I was shaking. My hands and forehead were covered with sweat as I looked down at the badge in my hands. Even though the glass between this room and the audience was thick and heavily distanced from the pedestal, I could hear people clamoring and shouting. Much like how I began touching the panel, my heart was throwing itself against my chest. My vision became blurry, with the only thing my eyes focused on being the support badge. I could only hear the audience talking and clamoring, the sound of thudding against the glass being faint.
It was Kia. When I tilted my head up to see what was banging against the glass, it was Kia making the noise. She had such a worried look on her face. It was strange. The last time I saw her make that expression was when she found me on the floor after being beaten up by some other kids in my class. They were jealous of me for being a Venator. But now... I'm nothing, aren't I?
"Iason Defyer. You have been labeled as a support/null class. Please replace your temporary badge with your new one."
The speaker read aloud, clearing the chaos behind the window and gaining everyone's attention.
It's pretty ironic how I was so excited for this moment. Instead of rushing to claim this badge, I didn't want to put it on. The second I put the badge on, I'll be remembered as a support forever.
"I repeat, Iason Defyer, put on the badge now."
Again, the speakers echoed.
I can't tell if it was because I was still taken aback by the situation, or if I still had an ounce of hope left inside of me, but I detached the temporary badge and clicked the new one on top of the holder. The pent-up air inside my lungs escapes through my mouth in an exhale. It was official. I was the first ever support class in the last few generations.
A green light above the glass flashed on, allowing the audience to leave. Everyone stayed in their seats except Kia, Elijah, and Jaelyne. Kia rushed up to me and hugged me tightly, knowing how devastated I was.
"It's okay... You're gonna be alright..." Even though I knew those words were genuine, coming from Kia, I had a creeping feeling that even if they were the truth to her, it would never be in the real world.
Elijah and Jaelyne followed after her, but gave the complete opposite reaction.
"What a fucking waste of time." Elijah sneered as he pressed the elevator button. Even Jaelyne was disgusted enough not to look at me. The audience, as well, avoided my gaze as I tried to look for at least one other person to accept me. I was part of the weakest class, and they were all witnesses to my debut.
"Come on. Let's get out of here." Kia holds my wrist gently and walks towards the elevator. Elijah and Jaelyne, however, closed the door before we could enter, dragging everything out much longer.
Even after we got to the first floor, the judgeful looks continued. Something I didn't notice coming inside the building was a large screen that showed the faces and classes of new Venators. Who was on the screen? Me, of course. Iason Defyer, undiscovered hybrid support class. Really just rubbing it in, huh...? Even if my class is mixed, I really doubt it makes a difference.
Upon leaving the second floor, I was told to return to the front desk to get all of my information sorted out. The woman from earlier didn't take the news lightly either. With every question she asked, her tone became more and more irritated.
"Height and weight?"
"Uh... I-it's-"
"Not a hard answer." She interjected. Kia tried to intimidate her to act more nicely, but the receptionist continued to be rude.
After all of that, we walked out of the building. 2:34 PM. Three hours after going inside. Outside, everything still felt like a bad nightmare. How was my mom going to react to this, more importantly, my father?
I was suddenly snapped out of it after Kia lightly tapped my shoulder. "Hey. How about we go get something to eat? My treat." She says, continuing to smile.
I don't know what came over me, but with all that had occurred, I couldn't refrain from speaking up.
"Why are you still here?"
Kia froze, her eyes widening. Her voice trembled, her hand lifting off my shoulder.
"W-what?"
"Why don't you just avoid me like everyone else?"
At this point, tears were streaming out of my eyes. Even if I didn't want to talk, I couldn't help but press on with my irrational questions. Although I did know they were pointless in asking, a part of me still wanted to know why.
"Iason... Let's just talk about this back at your house, okay?-"
"No! Just leave! I'm just a support... You shouldn't associate yourself with me or else you'll get a bad name."
"Hey, Goldie. Stop joking around-" Kia places her hand on my shoulder again, but I quickly shoved her off.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" I yell and I start to run off, unable to look back at her due to shame. Not only because I was crying, but because I pushed away my best friend when she was only trying to help. I heard her call out to me, but I kept running. And running, and running, and running all the way until I reached my house. I look up the door, almost planning out my route before I open it. My mom was already there to greet me, but I walked past her, again refusing to look her in the eyes just as I had with Kia.
I get to my room and close the door before locking it, sinking to the floor and curling up into a ball.
Today was horrible.
As I continued to drown myself in my tears and hopelessness, I suddenly heard a notification. It wasn't one from my phone. I looked up and was met with the status window in the shape of an envelope. I heard that you can receive messages from people using the status window, but I've never traded with anyone to get their information before, so it would be impossible to get something like this. More importantly, the status window was yellow aside from its usual blue. What in the world could this be?
I raise an eyebrow, hesitant, but curious.
"Open message."
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Iason Defyer, congratulations. You have been chosen to be the representative of the Goddess of Alleviation. Skills have been distributed as a reward.
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"Huh?"
Multiple yellow status windows popped up, each of them displaying a skill and its description. With all of the different skills I have been granted, one caught my eye in particular.
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Skill Name: Battle Invigoration
Skill Rank: Null
Skill Type: Passive
Skill Description: When you provide healing to yourself or allies, any healing will also give a self-strength buff proportional to the amount healed. Along with this, any attacks made upon an opposition will heal yourself and allies proportionally to the injury inflicted.
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The skill rank surely was interesting because skill ranks were only calculated from F to S rank, but most of the windows that appeared had Null-Rank skills.
What had me really invested, though, was the skill's effect. So when I attack, I also get healed, but that healing will also give me a buff, right? But then that would mean I'm supposed to attack, which isn't really customary for a support class from the little I've heard about them.
Due to how classes work, each of them strengthens their skills with constant use and how they are implemented. The reason why support classes were so weak was because they only had access to healing and buffing skills, which meant they needed to be in a team with another Venator. Even with that, support skills had long cooldowns and were hard to channel, making it hard to constantly use. It was also hard to implement support skills into other things since you could only use them on people and nothing else. Support Venators tried to become doctors as a result of this, but were shut down after a support skill was used on a pregnant woman, causing birth defects in the baby. The history of classes sure was interesting, but it's pretty hard to find anything positive on support classes. So difficult that there might not be any positive information on them at all.
Still, I am one now, so I might as well make the most of it. Plus, these skills I was given will give me an edge, I hope. I'm still wondering about the Goddess of Alleviation, though. There have been rumors of gods existing, but they were always just rumors. Up until now, at least.
The skill windows closed, and a larger one appeared in front of me. It had my name and age, and other personal information. However, under my name was...
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Class: Burst Support
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