[You’re…?]

  That final line was Ryan, murmuring when he saw Shane.

  The last battle had been short, so it was shown as a series of quick cuts, resembling a highlight reel.

  Shane was a little relieved that his face had at least made an appearance. He’d likely been worrying too much because of his past experiences.

  But the footage didn't really show what he was doing.

  It seemed as if the raid teams had all simply decided to fight to the death.

  That was probably for the best. He had no desire to explain to the Hunter’s Association how an F-rank possessed such a powerful skill.

  It wasn’t as if he was running dungeons to get famous. He just had to stick to the plan.

  In contrast to the now-calm Shane, the video was filled with desperate shouts of the other hunters as they threw themselves at the frozen monsters.

  [Die, die, die!]

  [Fucking monsters!]

  [GO BACK TO HELL!]

  The editing was clever.

  Maybe it was Shane’s imagination, but the hunters’ faces, twisted in what was surely terror and desperation, were framed to resemble righteous fury.

  The footage then cut to the aftermath, the chaos of tending to the wounded, and the escape.

  [Let’s get out of here first!]

  [I need a hand! Grab the other side!]

  Ryan’s back filled the frame as he supported an exhausted-looking Shane.

  The camera closed in on Ryan’s face, which seemed about to crumble, and a single caption flashed in stark white text.

  [What becomes of humanity now?]

  And the image faded to black. But instead of an icon to replay the clip, a series of pale captions emerged against the dark background, accompanied by dramatic sound effects.

  [Number of Entrants: 65]

  [Number of Deaths: 17]

  [The dungeon has been cleared.]

  With one last thump, the screen went black. The video was over.

  He scrolled down, and the comment page was refreshing with new posts every second. He supposed it was only natural.

  That day, the hunter communities all over the world exploded.

  ***

  Shane buttoned his shirt, straightened his new suit jacket, and grabbed his phone.

  The headlines of the online news sites were all dominated by the same story.

  [“Angel” Delivers a Warning? Experts Weigh In on “The Future of Humanity”]

  [What Really Happened Inside the New York Catastrophe]

  [Dungeon Rank Changes: The End of the World as We Know It?]

  All sorts of online essays and blog posts were also popping up.

  He clicked on one at random.

  Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

  [...The recent ‘angelic’ broadcast has only thrown fuel on the fire. It has emboldened the fanatics who have long seen dungeons as a divine punishment, giving them what they believe is ultimate proof. As an expert in metaphysical phenomena, I see their fervor as a textbook case of mass hysteria. We should all remember the old warnings that the devil is most dangerous when he masquerades as an angel...]

  He didn't need to read the rest.

  Online forums and social media were, quite literally, in full-blown meltdown.

  Comments filled with despair and confusion were racking up thousands of upvotes.

  -The System, the dungeons, all of it can just get the hell off my planet.

  -So now we have monsters cosplaying as angels? Did somebody put up a billboard in the dungeons that said Earth was open for business?

  The Hunter’s Association, on the other hand, was probably loving this.

  The public’s anger had been redirected from the hunters to a new target.

  The witch hunt against the entire profession had started when America’s two poster-boy heroes were exposed as murderers and fell from grace. The public had wanted to leash every hunter because of the crimes of a few.

  But now, with this divine intrusion broadcast to the world, no one was talking about regulating hunters anymore. For now.

  No matter what the System did, the job stayed the same.

  Hunters risked their lives to kill monsters.

  And frankly, it was easier to do that job when humanity was united against a common enemy, even if it was just because the people realized they needed their own monsters to fight back.

  Thanks to the Seraphim drawing all the attention, opinions like this was even starting to appear on the forums.

  [List of hunters who cleared the C -> B rank dungeon]

  I downloaded the System video. Sharing this bc these are the hunters who actually tried to protect the rookies. In the same run, other parties used people as bait and refused to risk anything. Don’t lump these names in with the cowards.

  The comments were mostly praising the famous hunters they recognized, but there was a small minority that also mentioned Shane.

  -His face was hard to make out, so I watched it again. He must have been either edited out or simply off-camera during the initial wave. Still, knowing there are hunters like him out there, saving lives when no one’s watching, gives me a little hope.

