Perfect.

  A tank was the best possible synergy for a glass cannon like him.

  Their eyes met, and Henry rushed over, the kid looking overly grateful. He gripped Shane’s hand with a calloused, trembling palm.

  “Thank you for being here, sir,” Henry breathed, his voice thick with emotion.

  Don’t mention it. You’re the one who’s going to be doing all the hard work.

  A few more hunters from the Wynn Guild gathered behind Henry—mostly crafting classes and porters forced into combat gear. Average C-rank.

  Reflexively, Josh invited Shane into his party, and Shane quietly clicked the [Accept] button on the System interface. Everyone else was just the same low-rank nobodies so it was easy to choose them over the others.

  At least the Wynn Guild members should be more experienced and coordinated during a real fight.

  Their positive attitude toward him was also a plus. Trust always made an immense difference in teamwork.

  And it added weight to his words.

  It was better to let Josh lead the team. He was probably used to the party captain role, and the others must be used to following him.

  Besides, Shane was sick of leading groups.

  Despite the prestige the title implied, a leading role had its own downsides.

  He didn’t want people relying on him, or becoming his responsibility. He also didn’t want to have to constantly persuade people and when he couldn’t talk about the game. Just imagining it gave him a headache.

  It would be much easier to just indirectly influence Josh, and through him, the party.

  Now there were only two spots left in Josh’s party.

  It seemed like this was all the backup they were going to get from the Wynn Guild.

  The reality of the situation was grim. To be fair, with fewer than ten S-rankers and only about a hundred A-rankers in the entire country, they should probably be grateful to even have one A-rank here.

  Even C-rankers were getting treated like hotshots today.

  “We’re still short on DPS,” Josh muttered, frantically typing on his System interface while yanking his tie loose with a free hand. “Hunter Ashwell is a ranged dealer. We need more tanks and melee fighters to protect the neighborhood from mobs.”

  Suddenly, a figure appeared at the edge of the crowd, lingering by a rusted chain-linked fence, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else on Earth.

  Josh squinted, before he plastered a neutral smile onto his face.

  “Ah, Hunter Barlowe.” Josh waved him over.

  Whitley Barlowe shuffled toward them. Gone was the Wynn Guild armor Shane had seen him in previously.

  Now, Whitley was wearing standard-issue government uniform—drab gray and ill-fitting. His eyes darted around nervously, refusing to land on anyone for more than a second.

  Shane narrowed his eyes behind his bangs.

  He didn’t think he’d be seeing the idiot who had screwed Shane’s plan to prevent the deaths from the monster wave dungeon.

  Whitley stopped a few feet away, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.

  “Hunter Barlowe,” Josh replied, his voice smooth but devoid of warmth. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “...Draft order.”

  “Right.” Josh adjusted his glasses. “I see you’ve settled into your new job.”

  Whitley let out a sharp, bitter laugh.

  “It pays the rent. Which is more than I can say for my last employer.”

  “Budget cuts are a tragedy everywhere,” Josh said breezily, stepping right over the accusation.

  Shane overheard the exchange from the side.

  So that confirmed it. Whitley, the old man had been quietly “let go” from Wynn and had taken a job as a government hunter right after the monster wave incident.

  Whitley trudged into the formation, going out of his way to greet everyone except Shane.

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Shane couldn’t care less.

  In fact, he preferred it. The less attention he had from a guy prone to panicked mistakes, the better.

  “We just need one more,” Josh said, turning to the swordswoman. “Anyone you can call? We’re running out of time.”

  “Not on short notice, no.”

  Shane scanned his new teammates.

  A future villain tank, a teenage amateur A-rank, a nervous wreck of a government hunter, and a handful of low-rank fodder.

  This was starting to look like the worst party he’d ever had the misfortune of being a part of.

  Ding.

  A soft chimed echoed from the System interface.

  [A new hunter has requested to join the party.]

  “Apologies for the delay,” a smooth, baritone voice cut through the tension. “I hope there’s still room?”

  A man stepped forward, adjusting the cuffs of a sleek, black leather trench coat.

  It was Luke Hinton. The A-rank Rogue who was the lead auctioneer from the other day.

  And, secretly, the head of the information guild.

  “Luke Hinton,” he said, extending a hand to Josh. “I saw the alert. Is there space for an unaffiliated hunter?”

  Josh practically tripped over himself.

  “Yes! God, yes. We’d be honored, Hunter Hinton.”

  Shane glanced at Luke’s registration in the party list.

  As expected, the guild name was blank.

  It just read [Unaffiliated].

  He must have hidden his ties to the information guild with a skill.

  Luke’s gaze swept over the group, polite and assessing, until it landed on Shane. His eyebrows rose slightly, a mimicry of pleasant surprise.

