Upon arriving at the building Van had indicated, Cassian entered the main hall.
Evidently, it was one of the buildings for housing and utilities payments, temporarily repurposed for Structure registration due to the evaluation.
Inside, chaos reigned, seasoned with a pungent cocktail of sweat, dusty parchment, and some sharp-smelling herb likely used to clean the stone floors.
The vast space was divided into dozens of counters partitioned by rough wooden screens.
Behind each sat a clerk whose expression ranged from perpetual displeasure to utter despair.
Casting a quick glance at the signs, Cassian, though unfamiliar with the local language, grasped their meaning thanks to the memories of the body's former occupant.
He saw signs reading: "Registry," "Evaluation Registration," "Fee Payment," "Complaints"—the last of which bore a sign saying "Counter Closed."
Not wasting time, Cassian hurried to join the queue snaking toward the "Evaluation Registration" counter.
Glancing at the line, he saw only four people ahead, including himself.
An unprecedented display of generosity from Luck!
Damn, he was starting to steal Matt's phrases.
Anyway, the wait shouldn't be long… he was brutally mistaken.
The first guy, stocky and red-faced, spent twenty minutes trying to convince a frail clerk that his name was spelled with two "E"s, as in the dossier, not one—an error of fatal proportions that distorted his very essence and tarnished his good name.
The clerk monotonously repeated that "Edward" was a traditional church name and the person who filled out his dossier must have made a mistake.
The second, a girl with pigtails and tear-filled eyes, tried to explain that her referral to the Diviner had somehow been lost, and could she please see him without it.
The clerk, without looking up from some list, asked if she had a "Lost Referral Certificate" endorsed by three witnesses.
The girl burst into tears.
The third, a sullen type, silently jabbed his finger at the dossier, then at his own chest, then back at the dossier.
The clerk sighed and repeated: "Yes, yes, Structure 'Cobblestone Layer.' Utilitarian. Yes, limited prospects. Next!"
The sullen type planted his hands on the counter and continued silently jabbing between himself and the dossier.
He seemed to hope his persistence would magically change his Structure in the dossier to something epic, like "Lord of Mysteries".
Cassian felt sick.
Deja vu pressed down on him with terrifying force.
'An office. A stinking, dusty office. The same hell, the same idiots. Just replace ties with tattered robes, computers with parchment, and clueless management with Amnicia. And here, just like on Earth, the same eternal queues with the same eternally dissatisfied clerks. Goddammit, do I really have to waste half my life here just to be told, "You came to the wrong counter"?'
Finally, his turn came.
The clerk, a man around forty with pursed lips, a balding head, a quill behind his ear, and a grease stain on his robe, didn't even look at him, extending a hand:
"Dossier. Referral from the Evaluators."
Cassian silently handed over the papers.
The clerk skimmed them, paused at the "Structure" line, reviewed the referral, snorted, and reached for a thick folder labeled "Unregistered. Group A."
"Moruway… Moruway…" he muttered, flipping pages. "Ah. Here you are. Cassian. Structure unknown. Referral to Diviner approved." He tore a sheet from the folder, scrawled something on it with a thick black quill, and slammed it with the Amnicia seal. "Next counter. 'Issuance of Pass for Diviner's Waiting Area.' Form 7-G. Fee: one silver coin or equivalent in low-grade threads. Then—'Medical Examination for Mental Influence by Unknown Structure,' which in your case will be determined by the Diviner. Form 12-J. Next!"
Cassian froze.
"W-wait. What medical examination? And a fee? A silver coin? I don't have…"
"Next!" The clerk was already looking over his head at the next sufferer. "Forms are on the table by the exit! Payment only at the cashier! Follow the arrows! Don't hold up the queue!"
Cassian was shoved aside.
He stood clutching the new stamped paper, feeling the familiar, smoldering rage of helplessness rise from the depths of his soul.
'Form 7-G… Form 12-J… Fee… Mental examination… Fuck, I literally just died and crawled out of the pure darkness of hell, and now they're checking me for lice and extorting my last coins!'
He reflexively patted his trouser pockets and, to his relief, found exactly one silver coin.
He looked at the arrows drawn in some strange white chalk on the floor.
They led into a labyrinth of more queues.
'No. No, no, and no again. I endured the horror of oblivion only to die a second death here, in line for Form 7-G!' he mentally protested.
Soul-weary, Cassian picked up the form and trudged lazily along the arrows, feeling like another empty shell enduring the worst moment of its life.
