SSS-Class Profession: The Path to Mastery
Chapter 241: Glasshouse

Chapter 241: Glasshouse

The helicopter touched down without fanfare.

No searchlights. No armed convoy waiting with rifles raised. Just the whine of the engine fading as the aircraft settled into place—an automated landing pad embedded directly into a mountainside, its borders lit by faint, buried LEDs that pulsed with cold, clinical rhythm. The blades slowed to a whisper, then silence.

We weren’t in the jungle anymore.

The ramp dropped. Wind sliced inward, sharp and dry, stinging the cuts on my cheek. I looked out and felt my stomach twist. Everything was wrong.

The air had shifted. Thinner. Colder. The stars above looked clearer—emptier. Snow dusted the edges of the cliffs, bleeding like ash across black stone. This wasn’t just a relocation. It was exile.

They moved us fast. Guards in layered gray uniforms herded us down a narrow tunnel carved into the rock, no wider than a freight hallway. No one spoke. Not the agents. Not the prisoners. Just the echo of boots and the electronic hum of the facility that swallowed us whole.

The tunnel opened into white.

A corridor stretched out like something grown, not built—pure white walls that reflected no shadow, seamless tile underfoot, pale strip-lights running like veins overhead. Cameras blinked behind matte-black domes. At every intersection, a metal port glowed red until we passed, then dimmed. Sterile. Controlled.

But not repurposed.

This place wasn’t converted from something else. It had no wear, no history, no mismatched screws or reinforced corners. It was new. Custom-built.

And it was built to hold people like us.

The separation happened without force. But it was deliberate—surgical in its precision.

We were shuffled one by one down different hallways, each chosen path closing behind us with a pneumatic hiss. Anthony and Evelyn were grouped together. Sienna and Camille vanished down different forks. Alexis was led in the opposite direction from them both.

And 3830?

She had a full team escort. No fewer than four guards, plus one in a pressure-sealed suit. They didn’t even let her walk under her own power. She was bound in something thicker than cuffs—mechanical harness locked to her spine. Her face gave nothing away, but her eyes—those never blinked.

I resisted. Pulled against the agent steering me left.

"What’s going to happen to them?" I asked.

The agent didn’t answer.

Of course not.

Not a word. Not a glance. Just the pressure of their grip tightening, and the muzzle of the stun rifle raising slightly toward my ribs.

So I walked.

My skills were still partially deactivated. I don’t understand how 3829 is able to do this for so long, but even if I did have my skills. Could I escape? I’m handcuffed and at gunpoint, even if I use Full Profession Sync, I’d be able to take out 1 or 2 guards before I get mowed down.

And if I escaped—if I found a way out—what then? I’d be alone. No intel. No tools. No backup. And everyone I left behind would be buried in this mountain. This wasn’t a prison you broke into again.

It was a glasshouse.

No one escaped a place like this.

My cell was a masterpiece of subtle cruelty.

No clocks. No reflections. No noise beyond the gentle, constant hum of filtered air and power running through unseen conduits. I knew I was being watched, but not from where. A camera existed. I felt it, like pressure on the back of my neck. But it was hidden.

There were no restraints.

They didn’t need them.

The cot was bolted to the floor. A sink without a drain. Lights that dimmed only slightly, even when I closed my eyes. White walls. White ceiling. Pale grey floor. Everything soft-lit. Everything clean.

No system pings. No internal error logs. My interface still opened—but it felt empty. Like it had forgotten what it was supposed to be. My status said "online." My jobs appeared in the menu.

But every attempt to activate a skill fell flat.

No failure.

Just silence.

They’d found a way to hollow me out while leaving the shell. And somehow, that was worse than any warning screen.

I sat. Waited. Counted seconds. Lost track. Started again.

Eventually, the door clicked.

They didn’t come for me with guards or weapons this time. Just a hiss of air and a soft light guiding me down another hallway. I followed.

The room was not an interrogation chamber.

It was a lounge.

Soft panel lighting arched from the ceiling like sunrays behind clouds. The floor was pale wood—or some imitation of it. A single, wide chair sat in the center of the space. Opposite me: a seamless wall of mirrored glass, too clean to reflect anything.

No table. No restraints. No cameras in sight.

I knew better.

I sat.

The voice came thirty seconds later, smooth as silk and slow as oil.

"Reynard Vale. The man behind the Masked Syndicate. The ghost with too many names. You’ve been a long time coming."

It wasn’t robotic. Nor hostile. It carried the rhythm of someone educated. Practiced. Polished.

"I must admit," it continued, "we never expected to see you in person. Not after the damage you did. Not after vanishing back overseas. But here you are. Whole and captured."

A pause.

"You even brought friends."

I clenched my fists but said nothing.

"There’s something very special about you, Reynard. And no, I don’t mean your mind, or your disguise work, or your improvisation under pressure—though all are impressive. I mean your title."

Silence.

Then:

"SSS-Rank. Jobmaster."

I flinched.

"That title was... not supposed to exist. Not after the NovaCore program ended. Not after Subject 3840 failed to stabilize. And yet..."

Another pause, longer this time. I could hear faint keys being tapped.

"...you received it. Years after the program collapsed. Without injection. Without conditioning. Without intent."

The voice dropped lower.

"You didn’t earn that title, Reynard. It was assigned. By the system itself. That... needs to be studied."

I rose to my feet. "You want to dissect me."

"No. We want to understand you. There’s a difference. Dissection is final. You, Reynard Vale, are not allowed the luxury of being finished."

I then heard a sound.

Not from the room. From behind the walls.

Muffled shouting. Muffled—but familiar.

It was 3830.

Her voice was ragged, rising and breaking with the force of something held down too long. She screamed a name.

"TWENTY-NINE—!"

Cut off. Sharp. A thud. Then silence.

I took a step back, toward the mirrored wall.

She’d been restrained. Drugged, probably. Her job title being neutralized.

Then the wall faded.

Like ice melting under breath, the glass turned transparent. And behind it—

Subject 3829.

Sitting in a high-backed chair, his torso locked into a metal frame with dozens of cerebral cables snaking from his spine, jaw, and skull into a console that pulsed faint blue. He didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just watched me.

A machine using a man’s body as its screen.

Then someone else entered the room.

No fanfare. No alarms. Just a quiet figure in a slate-gray suit, hair trimmed neatly, face unreadable—neither male nor female, neither young nor old. Skin too smooth. Eyes too calm. I couldn’t tell if they had been experimented on or they simply naturally looked like that. They walked to 3829’s side and placed a hand on the console.

Their voice was the same as the one I heard before.

But now it had a body.

They smiled.

"Let’s begin by taking away that title, shall we?"