SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery-Chapter 238: Friction Burn

The jungle fought back.

Not with roars, not with beasts—but with silence. That unnatural hush between trees where every leaf seemed to watch and every shadow hinted at teeth.

We moved fast.

Anthony took point, his movements too clean for someone running on instinct. Camille flanked left, Evelyn close behind. Sienna and 3830 held rear guard, each watching our trail like it might vanish behind us. I stayed in the center, hand brushing the drone controller every ten steps.

According to the map, the evac crate was just two ridgelines south. We’d make it in twenty minutes if we kept this pace.

But nothing ever goes that clean.

We hit our first ambush in a clearing of split stone and creeper vines.

The jungle opened like a wound—sharp with sunlight, raw with heat. Broken stone jutted up through moss and tangled roots, like the bones of something ancient. Creeper vines hung down in limp threads from branches above, masking movement, warping depth perception.

It started simple. Two scouts—one visible, standing near a half-collapsed trunk with his rifle angled low, lazy. The other hidden, just a glint of glass behind foliage—enough for Anthony to catch it.

He raised a fist, then two fingers. Sniper. Flanking position.

I nodded and slid behind a fractured boulder crusted in lichen. My hands moved on instinct—calm, precise. My breath slowed. My mind sharpened. This was the kind of terrain I thrived in.

I reached inward.

Activate: Reflex Calibration (Lv. 4).

Nothing.

No surge. No flicker. No stabilizing pulse in my limbs. Just silence.

I frowned. That couldn’t be right.

I tried again.

Still nothing.

It had always been there. That quiet adjustment, like the world’s edges sharpening to a point. The skill had saved my life more times than I could count. It was second nature—part of my rhythm. The absence was like trying to blink and realizing your eyes won’t close.

I tapped my interface, fingers brushing through the projected panel.

Where the skill usually lived, nestled in its column—empty.

Gone.

"Reynard?" Alexis’s voice came soft from nearby. She was crouched near a rock pile, scanning the trees. "Something wrong?"

"I’m fine," I said too quickly, my voice clipped. "Hold pattern."

But I wasn’t fine.

My hand clenched the edge of the boulder as the tension crawled up my spine.

Then—

"Left!"

Camille’s voice, sharp and sudden.

I ducked a second too late. The bullet screamed past my head, shattering rock and throwing shards into the air. My shoulder slammed into the stone with a thud that stole my breath. Pain bloomed—real, jarring.

I scrambled to react, knife out, body twisting to track the shooter.

But something was off.

The awareness I usually had—the tension of space around me, the internal clock that told me where and when a threat would land—was dulled. My swing came half a beat late. My posture felt wrong, like I was copying a motion from memory without the muscle behind it.

I still moved. Still fought.

But I missed the first feint.

The scout slipped past my defense and would’ve landed a clean shot—if Camille hadn’t already closed the gap. She curved around the trunk, one hand on a branch, boots skimming over moss. Her knee slammed into the scout’s side, knocking the wind out of him. A follow-up boot to the jaw silenced him for good.

Anthony didn’t wait either. He was a blur—one blade through the thigh, a pivot, then an elbow to the temple. The second scout dropped, spasming once before going still.

The clearing went quiet again.

I stood slowly, jaw clenched, heart thudding too hard.

Camille turned toward me, brushing blood from her lower lip.

"You hesitated," she said, no judgment—just fact.

"I know."

She studied my face, the tightness in my jaw. "You don’t hesitate. Not in situations like these."

I didn’t answer.

Ten minutes later, we reached the river—a rapid surge of black water, foaming and snarling like it had something to prove.

The old bridge was long gone. Nothing remained but shattered planks buried under rot and moss. The supports jutted out from the banks like snapped ribs, coated in fungus and half-submerged debris.

No discussion needed.

We all looked once, then Camille was already moving. She scaled a leaning tree angled over the edge, looped a line around a high branch that looked like it might hold. Alexis reinforced it with filament cord, wrapping the ends in that sticky orange bio-adhesive she made from sap and acid bark. It smoked faintly as it cured—solid in seconds.

"Two at a time," Anthony said, checking the tautness. "Quick and quiet. No heroics."

Evelyn went first. She didn’t hesitate—just grabbed the line and moved hand over hand, her blindfold damp with mist, her weight light enough to barely sway the rope. She crossed like it was routine.

Sienna followed next. Slower, steadier, her boots slipping once but catching. She muttered something under her breath the entire way. Probably swearing.

I went last.

Or tried to.

The moment I stepped onto the first slick stone, I reached for my edge. Activate: Observation (Lv. 9). Then Deduction (Lv. 8). Just enough to chart the motion of the river, calculate tension, predict slip points, and time the pulse of my weight against the current.

What hit me instead wasn’t clarity.

It was static.

A white-hot flash ripped through my skull like a lightning bolt behind my eyes. My vision blurred. My head jerked sideways. For half a second, I couldn’t see.

Then the pain vanished—but the awareness didn’t come.

Nothing activated.

No overlays. No intuitive mapping. No predictive balance.

It was gone.

I gasped and overcompensated, grabbing the rope with too much force. My boot slipped on the moss-slick stone, and I lurched sideways, half my body dipping toward the torrent.

Then a hand grabbed me—hard and fast.

Anthony.

His arm locked around mine, pulling me back upright with practiced ease. His voice was low and edged with concern.

