"S... Rank..."

My eyes widened at the new stat and the information. I knew most people did not use the full potential of their skills. For example, a normal person's magic arrow did nothing more than shot a thin blob of mana at an acceptable speed, but magic was much more complex than that. Reshaping, respeeding, and adding torque to the simple spell was more than enough to make it knock out a person.

Is this what expertise was? Understanding and developing things to fit me?

No, I did not develop anything, I just used all facets of the spell that already existed.

{Host... Your stat is already at S Rank? That's just insane...}

"Hah, didn't I say I was tired?" I put a hand on my forehead and sighed. "Did you have to bombard me with this right now?"

A new stat that I had never even heard of being measured, moreover, it was created by a system. There was no doubt that this was a groundbreaking discovery.

Wait. Created by a system and created by this system are two completely different things! This guy's useless!

"You!" I snapped at the system. "Is this stuff even accurate?"

{Wha… of course! I don't display stuff I am not sure of, why would there be a calculating text then?}

That's strangely convincing.

There were many things I would have to look into now. What was the average Expertise stat level for others, how it increases, how it affects things that I know as compared to things I would learn.

What a drag.

With a sigh, I got off the bed and walked over to the desk in my room.

{Master? What are you doing?}

"I'd rather get through all the troublesome stuff today and then chill tomorrow at this point," I said as I picked up the letter and sat on my bed. With a sigh, I opened up the flap of the envelope and pulled out the sheet of paper in it.

My eyes scanned over the contents of the letter as my jaw dropped lower and lower in surprise.

"C-congratulations on completing your registration?"

I... I never went for the registration.

I flipped the pages and searched for the details.

"Registered... a day after the accident. I was still in the hospital then..."

Then, my eyes fell on the exam date.

{Host! This is just five days from now!!}

"I know! How?"

Attached to the end of the letter were more details of my registration. My pictures, my bio-data, everything was correct. At the end of the page, though, the spot for my sign was crossed off and replaced by a 'proxy signatory' instead.

"Rin Rubinstein..." That was the name on the signature.

{Uh... who's that host?}

"My sister... why would she sign me up—"

Another shock hit my body when I looked at the most important detail of the registration I had completely overlooked.

"It's the awakener course!?!"

Agriche, being an academy as prestigious as it gets, offered many different types of courses to cultivate talent in all fields. A basic understanding of all fields was still required by the academy though. Since I had a lot of mastery in the more technical aspects and was planning to go about my life normally, I was going to sign up for the Arcane Sciences course that focused on developing and mastering new and already existing magic.

But this...

The awakener course. This was, definitely the most coveted and the greatest course Agriche had to offer that brought it its fame. Since almost every living person had awoken to mana over the past 200 years since the portals first appeared, the term awakener was seeing a slightly different use than what it originally was.

Instead of anyone who had awoken to mana and their inherent abilities, 'awakener' was now a word used for the heroes and saviors who took on fighting against the monsters and clearing the portals, the 'Hunters' as the media liked to call them.

{Your sister signed you up for the school! Isn't it just great? You can go there after all!}

I sighed and placed the letter on the table.

"Great? Not even remotely. My sister despises me, she is definitely doing this to get a chance to put me down."

{Is that so... would you mind if I asked more about it?}

I raised my eyebrow at the system before sighing and sitting back down on the bed. "There's not much to it. When we were children, my sister was very talented."

{Make sense}

I clicked my tongue and narrowed my eyes. "Don't interrupt."

{Sorry, continue please}

"My sister learned of her awakener abilities very soon and got a hang of them by the time she was just five. Almost half the typical time that kids need to adjust to their abilities. She was given a lot of attention from everywhere, it didn't take long before my mom pushed her into all sorts of institutes to have her learn more and more. Each day, she was growing stronger and was being treated very well, it was a happy time for her."

I put my legs on the bed and leaned against the backrest.

"Though she was busy the whole day, she would always end up taking an hour out for me. She'd play with her little brother, give him some pointers, and always talk about how we'll stay together and how she will protect me until we grow old, haha"

I clenched my fists and opened them, my eyes stuck to my hands. "I loved that time. My peers always compared me to my sister, mom never made time for me. My sister was the only person I could turn to. She was my protector. So, I hid all of my abilities too."

{Ah... So that's what happened.}

Right, it wasn't an uncommon tale.

{Didn't you say you chased after strength, though?}

"That was after she figured it out. I lasted for a good few years as a meek child who could barely use mana, but my sister figured out it was all a pretense. I had been using mana a year before she started, after all. Her performance continued to drop when she realized her little brother who she loved so dearly was playing along with her all this time. She thought me a psychopath, a sadistic bastard who wanted to make a fool of her. She even tried to kill me."

{What happened then? Did you beat her up?}

"No." I sighed again and closed my eyes. "She broke down and said she hated me."

{Host...}

"Then whatever happened happened. I got involved with the underworld, people found out, we moved away and my sister joined Agriche to not see me every day. It was my fault, I don't blame her one bit."

I stood up from my bed and gazed out the window. Going back and forth in this small room, looking for anything that could be different.

{Did you stop because people found out? Is that why you gave up on pursuing strength?}

"No. I stopped because of how bad it was. You saw it yourself today, didn't you? It involves people who have nothing to do with it. It hurts the innocents. There is no good or bad, no right way to do it. Ambitions of strength... You can't take over something without climbing on something else, in this case, it was lives. From the heroes who fight against the threats to the world to the villains who exploit them. They all bring harm, they all hurt others. You can't argue you're doing it for something good, moral, personal, or ethical, there is no good. Not in something like strength. So, living a normal life is the best for mom and sister, for the people who I've met and brought harm to. It's for the best."

{Is that so...}

This damn system. It clearly wanted to probe more and ask me more things, but it was smart enough to know where it should stop. I sighed and gazed at the letter from Agriche once again.

Whether my sister did it or not. Whether we could afford it or not, those were all secondary things. I could find a way around them, I was strong enough to do so.

But this place. If I went there...

"Say, system. If I said I didn't care about hurting people, would you still say you want to help me achieve my dreams?"

{I am just a system. A weak one, only ranked F. I have no goals, no purpose. The only thing that I have is you, my host.}

{Whether you decide to save a hundred people or kill a thousand, I'll only keep count as you ask of me. Because that is what a system is meant to do. Because that is what I want, to do.}

"Is that so..."

Without saying another word. I turned off the lights in my room. Mom would be back soon enough, there was nothing to worry about.

I quietly pulled the sheets on top of my head and closed my eyes, my mind still stuck on the system's words.

A long day had come to an end.