  Shane stiffened.

  “Ah,” Luke smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “You were with Hunter Winter at the private auction, weren’t you? Small world.”

  He extended a hand toward Shane.

  “I hope we meet again soon, under better circumstances.”

  Damn it.

  It hadn’t even been a full twenty-four hours since the private auction, and Shane had been wearing a half-mask at the time.

  But apparently, Luke already knew all the basic information about him.

  Shane shook the hand briefly and sighed internally.

  He could never get a read on this guy, which was exactly why he wanted him a thousand miles away. Luke was the type who played 4D chess while everyone else was playing checkers.

  He would also be aiming for the same thing as Shane: controlling the party from the shadows.

  There was no way they wouldn’t clash given their different agendas.

  Luke would also be constantly analyzing Shane’s every move, cross-referencing it with the background information he’d scraped up on him. If he found proof that Shane was smurfing—hiding his “true” rank—he could hold the threat of the Association over his head.

  Even if Shane really was an F-rank, his skill ranks spoke otherwise, and he’d be accused of hiding his ranks through a skill, just like how Luke had hid his guild name.

  Shane’s head was already starting to hurt.

  ***

  Whitley Barlowe stood at the back of the formation, his hands shaking so badly he had to clasp them behind his back.

  High above the housing projects, the sky was cracking like an eggshell, veins of purple and black light bleeding through the fissures in reality.

  Any second now, the rift was going to tear open, and all hell would break loose.

  He was terrified of the fight to come. He was only a C-rank, and he wasn’t accustomed to this cheap, government-issued bow that lacked the mana stabilizers of his old Wynn gear.

  But beneath the fear of death, another cold dread was churning in his gut.

  A fear born from the knowledge that... he was the only one who knew how this disaster really started.

  He knew if anyone ever found out, they would find a way to pin this all on him.

  It had all started with the online forums.

  The endless, relentless stream of hate after the incident with the rookies in the wave dungeon. The public had needed a villain, and the internet had chosen him.

  Incompetent. Murderer. Waste of space.

  ...Those were the nicer things people had called him.

  And the Wynn Guild, ever so protective of its pristine public image, couldn’t drop him fast enough.

  So he’d traded the Wynn Guild headquarters for a cramped government office. He was a public servant now, a glorified security guard with a paycheck that was a fucking joke.

  The injustice of it all.

  This whole damn city stayed safe because of hunters.

  Because of him.

  The thought was intoxicating. It made him feel powerful, like he held the city’s fate in the palm of his hand. He was the gatekeeper. He decided what horrors were unleashed and what were kept at bay.

  But did anyone thank him?

  No.

  They crucified him over one little accident.

  And then, just three days ago, he’d found it.

  He had been on a routine patrol in the maintenance tunnels of the Van Dyke Houses, a level below the actual basement.

  Fuck, he hated the cold down here because of the wet chill that seeped right through his cheap uniform, unlike the boiler rooms. He was convinced that his rotation had been rigged by his haters.

  To his left was a blank wall of painted cinder blocks, and behind that wall lay the old coal bunkers.

  When the city switched to oil and gas heating forty years ago, they had bricked up the doorways and painted over them.

  He was walking past Bunker 6 when he felt it.

  A sudden drop in air pressure that made his ears pop. He stared at the blank, sealed wall of the bunker.

  His Awakened senses told him that a thick, nauseating pulse of mana was beating against the other side of the masonry.

  Something had torn open inside the sealed room.

  A dungeon portal.

  He put a trembling hand against the cold painted brick, feeling the mana of the rift radiating through the stone, inches away from his palm.

  Protocol was clear. Report immediately.

  Instead, he just stood there, and a thought began to take root in his mind.

  The hateful comments echoed in his head.

  Fine, he had thought, a smirk spreading across his face in the dark basement. You want something to really be scared of?

  Walking away from that portal felt good.

  For once, he was in control.

  He held the city’s safety in his hand and could choose to let it slip.

  But it wasn’t supposed to actually breach.

  He didn’t really want that to happen. He’d only ignored it for a few days!

  The next patrol would have found it, and everything would have been fine. How was he supposed to know it would escalate this fast?

  It was just his rotten luck. This wasn’t his fault. He swore to god that he didn’t mean for this to happen!

  A bead of sweat trickled down his temple, and he wiped it away, his hand trembling slightly.

  This was so unfair.

  He was the one who’d been wronged here, wasn’t he? Why was he the one who always had to suffer?

  Now he was stuck, surrounded by arrogant guild hunters who probably looked down on him, about to face an A-rank nightmare he never intended to create.

  And if anyone ever found out how it had breached, they’d blame him for this, too.