"Woah," he hissed. "That was sloppy."

"I know."

"Reynard—"

"I know," I snapped, a little too fast, a little too sharp.

Across the river, the others watched. Camille’s mouth was a grim line. Alexis said something—mouthed it—but my head was still fogged. I didn’t catch it. Didn’t ask her to repeat.

I crossed the rope with no assistance from my system.

Every step was a gamble. The cord twisted and creaked under me. Once, my left foot slipped entirely and my ribs slammed into the line, knocking the breath out of me. I dangled for a second, one leg flailing before I found another stone beneath me.

But I made it.

Barely.

The landing wasn’t graceful. But it was solid. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com

Still, the looks I got once I was over—those hit harder than any fall would’ve.

Alexis looked pale. Evelyn tilted her head like she was trying to figure out what she’d missed. Camille folded her arms and said nothing. But her silence was loud.

3830 walked close once the tension eased. Her eyes flicked over my face like she was taking mental measurements.

"How many times has it happened?" she asked quietly, her voice almost clinical.

"Twice," I said. "Both at critical points."

She frowned. It wasn’t a worried look—it was a calculated one.

"System degradation?"

"I don’t think so."

We reached the second ridge as night began to bleed through the canopy like ink through cloth.

The air shifted. Cooler, thicker. The golden haze of sunset collapsed into shadows—blue-green, uncertain, wavering like half-formed memories. Every step became a question of trust. Shapes warped against the fading light. Even the drone feed grew erratic, heat signatures flickering in and out like dying stars.

Anthony called a halt at the ridge line, one hand raised as he scanned the path ahead.

"We’re five minutes from the crate," he said. "One tight bend through this canyon, then we push through. Should be quiet."

"Scouts?" Sienna asked, her voice low.

"None that I see," he replied, his tone clipped but confident.

But I didn’t buy it.

I crouched down, fingertips brushing soil, and activated Instinct (Lv. 8). I expected the surge—the spatial mapping, the flicker of nearby motion, the soft internal warning system like pressure behind the eyes.

Instead, there was nothing.

No pull. No sensory flare. No feedback.

Just emptiness.

Not even the usual system delay or lag. The interface shimmered once—then dimmed. Flickered again. Then part of it just... failed. Whole windows didn’t load. My skill icons greyed out. The connection to my database was gone. No logs. No notifications. No reward structure. Just a hollow shell.

My body felt different too. Not in pain. Not in crisis. But exposed. Raw, like nerves were firing without insulation. I was moving without augmentation. Just a man. No edge. No rhythm. I opened my mouth to warn the others—

—and then they started slipping.

Alexis cursed suddenly, stumbling forward. A thin line of blood bloomed on her palm.

"I—" She stared at it. "There was a blade trap. I saw it."

"You should’ve seen that," I said, standing.

"I did!" she shot back, panic rising in her voice. "But then... it was like I didn’t."

Camille lunged forward and tried to roll beneath a slanted tree root.

Something went wrong.

She over-rotated, twisted hard, and slammed her ribs straight into a protruding rock. She hit with a grunt and stayed down a second too long.

"What the hell?" she gasped, winded. "I never mess up that roll."

A shout drew our attention ahead.

Sienna swung hard, her fist aimed for a scout emerging from the trees. But her punch landed off-mark—too high. Her balance broke. She stumbled, nearly face-first into the brush.

The scout didn’t go down. He turned, panicked, and fired wildly.

Evelyn tackled him from the side, blindfold and all. They both hit the ground in a thud of limbs and curses.

She got up swearing.

"I felt dizzy," she hissed, dragging herself upright. "Like I was lagging. My body moved wrong."

"My read was off," she continued, voice thin with disbelief. "I saw what he meant to do—he wanted to shoot—but it didn’t register. I feel more blind now than I ever have."

"I couldn’t track his intention," 3830 muttered behind us. "It was like my gut was gone. Like my instinct flatlined."

Anthony spun on his heel, gun raised, face tight. "What the hell is going on?"

Everyone turned to me.

I stepped forward, heart hammering, trying to find the words.

But 3830 beat me to it.

"They’re being disabled," she said.

The air went still.

No breath. No birdsong. Just the weight of that sentence crashing into all of us like a dropped boulder.

Her voice was cold. Not angry. Not afraid.

Clinical.

Precise.

I’d heard her talk like that before. When diagnosing corpses.

"Your skills. Your abilities. They’re not weakening," she said. "They’re being shut off. Randomly. Like someone’s flipping switches inside your interface."

Camille’s eyes went wide. "You mean jammed?"

3830 shook her head. "No. Not blocked. Not interfered with. Disabled. At the source."

Alexis went pale. "All of us?"

"Yes," 3830 said. "It’s not just Reynard anymore. It’s everyone."

Anthony swore under his breath and checked the feed from his wristpad. "How the hell is that even possible? You’re saying someone’s got remote access to our entire party’s systems?"

"I’m saying it’s happening whether it’s possible or not," she replied.

Sienna clenched her jaw. "How do we stop it?"

"We don’t," I said. "Not yet. We move."

3830 nodded. "Fast. Before whatever’s causing this hits harder."

And then, as if to punctuate her warning, the drone above us sparked with a sharp crack—

—and fell from the sky like a broken star.

The light died.

And the darkness rushed in.

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