"An S-rank?" Ana didn't think it was anything exceptional since he, well, she was SSS herself, which is two whole letters more than a single S. "What's so great about that?"
"Hahaha. Looks like you've been living under a rock!" Toti thought that Ana was joking and laughed along at his humour. "She's an S-rank! S-RANK! Hahaha, come on, we can only dream about becoming like her someday."
"I don't think it's that difficult to become an S-rank." Ana laid back on his chair, thinking he'd already achieved that by compromising his dignity.
"Hahaha. You sure are funny, Ana." Toti continued to laugh.
But Ana didn't laugh, in fact , he made a dead serious expression.
And Toti noticed that not before stopping to laugh, himself.
"Are you serious?" Toti asked Ana, thinking that Ana's serious face probably meant something.
"Yeah, I'm serious." Ana replied.
"What?" Toti jumped up from his seat thinking that Ana probably knew some hidden way to easily break through to the supreme rank. "Tell me then! How can I become an S-rank?"
"Just train and work hard, I guess?" Ana used his previous world's knowledge about physical training to make oneself stronger as an analogy to answer Toti's question.
"Hahaha." Toti sat back down on his bed and laid himself back like Ana. "Man, I thought you were really being serious for a moment."
Ana quickly realised that what he said was completely wrong, so he asked about his doubts.
"Wait, you can't become an S-rank by training?"
"Hahaha, obviously not, I mean, you can since every S-rank works super hard to reach their positions." Toti sat back up again. "But you can't climb up a rank if you're not talented enough."
"Talent?" Ana wondered if it meant the physical and magical restrictions imposed upon oneself. "So not everyone can be an S-rank?"
"Yeah. I thought everybody knew this."
Ana contemplated Toti's words for a moment and then spoke.
"So what's the average rank a hunter or matriarch reaches normally?"
"An average hunter is like B or C rank, while Matriarchs are a bit stronger, about A to B rank, but a Matriarch's rank really doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter?"
"Yeah, since they rarely fight. The only thing that matters for them is their capability to boost their pieces."
Ana, obviously after learning this new information, tried to apply it to his own lover and pondered over Eva's abilities.
"But man, forget about matriarchs and think about yourself." Toti sighed. "It's tough being a hunter in this academy."
"Tough?" Ana naturally knew what Toti meant. "Are you saying it's tough to get a contract with a candidate matriarch?"
"Obviously!" Toti jumped up. "Competition is fierce out there! It's like a wild jungle!"
"On what conditions…can you make a contract with them?" Ana just wanted to know how he could make a contract with Eva.
"You have to be strong." Toti showed Ana his wobbly biceps by flexing them. "And the rest is upto them to decide."
Ana slowly started to understand why Behrman had said that this world was a dating game.
He figured that the protagonist was probably required to make these kinds of contracts with powerful women and then date them.
"Can you make multiple contracts?" Ana wondered if that was possible for hunters, since Matriarchs could obviously do that.
"Hahaha. You're seriously funny, man!" Toti ridiculed Ana.
It hurt Ana's pride a little since he wondered what was so wrong about his question but he let it slide this time.
"Is it not possible?"
"Man, it is almost impossible for weaklings like us to get one! Let alone multiple." Toti face-slapped himself.
On hearing the word 'weakling', Ana realised that he had forgotten, in this world, he was not the same as before.
"Wait… you don't have a contract?" Ana pitied Toti's bachelorhood, and internally mocked him for being single, unlike Ana who had gotten a girlfriend on his very first day in the academy, and that too, the ever gorgeous, super lovely Eva-Eva-Eva.
"I'm-" Toti crossed his arms, covering his chest, and blushed like a woman. "I'm saving myself for marriage."
Ana punched Toti in the gut for breaking his promise of not acting like a degenerate infront of him.
"Ouch, that tickles…" But Toti was completely unfazed after receiving Ana's fully unrestrained attack, which normally, from Ana's previous experiences, should have knocked him down to the ground. "I'm sorry I was just kidding."
"I did get a contract offer but I didn't accept it." Toti told Ana the truth.
Ana, who was startled by Toti's exemplary defensive strength which was hidden under a fragile bunny body, immediately asked Toti about his hypocrisy, his reason for declining an offer in the midst of, as per Toti's own words, 'fierce competition.'
