UNBOUND: THE DEVOURING TAMER

Bottom of the Ranking

# Chapter 2: 

The registration office was a converted classroom, gray and cramped, with a line of Awakened kids waiting to get their rank cards stamped. Ethan stood near the back, arms crossed, listening to the clerk drone through everyone ahead of him.

"C-rank Swordsman—congratulations, the Iron Fang Guild accepts applications starting next week." "B-rank Elementalist, the Academy will be reaching out about scholarship placement." "D-rank Alchemist, still solid, plenty of apprenticeships open to you."

Every rank got something. A door. A path. Some kind of *next.*

When Ethan reached the front, the clerk—a thin man with ink-stained fingers and tired eyes—glanced at his card and did a double take.

"F-rank," the clerk said, like he was confirming a typo. "Beast Tamer."

"Yeah."

The clerk didn't say congratulations. He didn't say anything for a second, just reached under his desk and pulled out a thin, gray-covered pamphlet instead of the usual glossy guild brochure. He slid it across without meeting Ethan's eyes.

*RESOURCES FOR UNRANKED AND F-RANK CITIZENS.*

"That's, uh." The clerk cleared his throat. "That's got some information on... alternative paths. Manual labor registries, mostly. Some F-ranks find work in—"

"I can read," Ethan said.

The clerk winced and waved him along.

Ethan opened it walking out the door, because some masochistic part of him needed to see exactly how bad it was.

*Academy admission: requires E-rank or higher.*

*Guild apprenticeship: requires E-rank or higher.*

*Beast Tamer Association: requires D-rank or higher for registration; F-rank beasts are typically feral-class and unsuitable for combat licensing.*

*Military conscription: F-rank citizens exempt due to insufficient combat utility.*

Even the *army* didn't want him. That last line sat in his chest like a swallowed stone. Not "you're too weak to be safe on the battlefield"—no, they'd phrased it so it wasn't even worth the risk of arming him.

He kept walking, kept reading, the district noise fading into background static—vendors hawking enchanted trinkets, a pair of C-rank kids showing off a small fire elemental to a crowd, someone's mother crying happy tears over an A-rank result three streets down.

*Insufficient combat utility.*

He stopped at a corner and let out a breath through his nose, slow, controlled. Around him, Vale District carried on exactly like it had yesterday, exactly like the world hadn't just quietly filed him under *not worth the paperwork.*

His phone buzzed. His mother.

**Mom:** How did it go?? 💛

He stared at the message for a long moment. Then typed:

**Ethan:** F-rank Beast Tamer. Not great but I'm figuring it out.

**Mom:** Oh honey. That's okay. We'll figure it out together, remember? I'm making your favorite tonight.

He could feel the effort behind every word. The forced brightness. She was probably still at the mill, hands raw, doing math in her head about whether they could afford tutoring, whether there were tracks for kids like him, whether she should call in sick tomorrow to go with him to some F-rank support office and hold his hand through it like he was eight years old.

**Ethan:** You don't have to do that. I'm not going to be one of those charity cases begging for scraps.

**Mom:** That's not what I meant—

**Ethan:** I know. I'll be home for dinner.

He put the phone away before she could respond. Guilt sat next to the anger, the two of them crowding for space in his ribs. He didn't like being short with her. He liked even less the idea of her pity-eyes at dinner, the careful way she'd probably tiptoe around the word *rank* like it was something that could shatter him.

He wasn't going to shatter.

Two blocks down, past the registration office, he found the Beast Tamer supply shop—half-shuttered, dusty windows, a faded sign that read TAMER'S DEN in peeling gold paint. The bell over the door gave a tired jingle as he stepped inside.

The old shopkeeper looked up from behind the counter, squinting through thick glasses. "Rank?"

"F."

The old man's face didn't change, which Ethan appreciated more than he expected. No pity flinch. No forced smile. Just a slow nod, like F-rank customers weren't rare enough to warrant a reaction.

"F-rank beast summons are unpredictable," the old man said, shuffling toward a shelf of dusty tomes and cheap summoning tools. "Might get something with actual bite. Might get a rock lizard that falls asleep mid-battle. No way to know till you try."

"How much for a summoning catalyst?"

"Cheapest one's twelve silver."

Ethan did the math in his head. Twelve silver was most of what he had left after this month's share of rent. He thought about the gray pamphlet folded in his pocket, about *insufficient combat utility,* about Marcus Thorne's laugh still ringing faint in his ears like tinnitus.

"I'll take it," Ethan said, setting the coins on the counter before he could talk himself out of it.

The old man wrapped the catalyst—a rough, fist-sized stone veined with faint blue light—in brown paper and slid it across.

"Everyone else gets doors opened for them," Ethan muttered, mostly to himself, tucking the stone into his bag. "Guess I'll just have to break mine down."

The old man's eyes flicked up, something unreadable passing over his weathered face. "That attitude'll get you killed in this business, kid. Or it'll get you further than anyone in that Hall today. Depends which."

Ethan didn't answer. He walked out into the fading light of Vale District with a stone in his bag and a rank on his card that told the whole world he was worthless.

He didn't believe it. Not yet. Not completely.

But that night, lying awake and staring at the ceiling while his mother's soft crying leaked through the thin apartment wall—crying she thought he couldn't hear—something in his chest went cold and hard and very, very patient.

*Fine,* he thought. *Nobody opens doors for F-rank. So I'll rip mine off the hinges.*

He didn't know yet how literally that would end up being true.

---