After a solid quarter-hour navigating queues, he reached the snaking line for the "Fee Payment" counter, took his place at the end, and watched people hand over coins or threads—small, dull balls of white light.
For coin payments, the cashier took them and issued a receipt; for thread payments, he lazily tapped buttons on a strange device resembling a vacuum cleaner with peculiar lenses on top.
It sucked in the threads, displayed "1" on one lens and "0.2 Oz" on the other, then issued a receipt.
After queuing for no less than 40 minutes, Cassian finally escaped the clutches of the demon called "queue," paid his fee, and received his receipt.
'Alright… Building 3… second floor… room 207.'
Reaching his destination, Cassian checked the information on a small scrap of paper.
He was in the right place.
Fortunately, only two people were there.
A petite girl with long blonde hair and blue eyes leaned against the wall near the door—presumably next in line.
The second, a muscular guy with short red hair, sat sprawled on one of the chairs; his eyes were closed, and his lips involuntarily opened and closed as if whispering something Cassian couldn't decipher.
Exhausted from the queue marathon, Cassian collapsed onto a seat beside the redhead.
Finally, he could rest a little and process everything that had happened.
He still couldn't fully accept reality.
He was alone in this world: no family—well, technically he had one—no friends, no acquaintances.
He was a stranger here.
Cassian recalled the first seconds after transmigration.
How his consciousness had fought the original Cassian's, and how some force had violently merged them.
Could he be considered the killer of this body's former occupant?
Or should he think they'd become part of each other?
Cassian wanted to believe the latter.
Time passed; the girl entered the Diviner's door.
'Just one person,' Cassian thought, closing his eyes.
By his estimate, each person spent about 5-7 minutes with the Diviner.
So, his turn would come in about 15 minutes.
Unnoticed, he began drifting into a doze when suddenly…
"Go-o-o-d. Fucking. Queues. Fucking clerks. Fucking bureaucracy. I shit from the highest bell tower on all this paperwork. Hm, oh… only two people? Looks like luck's smiling on me again,"
an unnecessarily loud voice invaded Cassian's ears, and he felt a body plop down right between him and the redheaded guy.
"Hey, guys, did they send you here too 'cause they couldn't figure out what Sign's etched in your noggin? When I told that Tall guy what I saw, he looked at me like I was crazy. And the short one started babbling about quitting his job. Yeah, what a day. I was just… eh, why are you sleeping?"
An unstoppable torrent of words flowed from his mouth.
What else was there to talk about?
What else do sixteen-year-olds who just got their Structure talk about?
They wanted to pour out everything on their minds—how they felt when the Structure manifested in their consciousness, what Sign they got, what the future held.
At first, Cassian tried ignoring the irritating voice, but finally cracked.
He slowly opened his eyes and gave the motormouth a cursory glance.
A lanky guy dressed in less-than-stellar clothing; black hair, onyx eyes, tanned skin, refined features ready to open doors to any modeling agency.
Combined with the excessive chatter, it painted the picture of some past-life idiot he knew.
'Gods, his doppelgänger will haunt me even in another world,' Cassian thought, eyeing him.
The guy seemed to notice and was about to speak when the door swung open.
The blonde girl emerged, barely containing a smile.
Immediately after, the redhead shot through the door, apparently unable to endure Matt-clone-from-another-world any longer.
Now Cassian was left alone with this spawn of hell.
'5 minutes. Just endure 5 minutes or so,' Cassian began mentally counting the seconds.
"HEY! Stop ignoring me! I totally saw how you looked at me. Gods, I feel slandered," Matt #2 said, hugging himself. "Come on, don't be such a grump. I know I'm annoying, but believe me, I've had it worse. After everything that happened, I really need to vent, but there's no one," he continued, staring intently at Cassian.
Getting no response, he snorted and grumbled:
"Can you at least tell me your name?"
Mentally rolling his eyes, Cassian turned to his unwanted companion and said:
"Cassian. Though some individuals call me just Cass."
"Haa, just like my old friend. What a coincidence," the guy said with a note of surprise. "My name's Matthew, but I prefer just Matt."
At that moment, it was Cassian's turn to be surprised.
"Hm, Matthew… just like my idiot…" Cassian murmured.
They stared at each other for a moment, then their eyes widened abruptly.
"Cass!"
"Matt!"
"What the hell are you doing here?!"
They said in unison.