SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 229: Final Offer

The jungle wasn’t quiet anymore.

It pulsed. With heat. With tension. With the rising sound of my own breath scraping through my throat as I stood there—stone in hand, blood running down my palm, sweat matting my hair to my forehead. Somewhere behind me, Camille coughed wetly. Somewhere to the right, Alexis groaned and shifted.

But in front of me?

Stillness.

The scout.

He walked with purpose. Not slow to intimidate, not fast to catch me. Just... precise. Every step was calibrated, like he knew the exact moment he’d be in range to kill me and was enjoying the countdown. The last few seconds before a job well done.

"Let’s talk," he said again. "One last time."

I didn’t lower the stone. He didn’t reach for a weapon.

Not yet.

"Your file’s complicated," he said, stepping over a fallen branch like it was a line he’d been waiting to cross. "Most people with your trajectory don’t last. You were D-Rank. Useless. Burnt out. Depressed. You had zero potential in this world and quite frankly nobody would’ve cared if you had died."

My jaw clenched.

"And then," he said, "the System gave you something new. Something absurd. The ability to gain jobs and skills fast as well as other abilities. The SSS-Class Jobmaster title."

He tilted his head slightly, like a curious dog. "We don’t know how. That’s the problem. Though we do have our theories."

I didn’t move.

"You’ve thrown everything into chaos. Your trial, the Masked Syndicate, the Cain Protocol exposure. I mean you have to be involved with Connor’s disappearance, he last reported contact with you and 3834."

"So you’re here to kill me?" I asked flatly.

"I was."

He stopped three paces away. The half-mask twitched slightly with his next breath.

"But now I’m here to offer you a deal."

Of course he was.

"From who?" I asked.

He smiled. "From someone who matters."

I didn’t blink. "The World President?"

"No," he said. "But close. People just beneath him. The kind who look at outliers and ask, ’What’s he worth to us alive?’"

He let that sit.

"They think you’re an asset. You’ve done things we didn’t think were possible—possessed perfect balance between jobs we’ve never seen connected. Rapidly leveled up your skills. I mean you literally came back from Mars. And now?"

He spread his arms slightly.

"You’re doing all this without even having access to your skills. That kind of improvisation? It’s rare. And dangerous. But that’s why I’m here."

He took a step closer.

"One final offer, Vale. Work with us. The World President is consolidating power. He’s going to push the System further than it’s ever gone. Past jobs. Past skills. Into full evolution. We need someone like you. Someone broken in the right ways."

I let out a slow breath. "What does that mean—’work with us’?"

"It means no prison. No pursuit. You’d be publicly cleared. Set up in one of the high-functioning enclaves. Monitored, sure, but comfortable. You’d help with specialized operations. Targeted assignments. Skill testing. The limits of job inheritance. You’d be... safe."

"And in exchange?" I asked.

He looked at me evenly.

"You help us move forward. Push the boundaries. Help the System become what it’s meant to be."

My grip on the stone tightened. The blood on my hand had dried into sticky half-crusts.

"And what if I say no?"

"Then I kill you here," he said simply.

Silence stretched between us.

I could hear Camille’s breath behind me. Shallow. Strained.

I didn’t respond immediately. Because I wasn’t sure what words would be enough. Not for what I felt.

Not for what they’d done.

But then—quietly, firmly—I began.

"You want to know why I can’t work with you?" I asked. "Why I won’t?"

He waited.

"It’s not just about Connor. Or Mark. Or even the World President."

I took a step forward. Still holding the stone. Still shaking, but not from fear.

"It’s about what you built. What all of you let happen. The System you worship—the jobs, the ranks, the entire hierarchy—it was never about helping people. It was about control. It was about manufacturing value. Creating ceilings and floors for who mattered and who didn’t."

His jaw clenched. Slightly.

"You made jobs sacred," I continued. "You made power conditional. You turned entire cities into tiered prisons based on whether someone could manipulate numbers on a screen. And then—when that wasn’t enough—you experimented. You broke people down. You hollowed them out just to see what would happen."

The jungle pressed in around us like it was holding its breath.

"You think I’m some wildcard," I said. "You think I don’t have a place. That I’m confused. But I’ve never been more certain."

I took one more step forward. The stone in my hand was slick now, from sweat or blood or both.

"I hate all of it," I whispered. "Every system. Every rank. Every experiment. Everything you call ’progress.’ I’d rather die out here in the dirt than be part of it."

The scout studied me for a long moment.

Then he exhaled.

"Unfortunate, I guess this is where you die." he said, like he meant it.

He reached for his sidearm.

And I said, "Yeah."

I raised my eyes. Locked with his.

"If I were really going to die here..."

The world shifted.

A sound.

Not outside.

Inside.

A pulse. A click.

A feeling like the pressure in my skull just dropped a thousand feet at once.

[SYSTEM REACTIVATED]

[Full Profession Sync: Cooldown Complete]

[Job: Jobmaster (SSS-Rank) — Reinitializing Neural Access Layer...]

[Available Jobs and Skillsets: Restored]

It hit me like lightning and fire and venom all at once. My knees nearly buckled—not from weakness, but from impact. I didn’t scream, but I wanted to. The rush wasn’t metaphor. It was real. Like every job I’d ever held was being injected back into my veins simultaneously.

Construction Worker. Lawyer. Firefighter. Boxer. Astronaut. Journalist. Detective. All of my skills.

Flooding in.

The scout saw my stance change.

He froze as if Strategic Retreat was telling him to run away.

"What—?"

My eyes locked onto his. Steady now. Cold.

I stepped forward.

My voice was low. Even.

"If I were going to die here... I would."

And then I lunged.

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