"Rejected!"
There it stood before him. The proof that no matter how much he trained or for how long, he would always be too slow, too clumsy…never enough.
He stared at the bold letters on the test.
Valentius had not done well on the written exam either, but he had at least done it. Being able to read got him enough pocket change by reading letters to get himself textbooks.
But…
What good were they when there, in big, bold red letters, was the word rejected?
"What does it say, Albert?" Bartolomeo asked. A boy with arms like tree trunks. A boy destined for the guild, or so Valentius thought.
"Accepted! Congratulations!" Albert, a healer hopeful who was the mayor's son and also destined for the guild, answered that much. Valentius was certain.
Maybe it would have been better if Valentius had beaten a retreat. Taken his things and gone home.
Before him was ruin.
When he reached fifteen, the state stopped giving him a stipend. Only the one-month training at the Wendel Adventurers' Guild had prolonged it.
With one red letter, Valentius was left homeless, without money, and with just a loaf of bread.
He bit his bottom lip.
"Hey, Valentine!" The two constantly changed his name to something more familiar.
Bartolomeo claimed that it was to make Valentius a bit more accepted.
At least in front of the teachers.
But Valentius knew that they just wanted to laugh behind his back.
"Why is your test in red?"
Valentius turned around, looking at the mountain of muscle before him.
They always picked on him.
The fat one.
He knew that Albert would heal the other boy even if he did any damage.
He made a step towards him anyway.
He was fat but knew how to fold his hands in a proper fist. If he just…
A hand gripped his collar and began to tug him towards the door.
The entire class erupted in laughter!
Only when the door slammed behind them did Valentius recognize the kind janitor.
A man who never told him his name but always gave him bandages after fight training.
"Look, kid," Valentius didn't even have it in him to be angry at the man. For all he knew, he might have even saved his life. "Those two will go in the guild. They will form a party. Go in a dungeon… and die."
Valentius began to blink. What was the man saying?
The fifteen-year-old looked into the brown eyes of the one-legged janitor.
A man who had been an adventurer once, Valentius realized.
"But you can live! Don't do anything stupid! Chop some wood, have the tavern hire you for something, anything! You don't want to know what it's like to fight for your life! To feel fangs in your limbs!"
Valentius began to shiver. No, he did not.
But he had no other options before him.
"I don't want to be poor anymore," he whispered.
Just like the foolish youth he was.
"Stupid boy!" The janitor turned his back on him. "Die for nothing, then! Just like those two!"
Just like those two…
Valentius was not going to die like Bartolomeo and Albert. He refused!
He wasn't going to die at all!
"I'll become a hero!" Valentius vowed as the janitor began to walk away slowly. His wooden leg made noises that, to Valentius, now spoke of dread and death.
Of his future.
"There are no heroes," the old man said, not turning to look at him. He had been smart enough to save himself from this life.
Why look at the dead?
As Valentius was left in that corridor, the laughter of his classmates ringing in his ears, he balled his fists.
He could go back into the classroom—the room where he had gotten that red word: Rejected.
He could get his beating. Prove that he had a spine.
The boy bowed his head.
What if he died? Bartolomeo was a heavy hitter. Albert knew his poisons, or so the girls liked to whisper.
Valentius looked at the door. That rusty iron door.
He then asked himself why iron doors and bars on the windows were needed in the place where hopes and dreams were built.
Valentius, seeing a robbed figure, made his way down the corridor—a stranger.
The man, for he was too tall to be a woman, or so the young brunette thought, was not looking at him. Instead, the figure was looking at the walls.
At the posters with the stats of those who had passed their tests.
Valentius hid in a dark corner. Waiting, wanting to know what sort of speech the guild recruiter would give.
There were still some hopeful rejects inside. Sure, it would be humiliating, but if they got accepted despite the test results, maybe he…
The man pushed the rusty iron door open. It gave out a creak to rival the moan of a ghost.
For a moment, there was cheering.
Then… the green light of necromantic mana streamed under the door!
Valentius placed both of his hands over his mouth! What… what was happening here?
"Help!" Someone was yelling! He knew that voice!
His feet were jelly; his hands were over his mouth.
The rusty iron door swung open!
There he was, Albert. With a big, fat, rejected over his forehead.
A gnarled, clawed hand grabbed the boy's collar, and Bartolomeo looked on with a smirk.
For a second, their eyes met.
Valentius couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. If that boy told this creature that he was there…
That he was rejected…
"Valentine," Bartolomeo mouthed, but made no move to point at him.
Valentine…not Valentius.
Valentine, who looked on, as Albert was touched on the neck by that hand, blood running down the tailored white healer's robes.
Valentine, who did nothing but sink into the darkness of his haven, as Albert got a slave rune.
The janitor's words rang inside his mind at that moment.
What sort of hero was he, Valentius asked himself?
Still, he didn't make a sound. Not even when a barely breathing Albert was thrown back into the room and the rusty iron door was locked.
Not even when the screaming of those who were rejected rang in his ears.