"I'm rea-"
The words didn't finish.
Because the world beneath him ripped open.
He felt it in his ribs first: a magnetic pull, sharp and sudden, like someone had just yanked the emergency eject cord on his soul. Light flared beneath his feet. Gravity punched through the white void and dragged him down without warning.
"Wait—!"
Then he was gone.
The white space vanished, and in its place—
Sky.
Blue. Blinding. Endless.
He was above the clouds. Far above. So high the curve of the world stretched below him like a painting. The sun gleamed off metallic rooftops and far-off towers. Streets twisted like veins, and lights flickered from moving cars. It was a modern world. Skyscrapers. Pavement. Civilization.
"Oh," Ren muttered, voice nearly lost in the wind. "So it's a city setting this time. Looks normal enough."
That thought lasted all of three seconds.
Then gravity remembered him.
His stomach dropped. The wind roared louder. skin almost flattening as the clouds rushed up to meet him.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh—"
He flailed, spun once in the air, then:
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK—!"
Panic kicked in hard. His fingers twitched. He yanked open his status interface with a thought, but there were no parachutes in the inventory, no levitation spells, no divine safety nets.
Impact imminent.
He didn't need the System to tell him that.
"Okay! Okay, brace! Brace! Shit—"
His spine twisted as his body shifted instinctively. Flesh warped. Skin flexed. His neck split open cleanly, and from the stump, ten thick, inky-black tentacles burst upward like fleshy cables snapping free from a reel.
The transformation always felt wrong. Cold at first. Then hot. Then heavy.
But right now, it was the only thing between him and a permanent crater.
The tentacles curved over his head, spiraling like the petals of a monstrous flower, wrapping down toward the ground as the cityscape zoomed closer.
Glass. Concrete. Park trees. A sidewalk. And a very unlucky bench.
The tentacles snapped tight just as he hit.
BOOM.
The sound was deafening. Dust exploded into the air. Concrete cracked like an egg. Cars skidded to a halt, alarms blaring. Windows shook two blocks away. The crater spread beneath him, steam hissing from the scorched edge.
Ren lay at the center of it, limbs sprawled, tentacle-head half-buried in the asphalt like a dropped squid.
He groaned.
"System…"
[Yes, Host?]
"…Am I alive."
[Functional.]
"I think I dislocated something."
[Correct.]
Somewhere in the distance, someone screamed.
Ren sat up slowly, a tentacle twitching beside him. His shoulders cracked. His jaw ached. But he was alive.
Welcome to the new world. Again.
Chapter 18: Welcome to Qintara
Ren groaned from inside the crater.
He was curled in a thick, twitching mass of black tentacles, the appendages wrapped around him like some kind of self-made cocoon. Smoke and dust wafted through the alley. The crater stretched nearly ten meters across, its center still steaming from impact. Pieces of shattered pavement had embedded themselves into nearby dumpsters and walls. A lamppost tilted at a doomed angle.
Somewhere nearby, someone screamed.
Footsteps. More screaming.
A newspaper boy dropped his satchel and bolted. A street sweeper tossed his broom and ran without looking back. A kid pointed, wide-eyed, then turned and sprinted down the sidewalk like he'd just seen a ghost crawl out of a drain.
"Okay," Ren muttered, "definitely not a stealth landing."
His tentacles shivered once, then slowly began to retract. Flesh twisted. Bone cracked back into place. The black limbs peeled away from his body with a slick, wet sound, retreating into the base of his neck until they vanished completely.
He stumbled to his feet, naked, sore, and somehow still dizzy despite regenerating on impact.
"Phew… I'm not dead. Thank god."
"FREEZE!"
Twenty voices snapped in unison.
Ren didn't even have time to curse before his head whipped around—and immediately regretted it.
A squad of twenty people in black suits had materialized around the crater. All were armed. Half held glowing staffs etched with runes; the others wielded swords, spears, or advanced rifles. Golden badges glinted from their chests.
He glanced at one of the badges.
Hunter Bureau — Qintara Division
His stomach dropped.
Then he looked up.
Across the street, barely two dozen meters from his smoking crater, was a tall white-and-glass building with the same gold emblem above its entrance:
Hunter Bureau — Qintara Government Branch Headquarters
"Oh fuck me," he muttered. "I crash-landed in front of a government building."
"Surrender!" one of the agents barked, stepping forward. "Hands up! Now!"
The rest fanned out, weapons trained squarely on his very naked, very suspicious-looking self.
Ren raised both hands slowly. "Okay. Okay! I can explain! I'm not a terrorist!"
He glanced down.
He was completely naked.
"Oh come on."
System… what the hell?!
[Your cloth disappear when you leave the white space. Why don't you feel it sooner]
I was falling out of the fucking sky!
[Acknowledged.]
"This is how I die," Ren muttered aloud. "Not by monsters. Not by eldritch infection. But by indecent exposure."
"Move toward us, slowly," a woman with a glowing spear commanded.
Ren took a cautious step forward. "Listen, there's a very reasonable explanation for all of this."
"Then start talking."
"I'm a newly awakened Hunter. I just completed my Trial. Got sent here through divine… ejection. Fell from the sky. Crashed into your sidewalk. Didn't exactly choose the landing zone. Or the lack of pants."
The agents exchanged glances.
One of them, an older man with salt and pepper hair and a notably kind expression, stepped forward. "You're a new Awakening?"
"Yes. I swear."
The man looked him up and down. Then sighed. "Alright. If that's true, we'll need to take you in for registration. Just… cover yourself first."
He shrugged off his long coat and handed it to Ren without ceremony.
Ren blinked. "Huh?"
The man gestured. "You're standing in front of a government building naked. Let's not add public indecency to the incident report."
Ren took the coat gratefully and wrapped it around himself. It reached past his knees, hiding most of his shame.
"I'm lucky you didn't just shoot me."
"You still might be lying," another agent muttered, not lowering her bow.
"Yeah, but if I was hostile, I probably wouldn't have landed like a human cannonball butt naked."
There was a pause. A few of them actually chuckled.
Ren exhaled.
First impression: crater.
Second impression: nudity.
Third impression… government arrest. Yeah, solid start.
He stepped toward them slowly, hands still up.
"Let's get this over with," he said.
"And please… someone get me pants."