For the first time in weeks, people were arguing about normal things.

They were still celebrating even after three days since the last gate was sealed. And the system announcement came.

Outside a newly active E-rank gate in the northern district, a teenager stood on the pavement with his gear buckled wrong on one side and his hands not quite steady. His father looked like a man trying very hard to accept something he hated.

"Back in my day, we started with F-rank," his father said.

The son looked at the E-rank gate. "That was two months ago, Dad."

"Still counts."

The son looked at the gate, which was more intense than any F-rank gate he had seen in the two months since awakening. His stomach tightened. "F-rank sounds easier than this."

His father looked at the gate too. "It was," he said quietly, and meant it more than the son understood.

...

Outside the empty space where an F-rank gate had been on Carver Street, a crowd had gathered that was not celebratory.

Forty people were standing on ordinary pavement, looking at the stretch of street where a gate had been running for six weeks. Some of them still had their gear on from the run they had been pulled out of mid-sequence when the system ejected everyone.

"Six weeks," a woman in light armor said flatly. "I found my class six weeks ago. I’ve been running this gate every day to build levels. Now what?"

A man beside her said, "They could have given us time to prepare."

"We had no warning," another said. "One moment I’m mid-fight with a level eight creature and the next I’m rolling across the pavement outside a gate that doesn’t exist anymore."

"E-rank starts at level ten," someone said from the back. "I’m level seven. What am I supposed to do? Stand outside E-rank gates and watch?"

"The system expects us to just figure it out," the first woman said. "Like it always does."

A younger hunter near the edge of the group said carefully, "Maybe it’s pushing us to grow faster."

The woman in light armor looked at him. "I don’t care about growing fast." She said. "I’ve been running F-rank because F-rank was what I could do safely. My daughter doesn’t care about growth timelines." She looked at the empty space on the pavement. "She cares about dinner."

The younger hunter did not say anything else.

A man at the back was recording for his content channel. He had been producing F-rank walkthrough videos for six weeks, the accessible kind that new awakeners watched when they were trying to understand what they were entering.

"My entire category just ceased to exist overnight," he said to his phone camera. "Everything I’ve built for the last month and a half. Gone. Because the system decided F-rank was obsolete." He lowered the camera. "Two months. The gates have existed for two months, and we’re already being told the starting point wasn’t good enough."

Nobody in the crowd had a response to that. They stood on the empty pavement and looked at where the gate used to be.

...

In a restaurant in the central district, four hunters were having a conversation that had started as lunch and become an argument somewhere around the main course.

"The system called them leadership candidates," one said. "That has to mean hunter leadership. Who coordinates operations, who sets priorities for gate assignments, who makes decisions when something like the Mythical phase happens again?"

"That could also mean city leadership," another said.

"The Mayor is still here."

"The Mayor doesn’t have a class. The system identifies candidates who do."

"Either way, someone needs to actually lead hunters in this city, and that’s a real conversation." The first one leaned forward. "Lily Blue. That’s my answer. She solved Hollow Sky. She developed the analysis framework that made every Mythical gate clearable. She sees things coming before anyone else does. That’s what coordination needs."

"Lily is brilliant, and she knows it," another said. "Leading people isn’t the same as solving problems. Mira Solt spent the entire Mythical phase protecting people who weren’t her responsibility. Carried six unconscious hunters out of the Abyssal Clock on a broken shoulder. Every hunter in this city trusts her because she’s shown repeatedly that she puts people before results."

"Victor Hale has been running GaleWing for longer than any of us have been awakened," the third said. "He has organizational experience that none of the others have built in two months. Infrastructure, resource allocation, and large-scale coordination. That’s not nothing."

"Victor is good at running an organization that benefits Victor," the first said.

"That’s an opinion."

"It’s an observation."

"Based on what?"

A pause. "Based on watching GaleWing operate during the C-rank phase." The first hunter set his cup down. "Every decision GaleWing made positioned GaleWing better. That’s not necessarily wrong. But it’s different from what a city leader should be doing."

The table went quiet for a moment. Then someone said, "Kai."

Everyone looked at them.

"He cleared Divine Maze alone. He cleared Crimson Eden with a partner who was compromised by the dungeon’s mechanics and got her out. He cleared Black Vein Depth when three full teams failed it the same morning. Two months in and he’s rank one." A pause. "There’s an argument."

"Kai doesn’t want to lead anyone," the first hunter said.

"That’s also an argument."

"In his favor or against?"

Nobody settled it. They ordered dessert and kept arguing, which was the most normal thing that had happened in the restaurant in two months.

...

Online, the conversation was louder and faster, and significantly less patient.

Lily, of course! Obviously, she literally solved Hollow Sky!

