The voice of rain drummed against the high-rise windows, a metallic hush that filled the silence of Silas Veil's room.
He slouched on the battered faux-leather couch, one of his legs hooked over the coffee table, the other dangling over just like that of the dead man's arm.
His T-shirt was stretched and stained, a cigarette burn near the collar. One of his hands burrowed beneath the thin fabric, scratching furiously at a dead patch on his skin which refused to stop itching.
Oh God, why does it always itch there?
He winced and kept scratching harder.
On the ancient flatscreen in front of him, an immaculately groomed news anchor stared out with frozen cheer, her bright voice slicing through static:
"Hunter Nathan Cross has officially cleared the New Avalon Abyss Gate, an S-Rank dungeon, solo. The Hunter Association has confirmed that now he's among North America's Top 10. The Gate is now sealed for good, although the mana storms still remain in the area."
The camera cut to a young man in elegant-looking clothes, sword strapped across his back, his dark hair tousled, sweat gleaming on his eyebrow.
The crowd behind him screamed his name in frenzied waves:
"Nathan Cross! Nathan Cross!"
Silas blinked. He felt a little dull, buzzing pressure screaming in his skull.
Top ten in North America... The guy's younger than me by at least 5 years...
He dropped the remote on the table. The plastic clacked sharply against a ring of dried coffee stains.
Outside, New Avalon sprawled like a neon spiderweb, its skyline splintered with shimmering mana barriers that flickered against the rain.
Giant digital billboards washed the streets in shifting colors: crimson, indigo, emerald. Drones zipped between the buildings like mechanical hornets, scanning for gate anomalies.
What the hell am I even doing with my life?
He sighed and scrubbed his palm over his face, feeling stubble rasp beneath his fingers.
"Man..." he muttered under his breath to the empty room. "I am just a damn F-rank. Can't do shit."
A siren wailed two blocks over. Somewhere, glass shattered. Silas didn't bother checking the window. Noise was constant in this city, especially after it all happened.
He let his eyes drift to the news ticker crawling across the screen's bottom edge:
[HUNTER ASSOCIATION REPORTS RISING SIGHTINGS OF A-RANK MONSTERS IN MIDTOWN DISTRICT. CAUTION ADVISED]
A faint tremor passed through him.
If a single A-rank monster showed up on my block... I'd be dead before I could even scream.
He glanced around his tiny apartment: peeling wallpaper, dishes stacked in the sink, and a cheap secondhand fan oscillating uselessly against the humidity.
Five years ago, none of this shit existed... it all started back then.
Silas was nineteen. He remembered standing in the middle of a crowded subway platform in the winter, earbuds blasting rock music.
One blink, and the crowd around him had thickened like smoke, hundreds of them gone without any trace.
After That:
Reports of The Vanishing flooded the news—millions gone overnight.
Rifts started to tear through the sky, opening portals to alien landscapes churning with bunches of different kinds of monsters.
The government fell, rebuked itself around the hunters.
Humanity clawed its way back under the glow of mana towers and shield barriers.
And some people awakened. Powers blossomed in their bodies like nuclear reactors. Superhuman strength. Magic. Elemental manipulation.
They got ranked: F, E, D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS.
The rest of the humans... were left behind.
Back to Now
Silas blinked and found himself staring at the TV again. The anchor had now moved on to the fresh headline.
"Hunter Guilds are now recruiting for new Dungeon Clear Squads. Signing bonuses exceed fifty thousand dollars for C-ranks and above."
Fifty thousand dollars...
Silas felt his throat start to tighten.
That's my dream. Just enough money to get out of this rat hole... to live my life like an actual person.
He leaned forward, pressing his fingers into his temples.
"I want money. I want strength. I want... more." His voice cracked a bit. "But what the hell can an F-rank do?"
He thought of the last time he'd tried applying to a guild.
"Sorry, Veil, we don't accept F-ranks. Even E-ranks are a liability."
He'd forced a polite smile on his face as they shut the door in his face.
I'd rather die than keep living like this…
He stared at the fruit basket on the counter next to him. A battered chef's knife stuck out of the apples like a warning sign.
A dark thought coiled in his gut.
Maybe I should just… end it. One clean cut. No more debts. No more scraping by. No more waking up with this fucking itch in my chest.
His fingers trembled as he rose from the couch. The rain roared louder against the windows, like a crowd screaming from the other side of reality.
He crossed the room, bare feet slapping the cold linoleum. He reached for the knife. The handle was slick with condensation, as if it too were sweating under the neon lights filtering through the blinds.
Silas lifted the knife slowly and held it next to his throat. He could see his reflection in the polished steel, a pale face, sunken eyes, and the dark hairs falling like a shadow across his eyebrow.
One little push. That's all it will take.
He pressed the point into his skin. A thin tickle of warmth started to slide down his collarbone.
"Fuck... this..."
He inhaled sharply and prepared to drive it in.
The voice,
And then—
[Awakening initiated.]
The words didn't come from the TV, nor the rain, nor anywhere in the world. They bloomed directly inside of his skull, vibrating in his bones, carrying the weight that felt way too ancient.
He froze. The knife slowly slipped from his hand, hitting the floor with a metallic clang.
Silas staggered back, clutching his chest. A burning heat bloomed beneath his sternum, pulsing in rhythm with his racing heart.
The room changed.
Pale golden lines scrawled themselves across the air in front of him, forming shifting sigils and runes. Like a hologram, but impossibly sharp, impossibly real.
Am I hallucinating?
The letters rearranged themselves into words he could read, blazing brighter:
[Greetings, Silas Veil. You have been chosen.]