Mythal was celebrating.
Every screen in the city was showing the sa footage from different angles. The strike team’s engagent with the Territory Commander cut together from the recording equipnt equipped to each mber.
Sera’s spear hitting the Commander’s armor at the third strike and forcing it a step back. Raze laughing while his weapon pushed against the halberd. Lily directing the support line adjustnts during the formation shift. Elden intercepting the aerial monsters before they could reach the team’s rear. Kai’s final strike through the armor gap.
The footage was on in restaurants and training halls and the screens visible through the guild building windows. Not because anyone had mandated it. Because everyone wanted to watch it.
Three days the city had lived with the B-rank territory and what it might do next. Three days of the question of whether the strongest hunters in Mythal were enough.
Now there was an answer.
It was on every screen in the city.
People had been tense for days.
Now they could finally relax.
Kai was passing a café on his way back to headquarters when he caught the conversation from inside.
"The eastern B-rank is next," one hunter said.
"Too close to the residential zone," another said.
"The western one then."
"Nobody’s ready for the western one."
"Kai’s team cleared the Commander in a single operation."
"The Commander wasn’t the territory’s actual leader."
A pause.
"Does that matter right now?"
Kai kept walking. The argunt behind him did not resolve. He heard two more versions of the sa conversation before he reached the guild building, each one about which B-rank gate would be tackled next and whether the strike team would do it together or split across multiple operations simultaneously.
A couple of days ago, people wondered if a B-rank territory could even be cleared. Now they were arguing about which one to clear next.
...
The Distribution Headquarters was louder than its usual volu, which was already above what most workplaces would consider normal. The source was imdiately identifiable.
Mira was standing on a chair. "We are all witnessing history," she announced with a grin.
The room was gathered around the conference table where the Commander raid’s material yield had been laid out for evaluation. Equipnt components, monster parts, crafting materials, the physical results of what the strike force had brought out of the territory before the collapse.
Lily looked like she had been dealing with Mira for two hours and was running out of patience. Elden was inspecting each item while Raze was leaning against the other wall and staring out the window.
"What’s happening," Kai said.
Mira pointed at the material pile. "Waiting for you two."
Sera chuckles. "Oh? Our bad then, we can get started now."
"Good!"
Kai watched as Mira, Elden, and Raze went through the drops. He didn’t go yet as his thought was still lingering on the strange object.
The distribution took most of the afternoon. Not because of disagreent but because of volu. The Commander had left behind enough material to matter to the city for months.
Outside the building the celebration continued.
...
Leo was positioned near the apartnt door when Kai arrived ho, which given the layout of the apartnt suggested he had been waiting.
"You fought a six-ter commander," Leo said.
"Approximately," Kai said.
"And nobody told ."
"You would have died," Mina said from the couch.
Leo pointed at her. "That’s not the point."
"It is the entire point."
"It’s a detail."
"Leo." Mina looked at him. "It is the main point and also all of the secondary points."
Leo turned back to Kai with the expression of soone seeking a more sympathetic audience. "You fought sothing six ters tall."
"Yes."
"And won."
"Eventually."
Leo shook his head. He looked genuinely disappointed. "One day I’m going to have stories like that."
"First grow up properly," Mina said.
"I’m growing up!"
"Not with you staying up all night." Mina sighed. "Keep this up and you will stay shorter than ."
Leo gasped before looking at Kai and saying. "S-She is just a joke... Right, Kai?"
Kai gave Leo an amused smile before saying. "Nope."
Leo slumped down to the ground with a look of horror while Mina laughed. Then Mina started dinner while Leo providing comntary on everything except what was relevant to the al preparation.
For a while nobody talked about gates.
Or Commanders.
Or B-rank territories.
The conversation was about Leo’s school and Mina’s work week and whether the food Mina had bought that morning was enough. Leo’s position that it was not, which Mina addressed by continuing to make the food.
Kai ate dinner and listened to all of it and did not think about the ancient structure he had seen for one second during the territory’s collapse.
...
The city’s lights were visible from the new cafe building’s upper floor when Kai returned. The celebration hadn’t slowed down.
If anything, it had grown bigger.
People had finally been given a reason to feel good.
Sera was already at the window and Kai stood beside her. Neither of them said anything imdiately. Below the window the city was doing what cities did when they had survived sothing difficult. Crowds in the plazas. Sound carrying through the street grid. People weren’t running from anything tonight and instead moving toward sothing.
"Think it’ll last," Sera said.
"The feeling?" Kai said.
She nodded.
"Probably not forever," he said.
"No."
Sothing would happen. Another gate would beco relevant or another threat would erge or the system would update sothing and the update would require response. That was the current shape of the world. The monts between threats were real and were worth having and did not last indefinitely.
"Tonight is real though," Sera said.
"Yes," he said.
Below them soone in the plaza had apparently started sothing because the crowd noise increased in a specific way that ant a group response to a single event. Then it spread, the way crowd responses spread when the surrounding people caught the reason and added to it.
Kai watched it move through the plaza below.
He had been thinking about the structure from the territory’s collapse since he had seen it. The image was still clear. It didn’t look like part of the fortress. It didn’t look natural either. He had not ntioned it to anyone yet.
He was not sure what to say about it yet.
Sera was watching the plaza celebration. "First B-rank territory cleared," she said. "That ans sothing."
"Yes," he said.
"The other territories are still out there."
"Yes."
She looked at him sideways. "You’re thinking about sothing that isn’t the celebration."
He looked at the city. At the lights and the people and the montum of a population that had just been told they could do sothing they had not been sure they could do.
"I just feel like sothing is wrong," he said.
Sera was quiet for a mont. "You saw sothing during the collapse."
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"It’s this object." Kai held out the black compass.
"Where did you get that?"
"From the Commander Drop."
Sera moved it around her hand before seeing the description. "Do you plan to find out what it’sp pointing to?"
"Might as well. I doubt it will be useless since it’s S-rank."
"That’s true... Alright when do we go?"
"When I figure out how this works."
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