Mira carried people out of the abyssal clock literally. She is literally the person you want making decisions about hunter welfare!

But Mira is kind, not strategic...

You need both.

Victor has actual management experience with large hunter groups.

That’s true...

Who cares about that?! Kai is ranked one! Let the Null Class be the leader!

Rank one hunter doesn’t automatically mean rank one leader.

Name someone who has done more in two months!

Raze cleared the titan’s grave.

Raze also tried to leave his hospital bed and immediately failed.

That’s not relevant.

It is slightly relevant.

The point is the system named seven people and gave zero explanation!

...

Mayor Ko read the morning reports at his desk with the efficiency of someone who had learned during the last two months to find the important line in a document quickly and go straight to it.

E-rank casualty rate elevated beyond projections. Hunters who had awakened expecting F-rank as an entry point were encountering E-rank difficulty without the six weeks of baseline development that F-rank had provided.

Three more casualty reports sat underneath it.

All from hunters below level ten.

Resource shortages in four districts.

The local markets that had built around the F-rank drop income were not adjusting quickly. Six weeks shouldn’t have been enough but somehow it was. The authority candidate question had produced fourteen separate memos from different departments.

He hated all fourteen.

None of them answered the actual question.

He looked out the window at the city, which looked more like itself than it had since the first gate appeared. The skyline finally looked normal again. He thought about the fact that the system had decided the city was ready for E-rank as a baseline without asking anyone in the city whether the city agreed.

"Anything from the system on the authority candidate question?" he asked his assistant.

"Nothing, sir."

"Keep watching," he said.

...

On a large screen above the main downtown intersection, the ranking board displayed as it had since the system launched. Three days after the update, people still stopped to look at it.

[Rank 1]

[Kai Rosefield.]

[Class: Null.]

[Level: 52.]

[Dungeon Clears: 32.]

A man stopped on the pavement and looked at it. The woman beside him stopped too. A delivery courier slowed down. Three people who had been mid-conversation all looked up at the same moment.

None of them said anything. They just looked at it, confirming that what they had witnessed three days ago was still true.

A little kid pointed at the screen.

"That’s him!"

A mother nodded with a smile. "Yeah, he is our city’s strongest hunter."

Then they kept going.

...

Kai was staring at his phone while the cheers and laughter of the city could be heard through the window. The sounds of fireworks, people calling out to try some food, and people singing echoed out. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Kai ignored all of it.

He was too busy laughing at his phone.

Family group chat.

Leo: Soooooooooo Number One Hunter!?

Kai: Still unemployed.

Leo: That’s not how rankings work! And does it matter if you don’t have a real job? Isn’t the hunter paying you lots... Heck, not like anyone could stop you from–

Mina: Please don’t commit crimes today. And stop suggesting stuff like that, Leo.

Leo: I-I wasn’t!

Kai: Hahaha.

Mina: Kai.

Kai: Don’t worry, I am on my best behavior like always.

Leo: That’s somehow worse.

Kai looked at the exchange for a moment. Then he put the phone away and looked out at the city. The celebration was still going, distant but present, three days and still running.

He thought about Victor Hale.

Then he stood. "Let’s continue."

The room became silent while the man on the floor flinched. Someone near the wall stopped groaning and another lowered his head. Kai crouched while ignoring the ruined stuff around him. Such as the broken furniture covering the floor and blood staining the walls. His focus was on the eleven severely injured people in the room.

Six of them were unconscious. Three were groaning. Two were sitting against the far wall, trying to stay awake.

"Let’s continue."

A man near him looked up in shock.

There was a small pause as Kai held his chin. "You were about to tell me... Where people go when they want someone to disappear."

All of them shivered before looking away.

Kai’s gaze swept through them before stopping at the woman against the wall on his left. She had been watching him since he crouched. She had already looked at the door and knew she wasn’t getting out.

And so she started talking.

Too fast, words pulling each other forward.

An injured man near the door pointed at Kai from the floor. His hand was shaking. "You’re supposed to be celebrating," he said. "The city is celebrating."

Kai blinked before smiling. "I am... This is the part I’m celebrating."

The man stared at him in disbelief, and he began trembling after he stopped pointing.

Kai looked back at the woman who had been talking. "You were saying," he said.

She kept going with names and connections that his mind quickly began to connect. After a couple more minutes, she was done, and he nodded.

He had his next target.

The fixer.

Kai stood. "See?"

He headed for the door.

"That wasn’t difficult."

He stopped in the doorway before looking back at the room at the eleven people, five pairs of eyes followed him.

He smiled, but nobody smiled back. "Let’s hope the next guy talks faster."

Kai walked out.

Three streets away, people were still celebrating.