  -Saw him cough up blood at the end. Looked like he fought with everything he had. Mad respect.

  The praise sat awkwardly in his gut.

  He had never received this kind of reaction from the public before.

  Used to being disliked for no reason, so he had always found the concept of blindly trusting heroes you’ve never met baffling.

  But now that he was the one they were trusting, he had to admit he didn’t hate it.

  It was just… a bit strange.

  Shaking the feeling off, he focused on the plan.

  He was thinking about the order in which he should run dungeons to get the next achievements when a new text popped up.

  [Achievement Unlocked – 500 Mentions]

  Birds of a feather @ together.

  Reward: Upgrade Roulette x2 spin

  Was this a thing now?

  Shane read the System window, feeling a little uneasy. It seemed to be the same roulettes he’d spun before. As expected, when he claimed the reward, the two spinning wheels appeared. The slots were mostly white, with a few green ones, just like last time.

  An upgrade for [Blink] would be nice.

  With that hope, he spun both wheels. As the needle began to slow, another notification flashed over one of the wheels.

  [JACKPOT!]

  [You have beaten the 0.1% odds and acquired a new skill potential!]

  One of the roulette needles wobbled, looking like it was about to stop on the line between slots. Then a flash of blue light burst out from the wheel.

  “Huh?”

  A jackpot had to be something good.

  Looking closer, he saw a sliver of silvery-blue, almost invisible on the edge of a green slot. That’s where the needle had landed.

  Well, any potential added to a skill’s good—

  [Potential for Absorb Wound (D) has blossomed!]

  [Quick Bind]

  : A stitch in time saves twenty-five percent.

  Instantly heals 25% of the absorbed wound (Permanent)

  Are you kidding me?

  A 25% recovery rate for a skill he’d barely used?

  He checked the other roulette.

  [Potential for Absorb Wound (D) has blossomed!]

  [Sloppy Suture]

  : A drop in the bucket is still a drop.

  Instantly heals 10% of the abosrbed wound (Permanent)

  ...Seriously?

  What was he supposed to be, a walking band-aid?

  Make a living absorbing other people’s injuries for them?

  And it wasn’t even a full heal.

  He’d already wasted a precious skill slot on this garbage skill when he was drunk. Probably did it just to unlock the game-breaking [Skill Copy].

  Of all the skills he had, this was the one that had to get a new potential.

  Still... it wasn’t completely useless.

  Dungeons were cleared in teams, and as an F-rank, Shane would always need meat shields. This would let him patch up key party members just enough to keep them from dying.

  Healers didn’t exist in this world.

  This meant he could pretend to be one when he needed to. A mask like that could come in handy.

  [Please choose one of the potentials you’d like to receive!]

  Fine. I’ll take it.

  Shane chose the [Quick Bind] as his new potential, then pulled up his status.

  [Name: Shane Ashwell]

  Rank: F

  Title: Predator of the Seraphim

  Class: Jack of All Trades

  [Skills]

  Curse Immunity: C-

  Blink: C+

  Skill Copy: C-

  ?Fireball: C-

  Absorb Wound: D

  ?Cheat Death: A killing blow will drop you to a sliver, not a grave. (Charge: 1)

  ?New! Quick Bind: A stitch in time saves twenty-five percent.

  [Weapon: Broken Oath]

  Bloodcraft: B-

  [Quirks]

  Chain Smoker: EX

  Mana Hypersensitivity: EX

  No Sense of Direction: EX

  Insomnia: EX

  Active Quest: Stop the First Cataclysm!

  Status: Daily Quest Skip Pass active

  Available Skill Points: 1

  He had one skill point from a [First B-rank Dungeon Clear] achievement. And he was only eight kills away from the 1,000 monster kills achievement. He could probably finish that off today or tomorrow.

  This one skill point, though, he was using right now.

  After the debacle and existential crisis he had to go through during the last video watch, he had already made the decision.

  And skills always got the biggest boost when their letter grade changed.

  “Use one skill point on [Blink].”

  [Skills]

  New! Blink: C+ → B-

  The building’s glass doors cut the noise from the street as a doorman nodded him in.

  Now, if I can just unlock the second skill of Broken Oath in the next major dungeon, he thought, pulling at the collar of his tailored suit as he arrived at the auction house.