without losing significant speed.

She started the engine.

The hum it produced was quieter than she expected, smooth and sustained, and the power behind it was immediately apparent when she pulled out of bay fourteen and onto the station road.

She brought up her navigation on the BSP and determined her destination.

The Heartlands.

Four hundred miles of road between her and wherever the Steel Empire messengers had taken Roman.

She pulled onto the main route heading east and pressed the accelerator forward, and the area soon disappeared behind her.

...

The road through the outer Frontier was long and straight and largely empty at this hour, the kind of drive that gave a person too much time to think if they were not careful about it.

Rena was not careful about it.

She thought about Roman standing in the Citadel City market with a shaky stance and nowhere to run, telling her to go. She thought about the look on his face in that single second before she turned and ran, and the way it had sat in her chest every moment since.

She thought about Arnold, who had stepped in when he had absolutely no reason to, which was the most surprising thing that had happened in a day full of surprising things.

She thought about what her father’s messengers were authorised to do with people who caused problems for them in public.

She pressed the accelerator a little further forward.

The Mana engine responded without complaint, the speedometer climbing steadily as the Frontier terrain opened up around her, the dense treeline of the outer valley zones giving way to the wider, flatter landscape of the mid-region roads.

At some point during the drive, she pulled up her Talent stats on the BSP and looked at them.

She had not used her Talent in the Badlands yet. Not once. She had been careful about it, deliberate, waiting for the right moment or the right reason or simply the right level of trust in her surroundings.

She looked at the stat entries and read them over slowly.

Then she closed the screen and put both hands back on the wheel.

She had a reason now.

"I am coming," she said quietly to no one, her eyes on the road ahead and the distant shape of the Center beginning to form against the darkening sky. "Just hold on."

The runner moved fast and steady through the Badlands night, its Mana engine humming, its headlights cutting a clean line through the dark ahead.

Rena did not slow down.