Chapter 1173

Humans are creatures that learn.

Of course, they sometimes forget important things. But if they forgot everything without ever learning a thing, humanity as we know it wouldn’t exist.

They kept learning, little by little.

Over millions of years, they never stopped advancing.

They learned to use fire and shape stone, until at last they glimpsed the boundless void above the clouds.

But for humanity, which had built a great civilization over such an unfathomable stretch of time, thirty-odd years were far too short to forget the horrific catastrophe known as the Great Cataclysm.

Wheeeeeee!

A blaring siren swept over the city—no, over the entire world.

It spread faster than the magical power rising from the frozen lands of the Far East could stain the sky, with an urgency beyond comparison.

Naturally, every available person and resource was thrown into action without restraint.

Governments declared martial law and deployed the military to evacuate their citizens to safe zones. The whole process moved swiftly and efficiently.

For better or worse, the fear that had gripped people since Morgoth’s appearance meant they had either evacuated already or were ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

But even those still beneath the blue sky faced no less danger.

—Monster Wave detected 3.2 kilometers¹ away to the east and west!

—Sending location and scale. Deploy immediately!

The System was right again.

The rift stage was over. The Collapse had begun.

As magical power spiraled out of control, countless Gates scattered around the world opened their dark maws, one after another. Monsters poured out of that cursed world, rampaging with greater strength and savagery.

Just like now.

Rumble, rumble.

The ground trembled at vibrations coming from far away.

So did the hand gripping the handle of a Tower Shield bigger than its owner, tight enough to crush it.

Thump.

At the heavy touch that suddenly landed on his shoulder, the young man jumped as if burned. Then he let out a sigh of relief.

“…Team Leader.”

“You’re jumpy, kid.”

The middle-aged man grinned, showing his teeth through his bristly beard. The young man might have been annoyed, but he swallowed hard and answered.

“N-no, I’m not.”

“Sure you are. I can tell. Just be honest.”

“Well… a little.”

“Look at this guy. You call yourself a Hunter, and you’re scared before the fight’s even started?”

“…I’m sorry.”

The young man’s face fell. The middle-aged man, who’d only been pretending to look stern, chuckled, and so did the Hunters around them.

“Team Leader, you keep that up and the kid’ll cry. Give it a rest.”

“Come on. What kind of man cries over this? We’ve all been through it. Back in my day…”

“Jesus, here comes his ‘back in my day’ latte again.² And all he ever drinks is Mocha Gold.”

“I switched a while ago. White Gold now.”

“Good for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it. It’s nothing.”

Listening to the old guys chatter, the young man felt like his head was about to burst.

Where am I, and who am I?

This was a serious situation. He ought to be on edge. So why was their conversation enough to drain every bit of tension out of him?

Did I pick the wrong team?

Of course, there was a serious flaw in that thought.

He hadn’t had a choice in the first place.

The man who’d “picked up” this twenty-year-old and brought him into a veteran party with an average age of 41.5 spoke up.

“How about it?”

“Huh?”

“Feeling a little better?”

The young man blinked, then answered in a voice much calmer than before, though even more bewildered.

“Uh, yes.”

“You were so stiff I figured I’d mess with you a little. Don’t be too hard on me for fooling around at my age.”

“N-no, not at all. I’d never think that.”

“Well, I’d understand if you did. Everyone’s nervous at first. You can’t help being on edge.”

The middle-aged man patted the young man’s shoulder encouragingly and laughed out loud.

It was such a warm laugh that it was hard to believe it came from a man whose face could make even a hardened criminal back down.

Maybe that was why the young man, who hardly dared open his mouth in this veteran party, worked up the courage to speak.

“Um, could I ask you something?”

Thankfully, that laugh hadn’t come from a vicious criminal pretending to be an ordinary person.

The middle-aged man readily nodded, and the young man cautiously continued.

“Why did you choose me…?”

His words trailed off after only a few syllables.

But that was enough. The middle-aged man answered without a moment’s hesitation.

“You reminded me of someone.”

“Reminded you of someone…?”

“Yeah. Someone I know.”

Truth be told, when the middle-aged man first saw the young man two days ago, he’d looked like every other rookie he’d ever seen.

Arms and legs locked stiff. Lips parched. Eyes darting around anxiously.

But if that had been all there was to him, the middle-aged man wouldn’t have chosen him as a teammate to entrust with his life.

“I saw you training.”

“Training?”

“Yeah. You were working hard. Hard enough to look desperate.”

“But that was…”

“I know. All the rookies there were doing it. Trying to stand out so they’d get into a decent team.”

That was true.

Two days ago, when they’d first met, hundreds of rookies fresh out of the regional Hunter Training Center had gathered there, showing what they could do while they waited for their team assignments.

They wanted a team with a better chance of survival.

Not to earn more money like before, but to protect the one thing they couldn’t trade for anything: their lives.

And of all those rookies, the young man had been the only one who wasn’t there.

