Elio studied the new man's face. Long, messy brown hair fell around a square jaw and a sharp nose. There was a blankness to him, the kind of look that made it hard to guess what he felt even when you tried.
His build was broad and finished, like he'd grown into his frame early. Mid-twenties, Elio guessed.
Kael offered his right hand. "Nice to meet you."
Elio took it without hesitation. "Same."
"Don't stand around! Go get ready! We're starting work. Round up the men—I'll introduce Kael," the foreman cut in, snapping the warm moment clean and handing Elio his first job of the day.
Elio gave a quick nod and broke away at a brisk pace. He would have liked to say more to the newcomer, but if the foreman planned to introduce him anyway, there was no point pushing it. He stepped into the building and called down the halls, knocking boots against concrete, then circled the perimeter to catch anyone lingering by the fence. No one had really started yet. Most of the crew wore the same early-morning scowl—the look of men pulled from warm beds and cool dreams.
It didn't take long before everyone drifted back to the plastic table. Kael stood beside the foreman, quiet, while the others gathered in a loose knot. The foreman took one step forward.
"All right. Time to meet your new coworker. His name's Kael," he shouted, voice carrying to the edges of the site. "From now on, he handles the heavy jobs. If there's hauling—materials, bags, whatever—you tell him. Any problem, you tell me!"
He talked with his hands as much as his mouth, carving the air with big, certain gestures until the point could have been understood from a block away.
Kael waited it out without a word.
From the back of the crowd, Elio watched in silence. Something about it sat wrong with him—treating a one-armed man like a pack mule. It didn't feel right. Then again, one of the man's shoulders had more mass than both of Elio's legs put together. That fact was hard to ignore.
The speech ended. With a few sighs and mutters, the workers scattered toward their posts. The foreman slapped Kael between the shoulder blades with a heavy palm. "Let's go then. Hoist those sacks over there and take them up to the fourth floor!"
Elio, already turning away, heard it and glanced back. Hoist the sacks? He followed the line of the foreman's finger.
The sacks were filled with sand for cement mix. Usually they went by wheelbarrow, one at a time, because of the weight.
"No way…" someone murmured at Elio's side. He turned and found a coworker staring the same direction, brows up. A few others had paused too, curiosity hooking their feet. The order sounded absurd.
"Got it," Kael said, short and simple. He walked to the stack, caught the tied mouths of two sacks in his right hand, and in one smooth motion swung them up onto his back.
"Whoa…"
The surprise broke out of the watching group before anyone could help it. Kael had lifted well over a hundred kilos like he was picking up groceries—no strain in the face, no grunt in the throat. He adjusted once, settled the load, and started for the building at an easy pace.
"What are you looking at? A circus bear?" the foreman barked. "Back to work!"
The small crowd jolted under the blast and shuffled off, muttering as they went. Elio turned with them, the image of the two sacks riding a single shoulder lingering in his mind as the site's morning noise finally started—boots scraping, tools clacking, voices rising and folding into the day.
Elio's job for the day was on the fourth floor. He took the stairs one flight at a time, pace easing as he went. The stairwell carried sounds up and down—his own breaths, the dull thock of boots on concrete, the faint rattle of the railing when his palm brushed it. He glanced back between landings, watching the giant of a man coming up behind him.
Is he even human? People came in all builds—genetics, work, the way life shaped them—but this one's proportions felt outside the usual run.
As he climbed, one conclusion kept circling back. He's a Hunter.
Hunters weren't just strong by training; their bodies were different to begin with, and they sharpened those bodies with brutal routines until strength stacked on top of strength.
Kael had to be a Hunter. What else explained him? But if that was true, why was he here?
Hunters were prestige wrapped in flesh. They weren't the kind of people you bumped into in a random morning crowd. Even the weakest of them tended to have money and soft power to spare.
So what was a Hunter doing at a bare-bones construction site?
Retired? He didn't look old. He had lost an arm. Maybe he'd taken a beating somewhere along the line—a bad one—and quit. Or maybe the job had hollowed him out in the head and he'd walked away.
Even so, it didn't square with ending up here. No matter how far a Hunter fell, the floor under them was still higher than a regular person's ceiling. Retired Hunters usually lived off what they'd already earned, comfortable enough not to chase day wages.
Elio reached the fourth floor, thoughts still crowding him. He drifted toward his work area with half his attention, the other half fixed on Kael as the man finished the last steps. Kael took a few more strides across the raw slab and chose a spot. Then he slid the sacks off his shoulder and set them down—easy, controlled, like he was laying down grocery bags instead of something that should have bent a man in half.
The sight tugged at something deep and long-standing in Elio. Years of being a Hunter nerd flared into a single, sharp curiosity. Maybe—maybe—this was his first real chance to befriend a Hunter. And if doors opened into other doors…
He knew what that sounded like. You don't become a Hunter just because you stand next to one. But chances fed other chances. The odds weren't zero. They weren't any lower than whatever he'd had yesterday.
Kael rolled his shoulder, stretched it once, then turned and started back for a second load.
Elio moved without a plan. He popped to his feet and stepped toward him, pulled forward by nothing more complicated than instinct.
Before he could close the distance, two men slid in beside Kael—coworkers of Elio's. Apparently he wasn't the only one who wanted a closer look.