"You didn't accept?"
"Hm. Actually I'm a little scared about something…" Toti began to explain the details about Pure Pure Lovers Paradise, which Behrman seemed to have missed to tell while setting off Ana. "Although it is advised to get a contract, if the power level gap between your Matriarch and you increases too much, or suppose, If your power level which was similar to her when you first got contracted doesn't increase in pace with hers…"
"If it doesn't increase in pace with hers…?" The anticipation was killing Ana.
Toti rolled both his index fingers on the opposite sides of his temples.
"You can become a lunatic, like an obsessed animal and lose your mind."
"What?" Ana found this a bit hard to believe.
"Yes! I'm serious! There have been many such cases in our academy only!"
"Hahaha, nice one Toti. You got me." Ana turned around and ignored Toti's next words as he began to reminisce about Eva.
"I'm serious, man! If there is a big disbalance in rank, then the spiritual contract tries to balance it out by drowning the weaker party-" Toti wholeheartedly explained but his words fell on deaf ears. "-the weaker party becomes obsessed and they may act in all sorts of ways-"
Ana, completely shutting off his ears from the physical realm, began to think about Eva's sweet smile, her unforgettable fragrance, her attractive voice and her uncanny resemblance to his ex.
Now Ana was a self aware guy and he knew that he was definitely not the type of person who had trouble moving on from one lousy relationship, nor was he the type to keep obsessing about a bad girl who had hurt him to death.
"Ana."
He just found Eva genuine and beautiful and there was nothing anyone could say about that to him.
"Ana."
He just wished he could marry Eva early, make some babies with her, buy a car and maybe settle down somewhere.
"Ana!"
The world had always been tough on him and he just wanted to find some peace, and what was so great about being an S-rank anyway? He would just take Eva away even if he never rose up from his…weak… F… rank…
"Ana!!!" Toti screamed at the top of his lungs. "Did a seizure hit you or something, why can't you hear me?!"
"Toti!" Ana jumped up and grabbed Toti's shoulders. "What rank are you?"
"Eh?" Toti was surprised but he swiftly blushed and looked away. "You-you say first…"
Ana wanted to beat the living crap out of him but he had understood that Toti, very very sadly, was stronger than him.
"Agh!" Ana shook his head in disgust before processing Toti's last sentence, and as soon as he did, Ana's face flushed too, not because he found touching Toti romantic, but because he was asked to reveal his despicable weakness. "Its…Its… D rank. I'm D ranked."
"D-ranked? Wow, Ana you're really strong!" Toti congratulated Ana on his fake rank.
"I'm not that strong…" Ana was digging his own hole by continuing to lie. "It's not that great…"
"Now I understand why you said becoming an S rank was easy! Ofcourse if you're D-ranked, you have high chances of reaching the S-class or atleast A rank!"
"Uh… yeah… are there no D ranks besides me?"
"In the first year? Only a handful of hunters." Toti laid Ana's insecurities to rest. "Most of them are F-ranks afterall, so D-rank is great!"
"Most of them?" Ana recalled Eva's words. "But I heard that the average was E-rank?"
That is the very reason, because the average was higher than F, why he had to fool Eva to boost his rank, not that he was complaining, since he got a new skill and also a girlfriend because of it.
"Did you hear that from one of the teachers? They usually say higher ranks to encourage us to work harder." Toti said that Ana was being insecure for nothing.
"I see." Ana smiled. "Then that means you're a F-rank too-"
And Ana came to the realization that he really was being unnecessarily insecure.
"I'm an E rank!" Toti flexed both his wobbly biceps this time.
Or maybe not.
"Sigh…" Ana let go of his 'stronger roommate', and felt defeated and discouraged as he turned around, rubbing his forehead with his weak 'F-ranked' hands.
The world had not been kind to him, neither his previous life nor this one.
"Well, atleast the women here seem nice." Ana tried to drown his sadness with Eva's memories.
"Yeah, about that…"
Toti tried to tell Ana something but just then-
Ding Ding
Toti's smart watch rang.
Ding Ding
Someone had called him, someone whom Ana would soon find to be, rather beautifully sinister.