“Where were you then?”

“Outside. I needed to find somewhere without people, somewhere with a bit of space.”

“Why?”

“Because I had to train.”

“You could’ve trained in there like everyone else and shown them what you could do, couldn’t you? Even ordinary people know the staff watch the waiting room from the monitor room.”

“That’s true, but…”

The young man hesitated, then continued.

“I didn’t think I could train properly in there.”

Of course he couldn’t. It was a waiting room, not the training room used for official tests. Spacious as it was, anyone would have trouble concentrating with that many people swinging bladed weapons around.

But the young man was different.

He might have been doing the same thing as the others, but his reason for doing it was entirely different.

He was giving the training everything he had.

Not to get onto a good team, but to become even a little stronger.

That day, the middle-aged man had secretly followed him to an empty lot. Watching him train there alone brought back a memory from a few years ago.

“That guy was like that, too.”

“Who?”

“The friend I mentioned earlier. I met him at a Hunter manpower office. He was young, like you—no, he was just a kid. A rookie at a glance. I figured I wouldn’t be seeing him for long.”

“Was there a reason you thought that?”

“He was F-rank.”

“Ah.”

F-rank.

That one word was enough for the young man to understand.

An untouchable in the Hunter world.

So far beneath the bottom that you could tack UCK onto the F and it would fit perfectly.

Even the young man, on the day of his first rank assessment, had looked at the E glowing on the monitor and thought:

At least I’m not F-rank.

But just as the young man was different, so was the “guy” the middle-aged man was talking about.

“At first, I had no idea I’d keep seeing him for over half a year.”

“At least he managed to find work, then.”

“What are you talking about? I said he was F-rank. I had some experience and connections, so there were places that’d occasionally call me in as a porter. But an F-rank rookie? Not a chance.”

“But you just said…”

“I said I saw him. I didn’t say we worked together.”

The young man’s eyes widened.

“So he just kept showing up at the manpower office? Even when there was no work?”

“Yeah. For nearly half a year. From the crack of dawn until evening, without missing a single day.”

Most people would have quit by then.

If they were ordinary people, that is.

“He didn’t. He’d leave a perfectly good sofa behind, climb the hill behind the office, and train like hell every day. Like some guy I saw two days ago.”

“…!”

“He’d take a number, train, come back when his turn was up, get turned down like always, take another number, train again… He never even got near a Gate, but by closing time he’d be more exhausted than someone who’d done five runs in a day.”

The young man listened, dazed, then answered honestly.

“I think I would’ve lost it halfway through.”

“Right? And here’s the funny part: he always looked miserable and kept mouthing fuck, fuck, but he trained harder than anyone I’d ever seen. He didn’t do it because he found it easy. He did it even though it was hard. Every single day.”

“That’s incredible.”

“Yeah. He’s an incredible guy.”

“No, I mean you, too, Team Leader.”

“Me?”

“If you saw him every day for half a year, doesn’t that mean you were doing the same thing?”

The middle-aged man was quiet for a moment, then let out a hearty laugh.

“You got me. Heh. But I’ll never be like that guy.”

“I don’t think that’s true. You’re already amazing.”

It wasn’t flattery.

Just as the middle-aged man had watched him, the young man had been watching his superior closely, too.

Two days was hardly any time at all, but it had been more than enough to see that the man deserved his respect.

“My dream is to become like you, Team Leader.”

“…Me?”

“Yes. You have character, skill, and you work hard. I even saw a news article about you once. I remember the headline: From F-rank to B-rank: One Hunter’s Extraordinary Ups and Downs.”

The young man had dredged up an embarrassing chapter of his life that the middle-aged man would rather forget. Laughter broke out around them, and the middle-aged man scratched his bushy beard, his face turning red.

He was just about to stammer out a reply when his expression hardened.

Rrrrrumble.

The vibrations were stronger than they’d been ten minutes ago. Now they weren’t just coming up through the soles of their feet; they were shaking their whole bodies.

It’s coming.

Everyone felt it at once, and realized anew how close they stood to death.

But they couldn’t back down.

They were humanity’s last line of defense.

They must have been given their powers for this very moment.

“Hey, rookie.”

“Yes, Team Leader.”

The young man answered hoarsely when the call came from behind him.

At some point, his hand and his Tower Shield had stopped shaking.

“Thanks.”

“What?”

“For saying I’m someone’s dream. Thanks.”

Still smiling, the middle-aged man—Im Kkeokjeong, Team Leader of Ares Guild’s Team 32—pulled his helmet down low.

I may not be able to become like that guy, but I’m a Hunter, too.

He fixed his gaze on the dust cloud rising a few hundred meters³ away and shouted with all his might.

“Formation—!”

At that moment, as a roar pierced the sky, the communicator on Im Kkeokjeong’s chest received a message.

—Attention, all Hunters. Alpha—Alpha has awakened.

A blade-sharp wind swept across the battlefield.